After three days of what was truly the worst stretch of his life, Leopold Deluah dragged his exhausted body to Teron's room.
“Can I come in?”
He knocked, but there was no response. He waited quite a while, and still Teron didn't come out. Either the man was seriously angry with him, or he simply wasn't there. Most likely the second.
Teron Meyer breathed rudeness anyway, so there was no harm in acting the same way. Having settled the matter, Leopold flung the door open.
The room was empty. Figures, he thought, and headed straight for the Grand Library.
He couldn't stand it, he wanted to see Teron so badly. He had no idea why, but he wanted to be at his side. The people he'd dealt with over these three days had been, every last one of them, ugly and vile. Enduring the pain of having his very mind whittled away, he'd found Teron's face drifting before his eyes again and again. Somehow he missed that rude, unfiltered way of speaking.
Teron was insufferably ill-mannered, but he was honest. He didn't put on airs, and once you took all of that into account, he wasn't really so prickly after all. What's more, inside the library he grew much calmer, and when Leopold teased him he acted rather cute. Above all... after staring the whole time at filthy men flicking their snake-like tongues, Teron Meyer was on the verge of appearing to Leopold in the shape of an angel.
And so he ran into the Grand Library alone, only to find that Teron Meyer wasn't there.
What? It made no sense. If Teron wasn't here, it was as good as him not being in the palace at all. Leopold was about to summon someone at once and order them to go find Teron.
Until he spotted the small slip of paper.
[There's somewhere I have to go.]
The paper, bearing that one simple line, lay fallen on the floor. He stared at it blankly.
By any strictly rational, reasonable line of thinking, he should ignore that note and go look for Teron.
There was no telling where the man was or what trouble he might be in, and he couldn't just sit still.
Except.
What if he gets angry?
Leopold slid down against the bookshelf and slumped to the floor.
How far had a prince's authority fallen, that this was the only thought he could muster?
He was worried out of his mind, but he was afraid of how furious Teron would be if he went dashing about in a panic looking for him. At the same time he wanted to see him right that second. And yet Leopold waited.
He waited, and waited, and finally gave up. But his heavy feet wouldn't carry him away. He sat there inside the library, closed his eyes just like that, and fell asleep.
A few hours later, cracking his eyes open against the pouring sunlight and sitting there in a daze, he noticed something strange.
The empty air was flashing and glowing. That looked just like-
A magic circle?
Startled, he opened his eyes wide, sprang to his feet, and crept a little closer, and wouldn't you know it, Teron Meyer came stepping out of it!
Dumbfounded, Leopold murmured.
“Teron?”
There was no sign that Teron heard him. Something felt off, so he looked again and saw that the man's face was flushed bright red and his tightly bound ponytail had come undone. When their eyes met, Leopold was taken aback. Teron's gray eyes wavered wildly before dropping downward. Leopold, who had been a little angry, found his mood melting away in spite of himself at the sight of him, like a child caught doing something in secret.
Just as he was about to smile and ask what he'd been up to, Teron swayed. Alarmed, Leopold rushed over, and the man collapsed forward into him. Without thinking, Leopold caught him and held him.
“...What's wrong with you?”
He shook his body a little, but far from pushing him away, Teron just moved limply however he was shaken.
“I said, what's wrong! Are you okay?”
He was not okay. Feeling his own heart drop, Leopold clutched Teron and checked for a heartbeat. Thankfully he was alive, but his body was astonishingly hot. When Leopold pressed a hand to his forehead, he felt a burning heat.
Leopold hauled him onto his back, ran up to his own room, and called for a doctor.
“It's a fever brought on by overwork.”
The doctor said as much after examining Teron. He'd recover as long as someone nursed him at his side, so Leopold stayed with him.
Teron Meyer's face was ghostly white. He'd always been pale, but now the color had drained from him to a frightening degree.
“What is it you go around doing?”
Leopold murmured, laying a finger against Teron's cheek. He felt the warmth of it. He rubbed gently, but Teron didn't stir in the slightest.
