Chapter Text
There was always something sickly sweet about the Empire’s smiles.
The kind of sugar that stuck to the teeth and rotted through bone.
Cale Henituse sat beneath the ornate guest pavilion beside Imperial Prince Adin, enduring the velvet fanfare and lavish hospitality with his usual half-lidded calm. His crimson hair, well-groomed, shone like a flame beneath the gold-fringed canopy.
Adin's smile had not dropped once.
“We’re honored to host you, Lord Cale,” he said, voice like syrup. “It’s rare that such legends visit the Empire.”
Cale gave a light smile. “Thank you for the welcome, Your Highness.”
Behind him stood Rosalyn and Choi Han, both tense with unspoken vigilance. Lock sat nearby, arms crossed. And Raon—though invisible—was muttering continuously in his ear.
“He’s smiling again. I hate that smile. He wants something.”
Of course he does.
Adin gestured broadly. “In celebration of this visit, allow me to introduce the Empire’s greatest sword. The pride of our military.” He paused dramatically. “Hayal.”
The arena gate opened.
Cale’s gaze flicked down—and stopped.
The man who emerged was no princeling. No armored knight. He wore a fitted black bodysuit that outlined a lean, well-toned figure beneath an imperial white coat embroidered with too many medals hanging to the point of almost looking tacky.
No sword. No shield. Just presence.
Russet hair tousled like firewood ash. Peridot eyes, vibrant and disinterested. He walked like someone who never feared death.
“The boy of humble origins. The son of a butcher. Raised with nothing…" Adin’s voice lowered with reverence. "...except genius.”
Hayal finally reached the ring.
He didn’t kneel. He didn’t salute.
He tilted his head toward Adin—half acknowledgment, half mockery. “You never get tired of that story, do you?”
Adin’s smile twitched. “It’s inspirational.”
“To whom?” Hayal’s voice was soft, but cut like a wire. “The people? Or you?”
Gasps echoed from the noble seats.
Cale's eyes narrowed. Rosalyn arched a brow. Choi Han stilled.
Adin laughed a little too loudly. “Hayal is always so… spirited.”
Hayal turned toward the other side of the ring. “Which one is mine?”
Choi Han stepped down with silent grace.
“I am Choi Han.”
“Of course you are,” Hayal muttered. “They said you beat a dragon.”
Choi Han blinked. “It was a corrupted one.”
Hayal summoned his sword. No sheath. No scabbard. Just a clenched fist—and a blade of sheer green mana pulsed into life, humming like a restrained storm.
“Still counts.”
They clashed.
And it was not elegant.
It was brutal.
Their blades had clashed more than a dozen times —each blow louder, sharper, more exacting than the last.
Hayal moved like a wildfire, all speed and instinct. His sheer green sword aura carved glowing arcs through the air, wild and weightless, yet never lacking control. His every step stirred the dust of the imperial sparring platform.
He wasn’t just skilled.
He thrived.
The arena crowd had grown silent. Even the high-ranking knights from both Empire and Roan were frozen, eyes locked on the duel.
Only the clash of aura and the grind of boots on stone could be heard.
Clang!
Choi Han twisted, blocking an overhead strike that cracked the stone under his feet. He parried and returned the attack instantly, his black aura surging with a deadly calm—relentless, restrained.
Cale, watching from the shaded gallery, frowned slightly.
Hayal fought like someone taught by no school. Efficient. Direct. Savage. His steps were clean, but his attacks held no flourish. Only purpose. Each strike of his mana sword against Choi Han’s blade flared sparks and fractured wind.
“He doesn’t fight like a knight,” Rosalyn murmured.
Cale’s gaze sharpened. “No. He fights like someone who wasn’t supposed to make it past twenty.”
Lock muttered, “He’s used to killing. Not dueling.”
Raon’s voice dropped in his mind. “He’s really strong, human. But he’s… holding back. I can tell.”
Cale watched more closely.
Indeed, Hayal was matching Choi Han blow-for-blow—but there were gaps in his movement. Purposely widening. A twist of his wrist that should’ve ended the duel was intentionally slowed. The flicker in his eyes—
—he was pretending.
Rosalyn added, “He’s… playing. No, not playing. Testing him. And testing himself.”
Eruhaben in disguise clicked his tongue. “He’s reckless—but skilled. You can’t teach someone to use sword aura like that without a weapon. That’s an obsession born from desperation. That’s not noble fencing. That’s ‘I’ll kill you first’ swordsmanship.”
The platform rang again as Choi Han retaliated, slashing down with his black aura. Hayal didn’t flinch—he bent under it like wind through a reed and surged upward with a rising diagonal cut.
Green clashed against black.
And Hayal laughed.
