A chill ran down his spine again. Michel quickened his pace, almost running towards the main exit of the temple complex. His heart pounded somewhere in his throat, although he couldn't explain exactly why he was so agitated.
The temple gates were wide open. The evening light — golden, soft — flooded the stone steps. And outside, right at the entrance, stood a carriage.
Michel froze.
He would have recognized this carriage out of a thousand. Dark blue, with silver trim, with the Carter family crest on the door — a rearing griffin clutching a sword in its paws.
The carriage door opened a crack.
"Get in," came a voice from inside. Low, commanding, and so familiar that Michel's breath caught.
He recognized that voice.
But he couldn't believe it.
His feet carried him forward on their own. He opened the door wider, stepped up onto the footboard, and paused on the threshold, looking into the dimness of the carriage.
Inside, on the soft, velvet-upholstered seats, sat his father.
Duke Michael Carter.
He didn't look well, not quite as presentable as usual. His face was gaunt, dark circles lay under his eyes, and his hair had more gray in it. But his posture remained the same — straight, rigid as a steel rod. And his gaze — heavy, piercing — hadn't changed either.
"Sit down, Michel," the Duke repeated.
Michel obediently sat down.
The door closed with a dull thud, cutting them off from the outside world.
At that moment, the young man turned to his father, experiencing very strong agitation. No, he could hardly believe his own eyes... After all, he had prepared himself for the worst, but he had not expected to see his own father in the carriage at all.
"...Father," Michel breathed out. "I thought you were in prison."
"I was," the Duke replied shortly. "But not long ago, my people managed to prove my innocence. So now I have been successfully reinstated in my position."
"Innocence?" Michel repeated. "Are you saying you are innocent? What about..."
He fell silent.
Because Duke Carter looked at him intently.
"Why bring up the past now that it's all behind us?" he said calmly.
"So you want... me to just forget about it?" Michel asked in a trembling voice, clenching his fists.
"I want to say that everyone has their own truth. To some, perhaps, I am a villain. But to myself — I am a man who did what he had to do to preserve the family."
"By sacrificing innocents?" Michel didn't recognize his own voice. It was too angry.
The Duke smirked — dryly, without joy.
"Innocents, you say? Michel, in this world, there are no innocents. There are the strong and the weak. And the weak always pay. It was so, it is so, and it will be so."
Michel turned away to the window.
Beyond the thick glass stretched the streets of the capital — gray, evening, already lighting their first lamps.
The young man pursed his lips. In truth, it was difficult for him to fully agree with his father's words. He still felt pain and resentment for the past. And yet...
He was still glad it was all over. The struggle within the Carter house, it seemed, had finally ceased.
"Father, if you came here only for this... Then I will say one thing. I am not coming back," Michel said. "I will stay at the temple."
Silence.
He expected anger. Expected his father to start shouting, threatening, ordering him to come home. But the Duke remained silent. He was silent for so long that Michel couldn't stand it and looked at him.
Michael Carter sat motionless, staring at a fixed point on the opposite wall of the carriage. His face was calm — too calm. Like a man who had already thought everything over and made a decision.
"Alright," he said finally.
Michel couldn't believe his ears.
"What?"
"I said: as you wish," the Duke repeated. "Stay at the temple. If that is what you have chosen. I will not force you."
"But..." Michel blinked in confusion. "Why? You always said that family is the most important thing."
"That was in the past. But now I have reconsidered my opinion. That's why I won't drag you back by force, knowing in advance that it would be useless."
He paused, and then added:
"Live now as you wish."
Michel lowered his gaze.
He didn't know what to feel. Relief? Distrust? Or a strange, aching melancholy from the fact that he had now truly said goodbye to the Carter family? In any case, there was no turning back.
Michel had already decided to change his life and start anew, to atone for his sins and try to become a better person, and now he wasn't going to back down.
Nevertheless, Michael Carter wasn't finished yet.
"I didn't come here to take you back," the Duke continued. "I came to tell you something important."
Michel raised his head.
"Next week, Katrina's funeral will take place," the man's voice faltered for a moment — for the first time during the entire conversation. "If you want, you can come and say goodbye to her."
His heart skipped a beat.
Katrina.
The former heir's heart clenched very painfully.
"After I returned home, I ordered a thorough search of the entire duchy's territory. And... her body was found in the back garden."
