And Again (1)
They exchanged letters once more. What Marion mainly wrote about in her letters were details of the flower garden she tended as a hobby. Every time Maxim received one, a suffocating frustration piled up inside him. Whenever he found the time, he replied to her letters. His writing was not particularly skillful and never quite satisfied him, yet he poured as much sincerity as he could into every response.
During the year Maxim spent in Ebel, countless letters traveled back and forth. With each new sheet added to the stack, the guilt inside him grew heavier. He could offer sympathy, but he could not give her his heart. As Marion opened hers to him, he opened his in return. Yet the distance between them refused to shrink.
Even after returning to the capital, Maxim continued to keep a measured distance from Marion. It stemmed from his guilt toward her, from the feelings still tangled with Theodora, and from the rage he felt toward the events so deeply connected to both. Still, he never stopped visiting her at regular intervals. Each time, the burden settled on his heart like a fine layer of dust.
Though he could not tell her a single word about himself, Marion never pressed him about his past. That silence only made his heart heavier. Her expression changed with every visit. From a face tight with fear, to a blank look that spoke of comfort, from blankness to a faint smile that lifted only the corners of her mouth, and finally to the shy, girlish smile she wore now.
“Come in.”
Marion readily led him into her room. Maxim followed her light footsteps—the ones that never seemed to carry any weight—into the chamber. Behind him, a servant closed the door with a soft click. Marion took a seat at the table prepared in the center of the room. Maxim sat across from her, offering a faint smile at the unusually insistent way she had summoned him.
“Has it been a month?”
So much had happened, Maxim thought. Marion had not sought him out. In reply to his letter saying he would be busy, she had simply written that she would wait for his work to finish.
“A month… and a week, I believe.”
Maxim smiled bitterly. Had that much time already slipped away?
“I’m sorry.”
Marion shook her head.
“It’s all right. You’ve come back healthy.”
At those words, Maxim became sharply aware of the scar beneath his chest. How nice it would be if he could affirm that he had returned healthy and say it with a genuine smile. Instead, he answered with a smile that did not reach his eyes. Whenever Marion’s blue gaze settled on him, it felt as though she were peering straight into his depths; he could not meet those eyes directly.
“What was No Man’s Land like?”
Marion changed the subject. Maxim rested his chin on the table and called up the landscape in his mind.
“It was desolate.”
There was no wind, no trees, no grass. Only an endless wilderness of stone beneath a sky that was unnaturally blue. And below the cliff at its edge, monsters writhed in droves.
“I never expected it to be romantic… but it was far more barren than I imagined.”
Marion blinked, curious.
“A desert with neither grass nor a single insect.”
“Not even insects?”
“There were plenty of monsters, though.”
Maxim spoke with a touch of wry humor. Marion’s eyes sparkled with even greater interest.
“A lot of monsters?”
“Yes. An incredible number. Like bugs swarming to a flame.”
Worry flickered across Marion’s face.
“You weren’t hurt, were you?”
“Nothing worth worrying about.”
Maxim shook his head. The scratches on his cheek, the bones broken in several places—Marion had no idea those things were truly insignificant. She did not know about the scars and curses hidden beneath his clothes, nor that his life was being steadily shaved away even as they sat here, conversing pleasantly as if nothing were wrong.
Unlike with Theodora, this truth was something Marion would eventually have to learn. Yet Maxim kept postponing it, unable to bring himself to speak.
He changed the subject and continued describing No Man’s Land. Marion listened quietly to the tale that was not quite a heroic exploit.
“…So while I was riding—”
A knock sounded at the door. Both Marion and Maxim looked up with identical puzzled expressions.
“You may enter…”
As soon as Marion spoke, the door opened. The moment they saw who stood there, their faces hardened in unison.
“What a harmonious scene.”
“Father…”
The man in the doorway was Marion’s father, Emil Bourdin.
Emil Bourdin gestured with a downward wave of his hand, indicating there was no need to rise, and a sardonic smile curved his lips. Maxim forced his own stiffening expression back under control.
“Perfect timing. I had something to discuss with you, Maxim, and called you here. Since you’re both together, this works out nicely.”
Emil Bourdin addressed them in that slippery, refined voice.
