The Dream He Left Behind
And after that, well, the rest was as inevitable as anything else.
A chill that had seeped all the way to her bones. Laughter and pity that followed her like smoke.
Courtney Merino, who had always trailed after Sylvia with bright eyes and a persistent, eager little voice, asking to be friends, now twisted her lips and mocked her for having nothing left but that illustrious name. The kind adults offered platitudes, telling her not to worry because there were other paths she could take. And her father……
The father who had always only laughed heartily whenever he looked at her changed forever that day.
He came running the moment he heard the news, then looked down at her with eyes colder than death itself. Sylvia was so sick with fever she could barely stand, her legs useless beneath her, and yet he dragged her over like a dog and set her back down on that damn magic circle.
“Again. Do it again. Hm? No, that can’t be right. Something must be wrong. Combat incapable? My daughter? That can’t possibly be true!”
But no matter how many times they repeated the same thing, the result never changed.
Duke Appleton stared at her with an expression of utter humiliation and betrayal, and Sylvia shook so badly she felt as if guilt itself might strangle the breath from her lungs.
The father who had loved her mother so dearly seemed to have decided, in an instant, to hate the woman who had brought him such a monstrous disgrace. He had been disturbingly quick to doubt her chastity, and when it was finally confirmed that Sylvia was indeed his daughter, he tossed Sylvia aside with her mother’s things into a corner of the manor.
Rot away there if you must.
He never said it outright, but Sylvia received that meaning through every signal he sent. And she had been willing to obey.
After all, it had felt as though everything—truly everything—had vanished that day.
She had heard that some stars simply fell from the sky and disappeared, and the thought had crossed her mind that she might be one of them.
So she didn’t eat the meals left for her. She lay in one corner of the room, watching the ceiling while everything around her rotted, and passed the hours in a haze. Then, in the middle of the night, Heston came to her, somehow knowing.
“It’s me. Heston.”
His voice came from the other side of the door, careful but firm. Sylvia had been so stunned by his sudden appearance that for a moment she thought she must be dreaming. But then she saw his shadow beneath the door, and when her senses finally caught up, it became real: he was truly here. Sylvia, confused by how he had even gotten in, asked in a daze, “What? How did you get in here?”
Who had opened the door for him? But with the duke’s vigilance pressing down on the manor more fiercely than ever, who would have dared open it for Heston?
As though her worry had been correct, Heston answered with maddening calm rather than admitting anyone had let him in.
“Remember that treasure we saw back then? The one that looked like a key. I used that.”
“You used the family heirloom?”
“Yeah. It was only ever going to sit in a display case for the rest of its life anyway. If I used it, who’d even know?”
She couldn’t tell whether he was joking. Of course, if it had been any ordinary prank, Heston probably wouldn’t have bothered with it, but the idea was so insane that she almost wished it were a joke.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“I’m not.”
“You’re crazy! Put it back, right now.”
“Can’t. It’s already been used. More importantly, don’t you want to hear what happened the moment I used the treasure?”
His voice dipped low, sly as a fishing line teasing bait.
She had once asked him that very question in the exhibition hall at Sodern Castle, staring up at the treasure hung high above them. What would happen if someone used it? What would that moment feel like? She had been dying to know what kind of world the treasure would reveal, the one said to contain shards of divine power divided and sealed away.
Don’t you?
But when she asked him back then, Heston had only shrugged with an unreadable face.
“It’s not a wise thought. If you try to peek into the world of gods, your greed may bring you ruin. That’s how humanity was destroyed in the past.”
And then he had turned away so cleanly and coldly that Sylvia had pouted, disappointed by his stubbornness, and hurried after him, muttering all the while.
“I said I’m not trying to peek! If that’s what I wanted, why would I see a magic circle in my eyes? Someday, if I get a treasure with my own power, I’m definitely going to use it right away. And then I’ll tell you exactly what I saw, Heston!”
Her eyes had shone with breathless excitement for the future.
Heston had looked down at her with only the faintest kindness, the sort meant to encourage a friend’s dream, but no trace anywhere of any shared desire to chase the same thing. And now he’d come to her after wasting the family heirloom itself, asking whether she wasn’t curious about what it felt like…… who was he trying to fool?
Sylvia had been about to bristle, but then she saw the light spilling under the door and the steady, unshaken shadow standing there, and closed her mouth. Heston was doing this to make her get back up.
He was trying to use a dream from the past as bait to drag her out of this pit. Sylvia curled in on herself in front of the door.
