I Am Cursed (2)
A small mountain rose above the heart of the capital, and atop it stood a church like a monument. The stone stairs leading up to it were so stubborn that they permitted no carriage, not even the tiniest handcart. The only ways up were to climb on foot, pack strapped to one's back, or else to fly — if one happened to be a mage of great enough power — or to abandon the stairway altogether and force a path through the forest.
It was a steep hill. Not a sheer cliff or a jagged gorge, perhaps, but even those well accustomed to mountain trails would choose the stairs over striking out across the wild slope.
And yet.
Cariel, strangely enough, found the wild slope familiar. If anything, it was the stairs that exhausted him.
At first he had wondered whether he should climb this place at all. But having judged, somewhat unexpectedly, that no such deliberation was needed, he had simply charged up the mountainside the way one might scale a tree.
He reached the summit — the last stretch, where the church came into view — and there, coming up the path along the neat stone steps, he ran into Alesia.
“…You — you climbed all the way up here?”
She was dressed as when he had first seen her: chainmail beneath vestments bearing her distinctive golden cross, emblazoned on a brilliant white field. Her pack was modest, but she wore all manner of gear and equipment upon her. Even the Sword of Saint Kariel hung at her waist, its blade — for it still had no sheath of its own — wound round in cloth.
Aside from that, her weapons were slung across her back and hips, leaving both hands comparatively free.
“I told Filbar just in case, but were you really about to leave right away?”
“…Yes. I didn't know there was a holiday festival.”
Had today brought nothing else, he might have lingered to see it. His mind had changed. His circumstances had changed. Any excuse would do.
“Are you leaving as well, Alesia?”
“Well, about that… I was thinking I'd go with you.”
“With me? To where?”
“To your destination.”
“…….”
Alesia spoke with a trace of embarrassment as she watched him fall silent.
“I heard the news. Just now, mind you. That you left the capital under the pretense of a pilgrimage to the Holy Land?”
“A pilgrimage?”
Cariel considered it for a moment, then thought: so that was the excuse they had put forward. Probably Elhermina's idea.
“You know full well who I am now, I take it.”
“…….”
There, Alesia held her tongue for a moment.
“I don't know the details. Truly.”
Years ago, when she had passed through the capital, she had paid him hardly any attention. She had never understood why everyone around her made such a fuss over the boy. The most worthless of the Hero's children, they called him — Cariel had been the target of abuse and denunciation from every direction.
Alesia, listening back then, had thought little of it either. Heirs and scions of famous houses turning out wretched and disappointing… it was, unexpectedly, a common thing. Sometimes they simply went astray; sometimes the crushing weight of excessive expectation, of burdens foisted upon them, of responsibilities forced into their hands, broke and twisted them. She had seen countless such examples.
By that measure, it was hardly rare at all. Why should a child of the Hero's blood be any exception?
She shook her head firmly.
“If you want to leave the city, you should move before sunrise. The crowds outside are already pouring in — just getting out will take ages.”
And as she turned back toward the stairs —
“Doesn't Alesia have somewhere else she needs to be?”
“You mean this?”
She pointed to the Sword of Saint Kariel hanging at her hip.
“I've already spoken with the priest. I'll send someone ahead with a detailed report later, and I can just carry this myself and bring it by some other time.”
In other words — she was telling him she intended to follow him.
“How would you know where I'm going?”
“…If it's the Holy Land, then it concerns me too.”
Or else —
“Or was that story, after all, nothing but rumor?”
“…….”
Cariel looked away from her for a moment before speaking.
“Strictly speaking, my coming here was coincidence. I only wished to visit the place that gave me my name.”
And yet, strangely, he had encountered an uncanny connection. That consideration, that careful orchestration, made his heart grow heavy all over again.
It was not what I hoped for. I never even expected it — never imagined it, even. Surely they too did not place excessive expectation upon me. They simply… came where they were meant to come, and the hour had ripened, and so they faced me.
“You have no need to follow me. No obligation, no responsibility to do so.”
“And if I want to?”
“……Why?”
I want to. What did that even mean?
“If I'm genuinely worried about you, if my heart is drawn to you… if I simply want to travel at your side?”
“…….”
That, I… don't understand.
“That's strange. You and I have only just met this time. What reason could you have… to form an attachment to me?”
Alesia shot back an answer as though the question were absurd.
“Cariel. People — people come to like people, take an interest in them, without needing to weigh each other's standing or run the numbers first. Er, that came out convoluted. My point is — you don't have to itemize all of that before you're allowed to care.”
“…Is that so?”
“Your heart simply goes out to someone, and you want to do it. Isn't that reason enough?”
“…….”
Is that how it is? It sounded so obvious. And yet why did it ring out from somewhere impossibly far away?
“Your interest in me, your fondness — it's excessive, and it weighs on me a great deal.”
“No — don't say it like that, now you're just making me embarrassed for nothing.”
