Before the Snow Falls 5
After that, the duke and I spoke only of black mages.
Their appearance meant the Empire’s defenses would harden even further, and there was every chance more black mages would surface in the future. I had already been thinking along those lines myself; in a few years, Jeol-myeol would appear, so of course we had to be ready.
Be careful during this Hunting Festival.
The duke said there was a strong possibility that one of the five founding families was connected to the black mages. The fact that black mages had appeared in the Empire did not mean they had only just begun to reveal themselves; more likely, some noble house had been turning a blind eye to their existence. That sounded plausible enough.
The black mages had once driven the Empire to the brink of ruin. Was it really so strange to think someone had been searching for that kind of power for the past thirty years?
But since the original story never named a family tied to Jeol-myeol, all I could do was leave it at speculation.
What kept bothering me was the duke’s warning: be careful during the Hunting Festival. Was there something wrong with this year’s festival?
I asked again, but the duke only repeated that I should be careful and gave me nothing more. All I knew was what would happen after Irene became head of the Yuris family, and I would only understand those words once the Hunting Festival actually came around.
I turned and looked at the duke’s study door, already shut behind me.
It was still dark, still that dull, oppressive color. Even the space beyond that black-painted door seemed shadowed, and for some reason it made my own mood sink with it.
What must it feel like to choose the shadows for oneself? I still hadn’t decided what I should say to a man who had chosen to be a noble instead of a father.
I couldn’t understand what iron blood meant to him, what it was about that name that drove him to tighten the noose around his own throat. I couldn’t understand whether it was a title worth guarding even if it meant abandoning his only blood relative and locking himself away in the dark.
And yet I did understand one thing clearly: he did not want Irene destroyed. That much had rung true.
Passing through a corridor that creaked underfoot and windows that let in not a single ray of light, I reached the stairs leading back down to the second floor. Then, as if the darkness I had just left had all been a lie, the world around me suddenly brightened.
The pure white sunlight was almost blinding. I blinked for a moment and looked out through the window.
Dense stands of birch trees — the kind said to grow only in the north — blocked the very sunlight that had been falling toward the duke’s study a moment ago.
Someday, will that light reach the duke?
It was a distant wish, but one I wanted to see fulfilled. At the very least, before he died.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Cold breath touched me first.
Whenever the sky sent down a northern wind, everyone would draw in on themselves under the bone-deep chill. Even thick clothes and heavy, fur-lined cloaks couldn’t keep the cold from painting those pale faces red as they lifted their heads.
That was winter. It was a season of misery and biting cold, and yet the loneliness it brought with it was strangely beautiful. Trees stripped bare of every leaf, the ground frozen so hard it had turned black, and the tiny green shoots that pushed up from land that seemed dead and withered beyond all saving — all of it had a way of making people achingly emotional.
There were things you could only feel because it was winter: warm tea that thawed the body, the scent of fruit eaten under a blanket, and the pure white snow that fell from the sky only once in the year’s four-fold turning.
The wind that brushed my cheek carried moisture with it — water that hadn’t yet frozen. I stood there a moment, feeling that upward sweep of air, then turned my head away.
The reason I hadn’t gone straight to Irene and had instead come out into the garden was, honestly, nothing at all. I had simply wandered out, pulled by the sight I’d caught through the window. My body had led me here on its own, as though I’d been drawn by something without even realizing it.
Maybe I’d just wanted to step on fallen leaves for no real reason.
That soft crunching sound always calmed me. The leaves under my feet lost their shape and crumbled away, and a broken branch rolled off to the side.
When I first came here, it had been summer, and now the sky was calling for snow.
It was the first snowfall. My first snow in this world. My eyes narrowed a little at the thought.
I hadn’t attached much meaning to the first snow back then, but why did my emotions feel so much deeper today?
I found myself thinking I’d done rather well for myself. Even when I first met Irene, I’d only been flustered by the role of bodyguard knight, anxious over when I might be cast out.
And now a knighting ceremony was right around the corner. So maybe I wasn’t as hopelessly oblivious as I’d thought.
