Escape (11)
Escape (11)
The carriage glided softly along the dark road.
The wheels turned over gravel in a steady, rhythmic crunch.
Levina stared vacantly out the window into the darkness.
Their conversation in the annex, Ravin's expression, the moment he had called her "sister."
Fragments surfaced in her mind and dissolved, over and over.
Then it happened.
On her left index finger, something cold fractured.
She glanced down at her hand without thinking.
The ring—the matching pair, identical to the one she had given Ravin—crumbled to powder and spilled across her palm.
The stone that had once held a soft inner light was dead now, no different from a common pebble.
"Stop the carriage."
Her voice was a sheet of ice.
"Miss? But we're nearly at the capital..."
"I said stop."
The coachman, flustered, yanked the reins.
The carriage lurched to a halt.
Levina threw the door open and leapt out.
Without hesitation she clambered up to the driver's seat and shoved the bewildered coachman aside.
She drew a small dagger from her coat, sheathed the blade in mana, and hacked savagely through one of the leather traces linking the horse to the carriage.
Then she vaulted onto the horse's back and cracked the reins.
The animal plunged forward into the darkness at a dead run.
The cold night wind sliced across her cheeks.
She could hear nothing but the roar of air in her ears.
She rode hard until the annex came into view.
The horse shuddered to a stop, heaving ragged breaths.
Levina's gaze fixed for a moment on the iron gate, shut fast.
Nobody would be opening it for her.
She did not dismount. She extended one hand and spoke a short spell.
A hairlike fracture shimmered in the air—then the iron gate crumpled inward and shattered.
She spurred the horse straight through.
The wooden doors of the annex met the same treatment.
They exploded into splinters that flew in every direction.
Levina dropped from the saddle.
She headed for Ravin's room without a moment's pause.
All down the corridor, servants scrambled out of her way with terror on their faces.
She registered none of them.
The only thing she could see was the closed door ahead.
She shoved it open, and the raw stench of blood hit her nose.
The room was a wreck.
Ravin lay crumpled beneath the sofa, his whole body wracked with fine tremors as he retched up dark red blood.
Beside him, Rineta had collapsed in exactly the same state.
And the head butler was there.
He was calmly wiping bloodstains from the floorboards as though he were dusting.
His eyes met Levina's. A flicker of shock crossed his face before he fought to regain his composure.
"Heir Apparent—h-how did you..."
The moment his excuses began, black thorns erupted from his knees and shoulders.
They sheared through his limbs before he could so much as flinch.
Thorns bloomed even from the corners of his mouth, cutting off his scream before it could form. He crumpled to the floor.
"Get a physician now!
No—a priest! Bring a priest!
The nearest one! I don't care who—now!"
Levina's voice tore out of her, raw with fury.
The servants scattered in blind panic.
Before long, an elderly priest came rushing from the village church below, flustered and breathless.
One look at the scene inside the room drained the color from his face.
With trembling hands he laid his palms over Ravin, stretched out on the bed, and Rineta, propped up in a chair, and channeled divine power into them.
A pale light enveloped the two of them—and stopped there.
The glow soon faded, and they kept shaking and vomiting blood as before.
"Th-this is no ordinary poison.
What I can do... I can keep the thread of life tethered, but they will die all the same.
You must bring someone of greater ability."
Despair filled the priest's voice.
A single face surfaced in Levina's mind.
Estelle.
The only option was that unhinged Saintess.
"Get these two to the church.
Keep them alive no matter what until I return.
If anything goes wrong, I will find a way to tie every one of you to it and kill you all."
Levina's words came out as a snarl.
After the head butler's display, she could trust no servant in this annex.
She burst back outside.
She had to fetch the Saintess.
A second faster. A second sooner.
She threw herself back onto the horse and plunged into the night.
* * *
When consciousness returned, the first thing I saw was a ceiling painted with holy images.
And a faint herbal scent.
Not the metallic reek of blood. Something that settled the heart.
"Awake?"
A voice came from beside me.
I turned my head and saw a face that was both familiar and alien.
Silver hair. Mischievous crimson eyes.
Estelle.
A person I had no reason to be meeting.
