After That (Mace)
I have no idea how long I’ve been asleep or for how long.
The sensation of the bed beneath me feels slower and hazier than ever before.
The blanket fluttering above and the pillow pressed against my head ought to be softer than the cold stone floor of the nun’s basement, harder than the prayer room’s rigid altar, or the sofa in Ain’s home.
Even softer than the bed where, when Ain was away, I’d sneak in and press my nose to the sheets to breathe in the scent of him.
But everything still feels infinitely distant, as if wrapped in mist.
It’s not just that the room’s lights are off.
Even if the wall lamps illuminate the space as brightly as daylight, they can’t erase this strange, floating sensation in the air.
Creak.
All I can sense are vague shapes and sounds, as though dust has settled over my senses.
A faint, watery blue thread approaches me like hydrangea petals.
“Wake up.”
A sliver of light slices into the room in a straight line.
Someone unfamiliar, yet clearly etched in memory, stands before me.
The voice I’ve heard echoes next, familiar from the Academy’s prayer room.
It belongs to Ain’s sister, Iris.
Drier than any voice I’ve ever known.
Not the trembling one that once worried about Ain outside the prayer hall, but the one I’ve seen when facing others’ eyes, the tone that seems to call my name.
“Can’t hear you? Wake up.”
Her tone and emotion are layered thickly, as if she’s furious with me.
I want to ask the reason, but dust still clings to my tongue.
Heavy, heavy dust.
My body is lifted from the bed and set upright.
Looking up closely, Iris’s face differs greatly from my memories.
The same beautiful eyes and cherry-red lips I once admired with Ain are now like hardened earth after rain.
Is she tired?
If only I could use my Blessing to heal her, yet my body is only being guided by her hand.
We walk through corridors of an unknown building, held by Iris’s grip.
Numbers on each door, the faces of female students in uniform, pass by me.
The dorm I’d only heard about.
How I came here remains a blank in my memory.
Iris walks ahead with quick, angry strides, parting the students.
They glance at me and whisper something.
The same words I sometimes heard when someone brushed past me before being expelled from the Academy.
Outside, the rain has not stopped.
Once so terrifying with thunder, now it stirs no emotion in me.
The world flashes bright and dark like Ain’s hair, over and over.
Hands push me inside and force me into a seat.
Creaks follow, and the chair beneath me starts to groan.
This is my first carriage ride.
Iris sits opposite, her eyes locked on mine without blinking.
The gaze has never wavered, even once.
A feeling I’ve known since before coming to the empire, likely hatred.
As if I’ve done something terribly wrong.
Soft before Ain, rigid before others, but now hot and sharp like a freshly forged blade.
I don’t know how much time has passed.
The carriage jolts hard once, and Iris flings the door open.
White, rectangular shapes rise from the ground in abundance.
In this empty lot, only rain and wind blow.
The outskirts public cemetery.
I remember it well.
Where vagrants and unclaimed bodies are buried.
No funeral processions or mourning lines ever reached here.
Quiet, as if no one but Iris and I exist.
The sound of rustling feet echoes from below, probably from unmanaged weeds and fallen stones.
Held by Iris’s hand, we walk the path through the cemetery, then walk again.
We reach the farthest corner, before an unused stone monument.
Thud.
Iris shoves me from behind, sending me sprawling before the vacant tombstone.
My face presses against the rain-slick, glistening stone that fills my vision.
“Are you satisfied?”
Satisfied with what?
If the question is about the time I spent with Ain, yes.
The most valuable moments of my life, I would say without hesitation.
“Now that my brother is dead, you’re satisfied?
You, who played the holy saint’s role until your last breath, died, Ain.
My little brother, Ain Magnolia.
From infancy, I carried you, fed you, put you to bed and raised you, and yet you died.
Don’t you understand? That foolish face of yours, are you hearing me?
You’re dead, Ain is dead.
Gone forever from this world, ripped out.”
