PHATFO 32

Chapter 32

Roderick let the words slip from his mouth as he alternated his gaze between the Count and the butler, scrutinizing their faces.

Asking a question and then deducing the truth from the flickers of expression that followed—this was Roderick’s specialty.

Click.

“Bella is dead?”

Had it not been for the sudden interruption of an unknown intruder, Roderick would surely have read the answer upon their faces.

“The investigation is not yet concluded. Please wait outside.”

The junior inspector, well aware of Roderick’s methods, stepped forward to block the intruder.

“Make way for His Highness the Prince.”

At the Young Duke’s words, the junior inspector stepped aside without protest.

“My apologies.”

As the inspector retreated, Armian entered and bowed slightly before the Count.

“Then allow me to ask in his place. Did you kill Bella?”

The Count quivered violently, curling in on himself, until Armian seized his chin and forced him to meet his eyes.

“N-no! I am losing my mind not knowing where she has gone! To have left things in such disarray and disappeared—ah!”

Even in his terror, his desperate babbling to save himself was utterly contemptible.

Armian drew a sword from the nearest knight.

“I have no patience for those who prattle on.”

As the cold blade traced a thin red line against the Count’s throat, the butler cried out in panic.

“She was not in the manor! We searched again and again, and she was nowhere to be found! I swear it!”

Groveling with his forehead pressed to the floor, he hardly looked like a man who had committed murder.

Armian, after a moment’s thought, asked,

“Where was the last place Bella was seen?”

“The study.”

“Take me there.”

He ascended the stairs to the third floor in one bound.

As his eyes swept over the study, they came to rest upon the bookshelf.

When he had been the slave Ahfwyn, he had not recognized it, but with his memories as a prince restored, he knew the signs.

There would be a hidden mechanism; activate it, and the entire bookshelf would swing back to reveal a secret passageway. His own palace had such devices.

“She escaped through a secret passage.”

A clever woman. She must have instantly perceived the Count and butler’s scheme and resolved to flee before the blame was cast entirely upon her.

The thought of her, weak and ill, trudging through a pitch-black tunnel made his teeth grind with anger.

The fact that Bella had deliberately lured the inspectors to ransack the Count’s estate was long forgotten.

“Where are you going?”

As Armian mounted his horse outside the manor, Leon caught up to him at once.

His heart was more frantic than ever, yet his mind was clear.

He knew exactly where the secret passage led—he had been through it once before.

“To the Rotten Forest.”

There was no need for hesitation.

“I am going to the Rotten Forest.”

Leon, unable to stop him, could only watch the prince’s figure recede, then dispatched knights in pursuit.

“Follow His Highness.”

An uneasy dread gnawed at him: if he simply let Armian go, he might lose him again, just as he had for the past year.

“At once!”

As he prepared to follow as well, the two inspectors approached.

“What shall we do about those remaining here?”

“The evidence already uncovered is more than enough to secure a conviction.”

The Duke of Dyurnar levied taxes based on income, but those who evaded taxes were punished severely.

Depending on the length and scale of the crime, penalties could range from crushing fines to demotion or outright revocation of title.

But that was far from the outcome Leon desired for the Count.

Armian had said Bella Rohiltern had saved him.

A fragile woman who had been unable even to voice her own opinions at the banquet.

Leon had met many like her—souls broken by violence, conditioned to submit to others, moving quietly through life so as not to provoke those who held power over them.

For such a person to rescue a prince who had lost his memory…

She must have had a reason.

Leon questioned the servant who had attended Armian’s bath, wanting to confirm the state of his health and whether his body bore any new injuries.

But the servant reported that the prince had dismissed him.

That could mean he bore wounds he could not reveal.

Of course, after a year of living without servants, Armian might simply have found the idea uncomfortable.

Yet Leon’s instincts whispered otherwise.

And his instincts were confirmed by Armian’s actions.

The moment he laid eyes on the Count, he had pressed a blade to his throat.

Armian was cold, yes, but he was not the sort to show killing intent without cause.

Something grave had transpired here, something connected to the Count.

“Keep them detained and under watch.”

He needed to uncover it.

“Do you wish the Count arrested?”

“Not yet.”

“…”

“Not yet.”

Even if the truth was brought to light, Leon would not be the one to wield the blade. That right belonged to Armian.

And so Leon wished to ensure there would be no loose ends when that time came.

To do that, he needed to make the Count a man who deserved death.

Roderick instantly understood his intent.

“We will scour this place so thoroughly that not even a scrap of bone will remain hidden. The man reeks of filth; it will not take long to unearth it.”

“I am counting on you.”

Mounting his horse, Leon set off after the prince.

Even though his eyes did not fall upon them, the inspectors bowed low and remained so until he disappeared from view.

The young lord of the East was worthy of such deference.

The Count rubbed the place where the sword’s edge had grazed his throat and let out a long breath as he watched the prince and Young Duke depart.

The Young Duke held the authority to punish. A single word from him could strip away title and life alike.

The inspectors, by contrast, held only the power to investigate; they could not lay a hand on him. That was why, despite their suspicious glares, they had not dared to bind him.

Though the inspectors and the Duke’s knights remained in the manor, they could not touch him.

I’ve survived.

He had weathered the storm.

Now able to catch his breath, he replayed the events in his mind.

But why did the prince come here?

That pitch-black hair was the unmistakable mark of the imperial family. And with the Young Duke himself vouching for his identity, there was no doubt that the man who had pressed a sword to his throat was the prince.

And why was he searching for Bella?

The more he thought about it, the less sense it made. There was no reason for the prince, who ought to be in the capital, to come all the way east in search of Bella.

As he brooded, his thoughts began to veer in an entirely different direction.

Could it be that the prince was searching for Charlotte?

Only a month ago, Charlotte had been a promising painter, renowned enough to receive a recommendation to the Ether Exhibition. It would not be strange for the prince to know of her.

If the prince did not know Charlotte’s name and only caught the surname Rohiltern, he might have mistaken Bella for her.

Unfamiliar with the East, the prince would likely have consulted the register of nobility.

But Bella’s name preceded Charlotte’s there, as she was the elder by birth.

Then why would the prince wish to see Charlotte?

Because her fraudulent schemes had reached the ears of the imperial family?

He briefly entertained the bleak possibility, then shook his head to banish it.

Humiliating though it would be, the prince would never personally investigate some petty social scandal.

Above all else, there had been that look in his eyes.

The desperate, almost tender light in the prince’s eyes as he pressed a blade to the Count’s throat had not been the gaze of a man pursuing justice.

It was the gaze of a man.

In that moment, he inwardly exulted.

Of course. Charlotte inherited her mother’s beauty; her face alone was enough to beguile any man.

He had not married Mihrun, the daughter of a provincial lord, without reason.

Men could be fools, enslaved by a woman’s face. Surely the prince was no different.

Perhaps the Young Duke, perceiving the prince’s attachment, had refrained from punishing him outright.

It would be wiser to quietly bury the matter and leave the Count indebted than to antagonize a family that might soon be bound to the imperial line by marriage.

Yes, that must be it.

Though he had only just met the prince, he convinced himself that his intentions could be reduced to the common desires of men.

“Jenoch! Get in here, you wretch!”

The Count summoned the servant who had long been closest to him after the butler.

A tall but gaunt man, so thin as to resemble a stick, bowed his head.

“You called for me, my lord.”

“There is a task I require of you.”

Jenoch tilted his head slightly, puzzled by his master’s good humor despite the manor being swarming with armed knights.

But he knew better than to question it and sour his master’s mood.

“Go down to Mihrun at once and bring Charlotte back.”