Aroche felt like he was struck by lightning.

He was so shocked by it that he slowly sat up. Could it be true? Because of expectation and because no one, not even Aroche, dared to show him indignity or genuine vulnerability as an equal that he couldn’t look weak in front of him?

Burn saw himself as a ruler because Aroche and everyone else saw him as one.

And thus the burden he bore became heavier and heavier.

Aroche clenched his hand unconsciously and remembered how angry Morgan was when Burn agreed to let him go and even about to strike him down himself.

"Aroche Leodegrance—" she hissed then, still fresh in his mind, "how dare you force my husband to kill his own once more?"

His clenched hand now had become whiter and whiter. The man closed his eyes in grief.

Bella continued to whisper, “Perhaps one of the reasons His Majesty loves Her Holiness so much is…”

“Because she trusted he was capable of being weak in her presence,” Aroche muttered.

Not actually being weak in front of her, but trusting that he was capable of doing so.

Aroche never trusted Burn would ever be weak at all.

But the tears streaming down that man’s face that day when he begged Aroche for a chance to save him—not killing him, should’ve been enough proof.

Burn always wanted him back.

Aroche was never a burden. He was someone he truly needed to live. Not only to rule, as a best friend, or a brother. He needed him to be happy.

Morgan, the world, his ambition, and everything else wasn’t enough if Aroche wasn’t there.

Aroche, at that time of his death, truly was the only one he had left.

To Bella, watching Aroche beg Vlad and Isaiah to protect Burn’s honor and dignity was something quietly, utterly beautiful. There was a kind of grace in it—a loyalty so fierce it almost hurt to witness.

It wasn't just him, either. She had seen it again and again from all of Burn’s closest men. That kind of unwavering devotion didn't come from nowhere. It was cultivated. It was inherited. And it was clear now that it had always begun with Aroche.

Aroche’s death had become the cornerstone of that loyalty. It shaped the way the others stood by Burn—unchanging, unswerving.

But Aroche’s efforts to preserve Burn’s strength, to protect his invincibility, had a cost. They denied Burn the ability to choose vulnerability.

Not because Aroche ever meant to cage him, not out of cruelty or pride, but because Aroche had always believed Burn was truly that strong. Impossibly strong. A belief forged in awe, sealed with reverence, and offered up like worship at the altar of a beloved king.

“…My lord,” Bella finally said, quiet and hesitant. “Can you… let us help you?”

She turned to face him, slowly, as though afraid that even this soft movement might break something too fragile to name. Aroche remained frozen, eyes locked on her, caught in that vulnerable stillness.

And then, with nothing left to hold up the mask, he gave the smallest nod.

Immediately, the crushing pressure pressing down on him—the fatigue, the pain, the unrelenting headaches—seemed to lessen, if only slightly. Like a fraction of the weight had been lifted off his shoulders. Like he could breathe again, just a little.

Bella crawled closer, her expression touched by a subtle pout and the faintest blush, something fragile and unguarded on her face.

He was spellbound.

And when they met halfway, their lips finally touched—not as an accident, not as a consequence of the potion, but as something inevitable. The pink heart in her eyes pulsed stronger with each passing second, mirrored in his own.

***

“What am I doing…?”

Alicei mused, watching himself sit through what felt disturbingly like a private therapy session—uninvited. It was intimate, far too personal, and somehow more mortifying than informative.

The kind of scene that made you want to leave the room out of sheer secondhand shame, yet here he was, tuned in like it was state business.

Two people, lost in a fog of emotion, circling around something allegedly profound—and yet, not a single concrete truth landed. Just gravity without context.

All he gathered, in the end, was that Aroche Leodegrance was the Emperor’s closest companion, that he was in some deteriorating state of health, and—after much melodramatic resistance—finally agreed to accept help.

Touching, in the way a martyr complex often is.

And yes, it made Alicei just a little jealous.

Because loyalty like that? It was practically extinct. Across the infinite sprawl of galaxies and power structures, he had only seen it once before. Just once.

He didn’t need to decode Aroche’s pain or history to know what kind of man he was. Just as no one ever needed to know the details of Apex Two’s life to understand why his people clung to him with fanatical faith.

Clearly, this warlord from some obscured magical backwater wasn’t merely competent—he was extraordinary.

And that… was annoying.

Alicei leaned back, a bitter taste on his tongue. “Why do you still refuse to kneel before us, Apex Two?” he muttered, eyes narrowing.

Another screen glowed beside him—surveillance feed. Burn Pendragon, Apex Two himself, strolling beside a pond. Pointing out fish with the casual delight of a man untouched by dread.

His wife, radiant and inconveniently devoted, wasn’t even looking at the fish. She was too busy smothering him with kisses.

The great tyrant of a hidden world, undone not by war, but by affection. How poetic.

Alicei stared at them, unblinking. “Keep provoking us like this,” he said, voice like winter steel, “and you’ll lose everything you hold dear.”

It was never difficult for the Alliance to flatten a world or two—it was practically tradition by now. Burn Pendragon, self-proclaimed sovereign of the magical realm of Nethermere, had barely warmed the throne before declaring himself a wall against them. 

Even with that ridiculous power of his, the same one that managed to swat back the Alliance’s first advance three years prior, the outcome was always going to be the same.

Getting strangled and slammed into a steel fence was surprisingly useful. At least it confirmed just how powerful Apex Two really was.

Mahkato could take him down alone.