Chapter 4
Chapter 4
The Curse (3)
I pulled myself together.
No matter how complicated my feelings were, it did not change the situation I was in.
Vivian Rondor staggered to her feet beside the bed and walked toward me.
A fragrant scent, like unfamiliar flowers, drifted from her body.
Tears continued streaming from Vivian Rondor’s crimson eyes.
Though I was locked in a silent stare with her, for some reason, it was difficult to look into those eyes.
Simply managing not to avert my gaze was already enough.
“K-Kylo Allen.”
“...”
“Y-You know who I am, right?”
I swallowed hard before answering.
“...There’s no way I wouldn’t.”
Our families had spent five years treating each other as mortal enemies.
No matter what, it was impossible not to know.
And during the time House Rondor’s eldest son had been our prisoner, I had heard Vivian Rondor’s name countless times.
“T-Then... y-you must know what y-your family did to us...”
“There’s no way I would’ve been dragged here without knowing.”
“...K-Kylo Allen.”
Her sniffling grew louder. Bitterness and sorrow filled her face.
And rage swelled within it too.
“I-I want you to suffer... at least as much as I have.”
At Vivian’s words, I heard the servants of House Rondor inhale sharply.
By her standards, it must have been an extremely harsh statement.
Meanwhile, the familiar scent of hatred gradually washed away the pity I had felt toward her.
My dazed mind slowly cleared as well.
Honestly, this was easier on my heart.
“H-How can I... hic... make you understand the pain... of losing your family?”
“I was torn away from my family too.”
“But your family is still alive!!”
“And can I see them while they’re alive? Do you really think your family will let me go?”
“...”
“Besides, once you turn around, you still have countless people on your side... but I’m standing in the middle of enemy territory. Everyone here looks at me like they want to kill me. Do you know what that feels like?”
Perhaps because she was around my age, my honest feelings gradually slipped out.
And maybe because she looked so pure, I felt an overwhelming urge to force reality upon her.
“This was war. Stop acting like your side were the only victims. Your family killed countless people from our territory too...! In war, the side that loses is the one at fault! Blame yourselves for being weak!”
The corners of Vivian’s eyes trembled.
The soldiers watching all this flinched, and the maids ground their teeth in fury.
At some point, Vivian’s eyes no longer held tears, but a chilling light.
“...Right.”
She spoke.
“...It’s our fault... for being weak. Y-You’re right. S-So now... y-you should blame your weak kingdom too.”
“...”
“N-Now it’s your turn... to taste the anger of our family.”
Then Vivian turned to the head butler, Pippin.
“I-I don’t want any more disturbance in Mother’s sickroom. U-Until Mother wakes up, lock K-Kylo Allen in the underground prison. Don’t give him a single drop of water or a crumb of bread.”
Pippin offered cautious advice.
“...Lady Vivian. Lord Kylo Allen is still a guest—”
“Lock him in the underground prison.”
“Yes.”
Pippin did not ask a second time.
-Grab!!
The soldiers seized my arms even more roughly than before.
Then they began dragging me toward the prison.
Even while walking, I turned my head to glance once more at Vivian Rondor.
She had already returned to the Duchess’s bedside, trembling as tears flowed down her face again.
Looking at her, I felt no satisfaction whatsoever.
Only a heavy discomfort settled deep in my chest.
And so I kept watching Vivian Rondor’s back until she disappeared from sight.
-Splat!
With a horrible sound, the centipede’s body burst apart.
The remains of the insect lay beneath my fist.
“Ugh... seriously.”
I had long since lost count of how many I’d killed.
This underground prison was filled with all kinds of bugs.
Even in the north, my family had been one of the most prestigious houses around.
There was no one in the Kingdom of East who did not know House Allen.
A knightly family that had loyally served the royal family for centuries.
The men of our family were famous for protecting the lord they pledged loyalty to until the very end.
It was considered a tremendous honor if a knight of House Allen swore to serve someone.
Of course, the head of House Allen always devoted himself to the king, while the sons who failed to become head would each leave in search of their own lord.
Even so, they never completely severed ties with the family. Those who left still gathered wealth and contributed to the growth of the house, and as a result, House Allen became one that no one in the Kingdom of East could ignore.
We possessed vast lands and tremendous wealth.
Yet after living as the eldest son of such a family, I could not get used to resting in an underground prison.
At first, the bugs disgusted me so much that I kept flicking them away with my hands because I didn’t want to touch them... but around yesterday, I realized that doing that would never end.