"I used to pester Levina constantly about wanting to see you, and she wouldn't even pretend to hear it.
Now suddenly she's begging me to see you..."
Estelle sat in a chair with her legs crossed, looking at me.
Her voice was calmer than I'd expected.
She studied my face, her expression going blank for a moment, and she trailed off.
Maybe this was a dying hallucination.
It didn't matter either way.
Looking at an Estelle who didn't remember me hurt far more than I'd thought possible.
Estelle saw the tears running down my face and shuddered.
Then, as if drawn by something, she walked over and held me tight.
In this cycle, Estelle and I should have been meeting for the first time—yet she embraced me with a familiar ease.
The scent of apples. The warmth of her.
Then a cough wrenched its way out of me.
Keh-hck!
"Ugh. This is a white robe."
Dark red blood spattered across Estelle's pristine priestess garment.
"Lie still and rest.
Levina was ready to slaughter everyone over you."
Estelle eased me back onto the bed.
Hearing her voice, I had the vague thought that I apparently wasn't dead yet.
"Rineta..."
My throat was so tight the word barely came out.
"The maid who was with me..."
Estelle looked at me for a beat.
"She's alive, technically. Only just."
She said she was going to change her clothes and stepped out.
Not long after, the door burst open and Levina rushed in, panting.
She was a mess.
Her hair was tangled, her costly clothes torn in several places and smeared with dirt.
Dark shadows pooled beneath her bloodshot eyes.
She didn't cry when she saw me.
Her shoulders hitched—then she walked over slowly and wrapped me in a tight embrace.
"Oh, Ravin. My, my Ravin."
For a long while, she didn't let go.
"The annex won't work anymore. Let's go to the estate. Next to my room—no, you'll stay in my room with me. I'll make sure no one can get in.
No one will ever lay a hand on you again. I will see to it."
She spoke in a rush, the words tumbling out half-formed.
"Not my mother, not any servant—I won't let a single one of them inside. Food, anything you want, I'll bring it all myself.
I won't let my mother's words manipulate me, and I won't ever toy with you either, all right? So..."
Levina couldn't finish.
Because she was looking at my face.
She carefully wiped the blood from the corner of my mouth and stared at my lips for a long moment.
"How... are you feeling?"
"All right."
The instant the word left my mouth, it felt like my whole body was twisting from the inside, but it wasn't agonizing the way dying was.
It was far better than hanging or burning.
"More importantly, do you know who poisoned you?"
Levina's voice dropped lower.
"There was only one glass, and that maid collapsed the same way you did. At first I thought the liquor I gave you had been swapped out,
but the bottle was one I'd never seen."
She drew a handkerchief, wiped the blood from her fingers, folded it with slow precision, and tucked it back into the breast pocket of her coat.
"The butler procured that liquor.
There were also people who saw Rineta talking with him alone..."
I cut her off.
"I drank it so she wouldn't die. She was about to take her own life in front of me."
"What kind of—what kind of reckless, idiotic... haah."
Levina's face twisted. She looked ready to scream—then let out a long breath instead, and when she spoke again her voice was low and level.
"Still, you won't have to worry about that anymore."
"What do you mean?"
A cold premonition settled in my gut.
"She's going to die anyway."
At those words I lurched upright, swaying.
Levina caught me before I could fall, steadying me.
Then she led me somewhere.
Another room inside the church.
Rineta lay on the bed, her body still wracked with convulsions as blood streamed from her.
Dark red leaked from her nose and ears, her eyes and mouth.
She was letting out thin, agonized moans.
I stared at the sight without a thought in my head.
Levina whispered beside my ear.
There was no emotion in her voice at all.
"Killing her by my own hand didn't seem worthwhile. Keeping her alive like this felt more appropriate, so I did."
I stumbled towards Rineta.
I called her name.
"Rineta."
No answer came back.
The only thing that came was another cough, and dark red blood spattering up over her face.
I turned back to Levina.
And I knelt before her.
"Save Rineta. I'll do anything.
Tell me to die and I will. Just—please."
I clung to her and begged.
Levina wrapped her arms around me and held me close.
"Why would I kill you? You're my beloved little brother."
I lifted my head and looked up at her face.
She was smiling.