Chapter 34: A Different Road
Touch Me knelt on one knee, back held perfectly straight. That still-unformed face, those blue eyes, brimming with anticipation and an undisguised nervousness.
"Lord Lucian," the boy's voice was clear and bright, with an excitement he couldn't quite hold down, "this year's cavalry 'Eastern Expedition' — could you take me along?"
Sunlight poured in from the window at Lucian's back and wrapped him entirely in a golden halo. The face hidden in that shadow was harder than ever to read.
But Lucian's voice was still warm.
"Of course, Touch Me."
He paused, his tone taking on something earnest — something approaching solemnity.
"I promised you. This year's Eastern Expedition — you're indispensable to it..."
Touch Me's eyes lit up at once.
Not the polite glow of gratitude, but something purer — something that had caught like a torch set to flame. The boy's lips trembled slightly, as though he wanted to say something and couldn't find anything that would be enough.
He gripped the cloth at his knee without thinking, his knuckles going slightly white with the effort, as though that were the only way to keep the rush of feeling from spilling out of his chest.
He placed his left hand behind his back, brought his right fist to his chest, and struck it hard over his heart.
"This subordinate will not fail!"
That voice rang through the study, carrying the wholehearted, unguarded enthusiasm that only someone of his age could give.
Lucian gave a small nod.
"Go on then."
Touch Me got to his feet, gave another formal bow, turned, and walked for the door in long, quick strides — faster than when he'd come in, every step carrying an impatient eagerness, as though he could barely wait to get out and start preparing.
The door closed with the softest of sounds, like a sigh, and that sound dissolved in the empty corridor.
His footsteps grew faint. At first they were quick and eager, like a light drum beat. There was a pause at the corridor's turning — he had likely looked back one more time — and then they went on, until they were gone entirely at the far end of the stone passage.
The study went quiet again.
This quiet had weight. It pressed down over the desk, pressed into the open ledgers and books spread across it.
Sunlight still poured in from the window at Lucian's back, bleaching the whole surface of the desk white — but it couldn't reach the small space directly in front of him.
Lucian sat exactly as he had been, back to the light, facing the door that was now closed, as though that boy might push it open and walk back in.
He wouldn't.
The warmth drained out of Lucian's face, slowly.
Not all at once. Gradually, layer by layer — the way rocks emerge when the tide goes out.
What had been underneath came slowly to the surface. Not anger. Not grief. Something deeper, something harder to name.
Lucian's brow shifted slightly. The crease at his brow stood sharp in the light for a moment, then was deliberately smoothed away in the next breath — as though even he was unwilling to let himself sit too long with what he was feeling.
His thoughts drifted far.
In this world, the one called Touch Me was known in another timeline as Climb.
Climb. In the original work: the orphan the Golden Princess Renner had taken in when he was a small child. The boy trained to be the Princess's personal guard. The existence willing to give everything for her.
And Renner's "affection" for Climb — Lucian knew well enough what that meant. A pathological obsession with the complete possession of another person.
But in this timeline, Lucian had found that child before Princess Renner could.
Only a small adjustment had been needed.
In the original work, Climb's absolute loyalty to the Princess had been redirected — into what was now "Touch Me's" commitment to justice. Climb could die without hesitation for Princess Renner. "Touch Me" could give his life for justice.
A name can be changed. Habits can be trained.
But the color at a soul's core is very difficult to alter.
That was also why Lucian had chosen Climb to become Touch Me. He needed someone like that — someone willing to give everything for a conviction. And that child, down to his bones, was exactly that kind of person.
Lucian's fingers rested on the edge of the desk, tapping a quiet, steady rhythm.
Perhaps Marquis Raeven had not been wrong.
Lucian and Renner were alike — he had done the same thing.
The same picking up. The same shaping. The same act of taking a living person and turning them into what you needed them to be.
But where was the difference?
Lucian raised his head, his gaze going to the window. On the path up the hillside, Touch Me's retreating figure had already grown small — only a small golden dot now, bounding forward in the sunlight.
The wind moved across the hillside, stirring the wild grass at the road's edge, lifting that light golden hair.
That retreating figure was full of eagerness. Full of hope. That boy believed he was indispensable. Believed he was doing the right thing.
The corner of Lucian's mouth shifted slightly.
Not a smile. Something more complicated, something even he couldn't name.
Renner took pleasure in this.
But he...
Lucian reached out and closed the account book.
The sunlight came from behind and cast his shadow across the desk, across the closed ledger, across his own hands with their clearly defined knuckles.
He found this feeling disgusting.
Disgusting, this sense of being no different from Renner.
But he had done it anyway.
As Lucian had once told Lakyus — a knight cannot protect everyone.
But there were still things Lucian wanted to protect. Even if the way he went about protecting them sometimes disgusted him.
"Siel" had slipped away at some point. The study held only him now. The surface of the amber tea had gone still, a thin layer of light across it with no steam rising.
The honey cake sat untouched on its dish, giving off a faint sweetness.
Lucian picked it up and took a bite.
Very sweet. The sweetness opened slowly across his tongue, warm and lingering.
Sweet enough to bring back a memory from years ago — the capital's market, and Lakyus pushing a candied fruit to his lips, that small face smiling like a crescent moon.
He finished the honey cake slowly.
The sweetness stayed, long after, and wouldn't go.
Then he turned back to the ledger and found the entry where Touch Me had recorded the two households whose taxes he had waived.
Lucian picked up his pen and wrote beside it: Five silver coins each, to be disbursed to both households.
And beside Touch Me's name: Touch Me — bonus of ten silver coins.
When he set down the pen and looked at those lines, the ink was still not quite dry, catching the light faintly on the page.
This was the difference.
Renner would keep Climb bound tightly to her side, and make herself the only person in his world.
But he — he, Lucian — would push Touch Me toward a wider world. Let him go protect more people.
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