Fairy Trap

Sethian brought down the quill he was holding in his hand and frowned.

He didn’t ask what those words mean, and he neither expressed that he was being wrongly accused.

Rather, he calmly got up from his seat and stared crudely at the people who broke into his office.

“As much as your bearing an imperial edict with the emperor’s seal, I still don’t think it’s good for you to be hasty with your words.”

“Your Highness doesn’t have to worry. Witness and evidence were already secured and further delaying is deemed unnecessary.”

The end of Sethian’s eyes raised sharply at the words mentioned.

“Witness and evidence?”

Terran – who was tasked to execute the edict – responded coldly, regardless of Sethian’s overbearing momentum.

“The first prince’s cause of death is ‘poisoning’. It’s also an acute poisoning caused by idello.”

The only place in the country where idello blooms were Sethian’s, Emerald Castle.

Therefore, if idello’s poison was used, it’s only natural for its owner, Sethian, to be suspected.

Although they were brothers, merely the competition between the successors seeking the throne could be considered a pretty good motivation.

However, that alone isn’t sufficient enough to abruptly issue an arrest warrant.

The possibility of someone bringing idello from another country to assassinate Mendel and then falsely accusing Sethian, who has absolutely nothing to do with it, cannot be ruled out.

“Upon investigation of the garden’s idello, it was found out that you recently removed all the toxicity of the flower. It is known that you’re raising it brimming with poison on purpose, may I ask the prince’s reason for removing it?”

“I just felt so at the time.”

“Then why did you trim off its poisonous petals just before that capricious whim? Was that also a sudden inclination?”

Sethian’s brows wrinkled without saying a word.

The order was wrong.

Terran said that they removed the poison after tearing off the petals, but in reality, Yi-Gyeol only tore off the petals after the poisonous pollen and stamens had been treated.

If anything else, the reliable gardener who has been managing the garden of the Emerald Castle for decades would know best when the petals were plucked.

“We have our dedicated gardener, Ethus, to stand witness for the time of idello’s detoxification.”

“That would be impossible.”

Terran rolled up the arrest letter and took a step closer to the reading desk in which Sethian was adjacently standing.

“As a result of arresting and questioning the gardener and guards of the Emerald Castle, they all confessed their involvement in the poisoning of the first prince by using the idello petals at Your Highness’ order. They confessed as well that the toxicity treatment made afterward is a post-treatment done to ‘destroy evidence’.”

The more he listened, the more Sethian felt the ludicrousness of the current situation.

The gardener in charge of the Emerald Castle’s garden, Ethus, is someone reliable enough to be entrusted with the entire management of the flower.

He, who was particularly loyal to him from the beginning, felt deeply moved when given custody to manage the idello which is something that represents Sethian, and became even more devoted to the extent of losing sleep just to take care of the flower.

That kind of person, who is one of the few people Sethian was certain of, to suddenly have testified against him saying some jibber-jabber like he used idello on his behest or that destruction of evidence whatever, was nothing but ludicrousness to his ears.

In addition, the royal guards stationed at the garden were made up of men as loyal as his knights.

Only a mentally deficient person would believe such a claptrap that those people corroborated their master as the culprit.

Terran, who was examining Sethian’s face, then signaled the knights standing behind him.

“Though it might not be to Your Highness’ esthetics, the place that you will stay was already arranged for your convenience so may the prince quietly follow us and talk there instead.”

The place where convicted criminals from the nobility or royal family abide as they wait for the imperial court’s ruling is at the top of the stone tower connected to the dungeon.

Although it wasn’t in the dungeon, a prison is still a prison.

It is a gloomy, solitary room with just a small window half the size of a person’s face and a single bed. The word comfortable would never fit that place at all.

Sethian took the lead by leaving behind the desk first before the knights could even approach him to take him away.

“I want to hear every single nonsense that you could spout.”

“I will naturally tell as much as the prince wants.”

As Sethian, who was walking ahead, and Terran, who was behind him, headed out the door, the other knights dragged even the frozen Erzen out of the office.[1]

⋆♚⋆♛⋆♚⋆

As he does daily every time left alone, Yi-Gyeol piled up the table in the middle of the bedroom full of books and is now able to read most sentences without stalling.

