Chapter 53

Lucien frowned, visibly irritated that the boy had derailed his carefully rehearsed grand gesture.

“No. You are not a goose herder.”

“But I literally am a goose herder. That’s my job.”

“I have told you repeatedly,” Lucien growled. “You are a mage, not some filthy farmhand.”

Have you already forgotten your own worth?

The harshness in Lucien’s voice abruptly fractured, softening into something dangerously tender.

At some unseen point, he had removed his leather gloves. He raised one bare hand and brushed his knuckles across Kosha’s pale cheek. Wearing an expression caught somewhere between a fond smile and a frustrated scowl, he traced the curve of the boy’s jaw before drawing the fallen hood back over his disheveled hair.

Lucien meticulously tucked the loose, rumpled collar of the gray robe into place.

“You need a proper clasp to keep this secured,” he muttered, his thumb lingering against the fabric near Kosha’s throat.

The prince clicked his tongue in mild dissatisfaction as he smoothed the heavy wool.

Peering up from the dark hollow of his hood, Kosha found himself utterly bewildered. The structural integrity of his collar was the least of his concerns.

He was both a mage and a goose herder.

Magic was merely the curse of his bloodline, while tending geese was his chosen and beloved profession. The distinction seemed perfectly reasonable. Lucien was simultaneously a human, a royal prince, and a sworn knight. Why should Kosha be forbidden from holding two titles of his own?

“Why do you need to hire another goose herder?” Kosha whispered. His voice trembled as the terrifying realization dawned that he was about to be replaced and discarded.

Seeing the genuine, heartbreaking panic flooding the boy’s eyes, Lucien released a sharp, breathless laugh of disbelief.

“Because I intend to purchase geese for you, you fool.”

The prince offered a magnanimous, dazzlingly kind smile. It was an intensely calculated expression, a masterpiece of manipulation that he had plainly rehearsed.

“I will purchase a flock of twenty premium geese. I have already instructed the quartermaster to set aside a designated area for them in the lower castle stables. Legally, they will be registered as royal property to prevent theft, but in practice, they will belong entirely to you.”

Lucien leaned closer, closing the door of the golden cage.

“I swear on my honor that I will never interfere with them, nor will I dispose of a single bird without your explicit consent. I am hiring a professional caretaker to manage the labor and the filth. All you need to do is visit the pens and play with your pets whenever you please.”

Kosha stared at him, utterly motionless.

“Well?” Lucien prompted, his smug confidence beginning to falter. “Surely such an extravagant arrangement satisfies you.”

The boy’s reaction represented a catastrophic failure of the prince’s grand design.

Lucien had calculated that a destitute farm boy would weep with gratitude upon having his personal wealth doubled without any accompanying labor. Instead, Kosha’s face remained blank and unreadable.

A sudden, clawing anxiety seized Lucien’s chest. Desperate to secure his prize, he pressed his advantage.

“Since I am granting your greatest wish, I expect a definitive answer concerning your residency immediately.”

“An answer to what?”

“I formally requested that you remain here in the capital after your contracted work is complete. I am buying you new geese to ensure your happiness.”

Lucien was exercising an extraordinary level of patience, more than he had ever shown anyone else. In reality, the boy’s hesitation greatly offended his aristocratic pride. He was just about to offer Kosha a luxurious new suite of rooms and shamelessly claim credit for improvements that should have been standard when the mage finally lifted his head.

“No, Your Highness. I sincerely appreciate your generous offer, but it means nothing to me unless they are my geese.”

Lucien stared at him as the rejection struck like a physical blow.

“A flock of twenty is unnecessary. Nine is more than enough, provided they are my original nine.”

Kosha’s voice remained eerily calm, resonating with a finality that left no room for royal negotiation.

Lucien’s brow twisted into a vicious scowl. His heavy fingertips, still resting possessively on Kosha’s cloaked shoulder, began tapping a rapid, agitated rhythm against the wool.

What game is this? Does the brat expect a larger bribe? Is he actually trying to negotiate with me?

Lucien swallowed his rising fury and forced the charming, gentle smile back onto his face. Bending his tall frame, he lowered himself until his piercing eyes met Kosha’s at precisely the same level.

“I understand your sentimental attachment, Kosha. Naturally, the ideal solution would have been to transport your flock here from the very beginning. Reality, however, has made that impossible. As matters stand, you have no geese.”

The prince mercifully withheld the brutal and obvious conclusion that the abandoned birds had likely scattered into the wilderness or starved to death weeks ago.

