A Wish and a Promise (1)
Better that he stays unconscious. Being awake would only force him to suffer through the agony of his wounds.
I pushed myself up slowly.
Startled out of his wits, the apothecary scrambled backward and tumbled onto his backside with a yelp.
"And you."
"Y-Yes!"
He shot both hands into the air before I could even finish, blurted out words unbidden.
"I-I make excellent cold remedies! Truly, I do!"
That was not what I had intended to ask—though the medicine was certainly important.
I narrowed my eyes into a long, icy glare.
"Everything you witnessed here today stays between us. Understood?"
"Y-Yes! Absolutely! I swear it on my life, I'll carve it into my bones!"
The apothecary prostrated himself flat on the floor, knocking his forehead frantically against the wood.
"So... you claim you know how to brew a cold remedy."
"Y-Yes, ma'am! The maidservants working in the infirmary always swear by my draughts! Quick and effective, they say!"
"Then give me whatever you have."
"Right away, ma'am!"
Scrambling toward the compounding counter, the apothecary worked with such frantic speed that his hands were practically a blur. Moments later, he hurried back and offered me a small vial filled with a murky, reddish liquid.
"U-Um... I heard His Highness the Third Prince is still very young. It might be rather bitter for a child, so I added a touch of preserved strawberry syrup..."
Meddling with pointless extras.
Still, I secured the vial into my coat and cast a hard glance back down at him.
"I'll say this once more: if a single whisper of what took place here leaks to the outside..."
Once again, the apothecary reacted with astonishing agility. Before the threat could even leave my lips, he threw himself flat onto the floorboards.
"I-I value my own life dearly, I swear it! I will never, ever breathe a single syllable to another living soul!"
His reaction was so violently desperate that it caught me slightly off guard. Then again, considering what he had just witnessed with his own eyes, terror was only natural.
"If so much as a rumor spreads, you are the first person I will hunt down."
"Y-Yes, of course! I shall engrave it in my mind!"
Leaving behind the apothecary, who remained pressed flat against the floor as though granted an audience with the Emperor himself, I hurried out into the corridor. At first, I tried merely to walk at a brisk pace, but within moments my feet were pounding against the stone floor, my breath tearing raggedly from my chest.
I sprinted toward the 3rd Prince's Palace.
With every ounce of strength I possessed.
"Ngh... uhh..."
Edwin remained lost in a feverish haze, tossing fitfully on the bed.
Prying his dry lips apart, I carefully tipped the draught into his mouth.
"Nanny, if you pour it like that, he might choke..."
"Do not fret. I may not know much about nursing, but I have forced medicine down enough throats to know how."
"Pardon?"
Contrary to Catherine's anxieties, Edwin swallowed every drop without spilling so much as a bead. Now, all I could do was hope that groveling apothecary's boasts were not pure fabrication.
"Princess Emilia, you will catch his cold if you stay so close."
"No! Lia is staying right next to big brother!"
Emilia had been clinging to her brother's bedside long before I arrived, obstinately refusing to budge an inch. Just who had she inherited such sheer stubbornness from?
As I let out a soft sigh, Catherine stepped forward and gently scooped the little princess into her arms.
"Nooo! Lia said she's staying with brother!"
"Princess Emilia, let us go have a snack. The kitchens prepared that honey cake you love so much."
"What? H-Honey cake?"
Emilia's little brow furrowed in earnest, agonizing conflict.
Honey cake, or her sick brother?
Nibbling on the tip of her finger, the little princess murmured hesitantly:
"Lia shouldn't... Lia has to protect big brother..."
"I shall watch over Prince Edwin in your stead, Your Highness. Run along."
At my reassurance, the little girl's face bloomed like a radiant flower.
"Really?"
"Yes."
"Okay! Then Ray-chel has to protect brother for Lia! You have to guard him really, really well, okay?"
"You have my word."
With that, Emilia allowed herself to be carried away in Catherine's embrace.
Silence settled over the bedchamber once more, filled only by the boy's breathing. His chest rose and fell in a noticeably calmer rhythm than before. Resting the back of my hand against his forehead, I found that the scorching heat had abated considerably.
So the apothecary wasn't entirely full of hot air after all.
Releasing a quiet breath, I leaned back against the chair. Beyond the window, the sky had melted into the glowing amber hues of twilight.
Spring colds were notoriously stubborn.
Even after taking the medicine, Edwin remained bedridden for several days. Although his coughing fits had ceased, each night brought a recurring cycle of rising and breaking fevers. Consequently, Catherine and Rachel took turns keeping watch over the young prince through the quiet hours.
Days slipped past in this manner, until one quiet dawn when the palace lay fast asleep.
Edwin slowly parted his stiff, heavy eyelids. The aching agony that felt as though his entire body had been battered black and blue had finally ebbed away.
Through his blurry vision, he made out a figure sitting beside his bed.
Someone silhouetted against the cool moonlight, watching over him in silence.
"Emma...?"
Whether dazed with lingering slumber or the faint embers of fever, Edwin whispered a name belonging to someone he could never see again.
"Emma... Is that you, Emma?"
The young prince's sorrowful eyes welled with tears in an instant.
"It really is you, isn't it?"
