Vestige (27)
"I asked why you're here."
Levina had no answer.
The red marks still ringed her throat. The sleepless dark circles looked carved impossibly deep into a haggard face.
The Edelgard Family Head I knew did not wear a face like that.
She grimaced and pulled the blade out of her own shoulder.
Her breath came ragged. Then she looked at the crest engraved on the hilt and burst out laughing.
She laughed for a long time before staggering to her feet.
The dagger slipped from her grip and hit the floor, still slick with blood. Her strength had given out.
"At least it's a bereavement, not a broken engagement. You won't have to worry about your reputation."
"Family Head."
I stepped close, pressed my thumb into the wound, and ground it in.
Levina's body twisted faintly. She made no sound.
"Know your place. When you're asked where Ravin is, you answer. Yes?"
A nasty smile flickered across her face. Her lips moved, caught between words, as if she genuinely didn't know what to say.
She stayed silent for a long moment. Then she spoke.
"I remember how you used to whine about breaking the engagement.
You never dared say a word to me. You only ever took it out on Ravin."
The Edelgard Family Head has never once said that Ravin is dead.
She must not say it.
"And now that I'm the easier target, you take it out on me.
Honestly, maybe it's a mercy you never ended up bound to Ravin. You."
Ravin must not be dead. Could not be dead.
That unnaturally resilient lump of rotting flesh was not Ravin.
It looked exactly like Ravin. It wore a dagger engraved with the Edelgard crest and the clothes Ravin always wore. But it was not Ravin.
My Ravin was a little more vibrant than that. That's it. One extra eye, maybe.
The skin wasn't rotting, either.
I have to believe it wasn't him.
Because anyone could see it was Ravin. So I have to believe it wasn't.
"I doubt you could find another human being as ridiculous as yourself.
Vile, wretched, contemptible."
I don't want to hear this.
Actually, I've never wanted to hear a single thing this woman says.
From the first meeting after the engagement to Ravin, when she spoke to me like I was beneath notice, every monstrous thing she spat at Ravin.
I could tear her tongue out now and not even have to think about the cleanup.
I'm going to kill her. Who's going to stop me?
The Emperor? The King? The high nobles cowering behind palace walls?
Levina opened her mouth again. I slammed my fist into her face before she could speak.
The Family Head kept trying to talk.
I grabbed her head and drove my fist forward. Over and over. Mid-swing, something caught wrong under my knuckles and snapped.
Levina twisted and started coughing.
The cough came up flecked with blood.
The moment I let go, she crumpled. I kicked her in the solar plexus while she was still twitching on the floor.
Then I hauled her upright, gathered mana in my hand, drove a long spear of ice through the bleeding wound in her shoulder, and pinned her to the wall.
A shot to the chest would kill her too fast.
The sight of her hanging there—shoulder impaled, legs too weak to hold her but unable to collapse—was deeply gratifying.
I picked up the dagger from the floor.
The dagger Ravin threw at me.
No. That rotting corpse was not Ravin.
I pressed the blade to Levina's throat.
The Family Head, apparently rediscovering her will to live, spoke again.
"You know... Ravin probably left me alive on purpose. Are you going to crush what Ravin wanted with your own hands?"
I didn't answer. I held the blade still. Levina leaned her own throat into it.
Skin split. Blood welled.
My hand jerked back before I could stop it.
The ice melted in an instant, and Levina crumpled face-down onto the floor.
I stared down at her. Then I grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked her head up.
I opened my mouth to ask where Ravin was again. Shut it.
"Ravin's got to be somewhere."
I slapped her across the face.
Levina hacked, another blood-spray cough. I slapped her again without pause.
"Does this make you feel a little better? I can't say it ever worked for me."
Her words came out slurred. A few bloodied teeth were scattered on the floor around her.
I released her hair. Her face smacked straight into the floor.
Still, she dragged herself upright and forced the words out.
Levina breathed with effort, touched the ribs where I'd hit her, held her breath, and rose.
"There's no one left who loves me now. But Ravin... Ravin would have had two even without me."
"......."
"I don't think I've ever seen anyone as miserable and pathetic as you."
"There's no way someone like me... could be pathetic."
"......."
