Because You Came Back
All around her, the night was pitch-black.
"Huh? Whoa—for real?"
Nina let out a breath, then whooped and hopped in place, only to startle herself all over again.
"Oh, my body really is incredibly light. This is amazing."
She tried a standing backflip and laughed, bright and unrestrained. Her long, lush hair was so smooth that a single pass of her fingers combed it loose.
"I can't believe it. It really is silver-white……."
She marveled at hair the color of a moonlit snowfield. Her eyes must have changed as well.
Compared with before, my eyesight seems much sharper too. Even at night, everything is clear.
Her vision had failed after the poisoning, but she had been given a new body. Surely it would be all right now.
Nina looked up at the night sky where the moon hung. It was the same sky as then. That two years had passed did not feel real in the slightest.
When she turned back to the barrier, the Spirit Crests of the Sun and of Winter were glowing beside the fallen wall, etched on the empty air like magic circles. Gold and silver pulsed as if they were alive.
The spirits sealed it for me. Thank you.
In the ordinary way of things, more than a few priests would have been sacrificed to raise a barrier like this. There would be no need for that now. Nina offered her thanks in her heart. So long as she lived, she would not see the spirits again.
"And yet—two years. To think two years have passed."
Surely Adrian had not killed his family in that time. She hoped it with all her heart. Who could ever want to slaughter their own blood? However monstrous that family might be, she prayed he had never been driven so far.
Nina groaned and looked down at herself. She was still in the black uniform, and one foot was still bare. She supposed she ought to count it a mercy that the bandage remained wrapped around it.
"Judging by the moon… everyone ought to be asleep by now."
There might be people at the nearest fort, so she made that her first goal and broke into a run. Her limbs felt weightless. Heavens—she might as well have become a cheetah. The incantation that spilled out of sheer delight rang clear and bright.
"O North Wind, swift feet that usher in the winter."
⟨ North Wind ⟩
Wind wrapped her arms and legs, and her speed surged all at once. Each time she kicked off the earth she shot three or four meters ahead. Was it only her fancy that she was even faster than before?
The fort she reached in a blink was dark, and empty. For a moment she thought it had been abandoned entirely, but a closer look showed it was no ruin. Someone was still keeping it.
Then shall I sleep here tonight?
The gates into the main castle would not open before dawn in any case. Most of the buildings were locked, but the infirmary stood open. It was worn, and yet there was a blanket.
Nina was beating the dust from it when her head snapped up. She flung the blanket aside and burst out of the building.
Bellac!
Wings tore the air. Nina looked to the sky and narrowed her eyes. It was a Bellac in the shape of a winged lion, banking through the dark at a tremendous speed, razor-sharp. Its target looked certain.
"You won't even let me sleep!"
Furious, she shook a fist at the thing and ran after it. Only then did it strike her that she had not a single weapon in hand. She snapped off a likely branch, climbed a tree for a clear view, and with a light kick launched herself above the canopy.
Ah!
Three of those lion-like Bellac were attacking the fort, and within it a mere three knights were holding the line. Nina's body dropped, then surged upward again.
"One of you, first!"
She shouted it and clamped both hands around the branch.
"O Winter, who lays all things to rest! You who freeze whatever you touch—even its very breath."
⟨ Winter ⟩
The branch in her grip froze stark white. The lion Bellac, never sensing what was coming from above, took Nina's kick full-on as she fell and plunged with her.
"Graaagh!!"
"Hiyah!"
She drove the branch precisely into its throat, kicked off the falling Bellac, and landed safely on the ground.
Inside the fort, shock seized them. Jin's fingertips felt frozen solid. He locked up for an instant and would have taken another Bellac's blow to the head if Vice-Captain Louis had not yanked him clear.
"Please, keep your wits about you."
At Louis's words, Jin could only stammer.
"But—that—I mean—"
Hair white as starlight split the dark sky like a falling star. The woman he knew most certainly did not have hair of that color. And yet. And yet.
Adrian set his teeth. His fingers shook so hard he thought the sword would slip from them.
"O Darkness, arise and devour your enemy."
⟨ Darkness ⟩
At his incantation, one Bellac clinging to the fort wall was seized by shadow where it clung. Adrian's sword sheared the startled creature's head clean off. Black blood caught the lamplight and flashed like shards of ruby.
"Wha— Young Master?!"
Only then did Nina recognize who stood in the fort, and her voice jumped. At that dazed cry, Adrian ran.
The third Bellac stooped at his back as he sprinted, talons spread.
"Kreeek!"
But Louis's thrown spear pierced it first. Adrian stabbed the Bellac as it struck the earth and made an end of it. When the batter of wings fell silent, the world went still.
Nina stood where she was. She had no idea what she was supposed to do. Out of the dark, as if to be certain, Adrian called to her.
"Nina."
She clenched her teeth, and then she smiled.
"Yes. I'm the cutest Nina in the whole world."
Adrian flung his sword aside and came running. He stopped just short of her. He had not run far, and yet his breathing was rough in a way that was nothing like him. In the darkness the two of them faced one another. Nina stared at him, blank.
She could see that two years had passed. He was no longer a boy. He was a man grown. The last softness of youth was gone, and he had a face anyone might turn to look at twice.
Two years.
So two whole years had gone by.
"Young Master… you've grown so much."
When she said it, awkward and shy, Adrian moved. One step. Two. Three. Neither hurrying nor slow, he closed the last of the distance and pulled her into his arms.
"Ah!"
Nina let out a small sound and laughed, just a little. If she did not laugh, she would cry. He crushed her against him until she thought she might break, and his cheek came down against her hair.
"Nina. Nina. Nina."
His arms were so fierce with need that she felt she would be crumpled in them. Still holding her fast, he folded to the ground as if the strength had left him.
"Yes. I'm right here."
"Nina."
Both his hands cradled her cheeks, and his voice kept calling her, as if he meant to confirm she existed with every sense he had. He demanded her. Nina answered that demand with all her heart.
"How—how are you even—"
The words broke through his teeth. Looking into eyes the color of rose quartz, a tangle of rage and sorrow, joy and hurt, Nina whispered.
"I'm sorry."
"If you knew me—if you knew me, how could you……."
How could you do that to me? How could you decide to leave me alone in this place?
The rest would not come. Feeling he had held down surged and broke, and he seized both her shoulders hard.
"Adrian."
Nina whispered it. Even looking at her altered golden eyes, at that snow-white hair, was agony for him.
"I was in the wrong."
At the whisper, he came apart. What wrong could she possibly have done? What? Throwing her body away to keep him alive? Throwing away everything? Coming back to him like this?
"No. No, Nina. You weren't."
Nina framed his face in her hands as the tears ran down both his cheeks. Her heart ached at the deepened shadow in those twisted eyes, at the face grown thin and sharp.
"But I came back."
She meant to smile, but the tears kept welling, so she laughed and wept at once. Two years had passed, and Adrian was still Adrian. Not some stranger.
He pulled her tight against him again.
That was enough.
The dark of the Purple Forest. The smell of Bellac blood. The two of them had found each other again.