Someday, I might have to leave this world. When the time came to step out of this now-familiar medieval life and return to the stark concrete world that waited beyond it, would I already have brought every future I was trying to build to completion?
Ropena, Sir Chris, Lise, Irene. There had never been many people in my life here, but I knew now that they were no longer connections I could simply discard.
An outsider belonging to two worlds. Could I really leave this one behind and walk away from them?
A gust of wind scratched past my cheek, and my gaze followed it before settling on a woman standing motionless in the distance.
I smiled faintly when I looked at her.
“My lady.”
When I called out to Irene, dressed as always in her black dress, she turned toward me at once.
Had she come out to the garden too? Since she must have been walking from the opposite direction to mine, it felt almost funny that we’d met right in the middle of the garden.
“Have you just seen the duke?”
“Yes, I’ve only just come out.”
Irene looked at me for a moment, then let out a faint sigh and parted her lips as if she had something to say. I watched her silently when I caught the unmistakable tremor in her eyes.
Is she about to tell me something?
“...Do you dislike being my bodyguard knight?”
For a moment, I stared at her with my mouth slightly open.
I had guessed she might have something to say, but I’d never imagined it would be that.
Why would she think I disliked the role of bodyguard knight?
I thought it over for a moment, but nothing obvious came to mind.
“Why do you ask?”
“...I started wondering if I’d only been throwing a tantrum at you. If it’s all the merit you’ve earned, it wouldn’t be strange at all for you to be promoted to captain of the knights right now. And yet I asked you to stay on as my bodyguard knight... I thought perhaps that might have been a burden.”
“If you’re asking whether it’s a burden, then yes, of course it is.”
At my answer, Irene bit her lip while looking at me.
The anxiety in her blue eyes deepened. I knew exactly what she was afraid of.
Remembering what the duke had told me, I gave my shoulders a small shrug and went on.
“I still don’t know whether I’m really someone who has the right to stand beside you. I’m still inexperienced, and I’m still lacking.”
A person she could lean on. That was the kind of bodyguard knight the duke wanted.
Someone who could open Irene’s closed heart and become someone she could rely on.
Could I really say the Irene I’d first met had changed from the Irene standing before me now?
I wondered. The duke had asked this of me, but could I truly open her heart the way he hoped I would?
Her eyes were no longer as cold as they had been when we first met, and her words were no longer as sharp as they’d once been, but that was all.
She still didn’t smile often, and whenever she looked at the others in the duke’s household, her expression would grow dark. She was still so often exhausted from work that she would collapse into sleep before dawn.
Even if she was different now, could I honestly say she was happy?
As time went on, the weight on my shoulders only grew heavier.
What had begun as a light thought — simply trying to prevent a tragedy — had swollen like a snowball until it had become large enough for the duke to ask me to stay at her side as her bodyguard knight.
I could abandon that duty and leave for somewhere else.
With my strength, I might even be able to shake off the knights chasing me and find a way back to my original world.
And yet I couldn’t do that, which made a laugh escape me before I could stop it.
If this had all happened at the beginning, maybe it would have been possible. But now, how could I simply leave?
When she answered the words I had just spoken, I offered her a faint smile.
“...It’s not like that.”
Whenever I met those blue eyes watching me like this.
Whenever I met those shining eyes that resembled the duke’s, yet still held feeling inside them, my heart would shake so badly.
Her calm voice reached my ears, and I looked at her for a long moment.
The weather was so cold, yet she wasn’t even wearing a cloak. It bothered me.
Why had she come out like this when the wind was so bitter?
I took off the cloak I’d been wearing and draped it over her, and Irene flinched, then placed a hand on my arm.
“Evan, I’m fi—”
“I’m the one who isn’t fine.”
I looked at Irene as she hesitated and seemed ready to take it off again, then tucked the cloak more firmly around her body.
It wasn’t thick, but it would keep out the cold wind at least. Besides, once I used mana, I wouldn’t even have time to feel the cold.
