Night of Destiny (3)
Is this a dream?
Standing before a field of flowers in full, extravagant bloom, that was the thought that crossed Serpina's mind—that none of this could be real.
After all, a landscape this gentle, this kind, could never have been granted to someone like her.
She turned her head just slightly—
and a white-haired man was smiling at her.
A face she knew. Swen.
She hadn't dreamed of him once since the day they met… and yet here he was again, as if the dream itself had called him back.
Strangely, she could see herself from a third person's eyes.
Wearing a straw hat to keep off the sun, dressed in a pure white gown… she was smiling like a woman who had been loved beyond measure, happier than anyone alive.
It was a warmth so complete she could scarcely remember the last time her face had worn a smile like that.
In that moment—when it seemed as though happiness alone might last forever—
Swen slowly rose from where he sat.
Then he began to walk, step by deliberate step, away from her.
…Huh?
She reached out… but her hand found nothing.
She wanted to call after him, but no voice would come.
There was so much she needed to say—far too much—and yet her lips would not part.
Don't go.
Don't leave me, Swen.
If you leave too, then I… I…
I'll be left unloved by anyone, hated by everyone… abandoned.
No.
I don't want that.
Please, please, please… don't leave me…
…Ah.
Her eyes snapped open.
"What on earth is going on, Lady Serpina…"
…Swen?
It was Swen's voice.
The same voice that had belonged to the man in the dream she had just left.
Serpina moved her hand, carefully. As sensation returned little by little, the pieces of what had happened began to fall into place.
Right. She had been given an herbal analgesic, lain down, entrusted her body to her attendants… and drifted off to sleep.
As her body came back to her, a dull ache began to press in at her waist—but even so—
Swen… don't go…!
With every last scrap of strength she had, she stretched out her hand and caught his wrist.
He looked down at her, concern written plain across his face.
"You're awake, my lord? For now, you should rest and—"
I can't… I absolutely cannot let him go…!
There was room for nothing else in Serpina's mind.
She did not want to lose this man.
If she did, she would regret it for the rest of her life.
"…Swen."
"My lord."
And so…
she laid bare the truth she had kept locked deep in her heart—the real feelings she had never once dared to speak, for fear that he might come to hate her for them.
I know.
I know I have no place in your heart.
I know the lord you serve is not me. I've noticed that much.
But even so…
if I don't say this now, I think I'll regret it forever.
So—
"…Don't leave me, Swen…"
she said it.
"My lord…?"
As Serpina held my hand and turned her body slightly onto her side, the blanket slipped down, baring one pale white shoulder.
Before I could even look away, she said it again—the same plea, word for word.
"Please… don't leave me, Swen…"
"…"
Don't leave. What did that even mean?
That she wanted me here, beside her, right now?
I decided to take it that way and settled into the chair nearest the bed.
"I'm not going anywhere, my lord. I'll stay right here today."
But she only tightened her grip on my arm, as if pinning down a man already trying to flee, and spoke again.
"That's not what I mean…"
"…"
"Swen… stay by my side. Please…"
Don't leave me.
Stay with me.
I understood what those words truly meant.
Had she known all along?
That one day I would leave her side?
She had said it over and over, after all. That she would be fine even as second place. That she wanted my heart by any means. That she would do anything if only she could keep me near.
Had the real meaning beneath every one of those confessions been this—that I must never leave her, not until the end?
Serpina did not press me for an answer as I hesitated in silence.
She probably hadn't said it expecting one.
After a stretch of quiet, I carefully changed the subject.
"…How is the wound?"
"It's not going to kill me, so I'm fine. Stubborn as I look, my life has always been… rather tenacious."
The court physician had said there was nothing more he could do—nothing but bind the wound and apply medicinal herbs.
Treatment like this would take time. A few weeks at best; months at worst.
She had survived, yes, but even an amateur like me could see the injury was far from light. Months was the safer bet.
She must have known she would be in no condition to govern properly like this… and the moment that thought settled, the question rose to my lips of its own accord.
"My lord. Why did you do it?"
"…"
"Why… did you throw yourself in front of Lady Irene like that?"
Serpina was a clever woman.
She understood the weight of her own life better than anyone.
To me, Lady Irene was precious beyond measure—but to this nation, the sovereign's life mattered far more than that of a single bodyguard.
Her actions must have left Irene, her own knight, in an impossible position as well.
No matter how generously you dressed it up, a charge dying to protect her own guard was a failure of protection—nothing more, nothing less.
She was not someone who could have failed to see that her choice would help neither herself nor Irene.
So why had she done it?
Serpina closed her golden eyes, then opened them again, and held my hand tightly.
"…I did not want to hurt you."
"…What?"
"I… Swen. I did not want to make you suffer."
In a trembling voice, she confessed what was truly in her heart.
"General Irene is someone of great importance to you, is she not…? If I had allowed her to come to harm… your heart would have broken."
"And if that happened, I thought I might leave a wound in you that could never be washed clean… so before I knew it, my body moved on its own."
"…"
"I know the whole world hates me… I thought I had grown used to it by now. But if I hurt you, and in the end—just as always—I came to be hated by you as well… I felt I would fall apart."
