My Ruin to You - Chapter 100

“Closer.”

Mounted again, Valen flicked a finger at Roycen. The knight hurried forward, tension coiled in his frame. Valen smoothed the crumpled map and tapped a spot.

“Did you see a cave nearby?”

Roycen studied the marked area, tilting his head. “No cave was sighted, that’s certain.”

“Are you certain?”

“…If my memory serves, there was no cave.”

“They said the entrance was extremely narrow.”

“…”

“This is your last chance. Think carefully before answering. Are. You. Certain.”

Roycen’s Adam’s apple bobbed.

“There… was what appeared to be a fissure in the rocks. But passage seemed impossible, so we didn’t inspect further. Forgive me, Your Highness.”

Valen’s frigid gaze raked over the crown of Roycen’s head—so sharp it nearly felt like a physical puncture. Then, he folded the map.

“Take point.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

At the icy command, Roycen mounted without hesitation. Gripping the reins with stiff, chilled fingers, he guided his horse forward, retracing his steps. Valen, Merrick, and Giorno followed. The crunch of hooves on broken branches and dead leaves echoed through the forest as the winter air bit into their skin.

“Here, Your Highness.”

After a long ride, Roycen reined in his horse. Valen dismounted in one fluid motion, and Merrick and Giorno followed suit.

A narrow fissure split the rock face before them—so tight a grown man would have to contort himself to squeeze through. No wonder Roycen had dismissed it.

“I’ll go.”

Giorno, the smallest of the knights, stepped forward. He had to flatten himself completely, wriggling sideways to inch inside.

“The passage continues. I’ll scout ahead.”

His muffled voice faded as he disappeared. Valen’s eyes, glacial and assessing, sharpened abruptly. A dried bloodstain smeared the fissure’s interior.

“Ah.”

His grip on his sword hilt tightened enough to splinter the steel. For a day and a half—an eternity of gnawing dread—he’d agonized over how much of this farcical abduction had been Roseline’s choice. Facing this cramped entrance, he wondered again: Had she walked in willingly?

The faint bloodstains answered for her.

Her barrier had shattered under a brutal strike. Before she could recast it, another blow would have followed. The smeared blood suggested she’d been dragged inside, unconscious.

So. A rat who scurried through rock crevices had not only taken Roseline but left her bleeding.

She wasn’t supposed to go alone.

A rare regret seared through him. At the time, sending her ahead had been the logical choice—the encroaching presences numbered in the dozens, and her safety was paramount. But it had been a miscalculation.

He never should have let her go.

“Your Highness.”

Merrick cautiously drew his attention as Valen’s magic seethed, threatening to erupt. For a brief moment, those eyes—glacial with contained fury—flicked toward him before locking back onto the pitch-black crevice in the rock.

As the sun dipped westward in the sky, Valen stood motionless, an unyielding sentinel. Merrick and Roycen kept their stony gazes fixed on the cave entrance. Then, after what felt like an eternity, a whimpering sound echoed from within the cave, and a scrawny man crawled out on all fours, naked and trembling. Valen’s eyes flared like struck flint as they raked over the man’s emaciated frame.

Giorno emerged next, laboriously squeezing free—but there was no Roseline. Valen’s sword left its sheath in a single fluid motion.

“Where is she.”

“P-p-please, spare—Gah—!”

Valen granted no second chances. The blade plunged deep into the inner thigh—a non-fatal strike, precisely where the nerve cluster would ignite agony. Toma shrieked, writhing on the ground.

“I confirmed it, Your Highness,” Giorno interjected. “The young lady left the cave yesterday. She used transformative magic to turn this man into a mouse and forced him to guide her out. She exited unharmed, but her current whereabouts… We’ll scour the area immediately.”

“Yesterday. You say yesterday.”

Valen’s murmur was low, simmering, as he stared into the distance. Clawing back the fury threatening to choke him, he weighed the possibilities like rolling dice: Were her steps away from him deliberate defiance—or simply the wandering of someone lost?