"Ravin loves me. I've torn demons apart with my own hands. There's no woman as pretty as me, no hero who's saved as many people as me. There's no way I could be pathetic."
Levina just watched me. Said nothing.
I can't take that gaze.
I don't want to look into those eyes.
They look too much like Ravin's. I don't want to see them at all.
She wasn't as beautiful as Ravin, but the resemblance was there, traces of it in her face.
I don't want to see it.
I don't want to hear it.
I don't want to believe it.
Truth is, it was always like that.
It always has been.
The adults were all liars, every one of them. Ravin was the only one who would stay with me.
Because I was the only one who would stay with Ravin.
Someone like Ravin making a friend? Absurd.
Someone like me making a friend? Just as absurd.
Someone like Ravin couldn't possibly do anything right.
Someone like me couldn't possibly do anything right.
Someone like Ravin couldn't possibly be loved the right way.
Someone like me couldn't possibly be loved the right way.
So it had to be just us. Only the two of us.
My Ravin, whom those people never even glanced at—they ruined him. All of them.
Tried to put him back the way he was. It never worked.
The rotten adults succeeded in ruining Ravin.
They turned him into the kind of dogshit bastard who would abandon the person he loved and die alone.
Ravin is my world.
He takes up half my life.
I don't know if I'm half of his.
I know he loves me, at least.
Because I love him too.
I wished he wouldn't fall further apart with every passing day.
I couldn't help him properly. The only thing I could offer was comfort. Whatever the family did to him, however much he suffered, I wanted him to stay the Ravin I knew. The Ravin I believed in.
I didn't want to believe anything I didn't like. I wanted my world to flow exactly the way I wanted it to.
The world doesn't work that way. But it wasn't supposed to disappear.
Ravin is gone.
No.
It can't be.
There's no way.
Some demon must have taken one look at Ravin and fallen for him. Dragged him off somewhere.
It's not like it was rare. The whores who circled him for that face since we were kids—there were plenty.
Ravin is off somewhere, dragged away by a demon, being used.
Whether he wants it or not.
As long as he keeps his hips moving, they'll let him keep his head.
All I have to do is save him.
Then he won't leave my side. Out of guilt, if nothing else. Gratitude.
I have to go save him.
I have to rescue Ravin from the demons.
Everything I saw was a lie.
Some vile demon playing tricks again.
I walked toward Levina.
Levina, who looks like Ravin.
Maybe her personality's the same, too.
I touched her face, slowly.
Just because she looked like him, there was something almost tender about it.
"How am I supposed to trust you?"
I smiled, and then I shoved Levina away.
* * *
Ravin's insane fiancée smiled brightly at me, then kicked the door open and left.
Maybe it really was a mercy Ravin never married someone like that.
Someone like that could never be happy just being with Ravin.
Fundamentally different from someone like me, who would be happy just having Ravin at my side.
Maybe that's why I'm not particularly happy right now.
I can't even get my cheap satisfaction from cutting myself in visible places, flashing the wounds, hoping someone will look.
No one's going to look at that and pity me. No one's going to look at what I've become and regret it.
The world's turned into that. The person who would look at me that way is gone.
I'm still the same. Still doing the same childish shit and enjoying it.
But he left me behind and went somewhere, and I don't know where.
Just staying by my side would've been enough.
Where is Ravin?
I want to see the body, at least.
How did he die?
I hope it didn't hurt. I hope it was over in one blow.
I wish he'd come see me.
He can beat me without a word. That's fine. He can come to kill me. That's fine, too.
I wish he'd touch my face, talk to me, spend time in the same room like we were the only two people in the world.
Just being beside me would be enough.
He loved me enough to leave me his mother's keepsake. So why did he abandon me and go?
I opened it to check. The bullets were still inside.
"Would you come see me?"
I put the barrel in my mouth and ran my tongue lightly over it.
I held my breath and was considering when to pull the trigger when Estelle stepped close and snatched it out of my hands.
The Saintess, her expression utterly unreadable, was staring at me blankly.
"That's precious to me. Give it back."
"Ravin saved your life. You're going to throw it away?"
"What's this? Are you worried about me?"
"Yes. You should take care of keepsakes."