Chapter 58: Caught at the Window

“So… I just wanted to get some fresh air. I thought I might climb up onto the roof.”

It was the most unbelievable excuse Owen had ever heard. His brow furrowed at the ridiculous explanation.

“If you felt cooped up, you could have gone to the garden. Why the roof?”

“…I happen to like high places. I truly wasn’t trying to escape.”

Like high places? He wasn’t some tightrope performer. At that height, one bad step would mean serious injury. And yet he claimed he had climbed out the window for no reason other than that?

“Try thinking before you act. Do you have several lives to spare? Even if you climbed out the window, there’s no way to reach the roof from there. It’s impossible.”

‘I only have one life too,’ Fria thought resentfully.

“It is possible. When Your Majesty was ill before, I climbed out the window to gather medicinal herbs.”

Owen scoffed. It sounded like nonsense. Fria was neither a trained assassin nor an acrobat.

“I have a witness! If you ask Byron, he’ll confirm it. He saw me on the roof that night. I was picking mariposa flowers when he mistook me for an assassin, and I had to tell him I was the physician.”

Seeing that Owen still looked unconvinced, Fria strode back toward the window as though intending to demonstrate.

The moment he placed a hand on the frame, Owen barked sharply,

“Take your hand off that. Put your foot down. If you climb onto that windowsill again, I’ll make sure you never get another breath of fresh air.”

Hearing the threat, Fria quietly lowered the foot he had lifted.

Only after confirming that Fria had stepped completely away from the window did Owen let out a weary sigh.

“I’ll pretend to believe your absurd excuse. If you truly want to go onto the roof, then use the proper route.”

“Follow me.”

With that, Owen turned and headed into the inner chambers.

Fria stared blankly for a moment before realizing what he meant and hurrying after him.

At the end of the corridor, Owen opened the nearest room, unlocked the lowest compartment of a cabinet, reached behind the drawer, and retrieved a hidden key. He inserted it into a concealed keyhole in a wardrobe built into the wall.

With a click, the wardrobe swung open.

Instead of clothes, a ladder leading upward lay inside.

Owen climbed first, then used the key again to unlock an iron hatch overhead.

The metal groaned open, and cool night air poured inside.

“Are you just going to stand there?”

Owen’s face appeared through the opening above.

Only then did Fria scramble up after him.

Once on the roof, Owen extended a hand. Fria accepted it and climbed out, immediately looking around in amazement.

They really were on the rooftop.

The moon had vanished, leaving only a sky full of stars. Sitting down and gazing upward, Fria spotted a shooting star streaking across the darkness.

“I never imagined the entrance was this close.”

“It exists, but I’ve never had reason to use it.”

Because of one peculiar concubine, Owen found himself doing things he had never expected. He had known about the emergency escape route for years but had never once climbed through it until tonight.

“If I’d known, I wouldn’t have gone through all the trouble of climbing out the window.”

Fria looked at Owen with genuine delight.

Perhaps he truly did enjoy high places.

Had he really climbed here from outside?

The thought alone was dizzying.

“Did you train as an acrobat when you were young? I never knew you could climb walls.”

“There are enough ledges and supports if you know where to put your hands and feet. As long as you don’t look down, it isn’t difficult.”

“I thought you said you were born frail. Where did you learn that?”

“I loved climbing trees when I was little. By the time I was nine, I could climb things even taller than this.”

Pointing toward a towering tree in the distance, Fria smiled.

“So that’s why you climbed the tree back then?”

Owen recalled the incident at the imperial villa.

Fria remembered it as well and shot him a disgruntled glance.

“I climbed up because a baby bird had fallen from its nest. I wanted to put it back.”

Puffing out his lips in lingering indignation, Fria finally explained the truth behind the day he had been slapped.

Even now, he still didn’t understand why he had deserved it.

Watching him, Owen spoke quietly.

“I hate seeing people die. I hate killing them, I hate watching them die, and I hate seeing what’s left afterward. So don’t do things in front of me that can be mistaken for something like that.”

It was not exactly an apology, but in Owen’s own way it was both an explanation and an attempt to reassure him.

Fria simply stared silently at the stars for a long while.

“When the roof needs repairs, do workers come up through that passage too?”

After such a heavy silence, the question was completely unexpected.