The hand leaves my forehead.
Yet my head bows lower, pressing my forehead to the cold stone.
Colder than my frozen skin, the stone.
No flowers, no letters, an empty tombstone.
What is Iris saying?
Where does the reason for Ain’s death lie?
Even looking at the stone brings nothing back.
As if someone cut away the memories with scissors.
Not straight cuts, but wild, slashing strokes.
Iris’s voice returns from behind me.
“Giselle, that crazy bitch, she died for no reason following me.
When she abandoned me, she wounded Ain so deeply, caused him such hardship, and left behind those incomprehensible words as a will.
Why, why!!”
My shoulder is grabbed, forcing me to face Iris’s face.
Her emotions remain unsettled, I see.
If only I could share even a fraction of her pain like my own stone heart.
“You should have just died, why drag Ain in?
You had everything, why did you want to share even the moment of death?
Greed, that’s what it was.
I can’t understand how that was the only thing Ain left for you.
Yes, it’s all your fault, everything happened because of you.
Because of you, Ain died, even though he survived the war.
Tell me, how did you seduce him? What sorcery did you use?
A nun, and your time knowing him was far too short to compare with mine.
Why was Ain lying there dead with you beneath him? Answer me.
Answer! Look at me with those empty eyes, don’t look away.”
She repeats the demand even though I remember nothing.
Every time something tries to surface, it sinks again.
If only she would apologize and calm down, I would repeat it endlessly.
“If only you hadn’t existed, you alone, if only you hadn’t, if only Giselle hadn’t.”
She keeps speaking the name of someone unknown to me.
Another family member of Ain?
She said he had nowhere to return to, yet here she stands, raging for him.
Iris shakes my body with a force-filled hand.
“Save him, please save him, don’t you have a Blessing?
Just bring back one Ain, I ask for nothing more.
You, no, Sister, please, please save him… yes?”
No, I don’t have it, I’ve learned that when one dies, one returns to dust.
Arms, legs, eyes, body, none can be returned as easily as that.
And a soul is only one, therefore precious.
“A, Ain… s-sorry, I’m sorry… no, actually, everything, everything is my fault…
I, I… n-noona… noona did wrong… not anyone’s fault, noona…”
Iris’s voice has changed to match the one when she stood before Ain.
I thought thunder was striking, but the voice that shrank gradually bursts at once.
She is crying, the wails grow louder, never smaller.
“I-I’m sorry… a-all… n-noona… s-sending you home but…
In the rain like this… even if I hadn’t sent you…
I would have held on tighter… a, father and mother didn’t matter…
The family… no meaning at all…
Just… just like childhood… like when Ain was little…
That was all I wanted… I’m sorry… I’m sorry…”
The image of Ain sobbing in the confessional flashes before me.
He spoke so in the prayer room, yet because we’re siblings, we resemble each other.
I wipe the tears unknowingly streaming down my cheek with my hand.
“A, no… j-just… long before…
Much earlier… I would have cared for you more…
I’m sorry, Sister… I’m sorry…
A, Ain, because of me…”
Iris’s hand covers mine.
The once-strong hand is now merely cold.
Yes, I think that too, Iris.
I was lacking, unable to fill Ain completely.
I remember, above me, crying and begging for forgiveness, the look on Ain’s face.
The way he kept apologizing for crimes he never committed.
The body that once embraced me, wearing clothes I’d never seen before, soaked in rain.
I should have cared for him more, should have made him happier even slightly during our time together.
If a chance came again, I would gladly, again and again, do my utmost.
I should have been a place he could always turn to when he was abandoned once more.
“A, Ain… since I entrusted you… you’re living… it shouldn’t be uncomfortable…
I can… treat you… up to where treatment is possible…”
Yet nothing flows from my eyes, unlike Iris’s or Ain’s.
The heart sealed with the gilding praised by the head nun.
A heart that shone brighter than anyone’s.
That dry heart has finally sunk deep into my chest.