The Weight of a Stone
During the carriage ride back, the Duke felt his racing heart gradually slow to a steady rhythm. He began to think he had overreacted. At his age, and given his profession, a corpse was hardly a novel sight. Though it was a tragic affair, Duke Fides convinced himself that it was merely an unfortunate incident, one he would easily forget by tomorrow.
Just as he had anticipated, once he returned to his estate, the Duke resumed his usual routine. He tended to his administrative duties, educated the Young Duke, and trained. However, a new, agonizing step was added to his nightly routine: the moment he lay down in bed, the bloody face of that child would rise to haunt him.
Once that face took hold of his mind, the torment began. His heart would pound frantically, and his head would spin. It wasn't as if he had never seen the corpse of a young child before. Is it simply because he was around the same age as my son? the Duke wondered again.
The boy had looked to be about ten years old, though perhaps he was actually older than the Young Duke. He had been so terribly emaciated that starvation might have stunted his growth. Whatever the truth, it was impossible to know now. The child was already dead, and they said he was an orphan with neither parents nor relatives.
The boy's body had likely lain in the street all day before being swept up by the dawn scavengers and incinerated like common refuse. It was a death lower than that of an insect, but there was nothing to be done. The child had broken the law of the Imperial Family.
The Temple had merely carried out its duties in accordance with the solemn laws of the Imperial Family, and the Duke himself had never once questioned their merciless executions. They were always right. He repeated this to himself, insisting that this incident was no different. It was only because the boy was close in age to his own son that it lingered in his mind. He reasoned that these feelings were merely the sentimentality of a retired man. He had to believe that.
Yet, as time passed, he could not find the peace and happiness he had known before that day. Having retired from the knighthood, the Duke now had far too much leisure time—time to ponder the source of his torment. This abundance of quiet reflection was by no means a blessing.
Strangely, the more he thought of the child, the more other memories began to resurface in rapid succession—deeds he had performed over thirty years of loyal service to the Imperial Court. Among them were acts that had once filled him with immense pride. Now, he recalled moments when he had felt a familiar, sickening unease, identical to the discomfort that gripped him whenever he pictured the boy's bloody face.
How had he felt when, commanded to annihilate the foreign tribes crossing the border, he had cut down a grey-skinned woman clutching her infant? What of the time he decapitated an untrained boy soldier on the battlefield? Or when he captured and handed over the rebels who had tried to escape the sacred Tinas Ritual? He was forced to admit that even then, a faint but undeniable wave of nausea had stirred within him, though far milder than what he felt upon discovering the child's corpse.
He had never questioned why he felt this way while doing what was right. Back then, such emotions were far too trivial compared to the convictions he was sworn to uphold, and his days as the Emperor's knight had been too breathless to allow for doubt. He was a sword serving the Imperial Family, and a sword must never hesitate unless its wielder does. He had always believed he lived by that creed.
...But had he really?
The Duke instinctively knew that pursuing this line of thought any further would lead to a conclusion disastrous for himself and everything he carried. Above all, it might banish the smile from the Young Duke's face forever. In a life that was growing increasingly blurred, doubting the truths he had held absolute was a perilous path. And so, he buried his unease.
Yet the human heart is like fresh fruit; if one covers it up and hides it away, it eventually withers, rots, and loses its original, appealing form. As time wore on, the Duke realized that his loyalty to the Emperor was no longer what it once was, and this decay showed no signs of stopping. It was this very shift that had prompted him to leave the Young Duke behind today, despite the hunting competition being the perfect opportunity to present his heir to the Emperor.
Even so, there was nothing the Duke could do. He could only hope to forget everything before the fruit within him rotted away entirely.
The Duke tightened his grip on the reins. Shaking off his reverie, he found himself back in the heart of the lush forest. His eyes caught a branch wrapped in blue cloth. Fortunately, I am still in the medium-sized beast zone.
“Have you finally come to your senses, Your Grace?”
He had come to his senses long ago, but his aide's irreverent tone tempted him to show what truly losing his mind looked like.
“If we return empty-handed, the honor of the ducal house will be dragged through the mud. People will whisper that the Duke is nothing but a washed-up old man.”
“Is that what the people think? Or is it just your opinion?”
“How could you say something so hurtful?”
Tollin shook his head, adjusting his glasses. Observing the Duke's slightly relaxed expression, he spoke up. “I know you have had a lot on your mind lately, but you must pull yourself together.”
Tollin was as cautious and perceptive as he was timid. He had undoubtedly noticed that the Duke was wavering in a dangerous direction lately, even if he didn't know the details. The Duke rode on in silence without offering a reply, but Tollin, knowing this was not a rejection of his words, followed quietly behind.
Rustle. Hearing the faint sound of rustling leaves nearby, the Duke quietly brought his horse to a halt. Deciding it was high time he caught something, he focused his senses. He concentrated, listening to the sound of footsteps treading on leaves—a sound an ordinary person would have found impossible to detect.
Judging by the rustling, the creature did not seem very large. It appeared to be a beast that had temporarily crossed over the boundary. To present a fitting tribute to His Imperial Majesty, I should at least catch a wolf, the Duke thought, preparing to turn his reins toward the large beast zone. That was, until he spotted a golden fox tail swiftly vanishing into the thicket about ten feet away.
“If you catch that, no one will dare call you a washed-up old man,” Tollin whispered softly from his side.
