Chapter 4
Chapter 4
Theodor couldn’t believe the scene unfolding before his eyes. That fledgling apprentice mage from the Magic Tower, whose name he didn’t even bother to remember, had picked up the one object he cherished the most.
A framed portrait of his beloved, long-lost mother.
Whenever he felt despondent as a child for failing to awaken, his mother would take him to the sunflower garden in the imperial palace and comfort him.
[“It’s alright, Theodor. One day, you’ll bloom just as brightly as these sunflowers.”]
Even after being banished from the palace and confined to the northern villa, he had endured the pain by holding onto hope and looking at that portrait, believing he would awaken one day.
And now, that apprentice had flung his only source of hope to the floor.
Crash!
The frame shattered into pieces upon hitting the stone floor.
As the portrait and the brittle, dried sunflower fell limply from the broken glass, Theodor snapped. Losing all reason, he lunged at Rosalyn like a beast.
“You wretch!”
With all his strength, Theodor shoved her. Caught off guard, Rosalyn fell to the ground without a chance to resist.
Thud!
He quickly climbed over her, glaring down with murderous eyes. His heart pounded with rage, and his eyes burned. His breath grew ragged, and he could hardly speak. Theodor reached out and gripped her neck. Her pale, delicate skin exposed above her robe was soft beneath his fingers.
And in that moment; an unfamiliar heat stirred in his lower abdomen.
What is this sensation?
Trying to ignore the strange warmth, he tightened his grip. Rosalyn, unable to speak, writhed in agony.
But then, something in her eyes struck him, she was calm. To be in fact, unnervingly calm. Even while being strangled, her gaze was steady. As if she could see right through him. She was completely different from the other mages from the Tower, who’d all trembled in fear before him.
For a brief second, something unexplainable stirred inside him.
Twitch.
“…!”
He felt something move in his abdomen. Simultaneously, a faint light began to flicker along with the heat. At that moment, his pale face froze in shock. His hands fell from Rosalyn’s throat, trembling.
Pure mana.
The very thing he had yearned for all his life. Though faint, pristine white mana began to swirl in the form of a small orb near his core.
He pulled back, collapsing onto the floor with a dazed expression.
Was this a dream?
With trembling hands, he brought his fingers to his lower abdomen. The warmth of mana, the energy he had never once felt in his life, seeped into his palm.
No.
It was real.
The white mana vanished quickly, but Theodor could only stare, stunned.
“I told you I could awaken you.”
A small but confident voice reached his ears. And then, strength drained from Theodor’s body. His head spun, and his vision blurred. Rosalyn rushed forward, catching him as he collapsed.
Theodor stared at him dazedly. And yet, her brown eyes were still calm. Eyes that truly believed she could awaken him. No, eyes filled with absolute conviction, just like his mother’s had been.
Suppressing the surge of emotion, Theodor struggled to keep his gaze on her. His eyes trembled. With her face as the last image he saw, he lost consciousness.
***
Rosalyn looked down at the unconscious Theodor in her arms. Just in case, she placed a finger under his nose to know he was still breathing.
How fragile must a body be to faint from such a basic mana activation? And yet he had spent years locked away here, obsessing over awakening, completely neglecting his health.
The boy in her arms didn’t seem like the fearsome tyrant Theodor she had read about overnight. He looked more like a small, desperate animal cornered with no escape. Rosalyn thought back to the odd-colored eyes that had met hers just before he passed out.
There had been pain and despair in them.
Abandoned by his father, oppressed and scorned by the other royals, clinging to a single thread of hope that one day he might awaken, his life had teetered on the edge for years.
In the novel, Theodor’s past had been summarized in a few lines, but in reality, for someone barely eighteen, it was unbearably heavy.
Could the weight in her arms be the weight of the life he had endured?
Looking down at him, Rosalyn found it difficult to breathe. She found no words to say. Just then, a shadow loomed over her. She looked up to see Arch staring down at her with his usual emotionless gaze, still holding his sword in one hand.
