Coloring (17)
Coloring (17)
By the time the night began to fray at the edges, we had returned to the church. The stench of blood that had clung to us since the Clément estate had long since been scoured away by the cold dawn air.
She went inside.
I followed.
Estelle climbed to the second floor and, outside the bathroom, shed her black priestess robes—stiff with blood. The garments fell to the floor in a careless heap, like something a snake had abandoned. On the dark fabric, blood that had not yet dried still glistened, sticky and wet.
She stepped into the bathroom.
The quiet rush of water filled the church.
When she emerged a short while later, she had changed into pristine white vestments. As though the night had never happened, she stood before me once more in the shape of the Saintess. Every trace of what we had done had been erased. Only the scent of night dew and a faint thread of tobacco clung to her clothes and hair.
Three days passed with a strange, unbroken calm—apart from the rumors swirling through the city that yet another retired priest had been murdered. Everyone had a theory. The heretics did it. Demons. Internal power struggles within the Order. No one cared about the truth. They only needed an entertaining story.
We rose each morning the way we always had, drank our coffee, and walked side by side to the Academy. We attended lectures, ate lunch, returned to the church, shared our meals, and lay down together at night.
Then came the morning of the fourth day.
Before we set out for the Academy, Estelle stopped in front of the church door. She didn't push it open with her usual lightness. She simply stood there, silent, staring at the heavy wooden door.
I waited beside her.
The world around us was still. In the distance, birdsong greeted the first light, thin and far away. The air was cold and clean. The dark was thinning, and the contours of the world were slowly resolving themselves.
"From today on, I'll have to go alone."
Estelle finally spoke. Her voice was even, but something barely perceptible—weariness, perhaps—had seeped into it.
"I told you before. There's something the old men want me to take care of. Heretics. Have to burn the whole lot of them."
She shrugged. The tone was light, as though she were talking about overdue homework.
"They've been awfully insistent this time, those old bastards. Either that, or the heretics are throwing some grand festival of their own. Just thinking about it exhausts me."
She turned to face me. Her red eyes caught the light, glittering with a beauty that was hard to look away from.
"When I get back, let's go together. To the house where I used to live."
Her voice had gone a little quieter. There was something almost shy in it—like a girl asking someone out for the first time. The dawn light made her cheeks look faintly flushed.
Maybe that was just my imagination.
The way 'Ravin' and I had once been with Serepina—that was how Estelle was now, with me.
She laughed, playful, and pinched my cheek lightly.
"How many days do you think it'll take?"
"Hard to say. Three at the very least, I'd guess."
She stood before me a moment longer, studying my face. Then, without a word, she wrapped her arms around me in a brief, gentle embrace.
"I'll be back."
I stood in that spot for a long time after she was gone.
The day that followed stretched on with an unnatural length. There was no one to eat breakfast with—an obvious thing, but the emptiness of that chair felt disproportionately vast. The bathroom no longer smelled of apples. It was as if only the damp, cold scent of weeds remained.
I went downstairs alone and made coffee. Grinding the beans, setting the filter, pouring the hot water—the whole sequence felt awkward. Out of habit, I prepared two cups. One plain. The other—I reached for the sugar and stopped. My hand hovered in the air above the bowl. I set two cups of black coffee, both bitter, on the table instead—one in front of me, the other in front of an empty chair. The steam curled upward and dissolved into nothing.
Drinking coffee across from a vacant chair had no taste at all.
I went to the Academy alone. The path we had always walked together felt long when I walked it by myself. Students still stared at me, but today, Estelle was absent from those stares. Without the great and esteemed Saintess at my side, their whispers barely reached my ears.
Lectures were tedious. The professors' voices sounded like noise from very far away. I stared out the window. The sky was gray, and the clouds looked heavy.
I ate lunch alone. I sat on our usual bench in the garden and chewed through a hard piece of bread. It tasted like nothing—just a lump of matter to fill my stomach.
Without Estelle there, there was no one to light my cigarette for me either. I fumbled with the pack in my pocket. The hard edges pressed into my fingertips. I pulled out a single cigarette and held it between my lips. But I didn't light it. I just sat there, a damp cigarette in my mouth.
It was a very long day.
