Midnight had settled, and the palace lay submerged in a heavy stillness.
Inside his room, Niklaus finished preparing everything: gear, magical supplies, tools, and daggers. Then he wrote one final letter and slipped it into his pocket.
He moved to the window, gazed into the darkness stretching before him, and then leaped out with a fluid ease he had not possessed before.
This body was not what it had been in his earliest days inside it. He had adapted. It had grown lighter, faster. As though he no longer encountered any resistance in its movement, as though he had begun to own it like it was truly his.
He slipped through the hidden gap in the rear wall—the one he had discovered during his training over the past three months.
Once he had put distance between himself and the palace, he halted in one of the alleys. Then, in the blink of an eye, he hurled a dagger through the air with all his strength in the opposite direction. A sound rang out—the impact of steel meeting a target.
He spoke in a quiet voice, yet it was thick with palpable boredom:
"Come out. I've grown tired of your constant tailing."
A figure emerged from the shadows, his features obscured, his face still unclear. He had one hand pressed to a wound on his shoulder that bled freely, and in his eyes was shock mingled with disbelief: How had this happened? How had the prince sensed his presence, let alone wounded him?
The strike had been swift and precise. Yet more shocking than the wound itself was his inability to avoid it.
Rynell Krovin, Commander of the Imperial Shadow Guard, was not a man easily injured. He was considered one of the strongest guards, one of the swiftest. But he had been unable to register the speed of the dagger. That stunned him deeply, though he justified it to himself as a failure to exercise caution from the start—assuming this prince would not even feel his presence. But now it was clear the matter was the complete opposite.
He had been watching the prince in secret throughout all the months since his awakening from the coma. He understood now that this prince had always known he was being watched; he had simply chosen to do nothing about it. Until now.
Then, without the slightest hesitation, Niklaus produced the letter, regarded it for a moment, and tossed it toward Rynell.
"Deliver it to the Emperor."
Before Rynell could grasp what had happened, Niklaus was gone, leaving him alone.
The guard stared at the spot where Niklaus had stood, then at the letter in his hands. Nothing remained but the heavy silence that had swallowed the scene.
As Niklaus walked the dark road, tracking the map he had acquired, he began to register two matters of supreme importance.
The first: he could not use magical teleportation or the magical railway, because that would reveal his destination too quickly. Any movement using official transport would allow the Emperor or the Shadow Guard to pinpoint his location with ease.
The second: he would need to travel on horseback, even if it meant the journey would be longer and harder. Speed was essential, but stealth was more critical now.
While he was reviewing these thoughts, he sensed something unnatural.
He spoke in a steady voice, without turning around:
"Step out of your hiding place."
The movement of the shadow behind him faltered for a moment, and then from among the trees emerged a figure Niklaus had already anticipated: Ethan Firestone.
The servant stood before his master, his expression blank, though it carried a certain gravity.
Niklaus cast him a brief glance, then returned to studying his map as though nothing of interest was happening.
"Why are you following me?"
It was not a question born of curiosity. It came as an indirect warning, as though Niklaus was telling him he needed a very good reason to justify his presence here.
Ethan took a step forward, then spoke in a steady voice, unwavering:
"Because you need someone beside you if trouble arises."
Niklaus raised an eyebrow slightly, but gave no other reaction.
In that moment, he decided he would waste no more time on this discussion. The servant would, in truth, be of considerable use in navigating the roads and reaching the forest.
"If you're here, then don't slow me down."
Ethan nodded again, then took his place beside him, waiting for the next step in a journey that would never be easy.
Niklaus walked the road, his eyes fixed on the map in his hands, but his mind was sinking into its own thoughts.
Why was this servant so loyal?
Ethan was loyal to the original Niklaus. That was something he could not understand. And yet, he would not trust him precisely because of that loyalty. Trust was not part of the equation for him.
Ethan walked beside Niklaus, his eyes tracking the road ahead, but he wasn't really seeing the road.
He looked at the back of his master walking in front of him. He was still consumed with curiosity over his master's decision to go to the forest. How incomprehensible everything had been since his master had woken from the coma!
And there was something else coursing through his mind—a memory buried for five years, something he had not retrieved in a long while, but which now resurfaced as though to remind him that everything had begun on that day.