Rosalyn swallowed hard.
Was he going to kill her?
Arch glanced between her and Theodor.
His expression asked for an explanation.
“His Highness is safe. He merely fainted from a sudden mana activation.”
At her words, Arch sheathed his sword. Then, without a word, he gently lifted Theodor into his arms. Held against Arch’s broad chest, Theodor’s emaciated body looked all the more pitiful.
Arch laid him carefully on the bed, pulled a blanket over him, and then turned to Rosalyn with a silent gesture to leave the room.
Only then did she quietly step out of Theodor’s chamber.
***
Rosalyn had officially become the prince’s awakening teacher. However, ever since Theodor lost consciousness due to mana activation, he hadn’t yet come to his senses, and so the lessons had been postponed.
The visiting physician had said there was no serious illness, only extreme fatigue and that he’d wake up soon, telling her not to worry. But to Rosalyn, that was exactly what made her more concerned.
‘How am I supposed to awaken him with a body like this?’
She was slowly feeding Theodor the tonic prescribed by the physician as he lay motionless in the Eastern Tower. Under the dim candlelight, his emaciated form looked disturbingly corpse-like.
Locked away in this place since he was young, forced to bear endless pressure and expectations around awakening, his health had deteriorated even further under the stress.
Rosalyn recalled how, in the original story, Theodor, after awakening, engaged in intimate acts with the heroine, Annie, only for his body to eventually collapse, rendering him terminally ill.
Now that she thought about it, it was almost unbelievable that he had enough strength for any physical intimacy back then. The only consolation was that, unlike now, he hadn’t passed out for days at a time.
In his current state, not only was awakening impossible. In fact, he couldn’t even sustain basic mana activation. Before anything else, she needed to fix that body of his.
He didn’t need to be as tough as a martial artist, but he at least needed to be able to withstand the strain of mana activation.
‘Hmmm… should I try getting him to exercise?’
Her past life as a personal trainer had taught her countless routines: weight training, running, swimming, yoga, pilates…
But Rosalyn shook her head firmly.
With Theodor’s physical condition as it was, none of those were feasible. More importantly, what he truly needed first was a regular lifestyle.
He’d been obsessively focused on awakening, ignoring day and night. Living as a recluse in the Eastern Tower, he often stayed up reading research reports and even skipped meals entirely.
Just getting him to eat and sleep properly would improve his health tremendously.
‘And can’t we get him out of this gloomy tower already?’
Rosalyn looked around the dark, sunless interior of the tower. Just being here for a short time was enough to cause depression. And he had spent eight years in this place which is long enough for his spirit to rot along with his body.
‘It’d be great if we could move him to somewhere that actually gets sunlight.’
She already had a place in mind: a room adjacent to the garden in the detached palace. The garden itself faced south and got plenty of light.
But there was a problem. The room only had one very small window. In fact, the entire palace was like that.
They called it a palace, but it was closer to a decrepit house. All the windows were tiny, letting in barely any sunlight. It was more like a prison.
‘Could we get new windows installed?’
That would help Theodor’s health immensely. But for that, she’d need Anton’s permission. As head butler, he oversaw everything related to the detached palace.
‘Would Anton even allow it?’
Anton was known for being strict about palace maintenance. Even if he’d started to warm up to her, she was still an outsider and it might be too much to ask for her to propose renovations.
Worse yet, was there even enough budget for it?
The funds allocated to the detached palace were pitiful.
The Emperor only gave them just enough to keep Theodor alive, barely so. Even basic dignity couldn’t be maintained at that level. Just thinking of the Emperor made Rosalyn want to curse again.
Sshhkk.
Just then, a shadowy figure emerged like a ghost from the dark corner of the room. It was Arch, silently signaling her to leave now that the medicine had been administered.
Just looking at him sent shivers down her spine. Rosalyn quickly descended the tower and headed back to her room.
But when she arrived, her eyes widened in surprise. Someone was standing in front of her door.
