Escape (7)
Escape (7)
The backyard of the annex had been left untouched for a long time.
Weeds brushed against my ankles, growing wild wherever they pleased, and nameless wildflowers bloomed in scattered clusters.
It lacked the manicured elegance of the main estate's garden, but I preferred it this way.
Everything here lived exactly as it wanted to.
Serepina followed me without a word.
The hem of her white dress trailed through damp soil and grass, gathering stains, but she didn't seem to notice or care.
Each time her heel sank into the dirt, she swayed slightly, off balance.
Beyond the occasional rustle of wind through the leaves, the only sound was our footsteps.
Serepina tried several times to speak. Her lips would move, then still. Nothing came out.
Her face carried a shadow I couldn't name.
I didn't know what to say either.
One thing was certain: something shifted every time I died.
Serepina. Me. Everyone around us.
But it never seemed to change much.
Before I burned, Serepina hadn't believed a word I said.
"Wasn't the broken engagement what you wanted?"
I broke the silence first.
My voice came out drier than I expected.
Serepina stopped walking.
She answered.
She said she'd wanted it—said she'd been fooling herself.
"I'm sorry. I... I never had a thought of my own."
Her voice began to tremble.
The tears she'd held back broke free.
She didn't cover her face. She just let them fall.
"My entire life, I've just drifted along.
I mistook everyone else's thoughts for my own and lived inside them.
I thought my father's will was my will. I took it for granted that you'd always be beside me."
Her voice, frayed with tears, cut through the stillness of the yard.
"But now it feels like you're about to vanish."
"......"
"I don't know why. I just—if I stay still, if I keep living the way I've always lived, drifting wherever the current takes me—it feels like you'll die. Like you'll just disappear."
She spoke through the tears.
Her words steadily blurred, swallowed by the sound of crying.
"And I don't want that."
It would be a lie to say the tears didn't move me at all. Even so, I couldn't bring myself to trust Serepina.
I kept seeing her face as it was until the very end—the face that never once believed me.
The cold stone floor of the underground prison. That face, watching me burn. All she'd done was cry.
Maybe it's absurd to ask for more than that. But I'd lived with the hope that Serepina, at least, would stand by my side—that she'd look only at me.
'Ravin' and me, both.
Every time I died, something changed. Serepina would change too. But the sensation of burning alive still lingered beneath my skin, vivid as ever.
And then, for some reason, I started to understand her.
I can't trust Serepina.
Just like Serepina can't trust Ravin.
Maybe she shifts a little each time I die.
I can feel it clearly now—how the people around me look at me differently each time. They might remember my devotion, everything I've done. They might respect me. They might still love me.
But I couldn't bring myself to trust her.
Maybe I'm doing the same thing she did.
We're childhood friends, after all.
We grew up together. We started to resemble each other in so many ways.
Maybe we've started to resemble each other in this, too.
I let the thought settle for a long moment, then answered her quietly.
"Serepina. Whatever we say, we can't trust each other."
She flinched at my words, then shook her head in denial.
"No. At least... I'm the one who can't trust you."
I looked down at her white dress, her shoes—all smeared with dirt.
I remembered her as a child.
She'd always looked like that.
Always too busy running around with me to keep clean—ruining the pristine white dress and shoes the estate had dressed her in to meet her fiancé.
"Whether I live or die, you won't believe me."
"That's not true! Back then, I was too young... no, even now, I don't know what I'm supposed to do.
But I'll believe you. I'll believe only what you say. So please..."
She clung to me.
Her cold hands gripped my arm.
I didn't shake her off.
"Look, honestly. You've done enough, Serepina.
I told you the Forbidden Archive wasn't my doing—or did I not? Not yet.
Anyway. You've done enough for three years."
"No, please... I... I don't want to lose you."
She spoke through tears.
She begged.
Instead of pulling away, I comforted her.
I wrapped my arms around her.
Her cold body trembled faintly against my chest.
I patted her back in a slow rhythm. No emotion rose up—not like when I'd written the letter and sent it off, not like when I'd watched it burn to ash before my eyes.
Nothing good. Nothing bad.
I felt her body heat.
A familiar warmth, but one that now felt foreign.
Maybe it's possible to know someone so long, to understand someone so completely, that at some point you stop knowing anything at all.
Like a book you've read so many times the letters have worn smooth and illegible.
When the crying had quieted, I gently pulled away.
"It's already too late. It's all over. You know that.
Levina wants it. Your father wants it."
Her tears stopped for a moment.
She looked up at me with reddened eyes.
And asked.
"Is it... that girl beside you now?"
"Why are you bringing Rineta into this?"
"Most employers don't walk around alone with their maid, or hold her hand, or—hm?
And no employer remembers their name.
None of the ones I know, anyway."
Her voice held a trace of jealousy and resentment.
"Still none of your concern. As of today, even less so."
"Take concubines. I won't care.
Just—please. Stay beside me. Stay with me."
Serepina spoke like she was clutching at her last hope.
Her pride had been on the ground for a long time already.
"I'll find work somewhere. I'll earn money. I'll handle everything.
I won't do the things you hate. I won't care about family or reputation or any of it.
It's fine if you can't trust me—I'll earn it. I'll make myself someone you can trust. I swear..."
"I appreciate the words."
I smiled faintly.
Seeing how little I gave her, her expression went blank.
"Or is it... do you not care for me anymore?"
She asked.
"You're one to talk."
"That's not true!"
Serepina shook her head, voice raised.
She stared at me for a long, empty moment.
No sound of crying now—just tears sliding from both eyes.
Streaking her cheeks. Gathering at her chin. Falling.
Her lips trembled. She spoke quietly.
"From the moment I first met you—when you strayed, wherever you went, whatever trouble you caused, whatever they called you because of it—I was beside you because I loved you.
Over ten years. From the first moment I saw you, I loved you. So—so, because I love you..."
"So did I."
At my answer, Serepina's face brightened.
Like clouds parting for the sun.
"Then let's start over. From the beginning. Hm?
As if none of it ever happened.
We can forget it all and start again right here."
I didn't answer.
I just looked at her and smiled that faint smile.
Then spoke quietly.
"Locking myself away here, meeting no one—not even you—
never being mentioned alongside your name or anyone connected to you... it's been peaceful. Happy, even.
There aren't many people here who look at me like some local disgrace the way they do around you. No one trying to tie me down."
Those three years I'd clung to that place, telling myself I'd try to make something work—none of it compared to sharing a rough meal with Rineta in some country village.
"So, Serepina. Thank you for what you've said, but I'll be fine."
I walked past her and started moving again.
My voice scattered on the wind.
I heard her sobbing behind me and looked back.
She'd collapsed to the ground, crying.
The white dress was now completely ruined—soaked with dirt and tears.
She didn't seem to be in any state to notice.
I almost walked back to her. Then I turned my head and left.
I returned to the room exhausted. Rineta was waiting for me by the door.
She took one look at me and came forward, face tight with worry.
"Young Master, are you all right? You look so pale..."
I gave her a vague nod, headed for the bed, and collapsed onto its edge, rubbing my face with dry hands.
My head was a mess.
Rineta asked carefully if she could sit beside me.
When I nodded, she settled next to me.
Neither of us spoke for a while.
"You love her, don't you?"
Rineta asked it out of nowhere.
I didn't answer.
"You must love her terribly."
Rineta spoke again.
"Nothing else could make you suffer like this."
She shifted closer.
Gently, she drew my head down to rest against her shoulder.
A small, warm shoulder.
She didn't say anything else.
She just stroked my hair, light and steady.