“I believe it has been quite some time since the two of you became engaged. Over three years now, if I’m not mistaken?”
When Marion lowered her head and remained silent, Maxim spoke.
“I recall that the last time we saw each other’s faces was on the third anniversary of that spring.”
“As expected, your memory is excellent.”
Maxim swallowed the nausea rising in his throat and waited for Emil Bourdin to continue.
“Yes, you understand why I asked whether it has been a long time since the engagement, don’t you?”
When neither answered, Emil Bourdin twitched an eyebrow and went on.
“It means the time has come to discuss your marriage in practical terms.”
He dropped the statement like a bomb. Marion’s face wavered between shock and confusion. Maxim’s expression froze solid. Emil Bourdin looked back and forth between them, his sardonic smile never faltering.
The carriage rolled through the Royal Capital’s streets. Platinum hair danced in the headwind. Ash-gray eyes, dulled and empty, scanned the familiar scenery. Maxim would have been sitting beside her. They would have talked about the hurried merchants, the tall buildings, the shops they often visited. The avenue lined with structures gradually thinned until the road widened, leading toward the Knight Academy.
‘Theo.’
‘What’s the next class?’
‘I’ll be waiting for you at sparring.’
A single two-wheeled carriage traveled the streets of the Royal Capital at a moderate pace, carrying its passenger toward its destination. Platinum blonde hair fluttered softly in the oncoming wind. Dull, ash-gray eyes swept over the passing scenery without their former light.
“You wished to go to the Academy?” the coachman asked, his voice rattling along with the uneven road.
“Yes.”
The coachman smiled amiably and tried to draw her into conversation.
“What business takes you there? Your uniform doesn’t look like a student’s… Perhaps you’re a professor?”
Theodora had no desire to answer. Noticing her cold silence, the coachman whistled and turned away, pretending to focus on the road.
The streets were achingly familiar. The busy merchants rushing past, the tall, distinctive buildings of the capital, the two- and four-wheeled carriages moving in the opposite direction. As the carriage drew nearer to the Academy, Theodora’s memories rewound like the hands of a clock being wound tight.
Maxim would have been sitting beside her. They would have been talking. About the people walking along the street, about the shops they used to visit often.
The avenue lined with buildings eventually gave way to fewer structures. The road widened, swallowing alleys and buildings as though guiding all travelers in a single direction. On the path to the Academy—the place she had sworn she would never visit again—Theodora thought of the events from three years ago. The place where their meeting had occurred, and where their farewell had taken place.
And Theodora remembered Maxim collapsed. That pale face, coughing blood, covered in wounds.
You have no right to do that.
The words that had torn into Christine’s chest. The word curse.
It is exactly as it sounds. A curse. If you use aura—no, mana—it threatens your very life.
And the single clue left behind.
The carriage ran on, carrying Theodora toward the Academy. Following the avenue, the main gate of the Knight Academy would soon appear, and beyond it, the campus.
Theodora drew in a deep breath.
“There’s the main gate. What would you like me to do?”
The coachman’s voice had grown slightly curt as he glanced back at her.
Theodora, indifferent to whether his tone was curt or kind, simply stared at the Academy in a daze.
“Let me off near the gate.”
The coachman muttered “Yes, yes,” to himself and urged the horses forward. Guards loitered near the entrance. Theodora stepped down from the carriage, dragging her limping leg.
“Thank you.”
The coachman accepted his payment, bowed repeatedly, and drove away. Theodora walked the neatly paved path leading to the Academy. The Royal Capital in the height of summer was hot. The guards, sweating inside their armor, noticed her, shouldered their spears, and approached with heavy steps.
“We’ll need to inspect—”
They stopped mid-sentence upon seeing her attire and face, then nodded.
“You belong to a knight order. May we have your exact affiliation, title, and name?”
Theodora sighed.
“…I am Theodora Benning, Commander of the Raven Knight Order under direct royal authority.”
The two guards looked startled and whispered to each other. Theodora knew their eyes were fixed on her injured leg. She deliberately adjusted her crutch.
“Are you the Theodora Benning of Kips…?”
Theodora nodded.