Amid the clamor of bidding and the shouts of merchants, he was nothing but a number among countless slaves being sold, with no regard for who they had once been. His chains were heavy. Unhealed wounds clung to his skin. His clothes were so tattered they no longer held a clear shape. His steps were slow, like a child who had never been granted a chance to grow, never given a chance to be more than an exhausted body bearing years of humiliation. As though he had only lived seven years, even though he was fifteen.
People passed by him without interest, seeing the slaves as goods to be bought and sold—valueless, nameless, futureless.
But on that day, not everyone was indifferent.
At one edge of the marketplace stood Niklaus, ten years old, beside a group of noble children. He was the antithesis of this scene.
And when their eyes met for a brief moment, there were no words. But something happened that had not happened in years: Ethan saw someone who did not look at him as a commodity, but as a person.
In that instant, Ethan felt something he had not felt in years—he felt that he truly existed, even if only for a single moment.
And he heard the voice of a small ten-year-old child speaking to the slave trader: "I will buy this person."
It was a simple sentence, but it was the beginning of something no one could have expected would lead to this bond between them, a bond that had endured to this day.
Yet Ethan still did not understand his master. He did not treat him as a slave, nor as a servant. Even in the past, the tasks he entrusted to him could be counted on one hand.
As they walked now on foot, the road seemed endless. The sun began to emerge, and the sound of wagons on the main routes started to rise, while they walked the dirt roads through the forests, far from the clamor of the capital.
---
In the Imperial Palace
In the throne room, upon the throne, sat Emperor Leonard. The Emperor's focus was fixed on Rynell Krovin, who was binding his wounded shoulder with a strip of cloth.
The Emperor was still trying to absorb the information Rynell had relayed to him: that his youngest son had fled the palace, and had wounded the Commander of the Shadow Guard—the man considered the strongest shadow knight in decades, the finest elite of the Imperial Guard.
He would have thought Rynell had not been good enough. But Rynell was good—the best, in fact—because he had trained him himself.
Rynell Krovin spoke: "I did not feel him coming. I did not perceive when he attacked… It was as though he knew every step in advance. And he left this letter."
The Commander extended his hand and presented the letter to the Emperor, who opened it swiftly, his eyes tracking the words with caution.
The contents of the letter were unexpected:
"Emperor, I make you a deal… I will go now, and I will return in five months, before the academy begins. I know you commanded me to go previously, but I refused. Now, I go of my own will. Do not search for me, because you will not find me."
The Emperor sat in place, contemplating the letter, thoughts chasing one another through his mind. He considered issuing an immediate order to search for him, sealing the capital's borders. But now… he hesitated.
What was his son pursuing now? He did not understand. Was the letter a threat, a promise, or a demand?
The Emperor and the Commander exchanged glances. Rynell asked with caution, "Then, what does Your Majesty command?"
The Emperor replied calmly, folding the paper: "Do not search for him now. We will wait five months to see the reason for this sudden departure. In the end, he will return and enter the academy. Five months is not long."
---
Niklaus and Ethan walked without pause. The road was exceedingly long. They had already been walking for over twenty hours and had not yet reached the capital's borders. The imperial capital was vast indeed, and they were on foot with no means of transport.
Ethan was weary from walking already, but he could not say he was weary, because he knew Niklaus would leave him behind and continue on. And so he did not continue walking in the ordinary way. He resorted to his magic, thanks to his wind affinity, which allowed him to move swiftly as though the wind carried his steps with lightness. He could summon air currents to propel him forward, and even ease the crossing of rivers and rocky heights. He had not wanted to use it at first, but exhaustion made him resort to it for relief in the end. After all, the road was still long.
Niklaus, too, despite the fatigue of walking, seemed to have adapted. He was absorbed in his own thoughts as was his habit, thinking about the letter he had written. It was only meant to prevent the Emperor from searching—not because he actually intended to return. He was not coming back.
He also knew that the guard who had been following him was no ordinary guard, but the left hand of the Emperor. And he knew he would never be able to defeat him in this body.
How deeply irritating. Remaining weak was one of the things he loathed most.
Though his physical strength was now acceptable, it was not at a level that would let him fight a knight like even an ordinary member of the Imperial Guard, let alone the Commander of the Shadow Guard.
Something else caught his attention: how Ethan used magic. He had known from the start that Niklaus's servant was skilled in magic, but the manner of his use drew his notice somewhat, because magic in this world was rare. And what deepened his thought: how had the magical seal been placed on Niklaus? Even when he had searched for information about the magical seal—or what the seal even was—he had never found anything truly clear.