Michel Carter was far from immediately able to believe the words he had heard from the maid.
At first, he thought it was just delirium.
No, really, wasn't this madness?...
The former heir to the duchy, of course, no longer harbored idealistic notions regarding his younger brother. The fact that this guy had decided to imprison his own father and also isolate his brother spoke for itself. It would be too foolish to deny that Livius Carter truly was not as kind-hearted and innocent as he had seemed to his family all these years.
And yet... even Michel found it hard to believe this.
According to the maid's words, Livius had killed their sister Katrina and secretly disposed of her body...
This sounded so delusional that he didn't want to believe it. Because, ultimately, despite all his previous actions, wasn't murdering his own blood sister going too far?
Katrina was dead.
The very thought sounded so absurd to him that mentally Michel could only scoff. And even though Seyla swore that all her words were the pure truth, Michel still refused to believe it.
He simply was not going to believe it.
First and foremost, he had to see for himself.
Nevertheless, the maid's words still sowed anxiety in him. Michel could not stop being nervous. He intended to immediately show up at the Alseid house to make sure that the maid's words were actually just a lie, and that his sister was alive.
However... this was not to happen.
Michel became an involuntary witness to a terrible incident that forced him to believe the maid's words.
Until the very end, he could not believe it. But... he involuntarily witnessed it with his own eyes.
Before Livius and the guards arrived, Seyla and her husband had barely managed to hide him in the attic of their house. They also asked him to take care of the child while they themselves tried to handle the situation.
And yet... in the end, it all turned out like this.
Sitting in the attic above, Michel heard every word of their conversation. Including how cold-bloodedly Livius ordered the woman and her husband to be killed.
This guy, who so easily gave the order for someone else's death. This was the same younger brother who had been whiny as a child and couldn't bear any pain. The same brother who couldn't even step on an ant. The brother who had adhered to a vegetarian diet his entire life simply because he felt sorry for killing animals...
This was a brother Michel no longer recognized at all.
The former heir to the duchy, in terror, tried his hardest to suppress his trembling. The attic boards creaked treacherously under his weight, and each creak seemed to him like thunder capable of giving away the hiding place. He covered his mouth with his hand, feeling his fingers go numb from the tension, and his heart pounded somewhere in his throat, drowning out even his own thoughts.
If this guy could so easily order someone killed... then could his involvement in Katrina's death be true?
This terrible thought, which he had been unable to admit until the very end, began to consume him more and more.
When the bloody massacre was happening downstairs, Michel could do nothing about it. Feeling his own worthlessness and cowardice, he could only continue to hide. He tried to protect not only himself, but also the child that Seyla and her husband had entrusted to him. The child, fortunately, remained silent — whether frightened or simply exhausted from crying — but in this situation, it was a huge relief.
Michel closed his eyes.
He didn't want to hear. Didn't want to know. But the sounds seeped through the cracks in the floor, and each one etched itself into his memory with such clarity that not even years would likely be able to erase them.
When it was all over, Michel could not leave the hiding place for a long time.
He sat in the darkness, holding the child to him, and listened to the silence. That silence that had descended after the screams stopped, after the footsteps of the soldiers faded, after the last creak of the door announced that they had left.
He did not know how much time had passed. Maybe ten minutes. Maybe an hour.
Only after making sure that the sounds of someone else's presence had completely subsided did the young man finally dare to come out.
Michel tried not to look at the bloody bodies. He walked around them, holding the child to his chest. The house smelled of iron — thick, heavy, so that nausea rose to his throat. He held his breath, crossing the room, and rushed outside, as if escaping from hell.
He ran, not knowing where. He just wanted to get far away from here.
At that moment, he needed only one thing: to save himself, to escape from pursuit.
Nevertheless, he still did not know what exactly he needed to do now. In any case, he could no longer resort to the same plan — seeking help from the Alseid family. Because if it was true and his sister was indeed dead... then what was he even supposed to do there?
He would probably only be taking a greater risk by heading there now.
But what else could he do?
While Michel was feverishly thinking, he decided that first and foremost, he needed to leave the capital, which was the most dangerous place for him at the moment. And after that... he would figure something out.
In the end, the young man spent almost the entire day getting to the gates leading out of the city.
But an unpleasant surprise awaited him there.
At the gates, Michel saw guards of the Carter family checking and searching everyone entering and leaving the city. They stopped carts, looked under tarpaulins, demanded documents from pedestrians.
Clearly, this was a dead end.
The young man could only exhale helplessly as all his paths to salvation were cut off.
Hastily moving away from the city gates before he was noticed, Michel went deeper into the labyrinth of streets. He had no money, no savings with him... It was a truly depressing situation. He couldn't go anywhere at all. The duke's son, who until recently had never known denial of anything, now found himself with nothing on the street.
In the end, as he continued to wander aimlessly through the city, evening fell.
Since he had been on his feet all day, he was terribly tired and decided to rest a bit. The young man simply sat down on the ground near one of the buildings and stared at his feet. The paving stones were cold, dampness seeped through his boots, but he barely felt it — his body was numb from fatigue and constant tension.
The child, who had been with him all day, had recently woken up and started crying again. Michel could only helplessly listen to his crying, as he could do nothing about it. He rocked the baby in his arms, trying to calm him, but his movements were clumsy and unnatural — he had never dealt with children, and now this helplessness only added to the bitterness.
