# Chapter 84
Levi surveyed his surroundings with wide-awake eyes.
Through the window, now neatly repaired by the mansion’s servants, pale moonlight poured in, looking as if it might shatter. Where part of that light touched the bedside table, a dagger in a leather sheath lay instead of the blood-stained glass shard. The fragrant scent of flowers still wafted from the vase of yellow flowers, and the bed, infused with pleasant fragrances, was undeniably comfortable.
This time, he turned his head to look at the space beside him.
Ion Verdit was asleep, lying on his side as if facing Levi, breathing evenly. Like a pure child without a care in the world.
His completely defenseless appearance didn’t make Levi relax—on the contrary, it made him even more tense.
‘Is he pretending to be asleep?’
Was he feigning sleep to watch what Levi would do?
But if that were the case, there was no change in Ion’s breathing pattern. Since someone awake couldn’t maintain such uniform breathing for hours, he certainly seemed to be asleep.
Levi reached for the bedside table, minimizing any sound. The leather-wrapped dagger handle fit perfectly in his grip. After silently drawing the dagger from its leather sheath, Levi stared at the well-honed blade where the moonlight touched it.
‘No matter how I think about it, I don’t understand. Why leave a weapon within reach?’
Levi turned his body to face Ion, keeping his movements minimal. Even then, Ion remained deeply asleep. He looked as if he was experiencing a good night’s sleep for the first time in his life.
Levi stared at him fixedly, then moved his hand holding the dagger.
The raising of his hand was excruciatingly slow.
But when he struck down, aiming for Ion’s exposed throat, he moved lightning-fast.
The dagger’s sharp blade seemed certain to completely pierce Ion’s throat.
But the dagger stopped just before penetrating Ion’s neck. Only an extremely thin space remained—so thin that even a small tremor could cause a scratch—creating a palpable sense of precariousness.
Levi, observing Ion who still showed no change, lowered the dagger.
He had infused it with clear killing intent, though not as intense as on the battlefield, and someone of Ion’s skill should have instantly opened his eyes and instinctively subdued him just from sensing that threat.
‘Did he take sleeping medicine?’
Perhaps the same strong sleeping drug he had been given might also affect Ion. Assuming, of course, that Ion had also consumed his blood with it.
Whatever the reason, Ion Verdit was sleeping with the most peaceful face in the world, showing no intention of opening his eyes even with a blade held to his throat with killing intent. While this should obviously be a situation where Levi should kill him, it felt almost as if Ion was deliberately offering his neck, making Levi wonder if there was some trap.
It was different from his time as an assassin, hiding his presence and infiltrating under cover of darkness. Now, he had not only a name but also a family name as a noble of a country, his face was known, and he was a war prisoner captured by a grand duke of an enemy nation. Unlike his past as a mere assassin with an obscure existence, his current self had to be careful when killing the grand duke before him.
Levi remained lying still, gripping the dagger, letting about ten minutes pass. Keeping his body tense, he watched Ion’s face closely in case he might wake, having sensed the killing intent.
Ion still didn’t open his eyes. His breathing remained even, and he didn’t twitch or toss and turn.
Somewhat reassured, Levi slowly sat up.
Clink—
A very small sound of chains brushing against each other came from his leg. Worried that Ion might have heard, he looked back, but Ion was still asleep.
‘I need to deal with this shackle first.’
He couldn’t break the shackle or cut the chain with his own strength. That’s why he had considered breaking his foot, but fortunately—or unfortunately—Ion had left a dagger within reach.
‘I’ll have to cut off my ankle.’
Looking at the razor-sharp blade, he casually had this terrifying thought. Given the dagger’s sturdy craftsmanship and well-honed blade, it seemed possible to cut through his ankle somehow. It would be faster than repeatedly striking with something hard to break his foot and ankle.
‘In my current physical state, it would take some time to regenerate a severed leg, but…’
Having made up his mind, Levi propped his shackled ankle on the low wooden frame at the foot of the bed. He rolled up the cloth padding between the shackle and his ankle and put it in his mouth to muffle any potential groans.
After pulling the shackle up toward his calf as far as the inner slack allowed, he placed the dagger against the thin part of his ankle.
He needed to apply force all at once and cut as quickly as possible.
Before Ion woke up.
“What are you doing?”
Just as he was about to press the blade against his ankle with force.
Ion’s voice came from right beside him. Simultaneously, his body was yanked backward and dropped heavily onto the bed. His leg, which had been propped on the bed frame, fell with an unpleasant jingling sound from the chains.
