The Snow Leopard Baby of the Black Leopard Family - Chapter 37

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 37
“Please step aside. Tiel needs to rest.”
But Cassius’s firm words and steady hand thwarted Alpheus’s plan to gather his granddaughter into his arms.
He waved off Alpheus with an air of dismissal.
“Tiel used her Innate Ability. She’ll be exhausted.”
Though they’d given her water from the Temple before departing, the girl’s naturally weak constitution made concern inevitable.
Alpheus, reluctant as he was, cleared his throat and let Tiel go with Cassius.
Tiel giggled at the sight of Alpheus, then lifted her gaze to regard the Asterian mansion anew.
It was the same house she’d left from, and yet it looked different now.
‘…Asterian.’
She turned the name over quietly in her mind. When she’d first arrived, this place had terrified her. Now it didn’t frighten her at all.
Not Alpheus, not Cassius, not Ferdi or Ludian, not even the butler Farden or the head maid Sophia—no one in Asterian frightened her anymore.
No matter what anyone says, I’m a child of Asterian. I’m Cassius’s daughter.
This place is my home.
The thought scattered as Cassius strode into the mansion, still cradling Tiel in his arms.
Alpheus made to follow, then paused to give both his grandsons’ shoulders a gentle tap.
“You two did well. Thank you, Ferdi and Ludian.”
“It was nothing compared to—”
Ferdi cast a disgruntled look at the carriage following behind them.
His gaze was sharp with disapproval. Alpheus followed the direction of his stare.
There stood a grand and ornate carriage, unmistakable in its splendor.
Arriving a step behind the Asterian carriage, it bore the Imperial Palace’s crest emblazoned clearly upon it.
It was Iandros’s carriage.
The carriage door opened, and Iandros Crashion descended, smoothing his garments as he did.
Upon spotting Alpheus Ewald Asterian, he approached and inclined his head.
“Duke Ewald.”
“Your Highness.”
Alpheus set his grandsons aside and moved toward Iandros.
Then he bowed in gratitude.
“I am in your debt. Without Your Highness, Asterian’s situation would have been dire indeed.”
“The mighty Asterian—the house that can fell birds from the sky—shaken so easily by one small girl. Though I suspect Asterian could have managed it alone, had need be.”
Iandros shrugged. Yet there was no mockery in his tone.
Alpheus chuckled awkwardly and nodded in agreement.
“Parents are all the same, Your Highness. We lose our objectivity where our children are concerned. Please, come inside. I’ll have tea brought at once.”
The moment Alpheus finished speaking, two servants scurried hastily into the mansion to relay his orders.
***
“Thank you again for your assistance, Crown Prince Iandros. I cannot express my gratitude enough.”
Alpheus bowed once more.
Iandros tilted his teacup to his lips and nodded.
“I suspect it would have worked out even without me. That little one is no ordinary child.”
“Little one? You mean Tiel?”
“Yes, Tiel.”
Iandros smiled, recalling the small girl who had not flinched even before High Priest Andreas.
‘Strange… it shouldn’t be possible.’
‘It shouldn’t be possible.’
For a seven-year-old, she was audacious and decisive beyond measure.
It was a far cry from how she’d come to him in Nestian, trembling and pleading for her life mere days ago.
‘Back then she seemed so much like prey…’
‘I have the snow leopard’s coat and the black leopard’s eyes. But I can’t believe I’m not a child of Asterian.’
Now, seeing her claws fully extended, she was unmistakably a predator.
Perhaps she’d simply been holding her breath all this time, not yet knowing how to bare her teeth.
Iandros smiled faintly.
‘Such a small thing.’
She looked fragile enough to shatter with a single tap, and yet—where had she learned the word “repay”? How had she come to speak of repayment with those bright, eager eyes? The sensation of her soft cheeks in his fingers rose unbidden to memory.
Soft as sponge cake, really. He could have spent the whole day pinching them.
Iandros’s mind was entirely filled with thoughts of Tiel.
Alpheus, watching Iandros smile with his gaze fixed outward, finally spoke.
“I haven’t heard all the details, so I’m uncertain of the full circumstances. But I understand my granddaughter used her Innate Ability before Andreas…”
“Yes, she’s every inch an Asterian. She’ll argue when her bloodline is denied—just like Ferdi and Ludian.”
“Hah, so Tiel has such a side to her. I wish I could have witnessed it myself.”