“Wake up.”
Leopold tugged at his cheek, playing around, then propped his chin on his hand and gazed at him. Asleep, he was the calmest of all the Teron Meyers he'd ever seen. And so a thought suddenly occurred to him.
“I bet you act this docile with someone you like too, don't you?”
Hmm, but lately he answers me back more often than he used to, and he doesn't look at me with that disgusted glare anymore either. Sometimes, when we talk and it goes well, he even looks like he's enjoying himself.
Maybe he hates me a little less now?
Leopold poked at Teron's cheek with his finger and murmured.
“Don't be sick.”
Teron's eyelids creased faintly. Wondering if he'd woken, Leopold called his name, but he still didn't move. Of course, he thought, and pestered him even more persistently, but no reaction came back at all. It was so unlike him that a sense of wrongness settled in on its own.
He stayed like that for a long while, watching Teron in the room. Had he known Teron wouldn't wake for three whole days, he wouldn't have just sat there like this.
Leopold was dead. Before his eyes he had rotted black and then toppled over.
His lord trod over him and sat upon the throne. Yuan followed behind.
He too ground Leopold's corpse beneath his heel and, as if it were nothing, bowed his head before their lord.
Time seemed to slow all at once. Teron closed his eyes once, slowly, and opened them. Even so, the scene around him remained exactly the same.
Dead?
Truly?
Just like that, as if it were nothing?
Before his eyes there was nothing but fresh blood and corpses.
“Sitting on the throne feels good.”
One corner of his lord's mouth curled up in a warped arc. Every dark mage bent their knees in a show of submission. Teron, too, followed the motion that had been drilled into his body. And even so, he couldn't believe it.
Was he really dead?
Leopold Deluah? The man who, only moments ago, had drawn his sword with fury blazing in his eyes?
To Teron, Leopold had always been a being who looked down at him from the summit. Even though he knew in his head it wasn't so, Teron had held Leopold higher than anyone.
Why?
He didn't know the reason, but he had never once imagined the man would die. Not a single time in his life.
The sight before him was like a strange, alien thing, the heavens and the earth turned upside down. Something rose up from within him, and Teron clamped both hands over his mouth.
Surely this was a moment to raise a toast. The Deluah bloodline had finally been wiped out entirely. At last the dark mages had come to rule the kingdom. The few remaining provincial nobles pressed their heads to the ground and trembled, and the common people were nothing but a feeble flock of sheep, sacrifices for the dark mages.
And yet, why-
“Hear me, my servants who aided me. You performed your roles splendidly as my subordinates. Now I, and all of you, we are the masters of the Kingdom of Deluah. Do you understand?”
His lord's vivid yellow eyes bored straight into Teron's pupils. At their lord's satisfied expression, happiness settled over all the dark mages bowing their heads among the corpses.
It was so revolting he couldn't bear it. Teron dropped his head low and sank to his knees just like that. Nausea kept rising, and from his eyes welled water he had never once shed in all his life.
Why? Why on earth?
Why did you die?
The grotesquely rotting corpse seemed to speak to Teron. Trash. You disgusting murderer. You don't deserve to live, and you don't deserve to die either. Writhe in agony your whole life long. Live forever alongside all the people you killed.
The owner of that voice was Leopold.
The first prince of Deluah, whom he hadn't so much as thought of in the past several years, was suddenly speaking to him.
His ears rang so loudly it was agony.
From that day on, one dark mage lived in hell.
Leopold's corpse appeared before him all day long and tormented him. The first prince, rotting away more and more, was utterly hideous. Even as he decayed, he faithfully went on speaking to Teron for years.
Teron cursed him, murdered him in his heart many times over, and later, now and then, even begged him. But far from disappearing, the hallucinations only kept growing more varied. The corpses multiplied into many. Sometimes they were tender with Teron, and at other times they apologized and pleaded for forgiveness. No matter how hard he tried to be rid of them, they stayed with Teron without end.
“Are you all right?”
Leopold spoke to him again today, as always. Today, he was smiling gently.
