Chapter 160
It wasn’t like my heart was made of iron and meeting my future father-in-law wasn’t something I could treat like a casual neighborhood visit.
“If His Majesty is rude to you, flip the table.”
“What?”
Helios’s advice was odd, to say the least.
“The old man’s cranky. He’s weird, so don’t let it get to you if he starts spouting nonsense.”
His evaluation of his father was so cold, it might as well have come straight from Siberia.
Now that I thought about it, what Helios was saying probably bordered on treason.
And yet, he went on and on, badmouthing Terman.
The more I heard, the more curious I became.
What kind of person was Terman?
***
After Rienna had fallen asleep, Helios summoned Vincenzo.
“Did you find the brazier?”
After hearing Phil’s story, Rienna insisted they revisit Kama’s house. She was convinced they might find new evidence in the brazier or branding iron.
“No. The house is spotless. I asked the city watch, and they acted like it was the first they’d heard of it.”
“Hard to tell whether the initial investigation was sloppy, or if someone hid the evidence before the watch even arrived.”
“A shame, really. Ah, and Chief Physician Ebony asked me to deliver this to you.”
What Vincenzo handed over was a set of research papers Helios had requested from Ebony — studies on the symptoms of those who had formed happy pairs.
“But why did you need this material? Don’t tell me… you’ve imprinted Lady Rienna?”
Vincenzo’s eyes sparkled with anticipation.
He clearly remembered all the hardship, the tears and sweat Rienna had poured out as Helios’s physician. Her sacrifices and devotion were beyond anything Vincenzo could ever hope to emulate.
Thanks to her, Helios had recovered. And thanks to that recovery, Vincenzo had been getting worked to the bone ever since.
Anyone who held even a speck of affection for Helios wished nothing but happiness for Rienna.
So when Vincenzo heard that Rienna had a one-sided imprint with Helios, he had been nearly as devastated as she was.
“Not yet,” Helios said.
“Not yet? That’s a strange way to put it, Your Highness.”
Vincenzo’s voice sagged with disappointment.
“I know. But there’s still hope, isn’t there?”
Helios dismissed him with a wave. He needed time to focus, to read and think in peace.
Vincenzo, ever loyal, brewed some tea for Helios before quietly stepping outside.
As soon as the door shut behind him, Helios spread the research papers open. The documents were thick with technical language, but he skimmed through them effortlessly.
Then, picking up a pen, he began to write down the core detail he’d been searching for:
— When two individuals become a Happy Pair, they develop empathetic resonance with each other’s mental and physical states.
Helios set the pen down and stared at the sentence he had just written.
Empathetic resonance.
It could occur even from a distance.
For example, when Rienna had been on the verge of death from a snake bite, Helios had been suddenly seized by a sense of foreboding. Now that he thought about it, there had been other similar incidents.
When Rienna collapsed in the constabulary’s morgue, he had felt an inexplicable wave of dread. And whenever she was in severe pain, Helios found it difficult to breathe as well.
He’d dismissed it at the time, focusing on her treatment, brushing off the sensations because they passed quickly. But if he considered the frequency alone, calling it “occasional” felt like an understatement.
It was strange. Too precise to be mere empathy. His premonitions about her always proved accurate.
“These are symptoms of a Happy Pair bond.”
The changes he was experiencing — there was no mistaking what they pointed to.
“Looks like I’m going to imprint Rienna.”
And there was more evidence to support that hypothesis.
Whenever he had physical contact with her, his fatigue melted away, and his mind cleared.
The problem was that these symptoms were supposed to occur after imprinting, not before.
Ebony had made that clear in the final page of the paper:
— To date, there have been no documented cases of pre-imprinting symptoms.
Then what exactly were these phenomena he was experiencing?
“Am I imprinting Rienna, or not?”
Helios frowned at the unanswered question.