Irene, who had been adjusting the cloak, soon fixed her gaze on me. Perhaps she wanted to hear the rest of what I’d been saying earlier.
But the answer was already all but decided.
“I’m still burdened by it, and honestly, I still don’t even know whether I’m doing the job of bodyguard knight well. I still don’t know whether someone like me has any right to stand beside you.”
“......”
“So, please look after me from here on.”
As I said that and gave her the slightest bow, Irene’s eyes widened.
Surprise spread across her face and her pupils enlarged with it. I looked back at her with a faint smile, then turned my gaze up toward the sky.
“You asked whether I disliked being your bodyguard knight.”
“...Yes.”
“I like it. Very much.”
I couldn’t deny that it was an appealing position.
Just being her bodyguard knight brought me more privileges than I could have asked for.
Even if the responsibility was great, what came with it was just as great.
“I see.”
Irene watched me, then followed my gaze and looked out into the distance.
The pale sky settled into her blue eyes.
What was she thinking as she stared into the white, glittering emptiness, as though snow might fall at any moment and shatter the light?
Only one thing was clear: the unease that had lived in her eyes was gone.
I didn’t know exactly what I was to her, but if my presence kept her from being afraid, then that was enough for now.
The corners of her mouth, which had always stayed level, moved at last into a soft curve.
“...I’m glad.”
I was startled by that smile — by the gentleness it brought with it. When those lips that were usually such a beautiful scarlet bent so gracefully, when the blue in her eyes no longer held any coldness and instead shone brilliantly, I could only stare at Irene in a daze, astonished that she could smile so beautifully.
Snow was falling.
The white flakes dropping from the sky looked like blossoms descending, settling over the barren branches and beginning to bloom in splendid silence. The garden was turning white, a pure wintry greening that could only be seen in this season.
And yet my gaze remained on Irene.
Like a moth chasing only the brightest flame, my eyes followed her alone. I looked at her with a small wish that the smile she had lost for only a moment might stay a little longer.
I’d always thought she was beautiful whenever I considered her appearance, but seeing her smile like this made it feel as though I was discovering beauty all over again.
Those blue eyes, that snow-white skin, those lips stained as red as blood — she was so beautiful it was like a sculptor had carved her by hand. Remembering what I’d once said, I murmured dazedly, almost to myself.
“...You granted my wish.”
When Irene looked at me after hearing that, I thought her snow-white cheeks had gone a little red.
Was she embarrassed that I’d caught her smiling? But to me, all of it felt wonderfully new.
I had wanted her to smile brightly at least once, but I’d never imagined it would actually happen like this.
My mood, which had sunk earlier, seemed to float up again.
When I woke this morning and saw the sky, I’d thought only that it looked cloudy. But now that snow was falling, wasn’t it breathtakingly beautiful?
I only looked up for a moment before Irene, who had been watching the snow melt into the ground, slowly opened her mouth.
“It’s your birthday.”
Was it?
At her words, laughter slipped out of me without warning.
The day wasn’t over yet, so it was still my birthday.
For some reason, the fact that she’d still been thinking about it made my chest feel strangely ticklish.
It had always been a birthday no one cared about, but Irene remembered even a trivial wish like that and granted it all the same.
Of everything I’d seen in my life, that felt like the thing carved most deeply into my heart.
I’d always thought it strange that people cherished the first snow so much. Wasn’t snow just water in the sky freezing and falling down, the same as rain?
I’d thought it was nothing special at all. But now, seeing the first snow fall before my eyes, my chest gave a strange little shiver.
It was my birthday. The day I’d first met people who remembered it and celebrated it for me. The day exactly six months had passed since I met Irene, and the day she had smiled so brightly for the first time.
Individually, each of those things might have seemed small, but together they felt more precious to me than anything else.
I glanced once more at the now-calm Irene, then lifted my eyes to the snowing sky.
I closed my eyes.
When the first snow came, people made wishes — that old memory drifted through my mind as I stood there.
Next year, and the year after that too.I want to be at her side.
I made that quiet wish to myself.
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