It was actually better to crush them with my fists whenever I saw them. That way, fewer would appear.
I hated it. It made my skin crawl. But in the end, I found myself punching them anyway.
Spiders, bedbugs, ants, centipedes, worms, camel crickets...
There were all kinds of bugs. Though every single one ended up crushed beneath my fist.
The smell when they burst, the sound, the corpses twitching even after death—I had gagged from it more times than I could count.
“...Ha.”
I wiped my fist against the straw scattered over the stone floor, then curled my body as tightly as possible and leaned against the prison wall.
Truthfully, there was something that twisted my insides even more than the bugs.
It wasn’t my dried-out mouth from thirst, nor my empty stomach.
Vivian Rondor.
She kept lingering in my mind.
“...She’s ridiculously beautiful.”
I muttered to myself.
It annoyed me.
The fact that something so trivial could leave me this confused, and the fact that I still couldn’t shake the thought away.
It wasn’t only her appearance that had captured my attention.
That pitiful atmosphere around her...
“Ha.”
There had been so many things I wanted to say, so many things that felt unfair from my perspective, but my head had gone blank, leaving me with the feeling that I hadn’t even managed to say half of what I wanted.
No, this had never happened to me before, so why was it her of all people?
Did witches really exist? Was it the curse?
Or was blaming the curse just my own shame speaking?
It irritated me so much that I didn’t even want to tell anyone.
With a sigh, I closed and reopened my eyes before muttering again.
“...Maybe I went too far.”
Honestly, it wasn’t that I couldn’t understand her complicated feelings.
She had lost her father, her brother, and now she was on the verge of losing her mother too. How could kind words possibly come from someone in that situation?
When you thought about it, I had also been struck by stones, beaten from every side, torn away from my family, and forced to endure everyone’s hatred in a terribly unfair situation...
But perhaps the scales in my head had broken, because Vivian Rondor kept lingering in my mind.
Then I clicked my tongue and rolled over.
“Jeez.”
Who was worrying about whom here? Idiot.
I was the one who should’ve been worrying about my own life.
Whatever happened, Vivian Rondor at least didn’t have to fear for her life.
If you thought about it that way, wasn’t Vivian Rondor actually in the better position?
-Bang!
At that moment, a guard entered the underground prison.
He placed a glass of water by my feet, opened the cell door, and spoke.
“Kylo Allen, come out. The Duchess is asking for you.”
My hand, which had been reaching toward the water, froze.
At last, it had come.
Someone even scarier than Vivian Rondor had appeared.
.
.
.
.
I entered the Duchess’s room.
Several maids bustled about inside, preparing warm water and light food.
Beside the Duchess’s bed sat someone who appeared to be a physician.
The physician and the Duchess spoke quietly together.
Vivian Rondor was nowhere to be seen. For some reason, she was the first person I looked for.
Then I turned my attention to the Duchess.
Her complexion had improved compared to before, but the drooping exhaustion in her eyes made the severity of her illness clear.
Her hollow cheeks and thin arms hinted at the beauty she must once have possessed.
I could also roughly see where Vivian Rondor’s beauty had come from.
The Duchess slowly shifted her gaze and found me.
The moment our eyes met, my heart dropped.
I had never had children, nor lost them... but I had heard the screams of mothers who lost children countless times.
That only made me more tense.
What kind of fury would the Duchess show me?
No matter how sick she was, taking revenge on me would not be difficult.
All she had to do was open her mouth and give the order.
“...”
“...”
The Duchess stared at me for a long while before finally giving an order to the servants in the room.
“Everyone... leave, except for Kylo Allen.”
Her voice held far more strength than her appearance suggested.
No one in the room dared object to the Duchess’s command.
The maids, soldiers, physician, and servants all filed out of the room.
-Bang.
And once only the two of us remained in the room that had been bustling moments ago, the silence somehow felt even heavier.
I could not bring myself to meet her eyes and instead looked away.
Staring only at the floor, I waited for her to speak.
“...Hello, Kylo.”
“...?”
Her greeting was nothing like I had expected.
It was bright and gentle.
Startled, I looked at her, only to see a faint smile on her lips.
Tap tap.
She patted the bed twice with her palm.
“Come here. Let us... talk a little closer.”
Blinking in confusion, I approached her as though enchanted by something.
I could not even remember how long it had been since anyone in Roktana had shown me kindness.
