Chapter 16

Sir Allen returned to the Imperial Palace carrying a box of herbs with a heavy heart. His steps led to the Crown Prince’s chamber. The servants and clerics guarding the door could read the deep anguish in his face, but dared not speak.

The chamber was filled with a heavy, dark air. The Crown Prince, called the Empire’s sun, Julian Calix Kairos, sat propped on his bed with a pale face. Cold sweat dotted his brow, and the hand pressing his temple trembled slightly.

“Allen… you’ve come…?”

“Your Highness, how are you feeling?”

“The same. It feels as if thousands of needles are stabbing my brain.”

Julian’s voice cracked weakly. The royal priest and the palace physician who watched him only bowed their heads. It was pain whose cause could not be found even by the empire’s greatest medicine and divine Magic.

Allen hesitated for a moment, then as if decided, took out the herb box he had received from Kaion.

“Your Highness, this is…”

Allen carefully explained what had happened at the Academy. The physician and the chief minister immediately protested.

“You are reckless, Sir Allen! How can you give His Highness herbs of unknown origin…”

“What if it’s poisoned!”

But Julian thought differently. Even amid the pain he opened his eyes faintly and looked at the box in Allen’s hand.

“Very well. At this rate I may as well be dead. I’m desperate enough to clutch at straws… bring it here.”

In the end, by the Crown Prince’s order the servants carefully brewed the herbs. A subtle, calming scent spread through the room. With everyone holding their breath, Julian slowly began to drink the herbal tea.

Had he finished a cup? A miracle occurred.

“…Huh?”

Julian’s eyes widened slowly. The sharp pain in his head that had driven him crazy began to subside as if a fog were lifting. It wasn’t completely gone, but it was the first sense of ‘peace’ he’d felt in months.

“My head… my head doesn’t hurt…”

At his words everyone in the chamber doubted their ears. The chief minister hurried over and examined him with divine power, but still could not find the source of the illness. Yet it was clear the Crown Prince’s expression had noticeably relaxed.

“Allen! Call that scion of the Aster family… immediately, immediately to the Imperial Palace!”

The Crown Prince’s order spread at once like a shockwave that shook the entire empire.

At the same time, the Aster estate lands, hundreds of kilometers from the capital.

In the darkness of the estate another war was being fought. The spies newly dispatched by the Reinhardt family were far more cunning and skilled than before. They tried to infiltrate every corner of the estate disguised as ordinary peddlers or farmers.

But all their movements were like butterflies caught in a giant web.

“Third guest entering via the eastern forest path. Target appears to be the sawmill.”

In a dark warehouse, Kael reported quietly and several young men hiding nearby moved silently. They were the first members of the ‘Argos estate branch’ Kael had been assigned before Rian left. Most were orphans or poor, who had owed Rian and Kael favors and sworn loyalty.

When the spy approached the sawmill, a pile of logs ‘accidentally’ collapsed and blocked his path. While he panicked and searched for another route, he ‘accidentally’ stepped into a hunter’s trap and was ‘accidentally’ discovered by the patrolling guard Jerome.

Everything was a thoroughly calculated trap. Kael did not kill the spies. Instead he imprisoned them in a secret place and, using methods learned from Rian, extracted all the information they had. Then he fed them false information and sent them back to the Reinhardt family.

“The Aster estate lands is much poorer than it appears; the soldiers are a motley crew. The lord is incompetent, and the second son is a frail bookish child.”

The Reinhardt family would continue to blunder based on that false information, never dreaming their spies had become Argos’s informants in reverse.

Kael looked toward the capital from the darkness. On the board their master had set, he was performing his role perfectly.

The next morning, a carriage bearing the royal crest arrived at the Aster family’s mansion in the capital. A messenger from the Imperial Palace bowed politely before Kaion.

“By order of His Highness the Crown Prince: Kaion Aster, knight cadet of the Aster family, is to enter the palace immediately and report to His Highness.”

Kaion’s heart dropped with a thud. Rian’s prediction—no, plan—had worked.

He looked at his younger brother standing beside him. Rian’s face was calm as usual, but his eyes already seemed to be envisioning a grander future beyond the Imperial Palace.

The ship bearing the name Aster family had now begun to sail through rough waves toward the heart of imperial power.