It seemed that even a man like the "Iron" Duke Michael Carter found it difficult to utter these words.
"...Your sister will be buried with dignity."
Michel nodded weakly. He, too, found it difficult to speak about this.
"I will come," Michel said quietly.
Duke Carter nodded.
"Good. I will send a carriage for you." He paused. "And... Michel."
"Yes?"
"Take care of yourself. You have become better than I expected."
"....."
These were the most unexpected words his father had ever said to him. Not like criticism. Not like reproach. Simply... an ordinary kind wish from a father to a son.
These words, which Michel had craved to hear from his father all his life. But he received them only now... A mixture of inexplicable feelings washed over him at that moment. Was it excitement or frustration?
As if Duke Carter saw in him for the first time not a tool he could use, but simply his son.
If Michel hadn't held back, he might have actually shed tears. But his eyes only became slightly moist, and the young man quickly tried to rid himself of these surging emotions. He wiped his reddened eyes with his sleeve.
This conversation ended as suddenly as it had begun. Duke Carter knocked on the carriage wall, and the coachman moved the vehicle, pulling back up to the temple.
"Farewell, Michel," Michael Carter said as Michel stood on the footboard, ready to get out.
"Farewell, Father."
Michel jumped down to the ground and, without looking back, walked towards the gates. Only when the heavy doors closed behind him did he allow himself to exhale.
Inside the temple complex, it was quiet and peaceful. The evening service had already ended, and most of the priests had gone to their cells.
Michel walked slowly, digesting the conversation with his father.
He thought about his new life, as well as the regrets associated with the past. Now, after the conversation with his father, which was so short but at the same time the most candid in his life, there were so many thoughts in his head that they were splitting his mind.
But he had no strength left to analyze. His head throbbed, his thoughts were tangled, and the only thing he wanted was to fall onto his hard bed and drift into dreamless sleep.
Michel had almost reached the common building when he heard shouting.
"Give it back! It's mine!"
"Is not! I took it first!"
Michel looked up.
Nearby, by an old oak growing in the middle of the inner courtyard, two boys — about ten and twelve years old — were fighting desperately. They were rolling on the ground, locked together, kicking and swinging their fists. Nearby lay a toy wooden horse — apparently the bone of contention.
The other inhabitants of the temple — several women and an old man — stood aside and watched, but no one intervened. Some out of indifference, some out of unwillingness to get involved.
"Hey!" Michel called out. "Stop it!"
The boys paid no attention.
Michel sighed and walked over to them.
"I said, stop it!" he repeated, grabbing the older one by the shoulder.
The boy jerked, trying to break free. The younger one, seizing the moment, pushed his opponent with all his might. The boy staggered, bumped into Michel, and both fell to the ground.
Michel hit the back of his head painfully against an oak root.
His vision went dark. For a second — just a second — he lost his spatial orientation. When his sight cleared, he saw the frightened faces of both brawlers above him.
"Mister!" squeaked the younger one. "Are you alive?"
"We didn't mean to!" added the older one. "It's his fault!"
"It's your fault!"
The boys almost started fighting again but caught themselves in time and stared at Michel.
And Michel...
Michel laughed.
Not hysterically, not bitterly. But lightly, almost joyfully. The way he probably hadn't laughed since leaving his father's house.
The scrape on the back of his head throbbed, his clothes were covered in dust, and suddenly he found it funny.
"You..." he tried to get up, but didn't have the strength, and he flopped back onto the ground, still laughing. "You both..."
The boys exchanged glances.
"Mister, doesn't your head hurt?" the older one asked cautiously.
Apparently, the children decided that because of the blow to the head, the man before them had lost his mind.
But in reality...
Michel leaned back against the oak trunk, closed his eyes, and laughed again.
Because at that moment — absurd, ridiculous, when he sat with a bruised head and two strange boys looked at him as if he were crazy — he suddenly remembered.
"You crazy bitch, have you completely lost your mind?!"
"Take that, you damn fiend! How dare you attack me?!"
A fight on the grounds of the imperial residence.
The most absurd and ridiculous incident in his life.
For some reason, at that very moment, Michel vividly remembered how he had once gotten into a fight with his younger sister over a stupid reason.
Now these memories only brought nostalgia.
Moreover, these memories involuntarily brought a smile to his face.
Michel Carter nearly smirked.
God... Was I really that much of an idiot back then?