Chapter 6
01. Unspoken Words (5)
That evening, Anaïs met Léonard just as she had wished earlier that day. He arrived at her house carrying a large toolbox in one hand, as if he truly intended to check the ceiling. With his broad shoulders and sturdy build, he looked nothing like the good-natured man she had seen during the day. Instead, he resembled a great predator. A man with a familiar face, yet wearing an unfamiliar expression.
“Don’t tell me you really called me here to check your ceiling.”
Léonard spoke in an icy tone as he set the toolbox roughly on the floor and leaned against the doorway with his arms crossed. His low voice seemed to weigh down the air inside the house. Anaïs unconsciously swallowed hard. It wasn’t that this look didn’t suit him—far from it—but the fact that she had never realized he could wear such a hard, feral expression left her stunned.
The Léonard Anaïs had known until now was always gentle and calm. At least, he had always been so toward her. But now, seeing that the expression he wore was no different from the one he had when condemning his father and brothers, she felt a pang of disquiet—before steeling herself again.
There was no reason to be flustered or feel wronged just because his attitude toward her had changed. Léonard Antoine de Charlroy had every reason to criticize, despise, and even hate Anaïs Belmartier. She acknowledged that fact so painfully it felt etched into her bones.
“Your Highness.”
The title she had hoped never to utter again slipped from her lips. She saw his eyebrow twitch. The royal family had been officially dethroned; there was no one left in this land who could rightfully be called “Your Highness.” Yet Anaïs couldn’t bring herself to address him any other way. Not that there was an appropriate alternative.
“One day, I’d like to hear it.”
“Hear what?”
“My name—from your lips.”
…Even if he had once wished for that, now was not the time. Anaïs shook her head inwardly several times and, when Léonard gave no response to her address, sent him a fleeting, uneasy glance before speaking straight to the point.
“Why are you here?”
There was so much she could not comprehend. No matter how she looked at it, Léonard’s decision to stay in Dunant rather than at the Basbour fortress—or even abroad—made no sense. For a prince secretly wanted by the authorities to remain here, a stone’s throw from Rue where the revolutionary army was stationed, was tantamount to parading around with a sign begging to be recognized and captured. In fact, he was now standing face to face with her—a former officer of that same army. With revolutionaries swarming even in the next town over, taking on this much risk made no sense. If he was willing to accept such danger, it would make far more sense for him to head to Basbour and allow himself to be crowned Emperor.
“Are you asking why I’m not at Basbour fortress—or why I stayed in this country at all?”
“Either way, I’d like an answer I can understand…”
“An answer you can understand?”
Léonard spat the words with a snarl and took a step toward her.
“And you dare demand ‘an answer you can understand’ from me?”
At the threatening tone, Anaïs instinctively took a step back. Her silvery hair rippled over her shoulders. Her once-bright blue eyes—harder than winter ice—were now melting, trembling as if on the verge of spilling tears.
“…I only asked why you would invite such danger upon yourself.”
“Then I should ask why you care about that danger of mine.”
His gray eyes gleamed cold and sharp as he spoke. Anaïs bit her lip hard. This entire conversation was stacked against her from the start. She had too much she could not—or would not—say, while he had far too much he was burning to pour out. Wasn’t that what was happening now? Faced with the question, Why do you care about my danger? she had no answer to give.
And yet, the reason she had called him here was simple: because meeting her in this place truly put him in peril. But Anaïs could not explain that—not to Léonard Antoine de Charlroy, to whom there were far too many things she must never say.
And so, when she failed to answer, Léonard sneered.
“To you, are the only royals those who died on the east tower that day—felled by your proud revolutionaries’ bullets?”
It was as good as asking, Am I not a royal in your eyes? And Anaïs, once again, could not reply. His words dragged that day’s memories to the surface, freezing her in place.
She still remembered that day as vividly as if it had happened only yesterday—or a moment ago. Driven by a sense of duty to at least witness the end if she could not save them, she had gone to the east tower for the first time since the royals were confined there. Gunshots and screams had echoed from beyond the iron door. There had been only seven prisoners inside—two of them mere children—yet the gunfire rang far too long, far too many times.
All the executioners had been revolutionaries. Men and women who had lost families to the monarchy’s tyranny, who had starved, who had seen countless comrades slaughtered by royal forces. Was it any wonder they could not master their fury, wasting bullet after bullet? Perhaps not—if one ignored the two terrified children locked in that room, clueless and shivering.
Children who died by the hands of those who had sworn to create a new, free, and happy world.
A sudden wave of nausea hit Anaïs. She staggered, clutching the table and covering her mouth, then glanced at Léonard and forced a mask of composure back on. Yet the words that burst forth were anything but calm.
“Kill me instead—and leave this place, now.”
The conversation broke off for a moment. Léonard stared at her with the harshest expression she had ever seen him wear.
“Perhaps I should—if you truly mean to betray me.”
Léonard Antoine de Charlroy was no fool. If Anaïs truly intended to report him, would this secret meeting between the two of them ever have taken place? From the moment she summoned him here, he knew one thing for certain: Anaïs had no intention of revealing his whereabouts to the revolutionaries. Which meant…
“I’m not leaving, Anaïs Belmartier. I’ll stay in Dunant, and…”
At that, despair flickered across her face. If he intended to remain in Dunant, how on earth was she supposed to keep him safe? But Léonard, oblivious to the storm inside her, continued in that same cold, heavy voice:
“I’m sorry to disappoint you—but I won’t kill you, either.”
He declared, in a tone as menacing as if he would gladly end her life if he could, that he would not take it.
“I will never become a murderer like you.”
Like you.
Leaving those words—sharp as a needle driven into bone—he turned on his heel and walked out of her house. Anaïs could only watch his retreating back, feeling as though she would never grasp it again.
⚜ ⚜ ⚜
After Léonard left, Anaïs’s legs gave out and she collapsed on the spot. She covered her burning eyes with both hands and tried again and again to steady her ragged breathing. But calm would not come. Trembling like an abandoned fledgling, she finally managed to brace herself against the table and sink into a chair, interlacing her fingers and burying her face in them.
Then I should ask why you care about that danger of mine.
If he asked why, she could never say it in his presence—but there was only one reason.
Because she didn’t want him to die.
And that wasn’t because Léonard Antoine de Charlroy held some special place in her heart.
But how could she explain that? I actually argued that they should be spared? Now, when it was far too late, that would sound like nothing but a pathetic excuse. Anaïs could not honestly say she had been desperately determined to save them. If she had truly been so desperate, wouldn’t she have tried at least to spirit away the crown prince’s two young children? But it had been the will of the revolutionaries—of the people—to confine the royals to that tower, and Anaïs had found no reason to defy that will in secret. She had believed that if they were to be saved, it had to be done openly. She had believed it was possible.
Surely the world couldn’t be that cruel.
Surely the world we were building couldn’t be.
She had opposed their slaughter because it was wrong—but for that same reason, she had not tried to smuggle them away. That was all.
And now, it was all over.
Having saved not a single one of them, what right did she have to say to him, I wanted to keep them alive?
That night, Anaïs didn’t sleep a wink.
She thought of the young royals, innocent and slaughtered for no reason but their birth. She thought of the civilians in Basbour, innocent and maimed or killed in a war they had no part in—save for living in the wrong place. She thought of the world she had believed had changed. The world she had wanted to change.
The ideal she had believed was so close now felt farther away than ever.
