Chapter 4
“Milady, are you all right? And this child…”
The moment Medeia stepped out of her study, she was met with Merryl’s worried gaze.
“We’ll take him with us.”
“…Pardon?”
Merryl glanced between the child and Medeia, startled by the unexpected answer.
“And you, what’s your name?”
The child clutched Medeia’s hand as if it were a lifeline.
“….”
He seemed to want to speak, but his lips sealed firmly.
“You need a name so we can call you. Otherwise…”
The bold, audacious expression he had worn earlier was gone, replaced by trembling uncertainty. A tear lingered at the corner of his eye, threatening to fall.
Medeia, awkward in showing tenderness, simply waited silently for his response.
“…I don’t have a name. Nothing I could rightly call a name.”
A fine drizzle of rain traced the curve of his cheek.
Medeia’s hand hovered helplessly in midair, unsure how to respond.
“Milady, why not give the child a name?”
Merryl’s suggestion had come just as the child, having sensed Medeia moving toward the study, wriggled free from Sophia’s back and darted toward where Medeia had disappeared. Though he looked like an ordinary child, his ability to evade Merryl, and to fling open the study door—many times his size—had sparked a seed of suspicion in her.
Yet Merryl’s words were less about the child and more about her own flustered mistress.
“All right. I will give you a name.”
Medeia’s hand, which had hovered in the air, gently touched the child’s cheek. With careful, awkward strokes, she wiped away the tears at the edge of his eyes.
“…A name?”
The child, momentarily frozen, blinked and offered a faint smile. In response, the tear slid down his face.
“How about ‘Lucian’?”
“Milady… Lucian… do you mean the one from that emerald-green book?”
“Yes. The name of a character from a book I love. Looking at you reminded me of Lucian in that story. How do you like it?”
Lucian, the thoughtful, considerate young man from the book, had eyes that only ever looked at the heroine. Though the hair color differed, the child’s lake-like eyes mirrored the character in Medeia’s mind.
“I like it. Anything you give me, Milady, I will like.”
The child lightly touched Medeia’s hand as she wiped his tears, then shyly averted his gaze.
“All right, Lucian.”
As she spoke his new name, the child finally possessed what could be called a proper name. Beneath his shy expression lingered a subtle, enigmatic emotion—an emotion neither ordinary affection nor entirely understood by anyone present, not even Lucian himself.
The following morning.
Instead of waking to sunlight filtering into her room, Medeia opened her eyes to an unusual sensation.
“Milady.”
“You’re awake?”
Emerald-green eyes with a hint of blue, like serene lakes, greeted her. Lucian and Sion—the two children she had brought home yesterday—stood before her.
Though Sion was three years younger than Medeia and Lucian two, Lucian’s smaller frame spoke of a life long deprived of care and names. Despite the depth of his calm, lake-like eyes, the sight of the children waiting like fledglings for their mother felt strange.
“Why are you here…?”
Normally, the first sight upon waking would have been her own empty room or Merryl or Sophia. To find the children tracking her every movement with their eyes was unfamiliar.
“Would you like to wash up?”
Both children simultaneously pointed to a large silver basin by the bed, water clear enough to see through, scattered with a few violet petals resembling Medeia’s eyes. Clearly, this had not been prepared by the children alone.
“Merryl.”
Medeia turned toward the doorway, sensing a presence.
“I suppose I’ve been found out. Good morning, Milady.”
Merryl appeared, smiling awkwardly.
“Why are the children in my room? I said it, but I never intended for them to serve me directly.”
As always, Medeia had never truly assigned a child to her service. Her goal was to free those she rescued, to remove them from the father’s cruel designs, not to have them wait on her. Merryl, of course, knew this without needing to be told.
“Exactly. You never intended to have the children serve you… but they insisted on helping, so what could I do?”
“Yes. They were eager to help.”
“It’s better than letting the Duke hear a commotion, isn’t it?” Sion added, with Merryl’s confirmation. Lucian nodded quietly beside him.
Medeia, momentarily speechless at how quickly the three had aligned themselves, finally called them.
“Sion, Lucian.”
“Yes.”
“…Yes, Milady.”
Unlike the quick response from Sion, Lucian simply met her gaze and, after a long pause, spoke in a slightly husky voice:
“I did not bring you here to have you do anything for me. Just endure your time here, and then I will return you to where you came from.”
“Really? Will I see my mother again?”
“I… don’t want to go back.”
Sion smiled brightly, but Lucian’s face darkened, teetering on the verge of tears.
Before Medeia could turn her attention entirely to Lucian, Sophia arrived with news:
“Milady, the items you ordered from Lisran Trading Company have arrived.”
Lisran Trading was run by Robin and Luna, Medeia’s allies. The arrival of ‘items’ suggested complications in her plans.
“Lucian, Sion. We will discuss you later.”
Medeia left the room, and Lucian’s eyes followed her in vain before she vanished from sight. He sighed softly.
“Merryl, there’s a problem. I need help.”
“I’ll be right there. Lucian, Sion, stay in the room and rest.”
With Merryl gone, the room held only the two children.
“Hey, didn’t you hear? Go back to the room.”
Sion called to Lucian, who was scanning the bookshelf. Though Lucian often whimpered, Sion’s voice was patient—he knew they had to coexist for now.
“You go back yourself.”
“…What?”
The gentle demeanor of the boy in front of Medeia was gone. Lucian looked at Sion with a prideful, almost disdainful tone, as if he were the one towering over him.
“Didn’t you hear? Go back to the room.”
With a small, mocking smile, Lucian glanced at Sion, then turned to the bookshelf, extracting a deep green book once far above his head.
“This one…?”
“W-what are you?”
Sion couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
“I don’t think that’s something you need to know,” Lucian said casually, eyes fixed on the emerald book.
“You can read?”
Sion’s voice followed him as he flipped through the pages. Even his absent father and mother had never ignored him like this.
“….”
Lucian did not answer, entirely absorbed in the text.
“What are you? You didn’t seem so weak, but not so strong either. I thought you had no name… yet you can read books I cannot. What was that earlier?”
Sion pointed between the original shelf location and Lucian’s hands.
Annoyed by the chatter, Lucian lifted his head slowly, meeting Sion’s green-blue eyes with cold scrutiny.
“And you…?”
Lucian stepped closer, voice low.
“…W-what do you mean!”
Sion stepped back, caught off guard.
“Your eyes weren’t originally green,” Lucian said, advancing again.
“It looks like you’ve concealed them with some potion. In this country, there was only one person with both blue and green eyes, wasn’t there?”
Sion froze.
“The knight from Itarun… the traitor Frederick.”
Sion’s eyes flickered—he had longed for this name in secret, never daring to speak it aloud, yet now it came from another’s mouth.
“Then let’s not ask about each other’s pasts. Not now, not ever.”
Lucian slid the emerald book back onto the shelf, a small, ambiguous smile on his face. Sion could only watch, stunned, as the book emitted a faint glow and settled into its original place.