In truth, in his situation, the child would only be a burden. Although it was cruel, it would have been much more logical to simply leave him in that house.
Probably, the former Michel Carter, the way he had always been, would have acted exactly like that. He wouldn't have wanted to take on an extra burden, concentrating solely on his own salvation. But the current Michel could not act that way.
Perhaps... because he felt guilty towards his parents. Or maybe he simply felt sorry for this child, who was now an orphan and would probably die if he left him there.
He looked at the little wrinkled face and thought that Gavin — that seemed to be the boy's name — was now no different from himself. Neither had anything left. No home, no family, no future.
In any case, Michel needed to think about himself first right now. Perhaps the best outcome would be to simply give the child to an orphanage.
Taking a deep breath, Michel continued to sit on the cold ground, pondering his hopeless future. The child in his arms did not stop crying, occasionally attracting the attention of passersby. But in any case, most of them simply walked by, perhaps taking Michel for a beggar or a homeless person, or someone of the sort.
Some cast sideways glances, some quickened their pace. No one stopped. No one asked if everything was all right.
This continued for a long time.
Dusk had almost begun to thicken when suddenly...
"Young man, do you happen to need help?"
Some elderly woman unexpectedly approached and spoke to him after all this time.
Michel involuntarily looked up at her.
She was short, with gray hair tucked under a headscarf, and a wrinkled face on which an expression of concern was frozen.
"No, I don't," he muttered dryly.
"It seems to me quite the opposite. Just look at the child! He's clearly hungry and crying!"
Michel frowned.
"Perhaps... but what business is it of yours?"
He answered rather rudely, as he did not intend to talk for long with a stranger woman of unknown motives. Too much had happened in recent days to trust strangers.
But she, moved by the sight, still wasn't going to leave.
"Young man, isn't that a bit rude of you?"
"Why should I be polite to someone I don't even know?"
The old woman in front of him frowned even more, but still did not back down. Something flickered in her eyes — whether resentment or stubbornness.
"Here's what I'll tell you. If you need help, you could just ask!"
"What makes you think I need help?"
Michel said this with a smirk, but immediately felt the child stir in his arms, starting a new fit of crying. He tried to rock him, but the movements came out sharp, and the baby only cried louder.
The old woman shook her head.
"It's obvious from you. It doesn't look like you're doing well."
"So you felt sorry for me?"
"No, I feel sorry for the child."
Michel fell silent.
"In any case, it's no trouble for me, so I'll just tell you this. If you truly need help, you should go to the temple."
"What? Temple?" Michel repeated.
"Yes. Many people with difficult life situations go there. Including refugees and those who simply have nowhere else to go... So you can go there."
Nevertheless, the former heir to the duchy frowned.
"The temple? Are you saying the temple provides help for free?"
"That's right."
"Ha..."
Michel could not believe these words and just smirked. Nothing in this world is free. He had learned this rule long ago, back in his father's house, where every favor, every manifestation of "care," sooner or later turned into a chain tightening around his neck.
Nevertheless, before he could object to anything, the old woman had already said goodbye to him and left. At the end, she left him a few copper coins, saying that with this money he should buy food for the child.
Michel frowned, looking at the worn copper coins in his palm.
For a while, he continued to stare aimlessly at the ground, thinking about something, and then finally stood up. His legs were stiff, his back hurt, but he forced himself to rise.
A temple? Well...
In any case, he had nowhere else to go right now.
The young man had to spend some time getting to the central temple located in the capital. He had to ask passersby for directions, as he did not know exactly where this place was. People looked at him with suspicion — dirty clothes, a tired appearance, a child in his arms — but still pointed the way.
And finally, after some time...
The high spires of a snow-white building appeared before him.
Michel involuntarily stopped in front of the temple entrance.
The building was huge — much larger than he had imagined. The white stone from which it was built almost glowed in the twilight. The stained glass windows in the high windows dimly reflected the last rays of the setting sun, and this made the building seem even more majestic.
The temple was a territory where he had never been before.
Well, that was reasonable, after all, the Carter house was a known supporter of the Astrological Order. So what would someone like him be doing in a place like this?
And yet...
Now, unexpectedly, but by a twist of fate, he found himself in this very place.
He stood before the steps leading to the main entrance and could not bring himself to take a step. Everything inside him clenched with a vague fear.
But what did he have to lose?
He had already lost everything.
"One way or another, nothing bad will happen if I just go in and ask..."
Besides, it was unlikely that the Carter family guards would be looking for him in a place like this.
Michel shifted the child to his other hand, feeling his shoulder go numb, and took a deep breath. The cold air burned his lungs, but at the same time brought a strange, almost forgotten sensation — a strong excitement.
Gavin whimpered in his sleep and fell silent.
Michel looked at him, then again at the temple.
"Well then," he whispered barely audibly.
And, taking a deep breath, Michel Carter ultimately headed towards the temple building.
He knocked on the heavy stone door, and after a while, it opened. The smell of incense and wax emanating from inside reached Michel's nostrils.
"Have you come for help?" asked the priest who met him at the entrance.
Michel looked at him, feeling that with his parched lips he could not utter a word.
He wanted to say "no." He wanted to turn around and leave, because asking for help was humiliating, because he was a Carter, because he was not used to standing with his hand out.
But the child in his arms started crying again.
And Michel, giving in, closed his eyes.
"Yes," he said quietly, barely audibly. "Please... help."