Compared to the Korean language, Yi-Gyeol found out that the fundamental language of this world combined with the words is comparatively easy. So now Sethian hardly needs to help him read something every time he goes back.

He had just finished reading a thick book and immediately picked up the next one.

一 Are you still going to read more after already reading so much?

The voice of the woman, who he is now accustomed to, said inside his head.

Perhaps because he was already acclimatized from the crow, the surprise he felt at first at the unhindered voice directly penetrating through his head now seems natural to him as if it came from his ears.

“I don’t have anything to do anyway.”

Although he was actually reading to study the language, he doesn’t want to give her, a soul sent by Zair, any information about himself as much as possible.

In addition, because of being conscious of the soul, he unintentionally had hidden quite a few things from Sethian as well.

‘I should’ve told him that too….’

He’s fine at the moment, but he has been going through something strange these three days even before the crow came.

The depression, which had quietened down as if it never existed at all combined with his extremely negative thoughts, and like a bomb, suddenly exploded and brought abnormalities to his body.

As if had returned to his original world, his body would stop functioning properly, and the eerie energy would swallow him up consecutively.

Even now, his body trembles naturally when he thinks of that feeling.

It was only a brief phenomenon similar to a momentary illusion, but as Sethian wanted to be filled in with all the happenings about himself, even to the tiniest detail, Yi-Gyeol thought that he should’ve informed him.

However, with the eyes attached to him, they didn’t know how that information would be used against them when learned by Zair, so he had to inevitably hide them.

He turned his eyes to the side and looked at the white butterfly flying around him.

Perhaps because its voice wouldn’t be heard even if Sethian was there, the spirit asked Yi-Gyeol questions and talked to him without any hesitation.

He deliberately didn’t respond to each of its questions and pretended not to know, but thanks to this, he realized that his voice was the only one Sethian could hear among souls.

Realizing that, he felt amazed and happy inside. It feels like he was given special treatment.

In the meantime, even though he couldn’t perceive the white butterfly lingering in the bedroom for three days and could not hear its voice, Sethian seemed to have realized that someone was monitoring them as well.

Probably that’s why he didn’t mention any information about himself.

The kisses to give him vitality were still there, but even those ended up shorter than before.

Yi-Gyeol’s hand unconsciously caressed the nape of his neck. The marks that used to be engraved ever so incessantly in it have now substantially faded without a speck.

If he would count all the marks that have disappeared, even folding all of his ten fingers wouldn’t be sufficient.

Every time that happens, Yi-Gyeol would hear a nightmarish rattling sound somewhere inside him, followed by a piercing cold slowly wrapping his bones unpleasantly making him cower.

Even just recalling the things he didn’t want to remember, a tingling sensation as if his fingertips were being chewed by something could be felt.

一 Is there something wrong?

The white butterfly, which he doesn’t know when, was already in front of him, pretending to be concerned.

Even as its voice had the sound of concern, Yi-Gyeol instinctively knew that it was pure hypocrisy.

Wanting to seem friendly and compassionate, but secretly overlooking him with cold stares.

Whenever he surmises something like this due to his sensitivity to other people’s emotions, it felt as if his insides were being twisted, but in return, his trust in Sethian grew even stronger.

As expected, he is the only one that looks at the real Joo Yi-Gyeol and accepts him.

That’s why more and more, he longs for his traces.

He is aware that his timid obsession has reached beyond the normal level.

But so what of it?

Now that he finally has found a place to be, it’s only natural for him to be anxious and obsessed about it, afraid of losing everything like how it was for him originally.

Yi-Gyeol’s subdued eyes melted into something almost similar to the way Seth stares at him but with a slightly different tinge of emotion.[2]

一 Hey, are you really okay?

He smiled at the butterfly that asked one more time and pretended to be fine.

As soon as he tried to insincerely thank the butterfly for its faux concern, footsteps and loud noises that seemed made by several people were heard outside.

Within them included Kirsty’s voice, who was originally guarding the door, raised and full of hostility.

His body stiffened from sudden tension.

On the other hand, his brain actively analyzed.

Today is the third day that Zair suggested.

Since he couldn’t just stubbornly leave Sethian’s chamber as he wanted, and Lenox and Kirsty always take turns guarding the door, he thought it would be difficult to meet him even on the third day.

But apparently, that thought was wrong.