Gareth clenched his fist so tightly that his fingernails dug into his skin.
Looking back, the fact that the man, who had never shown displeasure at any injustice, expressed reluctance to become the illegitimate child's guard was a bad sign from the start.
At the time, he thought Barcas was simply disgusted by the fact that he had come to serve the daughter of the woman who drove his mother to her death, but perhaps he had a hunch from that moment on.
That someday that girl would become someone who would shake him to his core...
Gareth, unable to control his anger, slammed his fist on the windowsill.
If it hadn't been for the vow made to his mother, that child would have turned his back on him long ago.
Gareth recalled the moment Bernadette had bound him with a pact.
At that moment, he could clearly perceive that Barcas's fate was bound to him and Ayla.
It is impossible to know how such a thing is possible. Perhaps, as the priests have repeatedly claimed, evil magic flows in the blood of the Khan people.
He had noticed since he was very young that his mother possessed a strange power.
She would sometimes display intuition bordering on precognition, and there were times when she acted as if she could see right through people's hearts.
Perhaps his mother foresaw a future where Barcas would betray them.
So, that might be why they bound him with Khan's sorcery. If Grand Duke Sheerkhan were to side with Senevere, that witch, his and Ayla's positions would be in jeopardy...
But in the end, that bastard trampled on the oath.
Gareth glared out the window with bloodshot eyes.
The countless lights covering the foothills were now gradually closing in on the castle gate, tightening the siege.
Gareth involuntarily held his breath as he witnessed the army, which he had expected to halt at a safe distance, advancing straight toward the castle gate. At the same time, the sound of a horn announcing an enemy assault echoed.
“Haha, it looks like the Imperial Allied Forces have decided to abandon His Royal Highness the Crown Prince.”
The Northerner, who had approached him from behind before he knew it, let out a low laugh.
Gareth glared at the man with a furious look. Then, discovering the intense murderous intent in his eyes, he froze.
The man grabbed him by the collar with a hand bulging with tendons, pulled him closer, and growled.
"The leadership believes you still have some use as a hostage, but seeing you in this state, I have doubts about that judgment."
"You insolent fool! Let go of this right now...!"
"I must drag you to the city gate. If those scoundrels do not back down quietly, I will behead you and hang your head on the city wall."
Gareth felt the blood in his body freeze.
The man roughly dragged him to the door. Just then, a sharp scream rang out from outside the door, accompanied by the sound of something breaking.
As he dragged Gareth along like a dog, the man suddenly turned his head and let out a shout.
“What’s going on!”
No answer was heard from outside.
The Northerner, who had been glaring intensely at the silent door as if the commotion were a lie, pushed Gareth into a corner as if tossing him aside and walked toward the door, stomping his heavy legs.
“What’s going on!”
The man's voice, as he flung open the door, cut off abruptly.
Gareth stared blankly at something that rolled to the floor with a thud.
It was only after a few seconds that he realized it was the severed forearm of a man.
The man, who had been looking down at his hand with a dazed expression just like him, clutched his elbow from which blood was gushing and let out a scream. However, his scream did not last long. The long sword pierced straight through the man's chest.
The Northerner, who had been struggling to draw his sword with his remaining arm while his heart was pierced, soon collapsed as if falling.
Gareth, who had been watching the scene frozen in place, slowly raised his head. A tall man covered in blood from head to toe was looking down at him silently with pale, glowing blue eyes.
It was only after meeting those silver-blue eyes that Gareth was able to recognize the assailant's identity.
"Bar, Barcas..."
The man did not answer.
Barcas, shaking the blood off his sword with an expressionless face, nodded as he pushed the blade back into its scabbard.
“Please come outside.”
And then, he turned around without a second thought. Seeing this, Gareth hurriedly sat up. As his cognitive abilities, which had been paralyzed by the sudden turn of events, returned, a spasmodic sense of relief swept through his entire body.
He shouted in an agitated voice.
