Chapter 79: House Northflame
As the train of arrogant maids left his room, Romeon's mind was filled with only a particular set of eyes—eyes that etched themselves so deeply into his thoughts that he couldn't forget them, even if he wanted to. They seemed to sing to him like sirens on a lonely sea, the pull so strong that he almost followed the maids out, hoping to catch just a single more glance at her, his heart in a state of deep serenity that he felt it would be okay to drown within her eyes alone. Red like roses, tinted with the shy hue of fresh blood, and filled with such innocent allure, they had captured his heart. He had been certain he would drown in that sea of roses.
But then, just as the haze threatened to consume him entirely, a bone-bitingly cold pair of blue eyes pierced through his reverie, the memory like a potent poison, one so cold his soul shivered with fright and a twisted longing... It might have just been a few moments since he last saw them, but he could not help but miss the way they looked down upon him as though he was an ant. Yet while it should have been off-putting, that was where his excitement lay—he wanted to reach a time when he would conquer her, changing that arrogant defiance in her eyes to something that looked upon him with the worship he deserved.
He remembered how her grey skin had once glittered like asphalt beneath moonlight and how her every curve moved with defiance. Each smile she gave was a sweet temptation to his soul. Only then did he manage to pull himself free from whatever strange affliction had seized him.
And he remembered—he was a married man. A happily newlywed man, another woman... should have never been at the forefront of his mind.
Yet, despite that fact, his mind arrived at a terrifying conclusion.
'She is dangerous.'
Whether he referred to his wife or the maid... only Romeon truly knew.
"Romeon!"
An aged voice sliced through his thoughts. Only then did he remember there was someone else standing beside him. He almost shivered when he met the particular set of black, beady eyes glaring at him with something that bordered on annoyance... and anger. But not for long... As a strange glee took root in his heart at the butler's reaction, it might not have been intentional on his part, but the effects were surprisingly satisfying.
The butler, Alfonso, had been calling out to the young man for quite some time. Had it not been for the iron patience forged in the furnace of his years, etched onto his aging bones through years of intense discipline and the love of the Duke, he might have snapped. And who knew how the peasant would twist that, using it to gain the moral high ground before the Duke?
Just as Alfonso opened his mouth to call again, a terrifyingly cold voice emerged from the boy. Its tone was sharp—something Alfonso hadn't heard in a while.
"I see you lack respect for your masters, and the Duke's prestige," Romeon spoke softly, almost completely uninterested in what he said. But each word was like a dagger—biting, precise, and hinting at a fatal mistake.
Alfonso, so used to the boy's silence and deference, froze. Watching him grow from a young age had dulled his awareness of the man he was now; he had forgotten his place in the hierarchical structure, blindsided by a pride that stood worthless before true nobility. Romeon might have become one through marriage, having no real roots in the ancestry of nobility. It did not mean he did not now wield the power of one; Alfonso only seemed to remember the fact at this moment.
"Daring to call your masters by their name. I see you believe yourself above the authority of the Duke."
"To insult his son-in-law is to spit upon his face... I wonder how happy he would be knowing you slight his grandeur due to your own inferiority."
Alfonso's eyes constricted to pinpricks. His pupils trembled as his mind conjured the image of a particular broad back, the very ashen gray skin that had been the foundation for this very castle… the warm smile that made so many lower their guard, the faint and withering golden hair that hinted at the mysterious noble blood he carried. If not for his control, Alfonso would have broken into a cold sweat.
So he did the only thing he could. The only thing he could hope would grant him amnesty from the peasant; it might have been insulting at the moment, but it was much better this way than with that man... one he worshiped and dreaded all the same.
He bowed.
With his head lowered, he apologized, his voice carefully respectful—though his heart was anything but. The venom that now coursed through him, born from the insult of a peasant daring to wield his beloved master's prestige as a weapon, was immeasurable.
"Forgive me, young master. My mind must have slipped. I forgot myself… I ask forgiveness for my aging thoughts, no longer as sharp as they once were."
But his words were met with only the rush of air across his face.
Romeon was already gone.
The wind that struck Alfonso's face came from the door swinging shut. From the hallway, only the boy's—no, he was already a man—voice echoed back, sharp and clear:
"I don't think the Duke would appreciate his son-in-law being delayed due to your mistakes, Alfonso!"
Alfonso stood still, smoothing out his pristine uniform, fixing the strands of hair that had been exposed, and wiping away the cold sheen of sweat on his skin. His breathing settled, and his form went back to its rigid and slightly hunched form.
Nothing appeared out of place… unless one looked closely—at the way the wrinkles on his face twitched ever so slightly, wriggling as though they had a mind of their own. There was even a small smile on his lips, one that was detached from his beady eyes and the coldness born within, making the whole sight eerily unsettling.
And if someone were to glance at the space where his gloves met his skin, they would notice the faintest sliver of his wrists—marred with nearly invisible scars that seemed to writhe, like worms sewn within the flesh of his inner skin.
In all his years within the Northern Cardinal Duke's castle, Alfonso had never been insulted like this. That it came from someone of no noble blood—a peasant orphan—only deepened the wound. If it had been the Duke or one of his children, or any of the old familial noble bloodlines, he would have accepted it as rightful correction.
But this boy… He did not seem to understand the depth of the earth, the vastness of the skies above, nor the sacred warmth of the eternal pillar.
Still, Alfonso said nothing.
His face gave nothing away, but only he knew the sinister thoughts that had been born within or simply unearthed... Alfonso had long left his life behind, one that would give even the most malevolent of the Lurkers Children nightmares. But it seemed like this new master of his wanted to bring him back to the days when he danced in the pain and misery of those who had ever defied the Duke. Or even of those further back, when it was just an interest to pass his aching boredom. Their screams had been especially sweet since he had no goal attached to their suffering.
Alfonso simply stepped out of the room, quietly closing the double doors behind him, leaving the sleeping princess to her dreams. His lack of reaction was especially worrying.
And as he followed, he caught sight of Romeon's back—broad, steady, almost dominating the corridor. Something twisted in Alfonso's chest as this made him almost compare the duke and the peasant boy, and in his mind, the back and stature of the two seemed to alternate, and he would have thought he was looking at the Duke himself.
When did he grow so large? ... Alfonso asked himself as he truly looked at Romeon for the first time since his awakening, and many things only seemed to make sense now.
The aura around him, one that seemed too hot to touch; the way the light in the overreaching corridors seemed to shyly flutter around him; the way his skin glittered with scripts of the Northern Bloodline; the way his hair had a more ethereal quality to it; and the slightest, even the faintest, twinges of gold in where his veins should have been. The boy might as well have become someone completely different from his younger self because this was not the peasant he had watched grow since childhood.
The confidence and innate majesty he carried in his stride made Alfonso's heart tighten with grim implications.
Back in the room, they had just left, a pair of particularly frosty sapphires opened slowly—glimmering under the soft glow of midmorning light.