Chapter 209: Ghost (4)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 209: Ghost (4)
Clack.
A subtle fragrance drifted from the brewed hydrangea tea.
Staring down at the petals settled at the bottom of his cup, Chase smiled faintly.
“I won’t fall asleep again after drinking this, will I?”
He had no intention of blaming her for putting him to sleep, even if she’d used a method he only recognized from his memories. He knew better than anyone that Arianne would never harm him.
As if she had no intention of hiding what she’d put in the mint tea earlier, Arianne replied in a casual tone.
“This is to wake you up. You’ve slept enough; it’s time to work.”
“Arianne.”
Calling out to her as she tried to brush it off, Chase looked deep into her eyes.
“Don’t do that.”
His words were heavy with unspoken pleas, and Arianne simply sipped her tea with an innocent expression. A deep sweetness, distinct from sugar, lingered in her mouth.
“Don’t overexert yourself. You don’t need to step forward anymore, and you don’t have to worry about me.”
His voice was gentle, but his eyes held a steadfast resolve.
“I’m not as fragile as you think. If necessary, I have no intention of avoiding whatever comes my way.”
The hydrangea petals in the teacup were all white.
Chase knew they were flowers that could change to purple, blue, or pink at any moment.
Chase, too, had changed.
Absolution for himself didn't matter. Legitimacy could be manufactured, and justification was just another word for self-rationalization.
If a mere flower changed its color when the soil it stood on changed, why couldn’t a human?
—Her ears were long, but she cut them. She can’t speak, but she scolds me in sign language. She likes birds, and she likes puppies. She eats ice cream well, too. And… she smiles a lot.
A single white petal sank into the tea. In its place, a story he’d once heard floated to the surface of his fragmented memories.
—…She is alive. So, it’s fine.
What Bern had lost. And what he had gained because of it.
In exchange for losing his entire life, Bern had gained only one thing.
Hina.
She was Chase’s legitimacy and justification as well. He didn’t need absolution. If Devlan insisted on bringing Calian and Hina to this land, he would stop him by any means necessary. No matter what it took.
He had sworn it.
“So, don’t hurt that child.”
Please.
Don’t push a child who’s already in an abyss even deeper.
“No.”
Arianne’s response was swift and direct.
She knew he was aware that she had spoken with Calian behind his back. Meeting his violet eyes—which seemed to see right through her, to know what secrets she’d shared and what demands she’d made—Arianne spoke again.
“I believe you. I believe everything you say. What happened, what will happen, and how we met our end—I believe all of it. I don’t doubt it for a second. Truly.”
As she spoke, Arianne pointed a finger toward the door.
“You said that if that man lives, we’ll end up in the same situation. That we’ll walk the same path, hide in the shadow your brother made for us, and die the same way. I believe that, too. Even if I hadn’t heard it from you, I could find a hundred reasons why that man needs to disappear right now. But the only reason I’m not taking Teilan there immediately is you.”
Even if its color changes, a hydrangea is still a hydrangea.
Whether white, pink, or blue, it is ultimately a hydrangea. It does not become a Renieri, an Adinia, or a Sinasta.
And Chase was still Chase.
“What’s wrong with hurting him a little? It won’t kill him. What’s wrong with playing the villain for once? Everyone does bad things. You said your brother isn’t weak. You said he has plenty of good people by his side. Then stop binding yourself to that. Your brother can protect his healer. You should stop overexerting yourself and protect yourself. I’m going to protect what’s mine—my man who can’t sleep and guzzles alcohol at the slightest provocation.”
Stunned, Chase raised a hand and covered his face. A low, quiet chuckle escaped him.
It was a laugh that said it all: Ah, I must seem incredibly unreliable to her.
“Then who protects you, Arianne?”
“My mom.”
At her matter-of-fact reply, Chase’s laughter grew a little louder. Arianne didn’t bother counting how long it had been since she’d last heard him laugh and simply took another sip of her tea. His laughter subsiding, Chase followed her lead and drank from his own cup.
“Then who protects Marquis Lin?”
“My mother isn’t someone who needs protection.”
“Ah.”
The hydrangea tea was just as good as the mint tea had been.
It was less sweet than sugar, but its subtle sweetness made it even better.
“But I don’t drink as much as I used to.”
“You drink more now than you did before you went to Kairis.”
“Even so, compared to how much you drink in one sitting…”
“Zip it.”
…Right.
*
Lucy liked things she couldn’t grasp.
She liked the rainwater flowing past the window and the intangible beams of light. She would try to catch them by any means necessary.
It was impossible to tell where she’d learned to be so greedy. One thing was certain, however: neither Calian, her owner, nor Hina, who cared for her, nor Franz, whom she liked best, had ever taught her that.
“Lucy.”
Franz called out to her as she struggled to catch the shadow cast by the sunlight. He worried she’d be disappointed when she failed to catch the uncatchable.
“Meow.”
It sounded like she was asking why she couldn’t catch it, or perhaps begging him to catch it for her. Franz spoke to her once more.
“Come here.”
“Meow.”
She followed him around whenever she pleased but refused to come when called, choosing instead to cry from a distance. Unsure if she was being spoiled or trying to say something else, Franz walked over and scooped up the young, silver-white cat.
Though still young, she had grown a lot.
She had grown too big to slip through the gaps in the doors. Because of this, a small cat door had been installed on every single door from the first to the fourth floor of Chermil Palace. The Wilhelm Pavilion had also undergone renovations for her sake. He recalled Relic saying that because the tiny creature brought a spring-like joy to everyone, no one had complained about the hassle.
