Swear (1)
“Hah... hah...!”
He ran until his lungs burned raw, and when he finally reached the castle, it looked like nothing so much as a colossal pyre.
The flames had not yet climbed the stone walls themselves, but every timber that held the place together seemed to have caught and spread. The banners of Rondore that had once adorned the fortress in splendor, along with the crests of its vassal houses, twisted and blackened as they burned. The night sky itself had turned the color of fire, shimmering as brilliantly as if a sunset had returned out of season.
Flames erupted from every corner of the castle, thick with black, acrid smoke. The roar of the blaze devouring the fortress shook the air like a dragon’s cry.
Chaos reigned.
People fled in terror or poured out from within, desperate to escape. Soldiers hauled water from the river and flung it at the flames, but it was nowhere near enough. A few maids, overcome by the smoke, were carried out limp. The choking haze and the endless crackle of burning wood filled the air and only deepened the pandemonium.
In the midst of it all, his eyes searched for only one person.
Vivian Rondore.
He strained to find that red hair against a world already burning red. A hard wind drove embers against his clothes and seared his face with heat, yet he could not move. Without her in sight, his feet seemed rooted to the ground, and his heart hammered as though it meant to burst.
Then he spotted Rona, one of Vivian’s maids. He sprinted to her at once.
Her dress was scorched through with holes, and she coughed without stopping, clearly half out of her mind.
“Cough! Cough!”
Even so, he seized her by the shoulders and shook her.
“Where is Vivian Rondore?”
“Cough...! Kailo... cough! Sir... cough!”
“Just answer me. Where is Vivian Rondore?”
“I—I don’t know... cough! We got separated in the flames while escaping... she might still be inside...”
“Not ‘might’—tell me what you saw!”
Rona forced the words out at last. “Inside...! She’s inside... cough...! She’s still in there...”
The moment he heard it, his mind went blank.
He left Rona where she stood and looked around. The soldiers and maids gathered nearby stared at him in horror, the words they had just overheard written plain across their faces. As the truth spread—that Vivian was still somewhere inside that vast inferno—shock and dread settled over every expression.
“...”
But no one moved. Not a single person made to enter those towering flames.
Even the many retainers of Rondore only watched the burning castle with stricken faces. The captain of the guard, the four knight-commanders, knights and squires, the stablemaster, Gulk the blacksmith, the falconer, the horse-trainer, Brinden the treasurer, Nesto the spymaster, Scholar Crelin...
Not one of them took a step to save her.
...He could not blame them.
The fire was too fierce. To go in there was nothing short of suicide. Even the most loyal vassal would have fallen back before a blaze of this magnitude. If anything was to be done, it should have been done far sooner.
It was already too late.
And yet the words that left his mouth had nothing to do with reason.
“So you’re all just going to stand here...?”
The retainers’ eyes turned on him. Fear and unease crossed their faces, and for an instant those feelings reached him too—the same sensation he had known on the execution ground, rising again.
“...And how exactly do you propose we go in there?”
Toros, commander of the Second Knight Order, asked in a choked voice. Terror, resistance, and shame tangled together in his tone.
“Going in anyway is your job.”
Kailo answered him without hesitation. The knight-commanders in particular clenched their jaws at his words.
But none of them spoke. They were cowards who knew that opening their mouths would mean having to prove themselves. Perhaps that was exactly why they were still alive—because when survival was on the line, they chose cowardice, and so they stood here now before him.
Of course, before a fire like this, the word coward hardly seemed fair. He knew that. And still their faces disgusted him. He did not want to become one of them.
He let out a short breath, then, as if something had taken hold of him, started walking toward the flames.
Baelor stepped into his path.
“I told you—if you die, we can’t answer for it...!”
“Not my problem. Figure it out yourselves.”
Whether Baelor simply lacked the courage, or whether he hoped Vivian would die, either way he was a parasite—nowhere near worthy of being called a loyal man.
