Chapter 502: The Broken Memory

"Cherion... please..." Philia gasped out, his voice cracking into a desperate sob as he choked. His face was pale, his fingers weakly clutching at Cherion’s stiff, bruised wrists in a futile attempt to push the heavy weapon away. "Please... stop...! I didn’t mean... I never meant to take anything from you...!"

Cherion sat pinned directly atop Philia’s chest on the cold velvet rug. His fine silk robes were torn at the collar, his silver hair wild and disheveled across his forehead. His eyes were wide, bloodshot, and burning with an unhinged, frantic desperation. In his trembling, white-knuckled right hand, he held a sleek silver dagger raised high above Philia’s pale throat, its polished blade catching the flickering, chaotic candlelight.

"You need to perish!" Cherion screamed, his voice breaking into a ragged, hysterical shriek that echoed off the high vaulted ceiling. Tears streamed uncontrollably down his flushed cheeks, but there was no mercy in his eyes, only raw, festering agony. "You need to be gone! You’re evil! You came out of nowhere and ruined everything! You took my life... you took him from me...!"

"Cherion, listen to me...!"

"Shut up! Just die! If you die, everything goes back to normal!"

As Cherion snarled and forced the silver blade downward with all the weight of his upper body, the heavy doors of the drawing room burst open with a deafening, splintering crash.

"Hold him!" a cold, commanding voice shouted through the entryway.

Before the silver tip could tear into Philia’s skin, three heavy imperial guards in full plate armor lunged forward into the room. Steel boots thundered across the rug. Heavy plated gauntlets reached out, grabbing Cherion’s arms and twisting his wrists back with brutal, unyielding force.

Cherion let out a sharp cry as the dagger was wrenched from his fingers, clattering loudly across the marble hearth before spinning into the dark corner of the room. The guards forced Cherion’s arms behind his back, shoving his chest flat against the cold floor with enough weight to knock the breath entirely out of his lungs.

"Get off me! Let me go!" Cherion thrashed frantically beneath them, kicking his legs and tearing his nails against the carpet as he screamed like a cornered animal. "Let me go! He’s a monster! You don’t see it! None of you see it!"

Yerel rushed past the struggling guards without bestowing a single glance on Cherion. He dropped to his knees beside Philia, his face pale with alarm. He pulled Philia up into his arms, wrapping a heavy mantle around Philia’s shaking shoulders while his hands frantically checked Philia’s neck and arms for cuts or bleeding.

"Philia! Are you alright?" Yerel asked, his voice tight with genuine panic. "Look at me. Did he hurt you? Did he touch you?"

Philia leaned weakly against Yerel’s broad chest, burying his face into the fabric of the prince’s shirt as he wept violently. His shaking hand reached up, pointing a finger toward the man pinned on the floor. "He... he tried to... he was going to kill me, Yerel..."

Cherion, pressed face-first against the rug by the weight of two armored guards, managed to drag himself forward on his knees as the guards shifted their hold slightly to bind his wrists. He dragged his knees across the floor, paying no attention to the sharp edges cutting through his pants.

He was disheveled, bleeding, and barely holding himself together, a disgraced noble collapsed helplessly on the floor.

"Yerel..." Cherion wept, his chest heaving as deep, agonizing sobs tore through his throat. The raw betrayal in his voice was so heavy it made the air feel thick. "Yerel, please... look at me... Why won’t you just look at me?"

Yerel didn’t answer. He kept his arm securely around Philia, stroking the back of Philia’s head to quiet his trembling.

"No matter how kind I treated you..." Cherion choked out, reaching a bruised, blood-stained hand toward the hem of Yerel’s coat. "No matter how many years I stayed by your side... no matter how much of my family’s support and status I poured into your name... you never looked at me! Not once! Your eyes were always somewhere else! And then... then you chose him!"

Cherion thrust a shaking, accusatory finger directly at Philia’s face.

"A man whose background is completely unclear!" Cherion screamed, his voice breaking into a high, ragged pitch. "A stranger who walked in out of nowhere! He has dirty motives! He’s hiding something dangerous! He’s going to ruin you, Yerel! He’s going to destroy everything you built!"

Yerel finally turned his head. He looked down at Cherion, but his blue eyes were not filled with anger or hatred. They were filled with a cold, disgusted pity, a total lack of warmth that cut far deeper than any steel blade ever could.

"Even now," Yerel said softly, his voice devoid of any emotion, "when all of your heinous deeds have been exposed to the entire royal court... when your schemes, your poison, and your lies have been laid bare... you still sit there and blame others."

Yerel stood up slowly, lifting Philia to his feet and positioning his body firmly to shield Philia behind his back.

"I genuinely want to execute you right here where you kneel, Cherion," Yerel continued, his tone dangerously calm as he stared down at the broken noble crying at his feet. "You deserve nothing less for what you attempted tonight. But out of respect for what your family has done for the royal throne, I will spare your life today."

Yerel turned his back on him without a second thought, placing his hand on the small of Philia’s back as he guided him toward the doors.

"Guards," Yerel ordered coldly. "Throw him into the deep cell. He will await the King’s final decree there."

Cherion’s head snapped up at the order, his eyes widening in disbelief. For a moment, he simply stared at Yerel as though he had misheard him. The deep cell? Surely Yerel couldn’t be serious. Not him. Not after everything that had happened between them, not after all the years they had known each other, not after Cherion had once trusted this man enough to believe there was at least some shred of decency left beneath all that pride.

Cherion’s desperate words earned no response, not even a glance over his shoulder.

Yerel didn’t slow down. He didn’t even give the slightest indication that Cherion’s words had reached him.

"Yerel! Yerel, wait! Don’t leave me!" Cherion shrieked, scrambling forward across the slick floor as fast as his hands and knees could carry him. "Look at me! Please! Just look at me one more time! Yerel!"

The guards grabbed him by his collar and shoulders, yanking his upper body backward with enough force to snap his neck back. Cherion thrashed against their grip, tears streaming down his face as his vision blurred completely.

As the doors began to swing shut, cutting off the light from the outer hall, Cherion reached his trembling, tear-stained hand high out toward the closing gap, sobbing hysterically into the empty, unforgiving dark.