Streeetch.
Well-fed and doted upon, the maturing Lucy had become quite heavy. She used to feel light enough to practically float, but now her body stretched long and thin when he lifted her.
Her hind paws only left the floor after he began to wonder just how long she could possibly get. Supporting her rear, Franz chuckled. He couldn’t help but wonder if she was actually a white ferret.
“Mew-ow!”
Somehow sensing his thoughts, Lucy picked a fight with an annoyed cry.
“I laughed because you stretched so long. What about it?”
And so Franz, whose personality wouldn’t let him back down from anyone, got annoyed right back. When she retorted with a “Meow!”, he retorted in kind.
Franz spent quite some time bickering with Lucy, oblivious to the fact that if Relic saw him now, he would probably start questioning his life and wondering if the world was about to end.
After kneading his thighs and purring strangely for a long while, Lucy eventually dozed off on his lap. It was that kind of afternoon.
‘I am Prince Calian’s cat, Lucy, who likes Prince Franz more.’
Staring down at the strange, lengthy inscription on her collar, Franz quietly closed his eyes, following her lead.
—My older brother, who has never owned anything and thus has nothing to lose.
He suddenly remembered saying that his brother would probably still be unhappy.
Did that bastard, who now had a hell of a lot to protect, wear that expression because his burdens had increased? Or was it because he now had things he could lose?
With those thoughts, Franz silently opened his eyes.
His younger brother refused to ever reveal his forgotten name or his past age, yet he would ramble on about whales he had never seen. Franz let out a long sigh, feeling not just a generation gap, but a transnational, regional, and cultural one as well.
He had once wondered if the kid hated coffee because it smelled of Renieri.
“Did he not drink it because it smelled of the salty sea?”
Why had he left the coffee untouched—coffee he must have wanted, or even needed—and stuffed his face with food instead? Suddenly curious, Franz closed his eyes once more.
*
He did not open the letter.
“I trust this isn’t a resignation letter.”
With Arsen seated before him—whom he had punished by making him wait through a meeting with the designer, Satin—Calian looked down at the unopened envelope and asked.
Arsen, whose face practically screamed that he would escape through Lucy’s cat door if given the chance, nodded.
“It’s a letter of reflection, Your Highness. I figured if I brought a resignation letter, you’d cut me from the land of the living, not just from Valkan. So I decided to reflect deeply on my actions instead.”
He’d called it a letter of reflection, not a formal apology or a written explanation. Even his choice of words was typical of a mage. Intrigued, Calian looked down at the letter with an expectant expression.
“I’ll read it when I’m bored.”
With that, he set the unopened letter on the table.
Judging by Calian’s attitude, it seemed there was no need to worry about an Annerusia flower floating down the Senyu River for Arsen anytime soon. Arsen breathed a quiet sigh of relief.
His next worry was how to get rid of a certain letter destined for the magic safe in the bedroom of the mage-slash-Sword-Master on the third floor of Chermil Palace, a safe protected by Sispanian’s magic.
Should I just destroy the safe entirely?
The crazy lackey—who skipped past the problem of infiltration and went straight to how he would break the safe open—was brought up short by the memory that his pockets had become much heavier after his official salary disappeared, thanks to the ocean of allowance flowing from that very safe.
To make up for the salary cut from blowing up Heisia Palace, Calian had been continuously giving him double his original pay. The safe, therefore, had to remain intact.
“Could you perhaps just read it now? Or destroy it?”
“Why? It looks like it’ll be fun.”
An apology letter from Arsen? Why on earth would he open it so soon?
He would save it for a day when things felt a bit more suffocating than today. Mages’ letters always defied imagination, so he would open it on a day so bleak that not even a visit to Pea’s room could help him breathe.
With that thought, Calian wore a mischievous expression.
“Sir Hertz.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
A refreshing yet sweet aroma wafted from the green tea, which was packed with dried pear. He thought it suited Arsen quite well.
It was a scent that brought to mind the moonlit sea of Secritia, yet also recalled the artificial lake on a night when red flames soared into the sky. Finding himself quite liking the tea today, Calian smiled faintly.
“What is it that you protect in your life, Sir?”
Caught off guard by the sudden question, Arsen stared at Calian for a moment, then at the dried pear in his teacup, and finally at the letter he had written.
Wondering why Calian was asking such a thing, he replied in a light tone.
“I just protect whatever comes my way.”
Calian’s eyes asked what he meant, and Arsen offered a remarkably mature smile in response.
“I uphold my master’s words, I maintain my pride before the Corps Commander, I hold to my convictions before you, my Vice-Commander, and I keep my wits about me before the Association President.”
Listing the things he protected one by one, Arsen concluded, “And I protect Valkan, too.”
Calian was not the only one with many things to protect. He took another sip of tea, watching his right-hand man offer his protection in a world where everyone carried such heavy burdens.
Clack.
Setting down his teacup, Calian raised his clear, shining red eyes to look at Arsen.
“Then add one more thing to that list.”
“What should I protect, and from what?”
From the Brissen faction, from Zeon, from some unknown enemy.
Even from the King of Secritia. From all of them.
“My seat.”
He was asking Arsen to use his influence and power to clear the obstacles from his path, to guard the road ahead. To protect it for him.
If Arsen did that, Calian would deal with Evan, protect Franz, enter Camillon, meet the elves to learn about Zeon, protect Randel, protect Lemain, and perhaps even protect the world.
And in doing so, he would…
“Because I will protect Hina.”
To the mage who had once dragged him down from the things he had spent a lifetime protecting, Calian made his request.