Closely followed by his guard, Seiran made his way to a small door well hidden in a corner of the corridor, totally invisible to the inattentive eye. This hidden door opened onto a staircase that led directly to the castle's underground passages. He didn't want to be seen going to the angel's place, given their delicate situation. But he was dying to see him, to make sure he was all right, and he had been circling like a caged lion for two hours now, impatient to be done with his urgent papers and the vampire. Now that he was finally free, he could not bear to be separated from the bedridden little prince any longer.
He opened the door leading to the stone staircase as Eviris turned in the direction of the prince's suite and walked away from his protégé with a quick step. Seiran entered the narrow stairwell, which was poorly lit by the flame lamps powered by the natural energy of fire elementals. But he had no time to close the door when he suddenly felt a threatening presence at his back.
It was half a second too late. As he moved to turn around, the sensation of cold, sharp metal pressed against the skin of his neck chilled his blood. He had been too slow. The assailant had drawn in a breath, leaving the demon no time to make a move.
Seiran did not move. He watched the door close before him without a sound, sealing his chances of escaping his enemy for good. Eviris, who had not felt anything either, was probably already far away. He was trapped.
He waited a moment, his heart beating wildly under the effect of the tension. He felt that he was not dealing with a beginner but with a seasoned person, used to acting in a palace. A guest's guard? A spy? He tried to analyse the situation as best he could, but Seiran was not trained for this. His energy connection had deprived him of any gift for combat. He had become an excellent tactician and politician, but he was unfit for combat. This was the reason why the most competent member of the Yagar clan had been assigned to his permanent protection since his early childhood.
Eviris was not just any demon. He was a Yagar, an ancestral clan with a unique gift that only clan members possess: the gift of sensitivity. Thanks to this gift, the Yagar can sense any danger over a hundred meters away, and even further for the most talented. And Eviris was the most talented member of his clan to date. He could detect any negative aura, even if it were perfectly camouflaged, in the entire palace.
But he had not sensed the aura of Seiran's mysterious assailant, even though he had passed only a few meters away. That alone was enough for Seiran to know that he was dealing with a very high-level expert.
The silence that had fallen during these few seconds of reflection was becoming heavy. Trying to find a way to escape, the demon's mind was racing. Suddenly his attacker broke the silence.
"Turn around slowly, with your hands in the air and without making any sudden movements," he ordered.
The voice echoed strangely in the demon's ears. It was a woman's voice. Searching his memory to find where he had heard it before, the prince obeyed and turned to face the woman who held him at the throat, his hands raised to his shoulders. He could not hide his surprise when he recognized the one who was threatening him so fatally.
"Inja?!!" he opened his eyes in amazement.
The angel was staring at him with her dark eyes. She looked furious. Her katana was still against the demon's neck, she had a chilling look on her face that made the demon know she wasn't kidding. He closed his mouth and swallowed hard. He had an idea of what she might have to say, and he would have to defend himself persuasively or his relationship with Niris would be permanently destroyed. He was looking for the right words to explain himself when the angel cut him off, going straight to the point.
"A-ran... that's you, isn't it?" she questioned him sharply.
The demon nodded slowly.
"Yes," he replied submissively.
He felt the edge of the blade dig into his skin a little more. She had perfect control of her strength and knew how to stop herself before slicing through living tissue, but she was only a hair's breadth away from drawing blood on the demon's satiny skin.
"Why did you make Lord Jangta believe that you were just an unimportant aristocrat? Why didn't you tell him you were Prince Seiran?" His gaze had become as dark as a black hole.
Crushing the prince with her threatening aura, she kept the pressure on the vital part of his body, hardly holding back her anger. The demon could see it: the guard was on the verge of exploding. He felt that her professionalism was the only thing keeping her from letting her anger out. Seiran held his breath, looking for the best way to calm the angel, but to no avail.
"Ever since the Amadean princess summoned him this morning, I've been trying to find the connections we need to understand the situation, and I've come up with a sordid idea: could the demon helping Lord Jangta be none other than Prince Seiran himself under cover of anonymity? That would solve all the questions we haven't been able to answer so far, but the more I think about it, the less I understand why you did such a thing. What are your intentions, Prince Seiran?" she finally asked him, seeing that the prince did not answer.
"I understand your anxiety, but I promise you that I have no ill intentions toward Jangta...Lord Jangta!" The demon had recovered very quickly when the guard pressed a little harder on the blade of his katana, causing the latter to feel a sharp pain.
"I... it wasn't intentional! I was going to tell him who I was when..."
"You even told him that you were anti-slavery and that you would help him achieve his goal! What exactly are you thinking? You're doing this so you can expose him to your uncle, aren't you?" she cut him off, her eyes shooting lightning bolts of imaginary electricity throughout the demon's body.
"Because I am! And because I want to help him! I promise you I didn't lie! The only thing I lied about was my identity, I swear!"
He begged the angel with his eyes, trying to put all his strength of conviction into his pleading voice. The angel didn't answer. She looked at him with the same threatening gaze, betraying her inner tension. Seiran decided to seize the opportunity and use the guard's hesitation to try to convince her.
