Slope
For the next several days, Sylvia was confined to her room. The doctor had said she had overextended her mana and strained her body so badly that it was better if she didn’t move at all. At the door, Heston’s men stood guard and made sure the doctor’s orders were carried out to the letter.
Aside from them, only the knights and Supporters who had been there when the tower fell came by to make a racket before leaving again. The one person Sylvia was actually waiting for never showed his face.
Why isn’t he coming?
Day after day passed without a word, and unease slowly began to creep in. At first, she thought he must still be badly hurt. But then, two days earlier, she had seen Owen sitting calmly outside the window, and every comforting excuse she had clung to shattered at once. He simply seemed to have chosen not to come to her.
Is he angry at me?
Well. Sylvia had been the one who insisted on going to where the holy relic was, and she had been the one who hid it, forcing him to be tortured for it. If the roles were reversed, there probably wasn’t a more infuriating dead weight than her. She couldn’t even kill a single monster on her own, so what gave her the nerve?
Besides, Owen had been the one stabbed, not Sylvia. Maybe even the sight of her face would bring back the nightmare of that day.
Just thinking about it made her shoulders and thighs burn. That wasn’t from mana sharing, she was sure of it; it was probably nothing more than a phantom ache conjured by her own mind. Proof of that was the fact that, even when she had seen Owen out on the street through the window that day, she had been the only one in pain.
While Sylvia clutched at her burning thigh, Owen had been sitting there in peace, tearing bread apart to hand out to the little boys around him. Sylvia looked at the bandages wrapped around his shoulder and thigh, then sighed and shut the window.
And after two more days, even Sylvia forgot about Owen.
That was because she had heard that her father, Duke Appleton, was on his way here. Heston said the duke must have started for them as soon as he learned Sylvia had disappeared, adding, “The duke must have been terribly worried about you.” But Sylvia didn’t have even a shred of such romantic imagination.
Three years ago, when Erhart had been badly injured in the middle of the war, the duke had gone with Sylvia to where Erhart was being treated. Erhart had been wrapped head to toe in bandages after an accident that left him engulfed in flames. Even while hounding two priests he had bribed into coming with him to treat Erhart, the duke never once gave in to Erhart’s tearful pleas to please let him go home.
“Dammit, how long are you going to keep me dumped out on the battlefield?”
Trembling all over from powerful painkillers, tears and sweat streaming down his face, Erhart had raged and groveled and raged again, like a madman, begging to be taken out of there.
Sylvia had never seen him like that before. Whenever he came home from time to time, Erhart always looked as if the battlefield were the purpose of his life, the source of his vitality.
In fact, Sylvia had always assumed there was nowhere except the battlefield where Erhart’s hot-blooded nature could be allowed to run wild. So she had never given much thought to the life he led—years spent in war, far longer than the two or three that others served out of duty.
Erhart’s ruined condition had been so shocking that Sylvia nearly forgot all the times he had tormented her, but Duke Appleton didn’t even blink, no matter how his precious son wept and begged.
“If you can just hold out five more years, you’ll be on your way to success. What on earth are you talking about? No, if you hadn’t gone and caused trouble in the first place, it would have been over long ago. Gaining merit, then wasting it, then gaining merit and wasting it again. Isn’t that why you ended up in this humiliating state?”
As though he were listening to the duke and yet not listening at all, Erhart lay blankly in bed and muttered,
“You won’t let me die, will you? I’m not your son. I’m just something you own. Right?”
Sometimes, Sylvia still thought of those hollow eyes.
Whenever she compared the lives of herself and Erhart, she had always believed, without question, that Erhart’s must be the happier one. But that day, for the first time, she wondered if that wasn’t true at all.
Father thinks of all his children as things. Precious things that mustn’t be scratched or damaged.
So there was no way Sylvia could believe Duke Appleton had rushed all the way here because he was truly worried about her.
Three more days passed before he arrived. Pulling two carriages behind him, the duke stepped down with a dark expression that looked every bit like a father worried for his daughter. The moment he disembarked, he swept Sylvia from head to toe with his gaze, then at once clasped the hands of the princess and Duke Araspe, who had come out to receive him.
“My daughter has surely caused you great trouble.”
“Trouble? Not at all. She’s accomplished so much.”
