Chapter 54
After about three hours, Mikhail, remembering the last sight of the divine beast lying limp and powerless, could no longer stay still. Fear gnawed at him—that perhaps that one had perished. At last, he rose from his seat.
When Marcel immediately asked what he intended to do, Mikhail gave no explanation and simply set a foot on the window frame.
‘……?????’
Before Marcel could even react or stop him in surprise, the prince threw the window open and seized the ledge of the upper floor’s window.
Under normal circumstances it would be unlocked because there would be no reason to keep it sealed. No assassin would bother coming all the way to this remote place to kill a man now reduced to little more than a broken scarecrow of a criminal.
So long ago, the Duke and ‘Misha’ he had agreed to always keep the far-left window unlatched so it would be easy to come and go.
And just as Mikhail expected, the window was open. With a light push and swing upward, he climbed through and entered the bedchamber. There lay the Duke, face pale as death, sleeping quietly on the bed. Mikhail softly placed the flower he had secretly brought—plucked from the Imperial Palace’s garden—on the bedside table, then gently rested the back of his hand against the Duke’s forehead.
‘Cold…’
His body was cold enough that it wouldn’t be strange if he stopped breathing at any moment. Only the leather pouches of hot water tucked around him were keeping any warmth in. Without those, Mikhail might truly have thought him dead.
“Your Grace…”
Mikhail called to Isaac in a trembling voice, but there was no response. So this was why the caretaker couple had so curtly told him to wait until the Duke woke. Mikhail clenched his fist, blaming himself for not coming to check sooner.
If the divine beast’s appearance that day had truly been the Duke’s doing, then with the beast wounded so gravely, there was no way the Duke himself could have been unharmed. He despised how easily he had been relieved to hear that the miasma hadn’t reached the place of exile. No matter how urgent his own business had been, he should have confirmed that his most precious beloved was safe.
But then again, even if he had checked, what could a half-formed Second Prince like Mikhail have done? He would only have been faced with his own helplessness. Yet none of that mattered now.
“Please… Please wake up, Your Grace…”
Mikhail took the Duke’s hand, as cold and stiff as his forehead, and wrapped it between both of his own. He held it for a long time, pressing his warmth into the deathly pale fingers until, little by little, color began returning to their purplish-white tips.
“…Your Grace.”
Having managed to warm the hand at last, Mikhail found himself imagining—recklessly—whether he might warm the rest of the Duke’s frozen body in the same way. There was no guarantee it would help. And after daring to put him in such danger, even if not truly Mikhail’s fault, could he allow himself such a selfish impulse? There was no time to debate. Mikhail simply leaned down, bringing his face close to the sleeping Isaac’s.
Each faint, ragged breath whispered softly against his ear, and Mikhail’s heart pounded violently in answer. Unlike what Marcel had exaggerated about the stench of alphas being disgusting, the Duke carried a faint scent of flowers. The caretakers had been washing his face every day with floral water, afraid he might grow unclean while unable to rise.
“…Your Grace.”
Mikhail knew he shouldn’t, but still he carefully lowered his head, intending to listen for a heartbeat against that unmoving chest.
Twitch—
Suddenly, a finger that had lain utterly motionless moved.
“……!”
Startled, Mikhail jerked upright to look at the Duke’s face. The tightly shut eyelids were trembling faintly.
“Your Grace! Are you coming to?”
Afraid to hurt him, Mikhail reached out and gently touched his shoulder. Then, at last, the Duke’s long-closed eyelids began to part.
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