Chapter 70

Melda looked up at him, her eyes gleaming with a brittle sheen. She offered no denial. Her silence rang far louder than any confession.

The lingering weight of the East Wing’s aura pressed coldly against them, an invisible threat looming over Melda’s vulnerable figure. At last, she released a ragged breath and turned her gaze toward the darkness at the end of the corridor.

“He promised me a life beyond these walls,” she whispered. “But the deeper I get, the more I realize I’m not living at all. I’m only being kept.”

Kosha fell silent, his fingers absently tracing the lizard’s scales beneath his robe. Prince Bastian’s influence was clearly more than an affair of the heart. It was a suffocating cage, and everyone he touched was being dragged into the shadows with him.

Kosha gently lifted Melda’s chin and met her gaze. His eyes glowed a shade of green more vivid than usual. For an ordinary human, especially one in such a fragile and unstable state, the lightest touch of magical suggestion was more than sufficient.

Melda’s long eyelashes fluttered. Her gaze softened into a dazed blur, and her rigid lips parted with surprising ease.

“Ermet wasn’t a prince,” she murmured. “He was only one of Prince Bastian’s retainers. He wasn’t married. He was just… really, he was just…”

“Just what?”

“I don’t know. He was like all the others,” she admitted before a torrent of curses burst from her. “Son of a bitch. Pig. Rat. Whatever the hell else he is.” Her eyes suddenly widened in alarm. “Don’t tell me you traveled all this way because Ermet deceived you too?”

Taken aback by the desperation in her voice, Kosha shook his head. “Oh, no. I only came here for work as a gooseherd.”

As Kosha improvised the excuse, Melda bit her lip and bowed her head. Her slender fingers, tipped with perfectly manicured nails, covered her face in utter despair. After a brief silence, she released a breathless whisper.

“I’m sorry.”

“Are you apologizing to me?”

“I’m sorry I was so persistent back then, begging you to make that love potion,” she sobbed, her words beginning to blur together. “I lied to you. I told Ermet there was a secret apothecary hidden somewhere in the village. Then that bastard asked whether I could have a love potion made, since he believed there really was some unknown apothecary nearby.”

Kosha listened in stunned silence.

“He said he could earn merit with it,” she continued, openly weeping now. “He told me that if he succeeded, Prince Bastian would promote him, and then he could speak to his parents and marry me. I’m so sorry. I didn’t even know what that drug did back then.”

Kosha parted his lips, his thoughts spinning through the maddening complexity of the situation. There was supposedly an apothecary who was not a mage creating love potions, Ermet had believed the concoction could earn him favor with Prince Bastian, and somehow Lucien had ultimately been the one to consume it.

“Then did you come to the castle after marrying Ermet?” Kosha asked. “I made that potion for you.”

“I don’t even know anymore.” Melda shook her head frantically. “He told me to hide for a while and said we would live together until he could speak to his parents. Then he suddenly changed his story. He blamed me for everything that had gone wrong, became furious, and shoved me into Prince Bastian’s bedchamber.”

Her breath hitched.

“He presented me as his own wife. Then he called me a fool for believing him. He spat in my face that I was only some woman desperate to live in luxury, so it made no difference whether I became Prince Bastian’s mistress. I’m such an idiot for falling for him.”

She wiped at her eyes recklessly, smearing tears across her cheeks.

You’re going to hurt your skin.

Alarmed, Kosha quickly wiped the tears away with the soft inner fabric of his sleeve.

“But what else could I have done once I was there?” Melda continued. “And Prince Bastian was younger than I expected. He was handsome too, and he had good manners. So, like a fool, I…”

“That’s true,” Kosha agreed with complete sincerity, though the prince in his mind was Lucien, not Bastian. Lucien was undeniably handsome.

“At first, I didn’t even know what a mistress was. I thought it was simply what people at the royal court called a lover. Nobles use different words from people like us, you know? I really didn’t understand that it would become something like this.”

Kosha said nothing, allowing his presence alone to comfort her.

“But what are you going to do now?” she asked, looking up from within his embrace while tears still ran down her face.

Caught completely off guard, Kosha blinked. He had been quietly consoling her and had not expected the conversation to turn toward him.

“What do you mean?”

“His Highness is leaving for a war or something!”

By now, even Kosha understood that she meant Prince Bastian.

“So?”

What did Bastian going to war have to do with Melda? Did a royal mistress have some special duty when her patron left for battle?

Kosha searched his old memories, but the effort yielded nothing. As far as he knew, no one around him had ever kept a mistress.

Renewed suspicion clouded Melda’s now-clearer eyes when she saw his hesitation. Her mental resilience appeared considerably stronger than he had first assumed.

Ah, no. No.

Kosha carefully met her gaze again and deepened the green of his irises until her focus blurred.

“Good heavens,” she sighed. “You truly don’t know anything. You haven’t been here long, have you?”

Her reasoning had begun to move in a direction highly favorable to him, so Kosha nodded quickly. “Right. I haven’t been here long.”

“Hah.” Melda pressed a hand to her forehead and shook her head. “If you stay here, that woman Airi will definitely try to kill you too.”

“Airi?”

“Prince Bastian’s wife, Lady Airi!” she said emphatically. “You don’t even know she exists, do you? She never leaves anyone who sleeps with her husband alone. Everyone knows that. I nearly died when she first found out about me.”

Kosha silently absorbed the information. He neither knew nor cared about Lady Airi, but the danger in Melda’s words was unmistakable.

“It’s true! She told her father, and he even brought an army. It was terrifying. I genuinely thought I was going to die.”

An army? Even if he was Lady Airi’s father, could he truly march an army into the royal castle?

In truth, Kosha found it almost impossible to reconstruct the chain of events from that night, particularly when he himself had been the victim.

Melda stamped her feet in frustration. “This is a secret, but Lady Airi is pregnant. Her father gives her anything she asks for right now. The moment Prince Bastian leaves the castle, she’ll seize me and kill me first.”

“But then Prince Bastian would…”

“That bastard doesn’t care!” Melda exclaimed angrily. “Why would he care about someone like me? He’ll simply find another woman.” Her eyes briefly moved to Kosha before she continued more softly,“Or perhaps a man. That’s why I’m going to plead with him to take me along on the expedition. He’ll still need someone like that on the battlefield.”

Kosha offered no reply and allowed her to continue venting.

“And as for you…” Melda watched him nervously. “I don’t think he’ll even take me, much less you.”

She still believed Kosha belonged to Bastian as she did. Correcting her would only complicate matters, so Kosha let out a quiet sigh instead. The sky outside the windows was already beginning to pale, making this the ideal moment to conclude the exhausting encounter.

He gently turned Melda around and placed one palm over her eyes. She flinched as he leaned close and whispered a low, calming command into her ear.

“You’ve worked hard. Go back now and get some sleep.”

“Yeah,” she murmured, drawing out the word.

Her sharp voice immediately dissolved into a dreamy, distant hum.

“And I think it would be best if you kept our meeting today a secret from everyone.”

“I think so too.”

Kosha removed his hand, and Melda began walking away with slow, trance-like steps. He hesitated for a moment before calling softly after her.

“Thank you, Melda. Sweet dreams.”

A mage must always pay the price for what he receives.

His words carried the gentle magical blessing of a single peaceful night, clinging softly to the trailing ends of her long, dark hair. Kosha watched her retreat for a moment longer before pulling up his hood and turning away.

Although he had not found the specific book he had been searching for, he had discovered something far more revealing instead.

It was time to return.

***