Assuming Fria wanted to leave the previous topic behind, Owen answered while continuing to gaze upward.

“You can’t allow just anyone into the emperor’s private chambers. There’s another entrance, though it’s usually locked. We’ve never needed roof repairs, but if we did, the chief attendant would open it. There’s also a separate access point for the guards.”

So the rooftop had multiple entrances after all.

Fria felt oddly disappointed, as though a private sanctuary had been invaded. He had thought this was the one blind spot beyond the emperor’s reach, only to discover he had been in the palm of Owen’s hand all along.

Unaware of those thoughts, Owen remarked with a tone somewhere between jest and threat,

“If the castle is ever attacked, I’ll assume you leaked the route. You do seem rather fond of rebels.”

Was he still sulking over Sir Maxim?

Fria looked at him in disbelief.

Satisfied with the expression on his face, Owen lay back against the roof.

Another shooting star carved a brilliant arc across the sky.

Fria followed suit, lying on his back and gazing upward. Without the moon, the darkness seemed deeper, making every tiny star shine more vividly.

“Endure one more day. I’ll let you leave the day after tomorrow.”

The welcome words made Fria’s eyes widen.

Had fifteen days already passed?

The day he had been dragged here from the library felt as vivid as yesterday, yet everything that had happened since seemed impossibly distant.

“Really?”

“Your maids have already returned as well. Once you leave here, we won’t see each other as often, so you may take a few of my portraits with you.”

“…What?”

Fria’s face brightened at the mention of his attendants, only to sour immediately at the suggestion of taking imperial portraits.

Owen’s confident generosity was the real problem.

“I thought they weren’t allowed to leave the palace…”

“The large official paintings aren’t. Smaller ones are fine. Do you want a bigger portrait?”

“What? No!”

Fria shook his head frantically.

“No, no. A small one is enough. Definitely a small one.”

Maybe he could hang it in his sitting room and glare at it three times a day to vent his frustration.

The seasons had changed over those two weeks.

Though early autumn afternoons remained warm, the night air had turned chilly.

Seeing Fria rub his arms against the cold, Owen stood.

“That’s enough. You’ve had plenty of fresh air.”

He walked ahead, then suddenly stopped.

“You said you climbed up here for medicinal herbs?”

“Yes… mariposa flowers.”

“What are they used for?”

“They reduce fever. They’re commonly used in Alphenia.”

Fria pointed to the small blossoms swaying nearby.

“Bring me some.”

“The mariposa?”

Owen simply nodded.

Perhaps he intended to have the imperial physician inspect them. Maybe he suspected Fria of using dangerous herbs.

Grumbling inwardly about the emperor’s suspicious nature, Fria picked several blossoms and held them out.

“Why are you giving them to me?”

Looking down at the wilted flowers, Owen seemed puzzled.

“Aren’t you going to hand them to the physician?”

“Why would I? You’re the one who needs them.”

Looking at the male concubine who had been bedridden with fever twice in such a short time, Owen reasoned that although the physician’s medicine was serviceable, Fria’s familiar remedy would probably work faster.

“Me?”

Recalling their overwhelmingly bitter taste, Fria grimaced.

“You climbed out the window just to gather these, didn’t you? You weren’t feeling well today either. You should take them.”

The emperor spoke as though generously granting him an opportunity.

Then, seeing Fria hesitate, he added the decisive remark,

“You considered them effective enough to slip them to an unconscious patient. They must be very good medicine.”

“…That’s true.”

Reluctantly, Fria nodded and picked up a single stem.

For someone who claimed they were such an effective remedy, he looked as though he were staring at poison.

He raised the flower to his lips but still couldn’t bring himself to eat it.

Watching this, Owen suddenly reached over.

In the blink of an eye, the mariposa vanished into the emperor’s own mouth.

Before Fria could react, Owen stepped forward, frowned at the bitterness, and pressed his lips against Fria’s.

The sharp taste crossed from one mouth to the other, sliding over Fria’s tongue before disappearing down his throat.

“So that’s the reason.”

You hated taking it because it was bitter.

Only after a long moment did Owen pull away, murmuring his realization with what looked suspiciously like amusement.

Looking at that expression, Fria silently decided that once he returned to his own residence, glaring at Owen’s portrait three times a day would no longer be enough.

He would glare at it six times instead.

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