Zahid's return had been too sudden.
So he was not yet permitted to enter the inner city.
He would rest for one night in the Central Temple.
The "detailed discussion" after nightfall was only the first hurdle.
Even stricter inspection procedures awaited him the next day.
The resplendent side hall was brightly lit.
The air was filled with expensive calming incense.
Yet it did nothing to dispel the heaviness and calculation permeating the room.
Zahid sat stiffly on the luxurious couch.
At Archbishop Ude's instruction, the attendants had long prepared hot bathwater and brand-new noble attire for him.
Steam curled through the air.
The perfectly warm water enveloped his exhausted, chilled body, yet it could not reach the frozen wasteland within his heart, locked away by hatred and fear.
The flowing water washed away the sand and dust of the Barren Lands, along with the lingering bloodstains of battle.
It was as though it also washed away his former identity and his brief peace.
Zong Shen's words were like poisoned ice awls, piercing through the psychological defenses he tried to build time and time again.
They lingered in his mind, which was filled with sorrow.
"He's right..."
"He is... right!"
Zahid closed his eyes.
His fists clenched in the warm water until his knuckles turned white.
The face of his father, Prince Ayub, flashed through his chaotic thoughts.
That stern and distant face had somehow already grown somewhat blurred in his memories.
Instead, the bone-deep pain he had felt upon receiving news of his death, along with Zong Shen's indifferent eyes that seemed to see through everything, remained incomparably clear.
Ascending the throne should have been the honor of a bloodline's inheritance.
Now, it had become a cage set for him by his enemy.
And the key to that cage