“I agree.” The Duke signaled Tollin to herd the fox from the opposite side and quietly guided his horse forward. He chose to bury yet another thought—whether aiming his crossbow at the golden beast was a demonstration of his loyalty, or something else entirely.
I was wrong to think it was a relief that the Seventh Prince seemed to be liked by animals. I was absolutely, utterly wrong. Animals clearly hated the Seventh Prince to death. I stared blankly at the hoofprints stretching far out of the small animal zone, lost in thought.
Or was it the soul inside him that they detested? Perhaps the Fourth Prince, who had gifted me this black steed, possessed incredible foresight and chose this magnificent beast specifically to screw me over at this very moment. Whatever the case, the crucial point was that I was now in a very tight spot.
“Haha, what on earth...” Anyone looking at me standing alone by the lakeshore and those hoofprints could easily guess what had happened: my horse had bolted. It had galloped away before I could even grab the reins.
It wasn't as if I had beaten or threatened the speechless beast. I had already given up on mounting it because it kept backing away whenever I tried to climb on. I had simply wanted to move to a slightly different spot, thinking that if the Duke appeared, he would spot the horse first.
When I took the reins of the drinking horse and pulled gently, the beast, realizing I was no longer trying to ride it, followed me obediently. Spotting a tree near the boundary that would easily catch anyone's eye, I intended to tie the horse to its trunk. That is, until the creature suddenly dug its four hooves into the ground and refused to budge.
As I stared at it in bewilderment, the horse looked back and forth between the reins in my hand and the tree. Soon after, an expression of deep betrayal washed over its face. It might sound ridiculous to say a horse had facial expressions, but its eyes truly conveyed that emotion. Yes, it was remarkably similar to the look a certain crow had given me when I grabbed it by the neck.
I was the one who ended up flustered by its reaction. I couldn't understand why a horse—which wasn't even wild and would normally spend all day tied up in a stable—would look at me like that. While I stood frozen in confusion, the beast seemed to be overcome with emotion. Snorting loudly as if furious with me, it yanked the reins out of my hand with sudden force and bolted back the way we came.
I didn't even have time to react. Unable to believe my situation, I stared blankly at the lake where the horse had just been drinking. I recalled the stablehand's smiling face when he told me the horse was so well-trained that it wouldn't run away even if left untied. Did that actually mean, 'If you try to tie it up, it will feel hurt and run away, so be careful'?
Before I could indulge in any more useless thoughts, a terrifying reality stared me in the face. Left entirely alone, I now had to block the path of the galloping Duke with nothing but my bare body. Previously, even if I stood on foot, I was fairly confident that the loyal Duke Fides would halt his horse and turn his attention to me upon seeing the black steed famous for belonging to the Seventh Prince. That was why I hadn't worried too much when I dismounted the fickle beast.
“Damn it, I can't just stand here dazed.” I began desperately racking my brain for a way to stop a galloping horse. Please, just arrive a little late, Duke Fides, I prayed inwardly. Clack-clack, clack-clack! As always, God was certainly not on my side, and the unmistakable sound of approaching hooves grew louder by the second. Oh, bloody hell.
It seemed I had found the right spot, as the faint silhouette of a brown horse and its rider began to appear exactly ten meters away from the tree where I stood. What should I do? Do I really have to block them with my body? At that moment of agonizing indecision, it was fate that my eyes fell upon a stone about the size of a woman's fist lying beneath the tree. After a split second of hesitation, I picked it up.
Duke Fides was a seasoned warrior who had commanded battles directly until just a few years ago. He would easily dodge a stone thrown by someone like me. I trusted his reflexes. He might lose the fox, but his horse would stop. Having reached that conclusion, I gripped the stone tightly and kept my eyes glued to the approaching figure. The moment the rider emerged from the thicket, I hurled the stone.
The instant it left my hand, a pang of guilt struck me for throwing a rock at a man in his sixties, but that sentiment vanished in a flash due to what happened next. Thwack. The rider had clearly failed to dodge my projectile. There was no other explanation for that crisp, solid impact. The figure on the horse slumped forward without a sound.
The well-trained horse let out a soft whinny and gradually slowed down to prevent its master from falling off. Panicking, I rushed over to the slumped figure. My heart sank into despair when I saw that his hair was not silver, but blue. It was Tollin, the aide.
“Tollin. Can you hear me?” I called out, taking care not to shake his head.
“Se... Seventh Prince...?” Fortunately, he half-opened his eyes and recognized me. Then he slumped back against the horse. Good, he was bleeding a little from his head, but it didn't look like a critical injury. In my experience, a wound like that would heal fine after being cooled with cold water and given some time.
Since he had a head injury and I couldn't safely pull him down from the high saddle on my own, I left him alone on the quietly standing horse. Instead, I looked around to find the person I was actually searching for. Damn it, where is the Duke? Wasn't he heading this way?
While I was pacing in confusion, the sound of hoofbeats echoed from the direction Tollin had come. The problem was that the sound was growing fainter. Perhaps the path had diverged when Tollin fell, but the owner of those hoofbeats—undoubtedly the Duke—was rapidly disappearing in the opposite direction. Shouting from this distance would be completely useless.
Knowing it was just as futile as shouting, I started running toward the sound anyway. Naturally, the noise only grew more distant. If only I had a horse. Or if only I could run faster. The moment that thought crossed my mind, a familiar warmth gathered in my lower dantian. A familiar energy enveloped my body.