"I never wanted to hide my true identity, but not for a moment did I imagine that one of the guests wouldn't recognize me! And not for one moment did I imagine that your Lord would be so frank with me! Not for one second did I imagine... that I would fall in love with him!"
Again he felt the blade, which had loosened slightly, press against his skin dangerously. He raised his hands in appeasement and quickly resumed his attempt at coaxing.
"I have been caught in my own trap! He is so honest with me that I was afraid he would shut down completely if I told him who I was... So I never found the right moment to tell him. But I'm going to tell him everything now," he concluded, his voice softening as he went on.
He inspected the angel's gaze to try to catch a change in her state but she was stoic. He decided to finish his plea before he saw her reaction.
"I didn't think Yousmail would dare attack him like that, I underestimated the danger. I'm going to clear things up with him so that this kind of situation doesn't happen again. I feel so bad!"
As much as he had bared his feelings to the guard with the utmost fragility, she still seemed as reluctant to give him her trust. The debate that was going on inside her could be read in her eyes, as icy as the winter wind. And Seiran could only understand her! She had to protect the prince's life at all costs, and he had every reason in the world to want to harm her, the crown prince of Ornikarn! Her distrust was quite justified...
He sighed, understanding that the situation would not be resolved like this. The angel would never trust him until he exposed himself directly. Until he proved his commitment to the same cause as her, she would never stop doubting his intentions.
"I have given him my imprint," he told her.
The angel's eyes opened in amazement. The imprint was a unique object that could not be copied. It was the identity and passport of every high dignitary in the intergalaxy. To give it to someone was to put one's life in that person's hands, for they could access anything the imprint could give access to, and therefore potentially a certain amount of confidential information. The more high-ranked the person, the more valuable the imprint. This was also one of the reasons why prints remained anonymous.
So there was no greater proof of trust or weakness than to give one's fingerprint to someone. The angel then began to frown. She was still torn between her sense of duty and the potential love affair the prince had with Seiran. Between duty and feelings. No matter how hard she tried to reason with her protégé, she herself was faced with the same difficulty. A choice that she couldn't make if it involved the feelings of Prince Niris. And yet she had to protect him in this hostile environment that had already put his life in danger.
She couldn't bring herself to do so, but there was nothing more she could do either. They were in a weak position here. If the prince decided to do anything, she could not stop him. All she could do was to bring Niris back by force if she thought the situation too dangerous. But that was it! She was bound hand and foot in this palace which was teeming with potential enemies.
"In that case, leave your imprint to him until he leaves Ornikarn. If you don't, I'll send him back to Egea immediately! His life has already been endangered once, I will not risk it again!"
She had regained her confidence. She couldn't choose instead of Niris to love and trust the demon or not, but she could protect him if she considered the threat too great. By using the imprint and the threat of departure as leverage on the demon, she could at least get a guarantee of neutrality and non-aggression from him.
"If you care about him, protect him with your life! And don't abandon him in his mission or you'll be the first to pay the reprisals of the imperial government!" she said in a voice so threatening it was almost hoarse.
Seiran nodded vigorously.
"I promise you that! I will prove to you the sincerity of my feelings towards him by all means!"
He tried to put all his strength of conviction in his eyes, all his feelings. All that he wanted to say but could not see how to convey, how to give them contentment to make his interlocutor understand the intensity of his feelings. Faced with the wall of the impossibility of giving form to his love for the angel to make it visible to all, he found no other way than to repeat his words, hoping that they would be enough to give him the reprieve he needed to win her trust definitively.
For a moment, time seemed to hang on the blade of the guard. Still hesitant, she maintained a steady pressure on his neck, like a reminder of the sword of Damocles that hung over the demon.
"I know this is a difficult decision for you to make, but I'm afraid Eviris will notice you and intervene..." Seiran resolved to intervene in the guard's thinking. "I would like to avoid a diplomatic incident, despite the importance of our conversation..."
He bit his lips. He didn't like to pressure the person whose trust he had to gain in this way, but what he had said was true. He was genuinely afraid that Eviris would walk in on him in the middle of it all. Snickering with displeasure, the angel withdrew her katana and sheathed it in her scabbard with a perfectly controlled gesture. She stood watching the demon, still threatening, as Seiran bowed to her in thanks and slowly started down the stairs to the underground when she interrupted him one last time.
"You know about this...." she began, hesitantly. "You know, don't you?"
She didn't dare finish her sentence. They exchanged a look that said it all. Seiran suspected what she wanted to ask him. But he was afraid to answer. Because the consequences of doing so were far too great, and he did not want to face them. Not now. He wanted it to come from Niris himself.
As he thought of a way to evade the question, the angel turned her head towards the door and ran like a cheetah to the upper floor. In less than a second, she was gone, and her aura was undetectable. It was then that Seiran understood. Inja was a 'sensitive' too. Not staying long in the cramped place, he turned and resumed his descent. This time he could go and see his beloved. And nothing and nobody would stop him.