Edwin reached out a trembling hand in desperate longing.
"Why... why did you only come now? I prayed for you every single day."
Even if only in a dream, please... just let me see you once more.
Then, without a word, Emma took his outstretched hand.
"I knew it... It really is you, Emma."
Edwin clutched the cool hand tightly, as though terrified that releasing his grip would cause her to vanish into thin air. For a long while, the two lingered in the stillness, hands clasped in silence.
"Emma."
The boy slowly parted his trembling lips.
"I'm... so sorry."
For being utterly powerless to help as she drank the poisoned cup sent by the 2nd Imperial Consort and perished.
"I'm so, so sorry..."
For being a penniless prince with nothing to his name, who could only ever be protected. For being such a coward that he could not even shield his little sister.
Tears streamed endlessly down Edwin's pale cheeks.
"It was my fault... all my fault..."
The young prince's voice cracked pitifully.
"I'm sorry... I'm so sorry..."
"What is it that makes you so terribly sorry?"
Only then did 'Emma' finally speak.
Her voice was far lower and colder than the one etched into his memories. Yet Edwin was far too adrift from reason to perceive the difference.
"I... I let Emilia get hurt. Just like what happened to you, Emma."
The prince squeezed his eyes shut against the harrowing memory.
"And I couldn't do a single thing in front of Brother Lloyd, either. Even when I tried to fight back, it was completely useless."
Edwin bit his quivering lip.
"I'm sorry. You even made a wish for me to be happy, Emma, but... I don't know how."
Every time he reached out to grasp happiness, the misery lurking beneath his feet surged up to swallow him whole.
"Emma, what is happiness? I don't understand. What am I supposed to do to be happy?"
His small shoulders trembled frailly.
"Mother left, and you left too. Everyone by my side always leaves."
And that strange woman had said she would leave, too. Even after insisting she would always be on his side.
"...That woman, and Lia... they'll all leave me someday, too."
Clasping Emma's hand with all his might, Edwin whispered in anguish:
"I'm scared, Emma."
Scared of being left completely alone. Of having no one beside him.
Yet what terrified him most of all was the bitter truth that he lacked the power to protect even the person standing by him at this very moment.
"...If only I were clever like Eldest Brother, or strong like Second Brother... then no one would have had to leave, right?"
His face flushed crimson once more as the heat flared up anew.
"Why am I like this? Why am I... Cough, cough!"
As a violent bout of coughing overtook the boy, 'Emma' rose from her seat.
Startled by the sudden movement, Edwin cried out in sheer panic.
"No! Don't go! Please don't leave me alone, Emma!"
"Hush now."
A cool hand rested gently against the prince's fevered brow. At the soothing touch, Edwin's eyes drifted closed on their own accord.
"I will not leave."
"Really? You really won't go?"
"Yes."
"Promise? You promise me?"
"...Yes. I give you my word."
As Edwin pressed her with anxious desperation, she offered a slow, deliberate nod.
"So rest a while longer."
As if her words carried the weight of an enchantment, the prince sank back into deep slumber, comforted beneath that cool yet tender touch.
It would have been better if I had never remembered at all.
"She told me it was Emma’s last wish."
"A wish, Your Highness?"
"Yes. Emma said she wanted me to be happy. That must have been her final wish."
I drew my hand away from Edwin's sleeping forehead.
"Why... why of all people did it have to be you?"
At first, I thought it was merely a coincidence of names. Later, I prayed desperately that it was nothing more.
Yet in the end, the realization caught up to me.
She was indeed the very same 'Emma' I had once known.
Countess Emma Conrad.
Edwin's late nanny—and the woman who had once raised me.
The woman whose true maiden surname was not Conrad, but Reuche.
"...Did you lie to me all those years ago just to die such a pathetic death?"
The memory of our final parting remained etched vividly in my mind. She had told me she was returning to her hometown to live with her real family. She had told me I no longer needed to look for her.
No, she had insisted that I must never seek her out again.
"If you wanted to sever ties with me, you should have just said so."
I would have accepted it without a fight. Yet despite pushing me away, she had held onto the gift I gave her until the day she died.
"...Damn it."
A curse slipped past my lips as my gaze fell upon the pearl bracelet glistening around Edwin's wrist.
It was a cheap bauble bought in a street market with the first payment I ever earned from the assassination syndicate. A purely impulsive purchase. Even though I believed I would never see her again, the thought of that woman had compelled me to buy it.
And after the day I swore to the previous syndicate leader that I would never cross paths with Emma again—on that fateful day when chance brought us together once more—I had pressed the bracelet into her hands as she clung to me in tears.
"Kyla, what is this?"
"...A token. Bring this to me, and I will grant you three wishes, free of charge."
At my stiff words, her tears had broken into genuine, warm laughter. She looked at me with the fond eyes of a mother beholding her grown child's awkward antics.
"You're as blunt as ever, aren't you? You could have just said it was a gift."
Seeing my awkward expression, Emma had laughed for a long while before dabbing away her tears.
"Then may I make my first wish?"
"Name it."
"Will you promise to come visit me from time to time? You don't even have to show your face."
Emma seemed to know already what line of work I had fallen into.
"Just knowing that you are safe and well will be more than enough for me."