Chapter 32: The Worst Kind of Curiosity

Xavion straightened his spine instantly, taking a step backward as his hands dropped back beneath his cloak. He averted his gaze, staring intensely at a line of wooden crates stacked outside a nearby green-grocer’s stall, his eye wide and fixed as he fought to pull his breathing back into a steady rhythm.

Every military instinct inside him screamed at the sudden breach of personal space, but the cold, logical part of his mind was already frantically calculating the damage.

Then he saw Lioren.

Lioren had simply dropped down on one knee right in the middle of the dusty road, his eyes level with the frightened six-year-old’s face.

"Hey there, soldier," Lioren said softly. "You took a pretty hard tumble off that corner, didn’t you?"

"I... I was just looking..."

"I know," Lioren replied gently, resting his forearms across his knee. "Curiosity isn’t a crime. It’s actually pretty useful if you want to explore the world. But do you know what isn’t very nice?"

The boy shook his head, his wide brown eyes staring at Lioren’s face.

"It’s not nice to grab at someone when they’ve already told you not to," Lioren explained. "If someone doesn’t want you touching them, you have to respect that."

"I just wanted to see the thing..." the child mumbled.

Lioren glanced down at the boy’s exposed right leg, where a small red graze was already welling with a tiny bead of blood through a tear in his trousers. "Ouch. Look at that knee. Does it sting?"

The boy immediately puffed out his chest, swallowing his tears. "No! I’m tough!"

Lioren let out a small hum, leaning in a fraction closer. "Right. You look tough. But tell me this, if your friend from down the street saw that scrape and tried to slap it, but you told him to leave it alone because it hurt... how would you feel if he grabbed your leg anyway?"

The boy frowned, his brow furrowing in deep, childish concentration. "I’d slap his hand away! It’s my leg!"

"Exactly," Lioren said, offering a slow, solemn nod of total agreement. "It’s your leg. You get to decide who touches it. And this handsome big brother over here?" Lioren gestured casually over his shoulder toward Xavion, without making a grand spectacle of it. "His eye is a very sensitive place. It hurt him a lot in the past, and he doesn’t want anyone touching it. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad kid for asking, but everyone gets to decide what happens to their own body. Understand?"

The explanation was simple and easy for a child to understand, without a hint of the condescension nobles usually showed toward commoners.

Xavion stood motionless beside Therin, his eye fixed on the back of Lioren’s head.

He had expected Lioren to make an excuse for him. He had expected the Duke to use his political rank to brush the child aside, or perhaps to offer him a silver coin to quiet him down and move on before the crowd gathered. He certainly hadn’t expected the Lord of the North to sit in the dust, validate Xavion’s sudden, rigid boundaries, and explain them to a six-year-old with genuine respect.

The child looked past Lioren, his wide eyes drifting up to where Xavion stood. The boy shuffled his feet on the cobblestones, his cheeks flushing a faint, embarrassed red.

"I’m sorry, blue big brother," the boy said quietly, his voice small but clear. "I was just curious about that thing. I won’t try to grab it again."

The tight knot that had coiled at the base of Xavion’s neck slowly, steadily loosened. He took a short, quiet breath, stepping forward and lowering himself down so he was once again at eye level with the child.

"Apology accepted," Xavion murmured softly, his voice clear and smooth. He paused, his long, pale fingers resting against his knee. "And... I apologize for grabbing your wrist so sharply. I was startled."

The boy’s eyes lit up, his earlier fear vanishing in an instant as he waved his small hand dismissively. "Nah, it’s fine! My wrist is super strong! I didn’t even cry!"

"Is that so?" Lioren chuckled, standing up and brushing a speck of market dust from the knee of his trousers.

"Yeah!" The boy puffed his chest out even further, proudly raising his wooden toy sword toward the sky. "I’m gonna be a soldier when I grow up! A big one!"

Lioren raised an eyebrow, a teasing, lopsided grin touching his lips. "Oh? A soldier for the King’s guard here in the capital?"

"No!" the child declared with absolute, fierce conviction, shaking his head so hard his messy brown curls bounced. "I’m going to the North! I’m gonna be a soldier, just like the big, scary ones! I’ll get a sword this big!" He stretched his arms as far apart as they would go, nearly dropping his wooden sword in the process. "And then I’ll go fight the great big monsters that live in the mountains! The ones with sharp teeth and claws and eyes that glow in the dark! I’ll go on those... those... The sneaky missions! Where you creep around and go shhh and then jump out and go, ’Aha! Got you! The... the sabotation missions!"

"Sabotation?" he repeated. Therin, standing near the bench with three boxes balanced under his arm, let out a dry, quiet cough. "I believe the term you are searching for is subjugation, young man. Though, given your description, I suspect you mean a military expedition to subdue the monsters rather than a mission to sneak up on them and shout ’Aha!’"

