Chapter 148: The Leper House
Lorraine didn’t understand why he would be angry. Whatever it was, he was a commander. He would understand if she explained it. And that was what she did.
"As a strategy," she answered.
Leroy gulped. She had already explained to him that her facelessness was her power. As Lazira, as Swan Divina, as the Silent Crown, she lived by shadows and silence. Even her father hadn’t seen her for who she was.
But his presence at her side? It would unravel everything.
And the worst part was... she was right.
Leroy clenched his teeth until his jaw ached. She was right. He couldn’t walk beside her in daylight, not here. Not where one glance could destroy her. He hated it. He hated being the weakness in her perfect plans. He hated that he couldn’t stay by her side and watch her as she ran into danger without interfering.
His lips parted. "Will you..." His voice faltered, breaking into silence. Whatever he had meant to ask drowned in his throat. Instead, he swallowed hard, released her wrist, and turned away.
The sound of his steps retreating cut sharper than any blade.
Lorraine blinked after him, confusion stirring. Was he still angry? But why?
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Prince Damian sat slouched along a thick branch, one arm braced behind his head as though the gnarled oak had been grown for his leisure alone. The late sun sifted through the canopy, gilding his brown hair in streaks of amber and copper. He bit into a pear with unhurried grace, the juice running down his thumb before he lazily licked it away, hazel eyes fixed on the leper house below.
Even in repose, there was something sharp about him, with his features cut clean, his jaw shadowed by the faintest stubble that only deepened the dangerous charm of his smile. His gaze flicked like a hawk’s, restless and discerning beneath the pretense of indolence.
The fruit in his hand made the scene almost pastoral, yet his posture was anything but innocent: long legs balanced carelessly along the branch, his back reclined as if he had all the time in the world. Anyone looking up would see not just a maked prince, but a man who made laziness look deliberate, like a predator feigning sleep.
He had worked for this. The trail had been long and muddy, chasing Hadrian’s footprints across hunting lodges, monasteries, half-ruined estates where secrets liked to rot. And yet, here he was, certain he had finally cornered the truth. The leper house. The whispered "new admission." The woman who was forbidden to leave.
Damian took another slow bite of the pear, savoring it, eyes narrowing on the shuttered windows. Surely it was her.
What puzzled him more was the absence of another: Lorraine. By now, he expected her sharp stride, her decisive shadow crossing the threshold the moment his message reached her. But nothing. No sign of her.
His teeth sank into the fruit again, thoughtful. Did Leroy keep it from her?
That would be just like him—protective to the point of blindness.
It was then that Damian’s idle amusement stilled. A tall figure approached the leper house gates, hood drawn low. He looked like a wandering merchant, the kind who carried herbs and pouches of powder tied at his belt. But Damian’s hazel eyes caught the subtle things: the coiled precision in the man’s stride, the way he balanced his weight on the balls of his feet.
This was no merchant. This was a fighter.
Damian straightened, pear forgotten, every lazy line of his body sharpening into alertness. From the corner of his eye, he marked others; scattered men who had been loitering like drunks or vagabonds, suddenly angling closer. Waiting for a signal.
The hooded "merchant" approached the leper house doors. "I was told you’re buying medicines," he said, voice smooth.
A servant hurried inside, returning with the head apothecary, who looked the man over with mistrust. He tried to brush him off, but the stranger seized him by the collar, dragging him near.
"Then tell me," the man hissed, "why a leper house buys strengthening draughts, tonics for fatigue... medicines for melancholy?"
At that, the loiterers dropped their disguises. They abandoned their tools, their postures shifted, and their eyes sharpened. They began to converge.
Damian exhaled once, fixed his mask, then slid his fan from the fold of his tunic. At a glance, it was lacquered wood, gilded along the ribs. In truth, the edges were tempered steel, honed to razors. With a fluid twist of his wrist, the fan snapped open, catching the light like the wing of some deadly bird.
He dropped from the branch, boots slamming into the dirt with a resounding thud. "Gentlemen," he drawled, masking the coil of readiness in his limbs, "surely there’s enough medicine to go around."
The first man rushed. Damian’s fan sliced across his forearm, the cut clean and shallow, a taunt more than a kill. Then another came. Damian ducked, heel pivoting, fan snapping shut, and jabbing like a dagger under the man’s chin.
But the tide thickened fast. Blades gleamed, too many, surrounding him in a circle that closed with each step. Damian’s chest rose hard; sweat pricked at his hairline. His smirk lingered, but his arms ached from the parries.
He pretended to falter. A sword slammed against his fan and sent him staggering back. Another hooked behind his knee and toppled him. The dirt bit into his spine as he rolled, dodging a killing thrust by inches. His hand went to his chest; not for breath, but for a hidden weapon.
From beneath his cloak came a small device, shaped like a crossbow but compact, and sleek. He aimed, loosing a dart the size of a rosebud—its tip silver, hollow, made to inject poison. The first struck a man in the shoulder. The brute roared, staggered, and collapsed, convulsing.
Another dart flew and another fell. Damian bared his teeth beneath his mask, wild now, fending off three, four more. His limbs burned, his fan sang against steel. But the sheer press of numbers drove him down, down, until at last he lay sprawled in the dirt, chest heaving, fan knocked from his grip.
The hooded "merchant" loomed above him, sword raised. The blade kissed Damian’s throat, cool and final. For the first time, Damian’s eyes flickered, not fear, but the dark clarity of one who knows he cannot move fast enough.
Is this the end?