The second day wasn't much different from the one before. I woke up, brewed coffee, walked the Academy corridors. I sat through lectures and ate another tasteless lunch by myself. I wandered the Academy like a ghost. I existed, and yet I felt as though I didn't.
When all the classes were over, I left to return to the church. The sky was still the color of ash, and the air carried the damp weight of an impending rain. Whenever the wind rose, bare branches clacked against one another with hollow sounds.
I was about to turn into the narrow alley that led toward the church. The sun set early in this season, and the alley was already dark. A figure stepped out and blocked my path.
Levina.
She wore her usual immaculate uniform, but a sword hung at her hip and a robe was draped over her shoulders. Her face was set in the rigid expression I knew well. She offered no explanation, simply jerking her chin toward the alley.
"Follow me. Right now."
I had no intention of going with her. I couldn't find a reason to take her hand and follow. I turned to leave.
Before I could even ask what the hell she thought she was doing—before I could open my mouth—Levina moved first.
In the space of a blink, she closed the distance and pressed something cold against my throat. The edge of a small dagger. A chill bit into my skin, sick and sharp. I stopped breathing.
Her hand was trembling. The hand holding the dagger, trembling faintly. I felt that tremor travel through the blade and into my neck. The steel dug in just a little deeper. A fraction more pressure, and it would tear skin, sever veins.
"Just follow. Before I actually kill you. If I'm going to lose you anyway, I'll do it with my own hands."
She ground the words out through clenched teeth. Her voice was shaking, too—just like her hand.
I didn't answer. I just looked straight into her eyes. Those eyes, usually so composed, were flickering wildly.
Levina pulled the blade away from my neck. Then she drew her hand back and slapped me hard across the face.
Crack!
The sharp sound rang through the alley. My head snapped to the side. I tasted blood, copper-bright and foul. My cheek burned.
"I told you."
Her voice was low and unsteady—anger and desperation and something else I couldn't name tangled together.
"One wrong step, and you'd be dead. I told you that."
She grabbed me by the collar.
"I told you to stay away from Estelle. From that crazy bitch."
I found myself thinking that dying alongside Estelle didn't seem so bad. After I'd been thrown out of the family, after Serepina had discarded me—Estelle was the only one who had picked me up and treated me like a human being. Maybe I'd be the only one dying, but Estelle would genuinely grieve. Unlike my illustrious former fiancée and former mistress, for whom years of devotion had meant so little.
I didn't want to be dragged anywhere by Levina's hand. Her help always came with a price.
"Don't just stand there like an idiot. You don't have anywhere to go back to."
Still gripping my collar, she spoke almost in a whisper. Urgency bled into her breath.
"There are already Inquisitors from the Order waiting where you've been staying. Even if you swear you didn't do it, no one will believe you. A heretic who's bewitched the Saintess. Satan. A whore. I don't know what they'll call you, but the result will be the same. You'll be ash on top of a pyre."
The words spilled out of her in a rush.
"Those decrepit old men in the Order might be rotten, but did you think they wouldn't notice filth like you clinging to their precious Saintess? They left you alone on purpose, you know. Let you get comfortable, so that when the time came, they could use you to discipline our idiot Saintess. Not that that lunatic will be easy to catch—but if you go back, you will die. That much is certain."
"If that's the case... is there even a way for me to survive?"
I am on the weaker side. Weaker than Serepina, weaker than Levina standing right in front of me. In raw strength, I might still have the upper hand for now—but I don't know how to use magic or anything like it.
"...At the very least, you need to get out of here."
Levina's answer held no solution. Unfortunately. Still, even as she said it, she grabbed my arm and started pulling. Her grip was rough, hurried. I had no chance to resist. I let myself be dragged, dazed.
We ran through the narrow alleys, into the dark. Only the sound of ragged breathing filled the passage. Like a dying flame.
Staring at her back, I finally forced my mouth open. My voice barely came out.
"...Why?"
Why are you trying to save me?
I didn't finish the sentence, but Levina seemed to understand. I could tell—because at my question, I felt her back go rigid for just a moment. Her stride hesitated, ever so briefly.
"You're my brother... No."
She'd started to answer, then closed her mouth, as if she couldn't bring herself to say the words aloud. Levina did not turn her head. She just tightened her grip on my wrist and ran faster.