"Sabotation!" the boy repeated stubbornly, glaring at the Grand Duke’s aide with all the terrifying authority a six-year-old could muster. "You knew what I meant anyway!"

Lioren burst out laughing, a bright, booming sound that made two passing flower-sellers turn and smile. "A fierce strategist already! So, you think you’re brave enough for the northern snows, do you? It gets pretty cold up there. The frost will turn your nose blue before breakfast."

"I don’t care! I’ll eat the frost!" The boy swung his wooden sword through the air with a loud whoosh. He turned back toward Xavion, giving him a grand, sweeping nod that he had clearly copied from a theater troupe. "You look really cool, big brother! Like a dark knight from the old stories! With the blue hair and the cover thing!"

Before anyone could respond, the boy waved enthusiastically at the group, his wooden sword bobbing dangerously in his other hand. "Bye, blue big brother! Bye, green-haired lord!" he shouted, already backing away toward the alley where his friends were waiting.

With one last vigorous wave, he spun around and sprinted off toward two boys waiting beside a water pump. His voice carried across the market as he called out excitedly, "Hey! Look at my knee! I talked to a dark knight!"

Lioren stood watching the boy’s retreating back, shaking his head with a fond, easy smile resting on his face. "Well," he remarked airily, resting his hands on his hips, "the northern recruiter’s office will be thrilled. We’re always short on soldiers who claim they can eat frost for breakfast."

Evelia glided up beside him, smoothing her maroon silk sleeves with a dry, elegant flick of her wrist. "The boy is barely tall enough to reach a saddle stirrup, Lioren, and he mangles four-syllable words. I wouldn’t draft his enlistment papers just yet."

"Every great general starts somewhere, sister," Lioren argued cheerfully, turning back toward them. "I mispronounced quartermaster until I was eight."

"You mispronounced infrastructure until you were twenty," she countered smoothly.

Lioren shot her a sharpglare, but as he turned his body around, his gaze landed directly on Xavion.

The blue-haired prince was still standing near the edge of the flagstones. He wasn’t looking at the crowd, nor was he looking at the alley where the boy had disappeared.

He was staring directly at Lioren.

His violet eye stayed on Lioren, holding him in place until his easy smile faltered and his words trailed off.

Xavion had spent long, grueling years surrounded by people who treated his damaged eye as a tragedy, a failure, or a grotesque physical defect that needed to be politely ignored in polite company. When the child had reached for the patch, Xavion had prepared himself for the usual sequence of events: the awkward, hushed apologies, the pitying looks from bystanders, or the clumsy attempts to pretend nothing had happened at all.

Instead, Lioren had simply... handled it. He hadn’t treated Xavion like a fragile, broken veteran who needed to be shielded from a child’s curiosity, nor had he expected Xavion to sit quietly and endure an uncomfortable breach of his boundaries just to keep the peace in a market square. He had treated Xavion’s comfort as something natural, obvious, and entirely non-negotiable.

"Your Highness?" Lioren asked, his eyebrows knitting together in mild, sudden concern as he took a step closer. "Are you alright? Did... did he actually scratch you, or...?"

Xavion paused. The faint, distant hum of the market plaza seemed to recede into the background, leaving only the quiet space between them.

"No," Xavion answered. "There’s no need to worry. I’m not hurt."

He looked at the Grand Duke, at the slight smear of street dust near the knee of his fine trousers, at the bright, clear blue of his eyes, at the lopsided grin that seemed so entirely out of place on a man who commanded an army.

"Thank you, Your Grace," Xavion added quietly.

Lioren blinked, clearly caught off guard by the sudden use of his name, before waving a dismissive, breezy hand through the air. "Oh, please! For what? Talking down a six-year-old with a wooden stick? That’s hardly a heroic feat, Your Highness. I’ve dealt with far worse during city council meetings."

As Lioren turned and began loudly debating with Evelia over whether they should stop for candied chestnuts on the way back, his sister immediately shot down the idea, reminding him that they’d already spent half the afternoon wandering from one shop to another.

Xavion remained standing in his spot for a moment longer, watching them from a short distance away.

He watched the Grand Duke’s green hair bobbing through the crowd, watched the way Lioren casually gestured with his hands while arguing with his sister, completely unbothered by his ruined coat or his dusty knees.

For the first time since he had crossed the border into Werestia, Xavion didn’t look at Lioren Roscaire through the cold, calculating lens of strategic survival. He didn’t see an unpredictable warlord, an eccentric noble, or a political warden holding his chain.

He just saw a man who was, in the most ordinary, effortless, and terrifying way possible... remarkably kind.

And for reasons Xavion couldn’t entirely explain to himself, that realization felt far more dangerous than any poisoned glass he had ever been handed.