The Villain’s Aide Has Run Away - Chapter 64.2
At those words, Leslun’s neck grew hot again.
“If someone heard you, they’d think you were a father sending his child off to the Academy.”
“Not far from the truth. It’s the same as being worried about leaving something out there.”
Suddenly cast as the anxious child, Leslun’s mouth fell open, but no words came out.
Kailos tore a piece of bread into small bits and put one in Leslun’s mouth.
When Leslun covered his mouth with both hands, Kailos simply pushed the entire plate of bread toward him.
“You have to go to the Academy today too, so eat. A full stomach will help you focus in class.”
Leslun stared blankly at the dishes being pushed toward him, one after another, losing his words again.
***
On the way to the Academy, Leslun ran into an unexpected figure.
He was small to begin with, but hunched over like that, his back looked even smaller.
Leslun looked around briefly.
There was a separate road connecting the Imperial Palace to the Academy. When the Crown Prince had the Academy built, he had considered its distance from the palace.
It was a location meant to raise talent out of the palace’s immediate reach, then bring back those who stood out.
But after arguing endlessly with the Empress over the Academy, he had almost forgotten that purpose.
Thanks to that, there was no problem with simply walking to the Academy instead of taking a carriage, which is when Leslun happened to run into Prince Cassian.
Prince Cassian looked as though he was staring at flowers blooming by the roadside.
Leslun hesitated, wondering if he should pass by without saying anything or greet him.
Would the Prince move once Leslun left?
It would have been far easier if someone just told him to stack books like a mountain and submit a report.
When he got a bit closer, he realized that Cassian was not looking at flowers but at something he was holding.
And from the occasional twitch of his back, some emotion was showing through.
“Are you all right?”
Leslun couldn’t just pass by.
The small body flinched. Then only his head turned, and he shot Leslun a wary look.
“You are…”
“I am the Crown Prince’s aide.”
“Yes, I remember. But why are you talking to me?”
“If you keep holding it like that, it will get worse.”
At those words, Cassian started and looked down at what he was holding.
It was a small bird.
Its body, covered in yellow feathers, was faintly trembling, and one of its wings hung completely limp.
“It’s going to die.”
Cassian tried to sound calm, but his voice carried his distress clearly.
“It’s not dead yet.”
Leslun carefully knelt down.
He pulled a handkerchief from his breast and held it out to take the bird.
Cassian watched the little bird lying on Leslun’s handkerchief and asked,
“Can you save it?”
“I don’t know.”
Leslun wasn’t a physician. There wasn’t much he could do except check where it was injured.
Cassian’s small shoulders were trembling.
“It’s my fault.”
For words coming from a boy’s mouth, they were unbearably heavy.
Leslun kept his eyes on the Prince and listened.
“It feels like I’ve been bringing conflict with me since the day I was born. Wherever I am, there’s always some kind of fight. This bird fell because of me too.”
“……”
Leslun had not expected that at all.
Cassian was the child the Emperor and Empress wanted to place on the next throne.
People now tried to please the Empress rather than the young Prince, but in a few short years, Cassian too would enter the center of power.
Naturally, he would become Kailos’s political rival—and the two brothers would eventually point their swords at each other.
In the original work, Prince Cassian had been calm and well-behaved, but never timid or cowering.
As the story went on, he even came to display a cold, decisive personality similar to Kailos’s.
Yet the Prince before him now had his small face scrunched up, unable to even cry freely.
Leslun quietly studied the Prince and then spoke.
“Did Your Highness make this bird fall?”
“I never said that.”
“Then did you throw a stone? Or push the bird while it was sitting?”
Even if he had, a bird with wings wouldn’t fall so helplessly.
Leslun asked with a completely serious expression.
Cassian looked up at him.
“If the only reason it fell is because Your Highness happened to be here, then it isn’t Your Highness’s fault.”
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