Kailo did not hesitate long.
Thud!
He shoved Baelor aside and wrenched a water bucket from a soldier who had been fighting the fire.
“Hey—!”
The soldier cried out in surprise, but Kailo paid him no mind and upended the entire bucket over his own head. Water soaked him through and ran off him in streams.
Those who understood what he meant to do swallowed hard and fell silent. His reckless resolve was already plain to see.
Dripping, he turned one last time to face the retainers.
The truth was, he knew.
He knew this was stupid.
He, of all people, had no reason to walk into those flames. Who was Vivian Rondore to him? Why should he—her enemy—do what even her own family’s retainers would not?
Besides, she might already be dead. He might be throwing himself in only to find a corpse. He might not find her at all. It might be nothing but suicide.
He knew all of that, and still his body kept moving. He still could not name the reason, and by now he had simply accepted that. Understanding everything in the world was impossible anyway.
So he had no right to sit in judgment of them... and yet he wanted to leave them with a warning all the same.
“I know one of you started this fire.”
He said it to the retainers.
He spoke without hesitation, as if confirming that the traitor stood right there among them. A kind of declaration of war—even if the other side had struck first.
“I’ll be waiting. I’m going to find out who.”
None of them contradicted him. They must already have sensed, however dimly, that this fire had been set by someone from within.
He turned to head into the flames.
Thud!
Burgor caught his arm.
“Kailo Allen... I know, I know, but...! This is pure suicide...! Aren’t you old enough to tell recklessness from courage...!”
Kailo shook off Burgor’s hand. The image of Vivian, terrified, flickered before his eyes.
And so he ran into the burning castle.
“Cough...! Cough...!”
Vivian gasped desperately for air as the smoke grew thicker around her.
The castle seemed to toy with her, driving her this way and that, and she fled the flames in every direction she could. Whenever she thought she had found a stretch less consumed by fire and glimpsed what might be a way out, a wall of flame rose up to bar her path. Then despair would take her again, and she would turn back the way she had come.
“Cough...! Cough...!”
The whole world was red.
The fire closed in from every side, and the scorching heat struck her as though it meant to peel the skin from her body. Her eyes stung from the smoke, and every breath brought a crushing pain in her chest. No matter how she struggled to escape, the flames kept herding her deeper into hopelessness.
She ran through the castle for her life.
She wanted to call for help, but there was no one to be seen. The maids and retainers seemed already to have fled; only Vivian remained, thrashing in the chaos.
She wondered if it might be some terrible nightmare.
How could she be alone, even at the moment of her death, in a place this vast? Why was there not a single person willing to help her?
She had tried so hard to be good. She had worked so hard all this time.
Tears of injustice slid down her cheeks—only to vanish almost at once in the blistering heat. Bit by bit, the great fire was burning away even her hope of survival. And as that hope dwindled, only desperation remained, and the prayers of someone begging to be saved.
“Please... anyone... hic...”
She pleaded in a thin voice through her sobs.
Dying by fire was too terrifying. For the head of House Rondore to perish trapped in her own burning castle was too shameful. And to die alone... was too wretched.
The closer she came to the truth that a full year of suffering had been nothing but useless thrashing, the fiercer her will to live became.
Why, in that moment, did Kailo’s face come to her?
If she had not pushed him away, would he have been at her side now, protecting her?
Even through her tears, a bitter little laugh escaped her.
What kind of delusion was that? Why would Kailo—her enemy—ever...
If she burned to death, he would at least understand how much she had suffered. Seeing her in this much agony, he might even watch and sneer.
But no matter how hard she tried to drive the thought away, his face would not leave her.
Rumble—crash!
A wooden pillar wreathed in red flame came crashing down heavily in front of her. At the horrifying sight, even her legs locked in place. Fear stole her voice before she could scream. Her hands shook without mercy.