“I’m not curious.”
“……”
“What would I even do by being curious now? Forget anything grandiose—if I got out of here, I don’t even know what would happen to me next.”
“What were you going to become in the first place?”
“Obviously…… like Erhart…….”
The door was cold. The light was cruel. But Heston’s soft, even voice and his dark shadow were gentle, comforting.
“Destroying the world the way Erhart would isn’t like you. You’re suited to protecting things. You’re the one who said the most wonderful thing in the world is protecting someone.”
“What could I possibly protect?”
“Me.”
Heston said it with absolute certainty, without a trace of a smile.
“You protect me. I’ll become a knight. Supporters and knights save the world when they move as one.”
“You’ll become a knight?”
“Yes. So you come out of there and protect me. From now on, I’ll be waiting only for you.”
She was fifteen. Too late, perhaps, to take up a new dream—but Sylvia didn’t say that, and Heston didn’t particularly wait for her answer anyway.
He reached through the door as if touching the Sylvia on the other side, and Sylvia sat curled in the dark, watching his shadow move closer and then farther away.
And the next day, she heard that Heston had given up his position as the duke’s heir to his twin brother, Lewis, and declared that he would become a knight instead.
The reason was that a person who had carelessly used the family heirloom for private purposes could no longer inherit the dukedom. Duke Rockwood had naturally been furious and practically driven Heston out, and Sylvia still never truly understood why he had gone that far.
But by doing so, Heston became Sylvia’s dream.
And her love.
That much was certain.
* * *
The sun was sinking into dusk.
The people preparing for battle were loud all around her. Darkness climbed the castle walls and spread outward, and before long, the air itself began to stink.
Sylvia and Owen were preparing as well. Sticking close to him, she was reviewing the training drills once more for Owen, who had been half-hearted through them all this time.
“You remember, right? This is the half-send, and this is the maximum. I’ll adjust depending on your condition, of course, but there’ll still be times when you have to send me a signal.”
Rather than answer the pointless question of whether he remembered the difference between one finger and five, Owen studied the changes in her face.
Drooping eyes. Soft cheeks. Clear brows. Come to think of it, maybe even her jaw was set tighter than usual.
“What’s wrong, nervous?”
He could tell something was different from her usual self, but he couldn’t quite say what, so he guessed that the last battle was still weighing on her mind. Sylvia, however, glared at him as if he’d insulted her and scowled.
“Are you making fun of me? I’ve been into battle just as many times as you have.”
“Your partner changed. I might not be able to guard you as well as Heston did. I might forget you’re behind me.”
He didn’t want to scare her, but honestly, Owen had been wondering if he might be worse than the bastards who had made her fall. At least they had fought alongside a Supporter. He, on the other hand, had fought alone all this time.
Great. Now she’s going to accuse me of looking down on her again.
Owen averted his eyes slightly and checked his armor. The guard strapped to his right forearm felt a little loose, so he bit one end of the strap in his left hand and another in his mouth and tugged, when soft fingers brushed lightly against his lips.
It was Sylvia’s hand.
When he looked up in surprise, Sylvia gave him a flat stare, as if wondering what there was to be so shocked about, and took over tying the strap he had been wrestling with alone. Tight, tight.
Her thin arms, which looked as if they should tremble under even a quarter of the weight she was wearing, still managed to tie it securely. Without even needing to ask, Owen could guess that it had always been Sylvia who fastened Heston’s guards for him, too.
When she was finished, she tipped her chin as if telling him to check it. Owen did as he was told, shaking his arm, and when he nodded to show he liked it, Sylvia suddenly reached up with both hands, slapped his face lightly between her palms, and made him look at her.
“You’ll never be able to forget I was behind you, so just clear out all the obstacles in front.”
Her eyes gleamed with a clear, unwavering resolve.
Owen was staring at them as if bewitched when Sylvia shoved one finger into his forehead. It didn’t even hurt, but he rubbed the spot anyway and rolled his eyes.
If I’d been a little slower, I probably would’ve gone and kissed her again.
Suddenly he understood why, the night he’d slept with Sylvia, he had left marks on her body with kisses, out of character and almost greedily. It had been less a sign of possession than the unconscious habit of someone drawn instinctively to whatever was soft and good.
Like a dog pressing its hips into a blanket and rubbing its head all over it.
For a second there, I thought I actually liked her. Good thing that’s not it.
With thoughts strangely out of step, Owen felt oddly relieved.
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