10 Years Ago
Ten years ago. My physical age was just seven, but combining my memories from my previous life, I harbored a jaded inner self of forty-four. It was that winter.
The air in the Evans baron's reception room hung heavy and damp, like a waterlogged sponge. From beyond the thick oak door of the firmly shut study at the end of the corridor came the faint murmurs of my father, Baron Rowen Evans, and Duke Leonhardt locked in serious conversation.
The reception room, emptied of adults, felt suffocating. The black tea in the cups on the marble table trembled faintly, as if an earthquake had struck. Clink, clatter. The neurotic rattle of porcelain against saucers filled the silence.
The source of that bizarre vibration was a silver-haired little girl standing stock-still in the middle of the room.
Eight-year-old Reina de Astrea. Her frame was about the same size as my scrawny seven-year-old body, but the presence she radiated was that of a ferocious beast backed into a cliff's edge.
The moment her father—the only one who could protect her—vanished from sight, the primal wariness of a beast left alone in hostile territory erupted.
Hands clenched tightly behind her back, she glared at everyone in the room with cool, sunken purple eyes, her hostility sharp enough to kill.
That naked enmity manifested as an invisible, colossal gravity field, mercilessly crushing the air in all directions.
The baron's guard knights at the door had gone pale, thick beads of cold sweat dripping down their faces. The bloodline of Astrea, wielder of the empire's greatest sword. They couldn't dare draw blades against this terrifying duke's daughter, yet neither could they endure the suffocating pressure squeezing their lungs while staying sane.
The knights stood rigid, fists clenched white-knuckled against the tremors, gasping ragged breaths.
Buried deep in the corner's plush velvet sofa, I closed the thick imperial history book on my lap and watched impassively.
To the eyes of a ten-year veteran teacher, that lethal gravity field or the knights' terror barely registered.
Only one thing grated on my nerves.
‘...Who the hell dressed this kid like that?’
The luxurious silk blouse Reina wore had its buttons misaligned from the top, each one off by exactly a hole.
The left collar jutted up, poking her cheek; the right draped sloppily past her shoulder, baring her delicate collarbone.
A beast who couldn't control her strength, with fingertips not yet mature enough for fine tasks.
I couldn't take it anymore. With a tsk, I peeled my butt off the sofa.
Squeak. My shoe heel sank into the soft carpet, drawing horrified stares from the knights.
Their eyes screamed 'Young master, approach and you're dead!' in desperate warning, but I marched straight to the room's center.
Three steps from Reina, an invisible hydraulic press slammed my small shoulders.
My frail seven-year-old ribcage screamed; breath choked off, steps weighed down like sandbags on my ankles.
But forty-four years of hardened resolve didn't buckle under mere physical pressure.
I kept walking.
Swish. Up close, her purple eyes flashed beast-like, tilting up at me with murderous intent—as if she'd snap my neck with unseen force any second.
I met that icy killing aura head-on, silently extending both hands to her chin.
Flinch. Her thin shoulders jerked sharply.
I ignored it, popping the blouse buttons from the top with audible pops.
"Can't breathe like that. It's all mismatched."
I muttered dryly, realigning the edges and threading the buttons properly.
Through the cold silk, her defensively rigid little muscles transmitted stiffly to my fingertips.
Last button done, I straightened the collar with a brisk pat.
That instant, the horrific gravity crushing my shoulders dissolved into thin air like a lie.
The teacups' frantic rattling cut off.
The knights finally exhaled in unison.
I withdrew my hands, glanced down. Reina stared up, eyes comically wide.
Beastly hostility gone; pupils dazed, as if socked by something massive.
The world that moments ago shunned her as a monster—now, the sole person who'd walked right up and fixed her clothes left his indifferent warmth, freezing her solid.
I turned away annoyed, heading back to my sofa.
A sticky, eerie gaze trailed me, but I didn't look back.
That afternoon. While the adults' tedious meeting dragged on, I slipped out for a solo walk in the woods beyond the baron's lands to digest lunch's meat.
Inhaling crisp winter forest air, a grotesque, unnatural boom pierced my ears.
Kaboom! Crack!
The ground quaked; centuries-old pines' trunks snapped with screams.
Brows furrowed, I hurried toward the noise.
Deep in the woods, flat terrain cratered round and deep, like a meteor strike.
At the dusty epicenter sat a wrecked silver-haired kid.
"Hic... waaah...."
Reina. Stressed to breaking by adult oversight and alien surroundings, she'd fled here alone—only to lose her way thanks to abysmal direction sense.
Her pitiful sobs weren't the issue.
Each hiccup synced her unstable emotions' mana into a ruthless gravity storm, pulverizing everything indiscriminately.
Thud—! Her shoulder shrug sank ten-meter radius ground a handspan.
Floating winter leaves smashed earthward like under a boulder, crumbling instantly.
Run without looking back—that's sane.
Seven-year-old instincts blared alarms, but a decade taming runaway teens and delinquents crushed reason with occupational reflex.
I rummaged my pocket.
Body piercing fierce gravity waves, I slid down the dirt slope.
Thud. Thud.
Footsteps nearing, she snapped her head up.
Tear- and dirt-smeared cheeks. A lost beast panting in terror.
Purple eyes quaked in shock at me.
First time anyone entered her rampaging kill-zone on foot.
I closed to nose-touch, dropped one knee to mud without hesitation.
Air pressure flattened me, lungs tearing—but face unchanged.
Instead, I rustled a red-wrapped candy from my pocket.
"Open up."
She parted mud-caked lips blankly.
I shoved in a gumball.
Hard sweet hit tongue; her shoulder-shaking sobs cut dead.
Clack, roll. Candy tumbling filled the hush.
Simultaneously, terrain-wrecking storm softened away like spring melt.
White cotton handkerchief from my bosom; I roughly scrubbed her muddy cheeks and chin.
"Big kid loses her way and wrecks the woods. This your bedroom?"
She chewed candy, staring—tears halted, but gaze stranger than morning's, wonder and greed of a beast tasting warmth for the first time.
Gaze drifted down.
First: knee scraped raw, blood beading from hard ground-roll.
Below: one leather boot lace fully undone, mud-caked, splayed.
Tripped on it herself.
Short sigh; knelt before her ankle, leaned in.
Clean handkerchief side wrapped bloody knee, tied firm.
Muddy laces gathered tight, crossed twice, sturdy ribbon knot.
Wound and culprit bound; rose using knee.
"All tied. No more trips."
Dusted pants.
Turned like herding a curfew-breaker: "C'mon."
Tap.
Left shirt cuff yanked taut.
Stopped, turned.
She sat ground-bound, both hands clutching my sleeve like a do-or-die lifeline.
Finger joints bone-white; grip monstrous for seven.
"Reina?"
No answer; head bowed, bangs hid eyes.
Just irregular candy rolls.
Time passed. She lifted slowly; purple eyes locked mine.
No fear, no lost-child terror.
Only chill, blind obsession: never let this warmth go, ever.
Muddied lips parted.
First words laced with raw possessiveness toward another.
"Take me with you...."
Sleeve-grip tightened spine-chillingly.
"I won't let go. I'll smash it all, protect it all... Take me, Cadel."
An overwhelming verdict chilling my near-half-century soul.
The heaviest, maddest monster leashed herself to my hand.
That damned the Evans line's karma to bind my life utterly.