Someone else’s weight pressed down on his body, and a shadow fell across his face. With the moonlight behind him, Ion’s face wasn’t clearly visible, but Levi could easily tell that he was angry.
“I’m asking what you’re doing.”
His wrist, pinned down, hurt. The dagger slipped from his grip due to the intense pain in his wrist, and his fingertips tingled.
Ion, who had been glaring at the silent Levi with frightening eyes, picked up the fallen dagger and threw it roughly toward the door. The dagger hit the door with a loud noise, and it seemed like the presences outside were pacing in front of the door. Due to Ion’s order to never enter no matter what sounds they heard, the guards showed no signs of knocking.
“When I permitted you to have a weapon, it was meant for you to point it at me, not to injure your own body.”
Ion, who had spoken as if spitting out the words, bowed his head deeply and sighed.
“Stab me instead. …I really thought my heart was going to stop.”
Ion’s floating hair and forehead touched Levi’s small shoulder. Pinned down by Ion, Levi just blinked, processing each of his actions and words.
‘It’s strange indeed.’
When he tried to kill Ion, he seemed utterly oblivious, as if the epitome of dullness, not even noticing; yet the moment Levi placed the dagger against his own ankle, he immediately jumped up and became this angry.
‘I don’t understand.’
It had been equally incomprehensible earlier.
When Ion said he had made food himself, Levi had expected something like thin gruel or oddly colored bread. Kalvern would sometimes give him such things, telling him to try food that humans eat.
But what was laid out before Levi was a feast he had never experienced before. Various colorful stews with intriguing aromas, warm and soft bread, juicy meat dishes of all kinds, strange confections that melted as soon as they entered his mouth, and sweet, fragrant tea from other continents.
He couldn’t help but be amazed at this feast of “human food” that he had never eaten before or even thought of eating. At that moment, for the first time, Levi felt he understood what others often referred to as “the joy of eating.”
Ion told Levi, who was quietly tasting the food, that all the dishes before him had been prepared especially for him. He added that he still had many things he wanted to feed him and show him.
Is this how one normally treats a captured enemy commander?
No matter how many times he asked himself, the answer that came back was always “no.”
The kind Ion Verdit.
The questions that arose from the layers of his kindness refused to leave Levi’s mind.
It was the same at this very moment.
“Why?”
Ion’s face, which had been resting on Levi’s shoulder, lifted.
“Why are you angry?”
“Why, you ask…”
With a face devoid of the hostility and suspicion he had shown until now, Levi looked up at Ion like an innocent child.
“I don’t understand why you’re angry when I aimed at myself, not you.”
“…”
Ion silently gazed into Levi’s questioning eyes.
Being asked why he was angry about something that was obviously anger-inducing left him too dumbfounded to answer. Who wouldn’t be angry when the person they love tries to injure themselves?
Ion knew that Levi wouldn’t harm himself for intimidation or for show. Not only was he not cunning enough to think that far, but in the past, he had also handed Ion a sword, saying he couldn’t kill himself. That’s why Ion had been reassured that even with a blade, Levi would only point it at others, not at himself. He never imagined Levi would try to cut off his own ankle for the clear purpose of escape.
‘I was a fool. He’s someone who cut his own hand multiple times on the battlefield to use his ability.’
As Ion was blaming himself for being too complacent, Levi continued speaking.
“I tried to kill you earlier too.”
“I know.”
Having sensed the killing intent in his sleep, Ion had already awakened. Knowing who was pointing the dagger at him, he was willing to quietly endure being stabbed. Of course, he had planned to twist his neck at the moment of stabbing to avoid a fatal wound.
Levi tilted his head with an even more puzzled expression.
“If you know, why aren’t you angry about that?”
Is that something to be angry about?
With all his attention focused on Levi, Ion couldn’t readily grasp what Levi meant. Even if Levi pointed a blade at him and tried to kill him, that itself wasn’t something to be angry at Levi for.
Rather, he should blame all the circumstances that created such a situation and his own powerlessness.
Ion, who had been silently closing his mouth, lifted Levi’s black hand. Supporting the black hand that came up obediently, he kissed the palm where dull patterns were etched.
“You may not remember, but without Levi, I would have died long ago.”
Ion gazed down tenderly at Levi, who was staring wide-eyed at words he couldn’t comprehend.
“From that day on, you’ve held my life in your hands, so how could I possibly be angry?”
