Walter
“Your Highness. From this moment forward, I shall take charge of this place. Please do not concern yourself.”
In Marquis Gregory’s tone, Evan could sense a clear loyalty directed toward him. Yet Evan had no room left to appreciate such things.
Ugh…
As the tension drained away, the fatigue of a body pushed to its absolute limit crashed over him like a bursting dam. The wound from the knight’s blade was not deep. Even so, for the frail physique of the First Prince, even a wound of that degree proved a heavy burden.
Evan’s vision blurred into a haze. The solid floor of the corridor seemed to ripple like water. Dizzy and reeling, he could barely manage to walk. Considering everything that still needed to be done, this body of his was nowhere near adequate.
Tsk. The moment I get back, I’ll have to do something about this body first.
Evan squeezed out the last of his strength and steadied his staggering frame. Sensing his condition, the butler Walter approached.
“Your Highness.”
Walter stepped carefully closer and extended his arm.
Tak.
Evan coldly struck away the help Walter offered him.
“…Your Highness?”
A crack appeared in Walter’s ever-expressionless face.
“Do not touch me.”
Walter regarded Evan. Despite his ashen complexion, the light in Evan’s eyes remained fiercely alive.
“But Your Highness, your current condition…”
“Did you not hear me?”
From the weary voice radiated an unyielding will. Walter flinched and withdrew the hand he had been about to offer.
There was only one reason Evan refused Walter’s support.
The gazes.
Within the royal palace lurked countless invisible eyes. The uproar Evan had caused today was not solely for securing the king’s person or winning over the marquis. It was also to impress upon those still maintaining neutrality that the First Prince remained strong and intact, buying time so they would not rashly join another side. Only then would opportunities arise.
And yet, before the curtain even fell on this perfect stage, to display a weak figure being dragged along? That would be the act of an amateur, dashing the carefully built image into the dirt.
A predator may shed blood, but it must never show weakness.
Pride, who had cleared every route, would never permit it.
Evan bit down hard on the inside of his cheek. The metallic taste of blood swirled in his mouth and jolted his fading consciousness awake.
“We return to the Lily Palace.”
“…As you command.”
Walter stepped back and began following as if escorting Evan. Emilia trailed quietly behind them.
The Lily Palace, residence of the First Prince where Evan stayed.
Creak.
Thud!
As the palace doors shut, the outside gazes were cut off.
“…!”
Evan’s body collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut. Just as he was about to crash to the floor, Walter caught him. It was a movement so agile one would never believe it belonged to an ordinary butler.
“Your Highness!”
For the first time, a note of fluster colored Walter’s usually dry voice.
Cradled in Walter’s arms, Evan gasped out ragged breaths. Cold sweat poured like rain, soaking his golden hair.
“To my chambers…”
Even with consciousness fading, Evan issued the order.
Walter lifted Evan’s body, light as a feather, and headed for the inner chambers. After carefully laying him on the bed, Walter moved to check his condition.
Tak.
A hand thin as a withered branch seized Walter’s wrist.
“That will… be enough.”
Evan looked at Walter with exhausted eyes.
“Your Highness. If the wound is not properly treated, it will leave a scar.”
At those words, Evan smiled.
“…A wound of this degree is nothing.”
Walter, too, was one of the capture targets. Evan had no intention of letting this opportunity slip by.
“Compared to the pain of a nation being torn apart by vermin who lust only for power, this is…”
At the sight of Evan fretting over the kingdom racing toward ruin, an unidentifiable fire began to blaze in one corner of Walter’s chest.
“…If I may be so bold as to speak out of turn.”
Walter, who had always been passive, revealed his own will for the first time.
Evan gave a slight nod.
“The dignity Your Highness displayed today was so magnificent that admiration arose of its own accord.”
Walter’s voice was the same as always. Yet the words that followed carried advice never heard before.
“However, upon Your Highness’s shoulders rests the future of the kingdom. Therefore, I beg you—please do not gamble by throwing yourself into danger’s path as you did today.”