Alesia averted her eyes without quite knowing why.
“I'm grateful. But… I am in no position to bring anyone along on this journey.”
“Why not? Is it because I'm… what you just said — such a burden?”
“Whether you are a burden… I honestly don't know. Your goodwill, I'm thankful for. Even the fact that some part of it carries a darker intent — even that, I consider a kindness.”
……He speaks of himself, Alesia thought, as though it were someone else's story. The way one might set down a matter on paper, on a scroll, clinically, without ever sinking into it.
“Then what if I want to be with you because I like you? All those times I told you I liked you — that was never some empty pretense, you know? Oh — don't tell me it's my age, or my build….”
“That has nothing to do with it at all.”
Good, then. Cariel thought it settled. Even that darker intent would, in time, turn genuine. Not a mere flirtation, but a flame fanned steadily brighter — one day, it would blaze higher still. That passion, that resolve. The desire to possess someone. The desire to be possessed.
…Affection. The desire to love and be loved — it reaches me, vivid and unmistakable.
Perhaps someone might mock such a thing as wanton. But even so — if both would be glad and satisfied, was it truly lewd, was it truly wrong? If the fruit of impulse curdled into future regret… well, that could certainly happen.
“When I left the capital, I set down a great many things.”
Discarded them, truly.
“And one of those reasons is this.”
Cariel lifted his eyes to the night sky as he spoke.
“…….”
And there, as though to bar the heavens themselves, a girl outlined in brilliant gold rested her chin on her hand, watching the two of them with interest.
A blessing and a curse at once. A curse, and at the same time, salvation. If time were turned back and the same choice set before me again — I would, gladly, ten times over, a hundred times over, make that same choice once more.
“I made a pact with the Demon King.”
Those words struck Alesia's mind like a thunderbolt.
“What…?”
“A curse, if it's a curse. A contract, if it's a contract.”
In other words — I cannot settle for the present as it is. If I do not strike down my father, everything connected to me will come apart in the end. I myself am, by now, hardly even a problem worth counting. The goodwill people show me — I'm thankful for it, truly. And that is exactly what makes it heavier, harder to bear. It feels like a load that only ever grows. I'm grateful for it, and yet… I'm afraid.
And if, by some chance, he were joined with someone who showed him affection — if they bore fruit together —
…it would mean passing on, whole and undiminished, the seed of the curse that binds me. The ember itself, handed over. How could anyone bear that?
Even if he wanted to squeeze his eyes shut and look away. Even if he wished only to leave it be, to stand aside — it was already far, far too late.
“…….”
And yet.
Precisely because of that, he had reclaimed the small grace of looking up at the night sky with an unclouded heart.
Therefore he did not resent. He did not hate. This outcome too was his share to bear — his own choice, made in full.
“Yes. As you can see, I am cursed. And it is not, I think, something anyone in this age could dare undo for me.”
“W-wait, just a moment. I think I misheard you —”
“No. You heard me correctly. Let me say it again. I am cursed by the Demon King, and there are things I must do because of it.”
Therefore —
“I am in no position to bring anyone with me. I haven't the luxury for it, either.”
“No! That's exactly why I have to —”
“Lady Alesia.”
Cariel bowed his head deeply.
“Thank you. Truly. Because of your care, your affection… for a brief while, I was able to feel saved.”
And yet.
“Whether it's deliverance or salvation, in the end all of it — every last part — is one's own to carry out. That much, no one can do in another's place.”
“…And if you can't do it yourself? If you're in a position where it's impossible?”
Alesia remembered. She had known such a position herself, back in those young days — a place where nothing she did could change anything.
But there, the two of them parted ways. There was a gulf here that could not be closed.
It was true that Cariel had received the Demon King's aid. But even that aid had only been possible because he himself had steeled his resolve. Because he endured the pain, accepted the unreasonable, steeled himself and persevered — only then had it come to him. Had he not done so, would the Demon King have simply left him be? Could Cariel have changed, the way he had now?
“Even that, in the end, is fate. Destiny, I suppose.”
And so — he had given up praying. He had come neither to expect, nor to trust, nor to dream of anyone extending unconditional kindness to him.
Others might be different. He, at least, was not.
“So if there are those who cannot save themselves — if there are beings who can only ever be saved through another —”
“…I believe that, too, is simply the lot they were given.”
It came down to that, in the end. Accepting that truth fully was one's own doing. Railing against it, refusing it utterly — that too was entirely one's own.
Sinking down in despair because no answer could be seen was a choice. And wandering, while insisting no answer would ever be found, through fields of thorns until one's hands and feet gave out, still searching — that, too… was one's own to bear.
I understood this… facing the Demon King. And if I am not to make that understanding meaningless — if I do not wish for a past soaked in regret to be overwritten by a regret greater still — then… even settling for what I have was impossible. Even the time to collapse and stay down was too precious to waste.