"Did you come all the way here to save me yourself?"
"..."
"Haha. You crazy bastard! I knew it. There's no way you'd abandon me!"
Gareth burst into convulsive laughter and snatched the coat hanging on the wall. He roughly draped it over his shoulders and was about to step over the corpse hanging on the threshold when the blood-stained hallway came into view.
Gareth barely managed to swallow the rising nausea. Corpses with severed necks or chests were filling the dim passageway where the flickering afterglow of embers was.
He had spent years rolling around on the battlefield and seen corpses until he was sick of them, but this was the first time he had seen such a horrific sight.
He muttered in a weary tone.
"Just... how many subordinates did you bring?"
"..."
"Anyway, where are the other knights and what are they doing? Why aren't they escorting me to safety right now...!"
He consciously raised his voice so as not to let anyone know that he had been intimidated for a moment by the scene that was no different from hell. An ice-cold hand grabbed him by the collar and slammed him against the wall.
Gareth gasped roughly and looked up at him with shocked eyes.
The man, who had thrust his blood-stained face close to his, spoke in a whisper.
"Did what I said sound ridiculous to you?"
“What is this...”
"I clearly entrusted the suppression of the rebels to the Northern Alliance and ordered the Imperial Army to withdraw to the rear."
Gareth flinched and closed his mouth at the ominous voice.
Barcas's tone became as sharp as a finely honed blade.
"If you're going to ignore everything I say and do the exact opposite, why on earth do you keep me as a close associate?"
A growling breath poured onto his forehead.
Barcas tilted his head even tighter and muttered fiercely.
"If you don't need me, just say so. I don't want to go through any more trouble either."
Gareth looked up at his two eyes, which gleamed fiercely, with a pale face.
The man, gripping his neck even tighter, shouted even more roughly.
"Go ahead and say it. Say you don't need me, that you don't want my protection anymore."
At that moment, Gareth realized that this man wanted to break free from the covenant that bound him.
He struggled to open his pale lips.
"I... I... need you."
The man's piercingly blue eyes darkened for a moment, as if a shadow had fallen over them. Looking him straight in the eye, he added in a cracked voice.
"I was wrong, brother..."
As Gareth spat out the nickname he used in his childhood, the strength drained from the grip tightly holding the nape of his neck.
Gareth clutched his neck with one hand and let out a faint cough. Barcas, looking down at him with a dry gaze, eventually turned around.
“Follow me.”
Leaning against the wall to catch his breath, Gareth forced himself to sit up. Then, creaking his weary legs, he chased after him, when the corpse of a soldier hanging on the stair railing caught his eye.
Suddenly, nausea rose to the tip of his throat. The soldier was left with only his lower body.
"I think you can use this."
Gareth, who had been unconsciously rolling his eyes in search of the soldier's upper body, flinched and stiffened his shoulders. Barcas, who had approached him again before he knew it, was holding out a blood-stained sword.
"This is..."
"The quality doesn't look very good, but for now, that is the best option."
Gareth accepted it with stiff hands. The worn hilt, which looked like it belonged to a dead soldier, had not a single common metal ornament attached to it.
He looked at Barcas with a look of anxiety.
"...Are the other subordinates waiting downstairs?"
As he stepped down the blood-stained stairs, Barcas looked back at him over his shoulder and spoke.
"I am the only one to escort Your Highness."
Gareth stiffened his entire body as if struck by lightning. The man, straightening his head again, went down the stairs and added calmly.
"I will do my best to protect Your Highness, but I cannot guarantee that you will be able to escape this place safely."
Gareth looked around at the dozens of corpses scattered on the stairs and hallway with a look of utter shock.
They were all heavily armored in iron. As he realized what that meant, his back was drenched in cold sweat.
"It's going to be a complete mess outside, so be prepared."
Barcas looked up at him, who was standing stiffly on the stairs, and added in a low voice.
"It will be a very long night."
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