Escape (5)
Escape (5)
The skin was cut, but the bleeding had nearly stopped.
Only the dull, throbbing ache remained.
Had coming to the annex been the right choice?
The thought flickered through my mind and vanished just as fast.
A red flame surged up in my memory, the one that had tried to swallow everything.
This was better than that.
Incomparably better.
I'm afraid of fire.
I fled all the way here because I'm afraid of fire.
I didn't want to go back.
I pressed my palms against my eyes and let out a breath.
After a moment, I shifted, meaning to help Rineta where she lay crumpled on the floor.
The thorns that had grown from her shoulder had grazed her neck. If I touched her carelessly, I'd only make things worse.
That's how it always went.
Every time I tried to do something, every time I touched someone, everything fell apart.
Hurried footsteps echoed from the corridor.
Levina returned with the head butler. In his hands, he carried a wooden bowl filled with something dark green and a roll of clean bandages.
A pungent herbal reek flooded the room.
The smell stung my nose.
"The odor is rather strong, so please bear with it."
The butler spoke carefully.
Slumped against the sofa, I stared at him without a word. He moved toward me, but Levina stopped him.
"I'll do it. Go and rest."
She took the bowl and bandages from his hands.
"Y-Heir Apparent. This sort of work is my duty—"
"I said I'll do it. Rest."
Her voice was low and firm.
The butler hesitated, then bowed his head and quietly left the room.
The three of us were alone again. Rineta's faint breathing rose from the floor.
Levina knelt in front of me.
She began to peel away my shirt, the fabric soaked through and clinging to the wounds. Her fingers worked the buttons loose one by one, unnervingly gentle.
Cold air bit at the cuts.
The cuts stung.
"...Does it hurt a lot?"
Levina's gaze was fixed on the injuries.
"Even if I wanted to lie, I couldn't say it doesn't."
She dipped her fingers into the sticky salve and spread it carefully across the gash on my chest. A searing heat followed, and the reek of herbs grew worse.
Her touch was soft. Strangely soft.
As she worked the paste in, her fingertip brushed the edge of the wound.
Cold skin grazing torn skin.
"I'm sorry."
Her voice was flat.
"Yeah."
I had no sharp reply, nothing else worth saying.
"You went to a village nearby, I heard."
"I did."
"What was it like?"
"Just a village. The countryside."
"Even so, you're an Edelgard. If anyone there treated you poorly, tell me."
"I was expelled from the family, wasn't I?"
"...Not expelled. Merely told not to go around throwing the name around."
"Then whether I get close to a maid or not is none of your business."
Levina didn't answer.
She just kept spreading the salve in silence. Her long eyelashes trembled, barely.
"Levina."
"..."
"How long are we going to keep doing this?"
The hand winding the bandage paused, just for a second. Then it moved again.
She pressed down on the wound until the bleeding stopped, then wrapped my chest with meticulous care.
"What are you trying to say."
"Were we ever actually family to begin with?"
Levina rose to her feet.
As if ducking the question, she crossed to where Rineta lay on the floor.
"No sibling lives like this."
The thorns embedded in Rineta's shoulder crumbled to dust the moment Levina touched them.
"I suppose not. Even so, Ravin..."
"Don't call me Ravin."
Levina tore roughly at the shoulder of Rineta's uniform.
She slathered the salve on like she was grinding it into the wound. After smearing the stinking herb paste across the injuries on Rineta's shoulder and neck, she wrapped the bandages with excessive force—tight enough to suffocate.
Rineta's brow furrowed in pain, but she didn't wake.
Levina finished the wrapping and stood.
"So now you even hate it when I say your name?"
She sank into the sofa across from me and drank the cold tea left in her cup, hands still stained with blood.
The cup trembled minutely in her grip.
"Everything is finally in my hands. Father will step down soon, and the family will be mine."
"Good for you. It's what you've wanted since we were children."
"And you've come back to House Edelgard. Soon enough, you'll be rid of that fiancée who was never your equal."
"What is my equal, then?"
"...At the very least, it isn't House Belluz."
I pushed myself upright on the sofa.
"Levina. Do you remember? I must have been around ten."
Her lips parted slightly.
"No? The Duchess locked me in the underground storeroom. Two full days. Alone in the cold and dark. You were the only person who came to find me."
I kept talking as I gathered Rineta into my arms.
"That was—"
"You came and said, 'This is why you should have listened.' Said a bastard like me was defective and that's why this happened. Even then, I think I was happy just because you showed up."
At least, 'Ravin' was.
Rineta was lighter than I expected.
I laid her carefully on the opposite sofa.
"When I was twelve, too. Ah—that time it was the wardrobe, wasn't it? And when my mother died."
I watched Rineta for a moment, then sat back down opposite Levina.
"Whenever I stepped even slightly out of line, you'd recite the Duchess's words back at me. That my mother was a whore. That I was a bastard, poorly bred, wrong from birth."
Levina started to speak, then stopped and dragged a bloodied hand down her face. A smear of red streaked across her cheek.
"We were young. I was..." She trailed off, staring blankly into the air before shutting her mouth.
Something flickered behind her eyes.
"...I'm sorry. No. I'm sorry. Truly."
Her voice had shrunk to almost nothing.
"Give the girl my apology as well. Tell her I'll pay her handsomely if she chooses to leave."
She opened her mouth. Her voice was frayed.
"...Just a moment ago you were trying to kill her."
"I wasn't trying to kill her. I told you. I only meant to frighten her. And I... I don't know why I did it."
For the first time, Levina showed me something other than a mask of composure. Her face was lost. Like a child who couldn't find her way.
I wanted to throw words at her, but my mouth wouldn't open. In all the years I had lived—in all the years 'Ravin' could remember—I had never once seen Levina look at him like that.
The room filled with silence.
"I'll come again next week. Rest for a while."
She rose and stood over Rineta for a long time, looking down.
In the end, Levina said nothing. She fled the room as if escaping.
A carriage rumbled in the distance. The sound faded, then vanished.
Silence reclaimed the room.
How much time passed?
Rineta stirred on the sofa with a faint groan. She sat up, trembling faintly, and touched her shoulder, her neck. The bandages seemed to confuse her.
"This... did you wrap this yourself, Young Master?"
Her voice was hoarse.
"No. Our esteemed Heir Apparent did."
Rineta flinched.
"...The brute who torments the servants—that's the Heir Apparent as well, isn't it?"
The words slipped out. A sharp inhale followed as she realized what she'd said.
"N-no! I'm sorry! Please don't tell anyone!"
Her voice cracked, pleading.
I just reached out and stroked her hair once.
"The Heir Apparent said to give you her apology. And that she'll pay you well if you decide to quit. Being so high and mighty, I imagine saying it to your face was too difficult."
Rineta stared at me.
The fear was still there in her eyes.
"Are you going to quit?"
Rineta brushed her fingers over the bandages at her neck and shoulder. She hesitated a moment, then shook her head.
"No. I won't quit."
"Why?"
"I want to go to the capital. Save up a lot of money. It's my dream."
"Why the capital?"
"A friend from my village—someone I was close to—she went to the academy in the capital."
A faint smile crossed Rineta's face.
"By now, she's probably a splendid knight. Instead of just waiting for her to visit someday, I want to go there myself and see her."
"Then take the money and leave. You could go straight to the capital."
Rineta's cheeks flushed. She hesitated, her gaze dropping to the floor.
"...I don't want to leave you alone with a person like that."
Her voice was barely a whisper.
"And without me around, Young Master... you'd have no friends at all. You're so prickly."
I opened my mouth to argue. Nothing came. So I shut it.