“Alesia — you, and the many people I've met here, have all become entangled with my curse. So even if only to cut those threads… I have to resolve this. I must.”
“You mean that? Truly — it's not just words?”
“Would mere words ever weigh this heavy?”
It was a clumsy smile that Cariel offered.
And Alesia felt a great sorrow well up in her.
He had never once, not properly, shown her a smile before. And now, at words that were hardly even a joke, he forced out a smile like this? Was it self-mockery? Some form of self-reproach?
“And if I wanted to follow you even knowing I'd have to bear that too? If I like you that much —”
“Thank you.”
Not acceptance — refusal.
“The affection I hold for you gives me strength to endure, I believe. I do not want you to be made unhappy. Especially if it were something born of some fated injustice, of malice, that even you yourself do not know.”
“I can only draw strength when I am alone. If someone stands beside me — I want to lean on them at once. I want to depend on them. That feeling is so intense that… I fear I would forget, all too quickly, how I ever stood on my own two feet at all. …I simply could not bear that weakness in myself.”
It was worse with Alesia than with anyone else. With her, that thirst — that longing, that hunger — burned all the fiercer. Because she seemed as though she would take him in without resistance, freely, unconditionally.
That kindness and affection, given without condition, could be this hard to bear.
“That is the reason. You have done nothing wrong. If anything, you deserve gratitude.”
It was simply —
“My own weakness. Nothing more.”
“…….”
She had so much she wanted to say. Words came to her, crowded up in her, more than she could count. That much — that much, surely, she could manage for him. She could have poured out grand declarations, brash and confident, that everything would be fine.
And yet, for some reason, her lips would not part.
It was his expression. Those eyes of his. The way he had set himself down entirely, and worried only for her…
“And if your method fails? Or if there's another way?”
“…….”
Cariel looked up, suddenly, at the empty air. There was nothing there. Nothing, certainly. But for the briefest instant, Alesia had the feeling that she had glimpsed something. She could not say what. All that surfaced was a vision of dazzling gold.
“Do not worry.”
Cariel spoke with a face that was, unexpectedly, at peace.
“I don't go casting blame blindly on anyone — and yet the fact that things have come to this… is also the doing of certain people. I won't mistake my target and hurl hatred at the innocent, no. But that is also why I was cursed.”
A curse, if it is a curse. A contract, if it is a contract. Anything will do. I will keep my promise. I am not trying to say some hot-cheeked thing about protecting precious people. Honestly, that can wait — it's a matter for later. If someone sneers that I'm spoiled beyond all decency, that I nurse a grudge this vicious over so small a thing — let them say what they will about me. …What business is it of mine?
“Thank you for loving me.”
And then — if it were possible —
“If the day ever comes when I set down this burden I carry… could you come find me then?”
On that day, I could welcome your affection gladly.
Because in the end — his failure would be joined to her unhappiness. And beyond that, to the unhappiness of countless others. If Elhermina, of all people, had come to love him at precisely this point in time, then his failure to fulfill his role would spill over into ruin for her and all around her — and from there, spread into the ruin of the Empire itself.
“…….”
That doomed woman didn't confess her love to me weighing all of that, of course. My feelings for Elhermina extend no further than admiration — refined a little, perhaps, into respect. Affection has no place in it. I don't know how that might change in time; I'm a little doubtful that such a 'later' will ever come at all.
But Alesia was different.
…If her heart does not change. Though inwardly, I hope it does. That would be better for her, too.
“……Then I'll have to work harder, won't I.”
In a low, sunken voice, gazing at Cariel with eyes gone somehow hollow, she said it.
“?”
“If the good deeds I've stacked up keep growing, then He'll listen to my prayers just a little more.”
Alesia wore a desolate smile.
“So from now on, I'll pray for you. Pray that you won't be made unhappy. Pray that you'll find even a little more strength.”
“…I don't know how I'll change either, I suppose.”
If her heart were still unchanged when that day came —
“…Then I'd want you to accept my confession. Ah… but in exchange, hurry up and finish what you have to do and come back, okay? I'm getting on in years, you know… if I miss my season, I'll end up alone my whole life. I'd have no complaints if I were some devout soul dedicating her body and soul to God like certain people, but… I'm a sinner after small comforts. So I want to marry soon, have children, suffer a little less along the way, and just — live happily. That's all.”
And so —
“…….”
Unable to say more, she trailed off. Cariel looked at her, bowed his head lightly, and then passed her by, heading for the stairs.
Her voice had kept stretching on and on, and somewhere in it, a dampness had begun to gather. Her composure had slipped, and the disarray of her face was plain to see for even a moment — and so he had decided, deliberately, to look away.
Whether that would wound her, or bring her comfort… honestly, he did not know.
May it bring her comfort. May it, please.
May the paths of all whom she pursued open easily before her. May the world grow a little kinder, as she wished — and a little more peaceful.
That much, he did not pray for. He simply… wished it. Only carried that wish on the wind, and let it drift away.