Florian couldn't look away.
Lucius's body lay still on the marble floor, blood seeping outward in slow, expanding ripples. It was reaching him now—warm, thick—pooling around his boots like a quiet accusation.
Cashew clung to him tightly, his small frame trembling, face buried in Florian's chest as if hiding would make the scene disappear. Florian didn't move, didn't speak. His throat was tight, his chest hollow.
The man who led the rogues stepped forward, his boots splashing into the blood as if it were nothing.
"You see," he began, voice casual, conversational, as though he weren't standing among corpses, "the king you all worship has made a lot of us suffer. But you already knew that, didn't you?"
Scarlett's voice cracked, shaky but defiant. "W-We do… That's why the king already made plans to—"
The man raised his hand. "Yes, yes. We all know about the king's plans," he said, mocking her tone. "Plans made only after the damage was done. After villages burned. After families starved."
He chuckled, low and bitter. "And our savior—the one who truly leads us—oh, His Majesty has ruined their life beyond repair. There's no apology or treaty that could ever fix that."
'Their…?' Florian's thoughts faltered. 'Is the savior multiple people… or is he…? Is he avoiding pronouns on purpose?'
His brow furrowed. 'Why hide their identity like that?'
His voice came out hoarse when he finally spoke. "Then why are you here? Why… me?"
The rogue leader smiled, slow and deliberate, like a man savoring a secret. "Because our savior already determined you…" He lifted his gaze, meeting Florian's eyes. "…as the king's weakness."
Florian's breath hitched.
The man's grin widened. "Not just a weakness. A hindrance. To finish off the king, you have to be gone."
Florian blinked once. Twice. That was it? That was the reason for all of this—the blood, the chaos, the bodies?
That was all?
That was the most pathetically predictable thing he'd ever heard.
A laugh almost slipped past his lips—but it wasn't amusement. It was disbelief, sharp and bitter.
Because once again, everything came back to Heinz.
His suffering. His fear. His guilt. His existence in this cursed world.
It all circled back to that man.
"I'm not his weakness," Florian muttered, his voice trembling but firm. "I'm not a hindrance. I don't even…" His throat tightened. "…I don't even have the power to do anything. I'm—"
Weak.
The word echoed in his mind, heavy and cruel.
Weak enough to fall for Heinz.
Weak enough to get kidnapped twice.
Weak enough to still be trapped in a world that isn't his.
'How could I possibly be a hindrance?'
The rogue's laugh was wet and hungry in the close air.
"If you weren't his weakness," he sneered, "then Charles wouldn't have been able to distract him. Just by showing the king we were after you, we kept him busy."
He raised the blade as if to admire it, the metal catching torchlight and throwing cold sparks across the blood-streaked marble.
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The readers' comments on the novel: Please get me out of this BL novel...I'm straight!