TPOP 104

Chapter 104

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“Once the bandages come off, you’ll need to focus on rehabilitation for several months. Too much time has passed with the bone broken. The swelling is severe, and the heat… You must have been in a lot of pain, yet you never said a word.”

“Rehab takes months? Exactly how long?”

“…Probably longer than you imagine.”

What comes after that? Felix asked with his eyes. His attending physician, Gerard, couldn’t answer easily.

His right hand was essentially shattered at the joints. It was fortunate the bones hadn’t completely crushed, but the fracture pattern was poor. Even if the bones healed, it was uncertain whether he could regain the same free range of motion as before.

Probably not.

Especially not for work requiring such delicate, painterly movements.

"I beg your pardon, but who could have done this to Your Highness….?"

This wasn't simply an injury from bumping into something. The bones were broken in all directions.

A terrifying silence fell. Felix stared down at his right hand with emotionless eyes.

“I can’t believe it."

After the silence, he lifted the corners of his mouth. A snort escaped him, a chuckle that grew louder.

He recalled the words Eisen had muttered, eyes wild, just before dying.

"Now you have nothing. You won't be able to draw anything."

"Nonsense."

Felix dismissed his brother's curse and the doctor's diagnosis with a single word. To say he couldn't draw because of this measly injury? Absurd. As long as the bones were attached, wasn't it still a hand that could move?

To say he couldn't 'draw' because of this?

Felix still held dozens of unfinished sketches of Diana. Though he hadn't transferred them to paper, he'd mentally resolved many times to paint them someday.

So this was nonsense.

Felix selected the sketch where Diana's face was most clearly visible. He intended to send out this one, at least for now. He handed the sketch to the knight.

"It should be recognizable enough. Bring any woman even remotely resembling her straight to the palace. I will verify it myself."

"Yes, Your Highness."

The knight, who had been staring intently at Felix's right hand, bowed deeply. Felix ignored the concerned and anxious gazes directed at him. He repeated to himself, It can't be the end.

***

Felix was born farther from 'desire' than anyone else in this empire.

Having everything, he desired little. There was no reason to feel possessive of what was already his, nor any sudden urge for more.

Whether he knew this fact from birth or was simply born that way. He was a seed that knew no laughter from the moment he entered the world.

"Isn't this scenery beautiful, Felix? Doesn't it make you smile? Look at this little puppy. It's wagging its tail because it likes you. Smile for me, baby. ...Please, just once. Okay?"

The Empress tirelessly tried to teach the beauty of the world to the child who never smiled. Thanks to her, the child roughly grasped which combinations and proportions of elements appeared most beautiful. Then, the method of 'how to rearrange elements to make them even more beautiful' naturally came to mind.

The 'little puppy' leaping toward the splashing water droplets in front of the fountain was the most dynamic and compositionally beautiful. So the child preserved the 'Little Puppy' as a taxidermy specimen that would never wear out and placed it before the 'Fountain'. All the flowers and grass in the garden were also uprooted and planted around the fountain.

The landscape, now a work of art in itself, was undeniably 'beautiful'. That day, the child smiled brightly for the first time.

But no one else could smile.

"What on earth possessed you to do that to an innocent puppy... like that? Tell me, Felix!"

"Because the puppy kept moving."

"What?"

"If it moves, it tramples the flowers. I hate it when even one element gets disturbed."

The mother wept all night that night. All the while, the child silently watched her, concluding that 'a mother crying isn't particularly beautiful.'

The next day, the mother showed the child something he had never seen before.

"This is a brush, and this is paint. They're tools for drawing things. Why don't you try drawing the things this mother is telling you about on this paper?"

The child drew what the woman called mother told him to draw. Flowers, trees, fields, fountains, forests. Sparkling jewels, fine clothes, splendid buildings, tiny animals. Finally, people. It was simple imitation, not creation. Mother never allowed the child to touch the real subjects of its drawings.

In a world of black, where nothing shone, the child drew pictures.

The child soon grew bored and lazy, yet was clever enough to resent this laziness in himself.

When he grew a little older, the boy decided to covet things that did not belong in his world. It wasn't limited to people. Emotions he didn't know, behaviors he couldn't understand, states he longed to witness with his own eyes. He wanted to add vibrant colors to his world.

When he saw the hanged corpse of a condemned man on the hill above the square, the boy felt a certain thrill. The despair of one facing life's final moment, a life that burned brightly for just an instant before fading away.

It was something the boy had never witnessed or experienced. He wanted it.

So he drew it, and his mother scolded him again.

"Your wishes, desires, thirst, impulses—unleash them all upon this canvas. But never, ever drag them into reality. Remember that!"

He possessed subjects as 'paintings' incorporated into his own world, withdrawing his attention from the 'models'.

Thus, his reality remained confined within the canvas, while his outward appearance could mimic that of a normal person. That was his mother's educational principle, and its effect was undeniable.

But that 'rule' shattered when the Empress died.

The boy trembled as he tore out the heart of the concubine who had killed his mother. It was the moment the shackles binding him to the prison of being the 'kind and affectionate Crown Prince' were broken.

Now the boy could act on impulse without hesitation, whether inside or outside the canvas. There was no longer any need to confine his desires or thirst solely within the canvas.

Yet the boy was still clever. Having undergone a degree of socialization, he was smart enough to know he was a human being who required at least a minimum of 'rules' and 'restrictions'. Thus, he found points where he could appropriately mediate between his nature and his reason.

Just then, subjects worthy of painting poured in. He killed only those he could kill, finding pleasure in the act of taxidermizing them on canvas, then quenched his violent thirst through hunting or smoking. In this process, 'the act of painting' served as a kind of stabilizer, or sedative.

In other words, the Felix of the present possessed a structure refined to the utmost degree.

Of course, there were times when the act of painting grew tedious, and moments when frustration arose from failing to capture the image properly. Yet, as far as Felix knew, the only way he could control himself was through the stroke of his brush.

He refused to believe that very thing had become impossible.

Several small jars of paint sat inside the studio cabinet. They had been mixed over a fortnight ago, yet the colors remained unchanged. Felix carelessly spilled amber paint onto the glass panel.

"Diana?"

It was a question he'd asked over ten times today alone.

"Still... no new reports have come in."

The nameless knight newly appointed as captain of the guard was incompetent. A surge of murderous intent flared within him.

Kill him?

But the paint spilled down to Felix's feet. The pungent smell of oil drowned the impulse. The paint he had painstakingly mixed over weeks reminded him of the woman's back, and that was certainly effective in restoring his reason.

If Diana had been beside him, she would have been frightened. Felix's eyes, which had flashed like a beast's, slowly regained their normal color. He clenched the paint soaked into the table and pushed the killing intent away.

"Bring Arnold."

"That is, Your Highness. Sir Arnold is already—"

The knight, who had been at a loss, bowed his head deeply. Only then did Felix realize that one of his trusted servants was no longer present. The loyal knight he had kept since boyhood had been found in the woods near the palace, his throat half-severed, and had already vanished into the flames.

***