She lifted her head. Overhead, one of the Rondore banners hung for decoration was burning—consumed as though it were announcing the end of the house itself. Grief and terror crossed in her eyes.
Thud!
“Ah—!”
She caught her foot on a broom hidden in the dense smoke and went sprawling. Her ankle twisted the wrong way with a sickening sound, and a sharp pain shot up her leg.
“Nngh...”
She tried to rise again, but her ankle betrayed her will and refused to move. The pain was unbearable—sharper even than the heat searing her skin.
Vivian pressed herself to the floor and clenched her fists. She curled in on herself in fear.
What would become of her now? Would the fire that had been chasing her simply swallow her whole?
She was so afraid. She hated this so much.
And in that moment, what frightened her most of all was the deep solitude closing around her. That in this vast castle there was no one left who meant to save her—that everyone had gone—was the most terrifying thing of all. It was as if the whole world were telling her she was a lord of no worth whatsoever.
It was the poisoning all over again.
If this was how it was going to be...
The miserable thought crossed her mind.
If this was how it was going to be, I should have become a witch.
If she had become a witch, she could surely have escaped this moment. She would not have had to run about begging for help when not a soul would give it—she could have walked out with her head held high.
Regret changed nothing now, but she regretted that choice with everything she had.
Even in the scorching heat, her tears would not dry.
If her father had been here, he would have pulled her out of these flames. Her brother, too—he would have told her the way out in that firm voice of his. And her mother would have soothed her and told her not to worry. She missed them all so terribly.
...And last of all, another face rose before her.
She did not know why, but she kept seeing him.
Crack!
Something splintered above her head. Charred scraps of wood rained down nearby.
Crrrack!!
The sound grew louder still, until Vivian had no choice but to turn her face upward.
Whooosh—!
The instant she looked up, a massive wooden beam came plunging down toward her skull.
“Ah—!”
Crushed by terror, Vivian flung her arms over her head and curled into a ball. In that fleeting instant she prayed to a god she had never believed in—prayed with everything she had.
Help me. Save me.
Boom!!
With a tremendous crash, the roar of the flames that had filled the world seemed, impossibly, to fall still for a moment. The clamor ringing in Vivian’s ears vanished, and even the heat wrapping her body seemed forgotten for a heartbeat.
She lay curled on the floor, holding her breath, feeling nothing at all. In the chaos of the fire, everything seemed to have stopped. She could not have said how much time passed.
She stayed frozen like that for a long while, then hesitantly, slowly, opened her eyes.
Through a vision blurred by tears, something was there.
She blinked twice and looked again, forcing the world into focus.
A single unwavering hand lay before her.
As if a god had answered.
She stared at it in disbelief. The fingertips reaching toward her were so vivid she could hardly trust them. How a hand of salvation could appear in the middle of this fire, with everything collapsing around her, she could not begin to understand.
But one thing was certain... that hand was gently melting her despair away.
“Nngh.”
At the low groan, Vivian slowly lifted her head, as if in a dream, and looked up at the owner of the hand.
“Ah.”
In that instant her heart skipped a beat.
Thump... thump...
His hair and face were streaked with black ash, and his clothes were burned away in places—but he looked down at her with unflinching eyes.
...The face she had longed for, even if only for a moment, was right there. The face that had kept rising in her mind even through the fire was truly there.
It was Kailo Allen.
Kailo shoved aside the heavy wooden beam he had just caught. Across his bared shoulder, the marks of fresh red burns were already scored into the skin. He did not seem to notice them at all.
“H-how...”
“Get up.”
Even through all this pain and chaos, Kailo’s voice was the same as ever.
Vivian’s heart began to pound with a violence she could not explain. That single word rang in her ears and struck hard against her chest.
Thump... thump... thump...
Whether it was relief or shock... she could not tell.
But Kailo, who knew none of this, looked at her without the slightest waver and murmured the order low, almost a whisper.
“I said get up, Vivian.”