Chapter 66: A Leak No One Else Could See

Lucian’s hand pressed flat against Sonata’s hilt where it rested against his hip, holding the tremor steady, and the sensation crawling up through his palm matched exactly what he’d felt radiating off Sophia days earlier.

It was as though the sword itself wanted to drink in whatever Dark Mana lingered nearby, except this trace was thin, gossamer thin, buried beneath something clearly meant to keep it hidden from anyone else in the room.

Without Sonata, Lucian doubted he’d have noticed it at all.

But the texture underneath it was unmistakable, the same coarse, corrosive quality he’d felt seeping into Sophia’s wound, dark mana with teeth, the kind that ate into skin and left it rotting from within.

That alone would have been enough to unsettle him. What deepened it further was the shape of the man himself, something naggingly, maddeningly familiar the longer Lucian studied him.

Have I seen him somewhere before?

Standing beside the masked stranger, a knight Lucian recognized instantly by his posture alone and the massive blade strapped at his hip, more than enough to hint at the strength he carried. Commander Gareth. Sworn protector of Princess Helia.

Gareth’s presence beside the man raised an obvious question, whether the two actually knew each other.

If they did, Gareth showed no sign of it, standing close enough to the stranger that any trace of Dark Mana should have registered, yet betraying nothing, no tension, no wariness, nothing at all.

Could he be Crimson-blooded? Hiding among Lumina’s people the way others have before?

The theory collapsed almost as quickly as it formed, memory pulling him back to the moment before he’d been stabbed days ago, watching Isabella fight with Dark Mana of her own.

What she’d wielded then had been refined, subtle, something you’d only catch if you stood close enough and paid careful attention.

This was nothing like that.

What bled off the masked man felt coarser, uglier, dark mana that stung every one of Lucian’s senses at once rather than whispering past them the way Isabella’s had.

And it didn’t feel deliberate either. Isabella’s had been controlled, shaped, released with intent. This felt like a leak, energy seeping out of the man without his knowledge, faint enough that almost no one else could have caught it at all.

Through his own eyes, though, Lucian could see it plainly, black smoke curling and pooling around the stranger’s clothing.

The exact same smoke he’d watched pour out of Sophia’s room the night he’d first walked into it.

Can Commander Gareth really not sense any of this, standing that close?

Lucian turned the puzzle over for a long moment before landing on something close to an answer.

First possibility: the Dark Mana wasn’t coming from the man’s own body at all. More likely, it was bleeding out of some kind of Dark Relic, a forbidden artifact, rare enough that few people ever encountered one in a lifetime, and the man himself seemed to only half control it, enough to mask its true nature from everyone around him except Lucian, whose sight carried a gift none of the others had.

And the more important piece of that theory was this: pulling off a deception this convincing, keeping an entire ballroom oblivious, required real strength behind it regardless of the source.

I can feel real danger coming off this man.

The thought didn’t come from paranoia this time. It came from a simple, cold fact, someone standing in this room right now could wield Dark Mana, and as far as Lucian could tell, he was the only person here who’d noticed at all.

He scanned the crowd again, searching for Isabella, who should have already been here waiting for him by now. She was nowhere in sight. If she’d been present, he could have asked her directly whether this masked figure had any connection to Lumina’s people.

"Lady Alicia. Do you happen to know if Commander Gareth still serves as Princess Helia’s sole personal guard? Does he still hold that position?"

The question came out carefully phrased, an attempt to fish for information without asking outright who the masked man actually was. Lucian couldn’t risk that directness, not with everyone around him still operating under the assumption that he couldn’t see at all.

Asking pointedly about a stranger’s identity risked raising exactly the kind of suspicion he couldn’t afford, how would a blind man have noticed someone at all, let alone someone who’d apparently just arrived?

His real hope had actually been aimed at Cecilia, not Alicia. If anyone here had a talent for digging up gossip, it would be her, and Lucian suspected she might already know something about the masked stranger.

But given how little rapport he’d built with Cecilia so far, he’d redirected the question toward Alicia instead, hoping she might have picked up even a fragment of information on her own.

The question came out slightly wrong, though, judging by the look crossing Alicia’s face, her lips pressed together, visibly fighting back a laugh.

"Why are you suddenly calling me Lady? Weren’t you already calling me by my name directly before? I’d really rather you just keep doing that."

Lucian froze at the observation.

She’s right. I have been calling her by name without thinking about it, like we’ve known each other for years. But we’ve really only just met again recently.

Confusion settled over him, uncertain now how he was even supposed to act around her, though Alicia cut through it firmly, insisting he simply go back to treating her the way he had been.

Cecilia, for her part, looked less than thrilled at the exchange, clearly still hoping her little sister wouldn’t grow any closer to Lucian than she already had. Reluctant as she seemed, though, she still offered up the information he’d actually been fishing for about Commander Gareth.

"You asked about Commander Gareth. He’s still serving, still Princess Helia’s guard wherever she goes. But as far as I know, there’s someone new who’s recently started accompanying her alongside him."

"Someone new? Who?"

The question came from Alicia this time, apparently just as much in the dark about this second guard as Lucian was. It wasn’t unusual, strictly speaking, for an imperial princess to keep more than five commanders on her personal detail.

But Helia had always relied on Gareth alone, which made the sudden addition of someone new genuinely curious to both of them.

"If you two are that curious, just look over there."

Cecilia pointed, and her finger landed exactly where Lucian’s attention had already settled, the masked stranger radiating that faint, unsettling Dark Mana, now confirmed as one of Princess Helia’s own personal guards.

"Sister, you mean that man with the strange hat and mask? Actually, now that I look at his clothes, doesn’t he seem like he’s not even from the Bravenheart Empire at all?"

It was a strange thought, admittedly, that Helia would take on a personal guard from outside imperial territory entirely.

Cecilia nodded slowly. "You’re right, he isn’t from here. As far as I know, he isn’t even from this continent."

Lucian’s mouth parted slightly at that, the implication settling in.

"If he’s not from Arta, then where is he from?" His voice had dropped into something more serious, weight gathering behind the question as though he already sensed this answer would matter more than it should.

Cecilia pressed a finger to her temple, thinking it over, before the answer struck her all at once.

"Ah, if I remember correctly, he’s from the continent of Eosia. The Green Lands."