Iandros let out an amused laugh and nodded.
After several more sips of tea, Iandros rose from his seat not long after.
“I should be going. His Majesty has summoned me.”
There was a note of irritation in his voice.
Alpheus sensed at once that Iandros’s mood was not altogether pleasant, and he bowed respectfully.
“Of course, forgive the intrusion. Do go, Your Highness. I shall speak with His Majesty separately regarding today’s events.”
“Yes, we’ll speak again soon. Duke Ewald.”
“Farewell, Your Highness.”
Iandros nodded and departed the reception room.
Cedric, Iandros’s aide who had been waiting outside all along, bowed and draped the Crown Prince’s cloak across his shoulders.
“You’re late, Your Highness.”
“I know that much myself, Cedric.”
Iandros replied irritably and released a long sigh.
Cedric said nothing further. He knew his master’s temperament well enough. Best not to prod.
Iandros’s slow, measured pace suddenly halted.
Cedric looked at him with puzzlement.
“Did you forget something, Your Highness?”
“…”
Perhaps I should glimpse her face once more before I leave.
A fleeting thought flickered across his mind.
But Iandros quickly resumed walking. If he lingered any longer, there was no telling what the Emperor might say.
“Nothing. Let’s go.”
Iandros climbed into the carriage.
Cedric, sensing his master’s displeasure, boarded in silence as well.
As the carriage departed and left the Asterian mansion behind, Iandros gazed out the window the entire way.
“Cedric.”
“Yes, Your Highness. Speak freely.”
“He’s summoned me about the Bonded Partner issue again, hasn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“How tiresome.”
The brief exchange fell away into silence.
Iandros exhaled heavily.
Since when had the Emperor taken such keen interest in him that he would pester him so relentlessly about this?
Iandros’s eyes burned with a sharp, bright intensity.
“You shouldn’t speak to His Majesty in such a manner, Your Highness.”
“Why does it matter how I speak?”
Wilhelm Durand Crashion, Emperor of the Crashion Empire.
He was the supreme sovereign of Crashion and Iandros’s grandfather.
But he was also something else—the man who had murdered Iandros’s parents.
Iandros still dimly remembered that day.
The day his mother and father, shielding him, had been brutally slain by the Emperor’s hand.
The moment the mansion had been consumed in flames.
Iandros had been only seven years old then.
Because of that, he did not know the full truth of what had transpired.
All those involved had been silenced by the Emperor’s decree.
So all Iandros knew, all he remembered, was one single thing.
‘My parents were killed because of my Innate Ability.’
Iandros’s Innate Ability—the Space-Creation Ability—was an undisclosed power that manifested only through the imperial bloodline across generations.
What was known was simply this: it was extraordinarily dangerous and difficult to control.
Thus, the current Emperor, Wilhelm Durand Crashion, had raised a blade to Iandros’s throat before his eighth birthday, intending to end the child’s life.
Should the boy’s Innate Ability ever spiral beyond his control, the consequences would be catastrophic.
Yet in the end, the Emperor did not kill Iandros. Iandros lived on.
‘Mother! Father!’
He lived through his parents’ sacrifice.
The Crown Prince and Crown Princess—Iandros’s only parents—threw themselves upon the Emperor’s blade to save their child.
For if they died, only Iandros remained of the imperial bloodline, the sole heir to the Crashion throne.
The Emperor could not kill the last remaining member of the imperial family.
And their gambit had succeeded.
The Emperor did not kill Iandros. If Iandros died, the Crashion imperial line would be extinguished entirely.
The Emperor had a duty to preserve the imperial succession.
So instead of executing Iandros, he elevated him to Crown Prince.
In exchange, he began searching for someone to become Iandros’s “Bonded Partner”—to properly manage his Innate Ability and prevent it from raging out of control.
In other words, to find a living sacrifice who would share his burden, shorten their own lifespan, and contain his power’s wild surge.
Iandros despised this arrangement.
He hated the thought of another suffering because of him.
An innocent person bound for life under the name of Bonded Partner, forced to bear the weight of his own Innate Ability.
Iandros was like a vessel on the verge of shattering.
And the Emperor was attempting to fill the cracks by breaking another vessel and crushing it into fragments to plug the gaps…
“…”
As Iandros thought of Emperor Wilhelm, his features turned cold and distant.
After that, no further words passed between Cedric and Iandros.
Only the occasional sound of the carriage horses’ hooves could be heard.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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