Was it loyalty toward Evan that prompted the words? Or a warning to consider his position as a royal heir? Evan could not know for certain. What was clear was that a change had taken place in Walter’s heart.
Evan decided to press his advantage here.
“Walter.”
“Yes, Your Highness!”
“I will be different from the me of before… and Phanelia will change as well.”
Evan sank deep into the backrest and continued.
“So you too… prepare your heart from now on.”
At that, Walter’s body went still.
…Prepare my heart? Could it be that Your Highness already knows?
A bead of sweat trickled down Walter’s back.
Butler to the First Prince. That was merely a cover identity to conceal his true self. There was no way Evan could know of it. And yet the offhand remark he had just tossed out seemed to pierce straight through the secret Walter had long hidden.
Steadying his trembling heart, Walter carefully opened his mouth.
“Your Highness. If I may dare ask the meaning of the words you just spoke…”
No answer came. Instead, only the sound of even breathing filled the quiet stillness.
When Walter raised his head to look, Evan had already sunk into deep sleep. Exhaustion from a body pushed past its limits had crashed over him all at once, and he had fallen unconscious as if collapsing.
The chest rising and falling in steady rhythm, the eyes peacefully closed—asleep, he looked exactly like the frail, delicate First Prince of old. Yet Walter could no longer regard the First Prince with the same eyes as before.
In that weary, sleeping figure he saw a young lion that had bitten through the throats of the intruders who dared enter its territory and returned to rest.
“….”
Walter gazed at the First Prince for a moment, then quietly left the room.
Walking the long corridor, Walter recalled the sleeping figure of First Prince Evan.
The venom that had refused to yield even while bleeding. The mental strength that forcibly held together a body on the verge of collapse. And those eyes that had seemed to see straight through his secret.
Tension… To think I would feel tension from the First Prince…
Walter looked down at his rough palms. Hands far too hardened for a butler’s.
In truth, he harbored a secret known to no one.
A blood oath hidden in the shadows of the royal house since the founding of the Phanelia Kingdom. A group that rose to the surface only when the kingdom faced the brink of destruction.
The Guardian Knights.
And Walter was the current generation’s commander leading that order.
The Guardian Knights operated under a structure of single-line transmission. Even as commander, he did not know exactly who the members scattered across the kingdom were. They lived in hiding—ordinary farmers, market merchants, or lowly palace attendants—holding their breath.
But the moment the kingdom’s fall approached and the Token of Protection was drawn, those buried in shadow would all remove their masks and reveal themselves at once.
The duty of the Guardian Knights was not to save the kingdom. Their role was to spirit away the heir who carried the royal legitimacy so that the kingdom’s bloodline would not be severed, to protect him, and to prepare for the future. In other words, they were the guardians who preserved the final ember.
Thus Walter had watched for a long time from beneath the royal canopy. Watched Phanelia as it walked ever deeper down the road to ruin. And if the day of destruction came when he must reveal his identity and take up the Token of Protection—whom exactly should he take and flee with?
The conclusion had been bleak.
The Second and Third Princes had long since become playthings of power. The only remaining ember was First Prince Evan—and even he was a hopelessly frail prince. To wander the continent with such people and rebuild the kingdom? It was a notion close to impossible. Walter had even thought it might be better for the name Phanelia to vanish without a trace from the continent’s history.
And yet today. A faint ember he had never expected had blazed into a great flame right before his eyes.
Walter stopped at the window at the end of the corridor and gazed at his reflection in the glass.
“Prepare your heart, is it…”
Recalling Evan’s final words, light began to kindle in Walter’s eyes. His hand moved toward the Token of Protection he kept deep within his chest.
Was the First Prince he had seen today merely the desperate thrashing of a cornered rat? Or the true awakening of a monarch who would overturn the board of a kingdom headed for ruin?
I shall watch a little longer… just a little longer, Your Highness the First Prince.
Wearing an inscrutable smile, Walter soon resumed the appearance of an ordinary butler and vanished into the darkness of the corridor.