“If there is any other material possession you would accept in their place…”

“Your Highness.”

Kosha cut him off with shocking disrespect. Without warning, the boy’s irises shimmered with eerie, ethereal light. The shadows lining the corridor appeared to bend and draw toward him.

“My geese are perfectly safe. They have not disappeared.”

His voice carried a layered, unnatural resonance, an alien frequency that grated against mortal ears.

Lucien froze. His fingers dug unconsciously into the flesh of Kosha’s shoulder.

A fragment of ancient folklore flared through his mind.

—Non-humans do not lie. Only mortals possess the malice required for deception.

For one terrible, breathless instant, Lucien felt certain that the boy was about to dissolve into the air and return to whatever mystical sanctuary sheltered his precious flock.

Then, as quickly as it had risen, the supernatural tension shattered.

Kosha released a heavy, painfully human sigh. He squirmed beneath the prince’s hand, his face pinching with discomfort under the bruising grip.

“Furthermore, Your Highness, I cannot possibly raise that many birds inside a stone fortress. This is a military stronghold, not an expansive agricultural estate. How am I supposed to manage twenty enormous waterfowl responsibly? Besides, I do not keep them for companionship. Geese socialize with their own kind. They certainly do not play with me.”

Stripped of its unnatural echo, Kosha’s voice sounded infinitely mundane and deeply exasperated. He spoke with the exhausted professionalism of a seasoned farmer lecturing an ignorant city boy.

Lucien, a royal warlord who had only ever seen farm animals roasted on a spit, was utterly unprepared to discuss the complexities of raising waterfowl. Determined not to admit defeat, the prince tightened his jaw and continued his grueling march, dragging the stumbling boy along by the elbow. They walked in oppressive silence until Lucien suddenly stopped without any warning.

Pivoting sharply, he seized both of Kosha’s shoulders in a desperate, demanding grip.

“Then, if I send my men to retrieve your original flock and bring them here, will you finally be satisfied? Will you stay?”

“Oh, you mean my nine?”

“Yes, your nine! If I bring them here, then there is no longer a problem, is there?” Lucien’s words accelerated with uncharacteristic desperation. “According to your exact terms, retrieving those specific birds solves everything. Is that not correct?”

Kosha hesitated, chewing his lower lip before giving a slow, reluctant nod.

“Yes, I suppose that would fulfill my conditions, but…”

What if the damned birds are gone? If my knights cannot find them, does this entire negotiation collapse?

Lucien ruthlessly swallowed the panic rising in his throat. There was no strategic value in dwelling on a hypothetical disaster. It was far better to secure the boy’s verbal agreement now and bulldoze through any logistical complications when they arose.

“Very well,” Lucien declared, projecting absolute authority. “That is precisely what we shall do.”

Without allowing Kosha another moment to reconsider, the prince dragged him forward.

The mage wore a deeply conflicted expression, clearly struggling to comprehend the logistical impossibility of Lucien’s promise. Lucien had no intention of allowing the boy enough time to think his way free of the trap.

Then a horrifying realization struck him.

He stopped after only three strides. The abrupt motion yanked Kosha backward, leaving him fluttering helplessly like a rag doll caught in a gale.

“Wait.” Lucien narrowed his eyes with intense suspicion. “If my men place twenty identical white birds in front of you, can you actually tell which nine belong to you?”

Confronted by the sharp, accusatory tone, Kosha shrank back and nodded faintly.

Lucien exhaled heavily and dragged one frustrated hand through his immaculate blond hair, thoroughly ruining the carefully constructed appearance.

You confessed your affection for me, did you not? You even presented me with a romantic bouquet.

In truth, Lucien remembered almost nothing about the exchange. He felt no lingering attachment whatsoever to the hundreds of pitiful floral offerings he had discarded into the mud over the years.

And yet, despite your supposed devotion, you refuse to remain by my side unless I mobilize the royal guard to rescue nine filthy farm birds. Birds that are probably rotting corpses by now.

Kosha had never declared his devotion in such absolute terms, but the prince’s wounded ego inflated the boy’s simple request into a catastrophic betrayal.

The brat must have worshipped those wretched creatures, treating them like pampered nobility and weaving flower crowns around their fat necks.

Fueled by a sudden, violent surge of jealousy toward a flock of absent poultry, Lucien quickened his pace until it became a punishing sprint.

The heavy gray hem of Kosha’s new robe snapped wildly in the drafty corridor as the boy scrambled desperately to keep pace with his furious master.

***