I sat down in the chair where the physician had been sitting earlier.
“...What are you plotting?”
“What do you mean, plotting?”
I grew cautious, wondering if this attitude was merely another trick meant to hurt me even more deeply.
“...You know exactly what I mean.”
At my question, the Duchess of Rondor gave me a warm smile.
“It’s unfortunate that someone so young is already tainted by the concerns of adults.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Why are you hostile toward me? Do you really have a reason to be?”
“...Are you seriously asking that? Stop pretending not to know and making fun of me. Our families fought a war for years.”
“Did you participate in that war?”
“...What?”
It was something that had always sat deep in my chest.
I had never even fought in the war, yet everyone poured their hatred onto me.
Still, because it was a matter concerning my family, I had tried to understand it to some extent.
At least until the Duchess of Rondor pointed it out like this.
“You never fought in that war. Nor was it a war you started. You were merely swept up in the circumstances of adults. So why would I hate you? What responsibility do you bear?”
“...”
“Do not misunderstand. I truly... truly hate your father very much. But pouring that hatred onto you would be immature. And wrong.”
I bit my lip before speaking almost accusingly. Perhaps it was the first complaint I had ever voiced to someone who truly understood my feelings.
“...The people of the territory don’t seem to think that way.”
The Duchess showed confusion with her expression, so I pointed to my torn forehead.
A flicker of sorrow crossed her face.
“Children are suffering because of the fights of adults. The people merely needed someone to vent their anger upon.”
“And you, Duchess? Don’t you need someone to vent your anger on too?”
At my question, she smiled.
“If I said I did, would you become that target for me?”
“No.”
“Then I don’t wish for that either. And truly, I do not hate you very much.”
“...”
Assuming everything the Duchess said was true, one question arose.
“If everything you’ve said is true, and you never hated us children who never participated in the war... then why demand hostages in the first place?”
“...”
“I heard it all. They said you were the one who strongly demanded hostages from our family. If you really held no feelings toward us, then why am I here? You know, don’t you? I’m here because of you.”
She took a deep breath. Perhaps the question was difficult to answer, because she fiddled with the blanket over her legs several times.
After repeating weak sighs and lifeless gestures, she answered.
“...Though I held no personal grudge against you, I am still in the position of ruling this territory in place of my husband. The people needed something to bear responsibility for their anger. Something to prove that the deaths of the soldiers had not been meaningless.”
“And that something was me?”
“That is how it became.”
The Duchess of Rondor finally turned the gaze she had been avoiding toward me.
She stretched out her pale hand and held mine.
Her touch was colder than I expected.
“For that part, I will apologize, Kylo.”
“No...”
I slowly closed the mouth I had opened to argue.
I no longer knew what to say.
Truthfully, I had only expected the Duchess to demand an apology from me, so receiving one instead felt strangely uncomfortable.
For a long while, we sat together in silence. There were many things left unsaid, yet we simply remained there quietly.
Breaking the long silence, the Duchess asked,
“Have you met Vivian?”
At those words, my breath caught again for a moment.
I awkwardly cleared my throat and nodded.
Then the Duchess smiled kindly, as though she truly knew nothing—or perhaps knew everything and was pretending otherwise.
“I hope the two of you become close.”
“...Are you saying that sincerely, or are you making fun of me?”
“I mean it sincerely.”
“...Are you saying that because you don’t know who locked me in the underground prison for the past two days? Vivian Rondor never looked like she had any intention of getting close to me in the first place.”
“And what about you?”
At her question, I answered with difficulty.
“...I don’t want that either.”
“Kylo, think about it. Wouldn’t it be better for you to get along with Vivian too?”
I let out a faint scoff, intending to mock her words.
I was old enough to recognize the empty pleasantries adults liked to spout.
But the Duchess continued speaking.
“I am not saying this lightly, Kylo. You naturally... want to return home someday, don’t you?”
I looked at the Duchess as though asking why she even needed to ask such a thing.
“Kylo. You may have already guessed, but I do not have much time left. I will soon leave this world.”
“...What?”
She had looked ill before, but hearing her calmly speak of her own death made it feel far heavier.
“Once I pass away... Vivian will rule this place. I do not intend to appoint a regent for House Rondor. Which means the one who decides your fate will also become Vivian.”
“...Wait a moment.”
The Duchess continued without pausing.
“When you finally become old enough to leave, if your relationship with Vivian is bad, do you think she will send you back home? Would she not release you only if you are at least friends?”