Not mockingly, but with something dangerously close to joy.
“Your sword is steady,” he said between parries, breath barely uneven. “You hold back a little. That’s cute.”
Choi Han’s eyes narrowed. “And you’re enjoying this too much.”
“Aren't you too?” Hayal kicked off the ground, blade streaking downward like green lightning. “You’re the first person I’ve met in years who doesn’t break after five moves. Am I not the same to you?”
He was grinning wide now, hair a russet halo in the sun, peridot eyes alight. Every attack was a question—Can you block this? How far will you go?—and Choi Han answered each one in kind, the duel turning faster, more brutal.
“His sword aura is too clean,” Raon muttered. “No fluctuation. He’s been training with just aura and mana for a long time.”
“Not noble-born then,” Cale said. No noble child would be this tedious because they lack desperation.
“No. But he was trained like his life depended on it.”
Clang!
Hayal ducked under a high strike, slid between Choi Han’s defenses, and aimed a blow that would’ve bruised bone if it landed.
But Choi Han twisted—too fast. And Hayal grinned wider.
“You’re still holding back.”
“You’re smiling too much.”
“Because you’re not boring.”
Their swords collided again. A gust of green exploded from the impact, flaring outward and nearly reaching the stands.
Adin's smile cracked—just slightly.
He was gripping his armrest too tightly.
Then Hayal did something strange.
In the middle of a clean parry, he turned his head—not toward Choi Han, but up.
To Adin.
He looked straight at him. That smile gone.
Adin leaned forward in his seat, gripping the armrest of his gilded chair. His smile was brittle.
“Hayal,” he murmured. “Show them your worth.”
And Hayal smiled.
Not at Adin.
At Choi Han.
Then, with the subtlest shift of his foot, he missed.
Then came the final strike.
Choi Han lunged—and Hayal allowed it.
The flat of the blade met his ribs. Hayal exhaled and stepped back, raising a brow as if amused.
A perfect, elegant loss without real injuries.
The audience gasped.
Cale’s eyes narrowed. “That was—”
“Well, guess I lost,” he said blandly.
The arena went silent.
Adin’s smile faltered. “Hayal.”
“Yes, Your Highness?”
“You didn’t even try.”
Hayal looked at him, eyes utterly calm. “Perhaps I wanted to see if someone else deserved your pedestal more than me.”
A single noble gasped aloud.
Adin stood. “You’re my sword, Hayal.”
“Am I?” Hayal turned his back and walked off the ring. “Then perhaps you should stop mistaking swords for people.”
The nobles erupted in whispers.
Cale didn’t speak.
He was watching Adin.
The prince had gone very still. His gloved hands were clenched in his lap.
“This victory is fake,” Choi Han said quietly beside him later, as the crowd dispersed. “He could’ve dodged.”
Cale raised an eyebrow. “Why didn’t he?”
Choi Han glanced toward where Adin still sat, watching Hayal with hungry, possessive eyes.
“To spite him.”
Cale’s lips curled faintly.
Approaching them, Hayal stood, brushing dust from his chest where he was hit. He grinned at Choi Han, unfazed.
“Next time,” he said under his breath, just loud enough for Cale and the front row to hear, “don’t hold back. Let’s see if your sword can really cut me then.”
Then he turned his back on the crowd and left the platform without bowing.
Adin’s smile twitched.
Cale watched him go—eyes gleaming faintly with the weight of observation.
Raon, invisible and floating nearby, whispered, “He didn’t care about the spar. He cared about us watching.”
“No,” Cale said softly. “He cared about Adin watching him lose.”
And that made him even more interesting.
Later That Night: Imperial Banquet, Noble Pavilion, Cale sat idly, nursing a glass of wine while the nobles buzzed like hornets.
“He’s always been like that. No respect.”
“A commoner with a title? Absurd. The butcher’s brat got lucky.”
“They say Adin took him in. Saved him. And yet he talks back!”
“Perhaps too close. That boy never kneels to him. Never bows. Never leaves his side, either. Strange, isn’t it?”
“Some say he lives in the palace wing reserved for concubines—”
“That’s just rumor—”
Cale sipped his wine, lips twitching slightly.
“Choi Han,” he said under his breath.
“Yes?”
“What did you feel during the match?”
Choi Han’s gaze was distant. “He was… heavier than expected. Every blow felt like he knew exactly what pain I could handle—and stopped just before causing it.”
“So he’s polite,” Cale said.
“No. He’s merciful by choice." Choi Han shook his head, voice grim. "That’s much more dangerous. When you're wielding a sword, it's easier to hurt your opponent then trying not to.”
Cale tilted his glass and watched the nobles gossiping.
“I see.”