Chapter 177: Sebas Being Difficult
In the end, Lucian decided to move.
He carried Leno's body toward Sebas and Touch Me.
She was very light. Her head fell back slightly as he walked, the tangled golden hair hanging down and covering most of her face.
The wound on the side of her neck had stopped bleeding. The dark red had spread wide across the pale grey blanket, a sight that was hard to look at directly.
He stopped a few steps away from the two of them.
Touch Me had been resting against Sebas's arm, those deep blue eyes still unfocused, pointed at nothing.
He heard the footsteps and snapped his head around. His gaze landed on the small shape in Lucian's arms.
"Leno—!"
His voice was raw, as though something had sanded it down.
Touch Me wrenched himself free from Sebas's support and stumbled forward. Lucian lowered the girl's body to the ground.
The old butler was still kneeling, both hands slightly raised, held in the position from when he had been supporting Touch Me a moment before.
But the space between his arms was empty now. The boy who had been there was already gone.
Touch Me dropped to his knees beside the girl. His hands, stained with blood and dust, reached out trembling and touched her face with extraordinary care.
Her body still held warmth.
A broken sound came from somewhere in Touch Me's throat.
Memory came without warning.
He thought of those evenings in the tent, the oil lamp flame jumping, the shadows of the two of them thrown against the canvas wall, one large and one small, like two trees growing close together.
Every time she had failed an escape attempt and been brought back, she would eat and then assume that posture: neck extended, eyes closed, waiting.
Touch Me had thought it was fear. A learned reflex from a long time under cruelty.
But kneeling beside her now, he suddenly understood it all — and she was no longer here.
Her tangled golden hair was spread across the mud. The thin face still held the trace of the last smile she had worn, but the eyes were closed, the lashes still and quiet, the life gone from them.
Sebas looked down at his own empty arms.
His hands still carried the sensation of Touch Me-sama's armor against them. But that shape was no longer in his arms. Only air and dust moved through his fingers now.
Something hollow opened in Sebas's chest, as though a piece of something had been taken out.
His gaze followed Touch Me's back where the boy knelt on the ground, bent over the girl, tears falling from those deep blue eyes onto the blood-stained blanket.
Sebas's throat moved.
He grieved for Touch Me-sama. He wanted, more than anyone, to spare that person the pain of this moment.
And yet —
Those pale grey eyes dropped to his own empty hands.
And yet — Touch Me-sama had been in his arms, just now.
Touch Me-sama had opened his eyes, and the first thing he had looked at was him.
Sebas shook his head and pressed those thoughts down. This was not the time for them. Touch Me-sama was grieving a life lost, and what Sebas needed to be doing was finding some way to offer comfort.
"Sebas."
Lucian's voice came from beside him, breaking through his thoughts.
Sebas looked up and met Lucian's pale green eyes directly.
The young man was looking at him, a slightly resigned smile at the corner of his mouth, the expression of someone who had a very good idea of what was going through his head.
Sebas very much wanted to say: no, you don't.
But then Sebas noticed that Lucian was not in good condition. The armor over his left ribs had taken a visible hit.
His color was paler than usual. His breathing was half a beat faster than normal.
"Lord Lucian." Sebas rose and stepped forward quickly. "You're injured."
"Just a minor thing, nothing to worry about." Lucian shook his head, his tone easy.
But Sebas's gaze had already finished its pass over the injury.
As a powerful warrior, it was easy enough for him to assess severity. A direct heavy blow to the side ribs: at minimum two ribs with fractures. Not fully broken or displaced, but in need of prompt treatment.
Sebas reached into his coat, moving to produce a healing potion. His hand found the inner pocket and stopped.
He had used everything he was carrying on Touch Me-sama.
Sebas's hand stayed where it was for a moment.
He withdrew it. The ki had already begun gathering in his palm, a faint white light moving through his fingertips.
"Lord Lucian, please allow me—"
"No, no, it's fine." Lucian waved a hand and stepped aside from Sebas's reaching arm. "These few scratches, I'll have the domain cleric see to them in a moment. You've already done enough, Sebas. No need to spend more on me."
Sebas looked at Lucian's thoroughly unbothered expression, and the lines in his brow deepened slightly.
But Lucian had already turned his attention to Touch Me, and gave Sebas no further opening to press the point.
Sebas read the situation as best he could: Lord Lucian was probably more worried about Touch Me-sama's state than his own injury. That was the most likely explanation for his indifference to his own wounds.
Touch Me was kneeling on the ground, both hands supporting Leno's body with the same care one would use for something impossibly fragile.
He had laid the girl across his lap, and was gently pushing back the hair that had stuck to her forehead with dried blood, uncovering that thin face, so thin now that it was almost only bone.
Touch Me was holding the girl the same way Sebas had held him, just moments ago.
He kept saying her name, quietly, over and over. He hadn't had the chance to say it to her properly while she was alive. All he could do now was say it without purpose.
Touch Me's trembling fingers moved across her brow and eyes, as though trying to confirm she was still here — still in this world somehow.
But what little warmth was left in the girl's body was fading, degree by degree.
Sebas stood beside them, watching in silence.
His hands tightened and released.
But Touch Me's attention was entirely on the girl. Everyone else, Sebas included, was only a vague shape at the edge of things.
Lucian stood between the two of them and took it all in.
His gaze paused for a moment on Touch Me's tear-covered face, then moved to Sebas's face with its complicated collection of things, then came to rest on Leno's body, which had stopped moving.
Is this what they call a love triangle?
He let the small, private joke pass through his mind.
He could work out the general shape of both their inner experiences, but that hadn't stopped him from looking anyway.
Having satisfied something apparently hardwired into human beings at a base level —
Lucian also found, in the same moment, that he now knew exactly where to begin the compliance test with Sebas.
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