“I heard you came to the capital recently regarding the reformation of the Raven Knight Order… What brings you here today?”
“I have something I need to look into. I also wish to speak with the professors.”
When Theodora presented her identification as well, the guards nodded. The inspection had been a mere formality; they kindly escorted her to the gate.
“Thank you for your service in protecting the kingdom.”
“…It is nothing.”
Leaving her alone, the guards returned to their posts. Theodora stepped forward. The crutch clacked against the ground. The campus harboring painful memories drew steadily closer.
Theodora narrowed her eyes. The grounds, dotted with trees, looked exactly as they had during the summer semester. Classes must have already ended; few students wandered the paths.
She struggled up the incline toward the main building. She was grateful the training grounds lay behind the campus, out of sight. Soon she entered the sparsely populated grounds and stopped.
Maxim’s curse. The curse that prevented him from using aura. Theodora assumed it had begun at the very end of his Academy days. She would uncover the truth—what had happened to Maxim after they parted, or whether that “something” had occurred while they were still together.
It had probably started with the final exam.
She recalled the bald instructor who had overseen it, Instructor Pierre. He should still be teaching. A passionate man like him would surely appear at the Academy even during the break.
Theodora walked the empty corridors, following old memories. True to a knight academy, the floors were hard, cold stone. She remembered the layout perfectly: the annex on the first floor of the main building, the arrangement of the second and third floors.
As she moved through the main building, instructors and students occasionally passed, staring at her with wide eyes or open suspicion. Theodora ignored them and climbed to the second floor. West wing. She repeated the location to herself, trying not to look at the scenery that brushed past her. Every glimpse stirred memories.
The world she saw overlapped with the one from three years ago.
She reached the faculty office door. Theodora placed her hand on it, hesitated, then turned the handle and stepped inside.
“…How may I assist you…?”
The woman at the desk was not a knight. She was a timid, skinny woman wearing glasses. She had not worked here when Theodora was a cadet. The woman spoke in a voice as faint as a mouse creeping into a hole, then noticed Theodora’s limp and offered her a chair.
Theodora accepted and sat on the hard seat. Her body, still rigid with tension, refused to relax.
“…May I ask one question?”
“Ah… your name and affiliation, please.”
The woman spoke as though procedures must be followed. Theodora inwardly scolded herself for forgetting to identify herself in her haste.
“…Theodora Benning, Commander of the Raven Knight Order.”
The staff member drew in a sharp breath. Even someone seemingly unconnected to knighthood would know the name if they worked at the Academy.
“What brings the Commander to the Academy?”
“Is Instructor Pierre still here, by any chance?”
The woman tilted her head, then shook it.
“No. If you mean that bald instructor, he resigned quite some time ago.”
“…He’s gone?”
The famous bald instructor had left his post long ago. It would be fair to say he had ended his career as a knight. Theodora could not believe that upright man would have abandoned his duties so easily.
“Why…”
Theodora bit her lip. Doubt entered the staff member’s eyes as she watched Theodora’s anxiety.
“We don’t know the details. It was years ago, so few people would remember the circumstances.”
The woman resumed scribbling with her pen. Whatever Theodora’s situation, it was clearly less important than her own work. She lowered her gaze.
“Finding his current whereabouts will be difficult. He gave no notice of where he was going; he simply quit without warning.”
Seeing Theodora’s face turn pale, the woman sighed softly.
“…The medical officer resigned around the same time. It wasn’t even a transfer season, so two instructors leaving suddenly caused quite a stir.”
Before Theodora could ask another question, the woman continued quickly.
“The medical officer is still in the capital. I heard she works at the medical center founded by the royal family.”
Royal Medical Center
Chief Healing Mage Professor Matilda Weaving
The woman tore off a small piece of paper, scribbled the address and name, and handed it over. Theodora accepted it with a dazed expression.
“You should be able to find her there.”
It was a polite dismissal. Theodora did not press further. She left the office quietly, clutching the small scrap of paper.
She folded the note containing only that simple information and tucked it carefully into her breast.
“…I can have my leg examined while I’m there.”
Theodora told herself this to justify the journey.
“Let’s go.”
Dragging her heavy body, Theodora set off once more.