Please get me out of this BL novel...I'm straight! novel Chapter 567

"Your Majesty… what are you doing here?" Lucius's voice cracked, formal but trembling.

The torchlight flickered, soft and gold, spilling shadows across the room that smelled of iron and wildflowers.

Lucius turned first, startled, then Lancelot followed, both men exchanging a quick, nervous glance before stepping closer together—instinctively trying to block whatever, whoever, lay on the table behind them.

Heinz's steps echoed softly as he approached, slow, deliberate, his face unreadable. His eyes were fixed on the thing they were hiding. His voice came out flat, hollow—like something scraped raw of emotion.

"That's… Florian."

He said the name as if it burned to say it aloud.

"Yes, Your Majesty." Lucius swallowed hard, his eyes flickering toward Lancelot before he continued, hesitant. "I know your orders were to burn his body… but we couldn't. We wanted to give him a proper burial. Please understand—"

He didn't finish.

Heinz shoved them both aside, the movement so sudden and brutal that it sent them stumbling across the floor. Lucius fell to his knees but still reached out, desperate, grasping Heinz's boot like a drowning man clinging to driftwood.

"Y-Your Majesty—please forgive my impertinence, but please don't—"

"Let go," Heinz said quietly, dangerously calm, "or I'll cut your head off myself."

His voice didn't rise. It didn't need to. The words carried a finality sharper than any blade.

He never once looked at Lucius. His eyes were already fixed on the table.

Florian lay there, dressed in soft, light-purple fabric—his color even in death. His hands were folded neatly on his stomach.

Someone had tried to make him look peaceful. But no amount of care could disguise what had been done to him. The stitches at his neck were crude, dark threads biting into pale skin where his head had been reattached.

Flowers and grass surrounded him, tucked lovingly around his still body. Under the warm light, it almost looked like he was lying in a meadow—if you could ignore the smell of decay beneath the perfume of blossoms.

Lucius's voice wavered from the floor. "Your Majesty, we promise… we won't bury his body anywhere near the palace. We just—"

"He's mine."

The words came out low, rough, like a wound reopening.

Heinz tore his foot away from Lucius's grip and took a step closer to the table.

"He was never yours. He was never Hendrix's." His voice cracked as he reached out, brushing a trembling hand across the prince's cold cheek. "He was mine."

Lancelot's breath caught.

Heinz's gaze softened—just barely—as he continued, voice breaking apart mid-sentence. "I loved him. I love him."

"What?" Lucius whispered, disbelief etched into every syllable.

"Then… why…?" Lancelot murmured, the question hanging like a ghost in the air.

Heinz didn't answer.

He simply gathered Florian into his arms, lifting him gently as if afraid to break him all over again. The body was light—too light—and Heinz's throat tightened at the weight of that realization.

"I'll bury him myself," he said softly, cradling the corpse against his chest like something sacred. When he turned, his eyes were red, but his expression was stone.

Lancelot and Lucius stared at him—horrified, wordless—and did what soldiers were trained to do in the face of power: they bowed.

But Lucius couldn't stop himself.

As Heinz walked past, the knight raised his head, voice shaking with grief and fury.

"Why did you kill him if you loved him, Your Majesty?"

"Lucius!" Lancelot hissed, grabbing his arm. "Do you want to die?"

Lucius shook him off. "No! You want to know too, don't you?" His voice broke, raw. "We keep bowing our heads. We keep pretending we don't see it, but we're mourning him too! Why did you kill him, Your Majesty? He—he loved you. Until the very end, all I ever saw in his eyes was love for you!"

Heinz stopped walking.

The words didn't make him angry—they hollowed him out. He stood there, staring at the floor, at the body in his arms, at the silence pressing against his chest. He felt the weight of Lucius's accusation settle like a stone in his gut.

He felt nothing else.

He was empty.

Cold.

And when he finally spoke, his voice was almost too quiet to hear.

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