"So… I threw myself forward. I hoped you would not be sad. I hoped you would not hate me. I—"
—I was afraid of you coming to hate me.
I closed my hand firmly over hers as she spoke in that shaking voice.
"My lord… there is no world in which I would come to hate you."
"Swen…"
"So…"
No further words would come.
I didn't know what I was supposed to say.
In a similar situation, I had been able to speak freely to Irene.
With her, I could pour out everything in my heart without holding back. That was still true now.
But Serpina was different.
For a man who would one day leave her to place any words of comfort on her shoulders… that itself would have been a betrayal.
And so I could not find the courage to speak carelessly.
Please rest easy. I'll keep standing by your side.
Thank you. Thank you for saving Lady Irene. I will never forget it.
The right words drifted through my mind again and again… and I could not say a single one of them.
I knew too well that I had no right to speak them.
Then—
Serpina's slender hand rose slowly.
Before I realized it, she was brushing the back of her fingers gently down my face.
"Do not cry."
"…What?"
Ah.
Only then did I notice the tears running from my eyes.
"Swen… I did it so that you would not hurt. So why are you the one in pain?"
"My lord…"
"I am glad I saved Irene… Had I not, I would not have been able to look you in the face."
I said nothing. I only held her hand tightly in return.
Even as tears fell onto my knees, I could not bring myself to open my mouth. Minutes passed like that.
Serpina kept wiping my tears away… and then, slowly, carefully, she drew out the story she had been carrying inside her.
"…Swen."
"Yes."
What she said was this:
"I… didn't kill them."
It might have sounded trivial coming from the absolute ruler of a nation.
But coming from a human being, it was a weight almost too heavy to bear.
"I… didn't kill anyone, Swen."
"My lord…"
"Brother Algot… Brother Sidmid…"
The moment I heard those names, words she had spoken once before brushed past my ear.
"Of course I did. Algot, the strongest claimant to the throne, and Sidmid, who clashed with him most fiercely—I removed them both with my own hands."
She had looked me in the eyes and told me she had killed them all.
"For a youngest child with no claim whatsoever to rise to the imperial throne, what had to be done was a purge. If no one followed me, I simply had to kill them all and leave alive only those who would swear themselves to me. A foolishly simple matter, is it not? So I cleaned house. I was a person who had to wear the crown."
And when that story was finished, she had tossed a question at me in a tone so casual it was almost careless.
"Do you not despise me?"
And now—
she was speaking to me in a voice that shook.
Telling me she had not killed them.
I looked at her face.
Just as I had been crying—
she began to cry as well.
Her golden eyes trembled like a lake under wind.
"I didn't… kill anyone. I… didn't kill… a single person…"
—Hic.
The woman I had always believed would remain unbreakably strong.
The woman who would never have permitted anyone to look down on her—
was weeping so hard her beautiful face was ruined.
"Believe me, Swen… I… didn't kill… anyone…"
"…"
In a voice that seemed ready to shatter at any moment, she pleaded with me again and again.
I didn't do it.
I didn't kill anyone.
She was laying bare the truth she had buried in the deepest place she had.
"It's true…"
Listening to her fading voice, I steadied myself and thought.
How unlike her this defense was.
The Serpina I knew always explained herself with grounds anyone could accept…
and yet the woman before me offered no details at all—only the same insistence, over and over, that she had not done it.
A sentence short on evidence, short on logic, short on rhetoric.
And yet, ironically, its power to move the heart was something no orator in the world could have matched.
If Serpina truly had not killed anyone, then whose sins were all the atrocities the world had laid at her feet?
Had she spent her whole life wearing the crimes of someone else—alone?
And most of all—
why was she telling me this?
There was more than one question. More than two.
But what mattered now was not picking them apart one by one.
What I had to do was give her the words she needed most.
To soothe the heart that had finally found the courage to speak.
"I believe you."
I looked steadily into both of her eyes as I said it.
"I told you then as well, didn't I? That I believe in you, Lady Serpina. Nothing has changed since that day. I believe you. I believe every word you've said."
She did not answer. She only kept crying.
I asked nothing further. Quietly, I brought my hand to her face.
Even with my hand resting on the face of an absolute sovereign… she did not refuse my touch.
I wiped the tears from Serpina's cheeks, then took her hand firmly in mine once more.
It was warm.
The hand of a tyrant said to have neither blood nor tears—and yet warm blood still ran through it.
No. Perhaps she was a tyrant someone else had made. She had not killed anyone. I believed her words. I had no choice but to believe them.
I leaned my heart against the warmth I felt in her hand.
As the soft scent of yuzu soaked into my soul, I slowly came to understand something.
The yuzu fragrance drifting through the air right now was not rising from her…
but blooming from inside my own heart.
What are you doing?
What do you think you're doing, giving this much of your heart to her?
I buried those rational questions deep in my chest for now…
and simply followed instinct, resting my face against her hand.
And then—
with a resolve so shameless it almost startled me—
I vowed to protect Serpina for the rest of my life.
And in that vow… there was, regrettably, not a single grain of falsehood mixed in.