Duke Appleton smiled politely, but he didn’t seem to believe the princess in the least. After a brief exchange with Duke Araspe—who seemed aware of the existence of the fake holy relic, but had no idea that it was connected to Echbeach, the land of his future granddaughter-in-law—the duke walked with them toward the lodging where Sylvia was staying.
Considering everyone else had been sent away, it seemed he had something to say to her. Sylvia grew tense all over again, fidgeting with the pale blue dress she was wearing as she followed her father’s steps.
“I’m glad to see your condition doesn’t seem to be too poor.”
Duke Appleton stopped in a secluded corner of the garden and said it abruptly.
“Yes. Thanks to your concern…….”
“Then we’ll return to the capital tomorrow.”
There was a finality in his clipped, decisive tone, an unmistakable conviction that no other opinion would be accepted.
Sylvia stammered in protest at the baffling order.
“What do you mean? There’s still so much to sort out, I can’t just leave by myself…….”
“How long do you intend to keep living like this?”
In truth, Sylvia was the one tired of this conversation, but the duke’s face looked worn down to the point of exhaustion.
Under the sunlight filtered through leaf shadows, his features seemed even more aged than the last time she had seen him. Sylvia couldn’t hide her distaste for what was coming and took a step back.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I don’t think you really don’t know. I’ve allowed you plenty of freedom to run about as you please. But look at yourself now.”
“And what exactly is wrong with the way I look?”
The reason she could afford to be insolent for once was the praise the princess had offered a moment ago—She’s accomplished so much. And because her father had responded with a smile that made it clear he didn’t believe a word of it, Catherine’s brows had briefly furrowed in displeasure.
Duke Appleton also seemed to catch at once where Sylvia’s defiance was coming from, and his lips twisted.
“Don’t think you can ever become like the princess. She has imperial blood in her veins and is a magnificent mage. But look at you. With your mediocre abilities, you can’t even admit you’re truly mediocre, so you bury yourself in work to an excessive degree. But do you really matter to that work at all? You only cling to things anyone could do and use them to comfort yourself.”
“No matter what you say, Father, I’m proud of what I’ve done. I won’t quit, and I won’t run away.”
“Proud?”
For one brief moment, rage swept over Duke Appleton’s face. Sylvia was startled, but she didn’t waver. Then he came right up to her, close enough to breathe in her face, and shouted before he could even control his voice.
“People are already saying you were stranded out there alone with a man. In a situation like that, even if nothing happened, who would take you as a wife? I can barely lift my head from the shame of it, and you have the audacity to speak of pride!”
Only then did Sylvia understand why her father had rushed here so desperately. It wasn’t because she had nearly died, nor because the situation had turned so grim. It was only to take her away before the flaw on something he intended to sell later became any worse.
Sylvia recoiled, feeling a fierce contempt for the man before her.
“I’m not going. No matter what you do, you won’t be able to drag me away without my consent.”
“You’ve really got some nerve.”
“Why are you doing this? Why is someone in your position so obsessed with success? If there isn’t some magnificent mage born into our family, does your existence lose all meaning? As if everyone were just the same…….”
Then his hand cracked across her face.
Sylvia wasn’t shocked, but the shame that flooded her was worse than she had expected, and she bit down hard on her lip. Her cheek burned, and sparks burst in front of her eyes for an instant.
Duke Appleton’s eyes were terribly cold for those of a father looking at his daughter, closer by far to the look one reserved for an enemy. He stood there for a moment, as if trying to contain his emotions, then turned and walked away.
Only when she saw his back did Sylvia finally feel the rage and sorrow she had been pressing down come crashing over her like a wave.
How can he do this?
That question. The one she had repeated for more than ten years. It was the most effective way to fan the flames of her anger.
How can a parent do something like that?
Of course Sylvia had seen worse parents in noble society than him, enough to make her sick of them, but comparing him to others didn’t make this any easier. Worse still, she had already experienced one version of her father’s tenderness, and because of that, she couldn’t bear this indifference that seemed to have curdled into hatred.
Tears streaked over the cheek he had struck, still hot with pain. Her shoulders shook, and her mind was a blur with the force of her emotions. Sylvia wanted Heston. She wanted to see him, to tell him how much she was hurting, and to collapse in his arms the way he had collapsed beneath hers only days ago.
But then someone seized Sylvia by the shoulder.
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