Delusion (20)
Delusion (20)
The day after I sought out Estelle, she started shadowing me everywhere.
We ate lunch together in the academy dining hall, walked by the lake, sat side by side in the library's secluded corners, killing time.
I'd spent all this time trying to stay out of sight, but at this point, what difference did it make?
Serepina hadn't come looking for me once since that day.
Maybe she was avoiding me, or maybe not—I didn't even run into her by chance in the corridors.
I went to her room a few times, but it always seemed empty.
Knocking got no response. She might have been holed up inside pretending not to hear, for all I knew.
I didn't expect everyone around me to end up happy.
It was a vague hope, but I wanted something—anything—to turn out better than last time.
Yet every time I tried to do something, it all veered off course and went wrong. My head throbbed.
A thought flickered through my mind.
Maybe it was because I knew regression was possible—the thought of blowing my head off right here, wiping away every mistake I'd just made, and starting over.
If I died and restarted, everything I'd done would reset, and the world would snap back to the way it was before.
If I didn't come back... well, maybe that wouldn't matter either.
I should have died that day in front of Levina, when I tried to blow my head off anyway.
But if I did come back like before, I'd just have to repeat the same things all over again.
If I somehow managed to reconcile with Serepina, smooth over the broken engagement, and marry her, Levina would be on me in a heartbeat.
If I went to Estelle for help dealing with Levina, I'd end up bound to Estelle instead.
Because I had nothing but my body.
No skills. No assets. No abilities. A woman who sells the one halfway-decent thing she's got—her appearance—to survive is called a whore.
My mother, at least, wasn't that kind of woman.
She was just a pretty commoner girl from a comfortable family, seduced by a distinguished duke.
Compared to her, I was nothing more than a male whore with nothing to offer but flesh.
Everything I'd done so far was just using my body as bait—shaking other people's hearts while feeling nothing myself, reaping the rewards.
As I thought about this, I felt anxiety coiling in my gut.
Would the church find some convenient pretext to drag me back to the square again, stand me on a pile of firewood?
Selfish, incompetent, and tossed around by everyone else—what a creature I was.
Anyone capable of saying they loved someone like that couldn't be in their right mind.
Levina and Estelle were not in their right minds.
That much was certain.
Still, Estelle no longer dragged me out at night, begging me to kill someone with her. She didn't whisper that the person in front of her overlapped with someone else.
She just stayed beside me, smiling, talking, occasionally taking my hand.
A few days passed like that.
Today I was riding with Estelle in a carriage heading somewhere.
Inside, it was quiet.
Only the steady rattle of wheels rolling over gravel broke the silence.
Estelle had her arm propped on the windowsill, gazing outside.
"There probably won't be anyone left willing to openly refuse to acknowledge you as the Heir Apparent or show you outright hostility."
Her voice was languid.
"I mean, if the Saintess is attached to his side, who'd dare say anything? Right?"
Instead of answering, I looked out the window and asked a different question.
An endless procession stretched behind us.
"Was it really necessary to haul this whole parade along?"
"I need to show the people who follow you exactly who's walking beside you."
Estelle answered.
A train of carriages followed ours. Inside them, she said, were priests who served only her.
And on either side of our carriage, armored men with swords rode alongside on horseback.
Before long, the carriage stopped before the manor, and the iron gates swung open with excruciating slowness.
Estelle led me straight out of the carriage.
We walked right into the estate grounds on foot.
Guards tried to block the swarm of priests who abandoned their carriages to follow Estelle, but they stepped aside the moment they saw my face and heard me tell them to let us pass.
We entered the main building.
Estelle surveyed the servants one by one as she passed, meeting their eyes directly.
Everywhere her gaze landed, people bowed their heads.
An unsettling tension hung over the manor. The guards, and the knights I glimpsed now and then, bore an edge to them.
"Shall we go to your room?"
Estelle began, then murmured as if to herself.
"No, Levina once mentioned there's a greenhouse garden somewhere here."
I led her there.
I turned away everyone who tried to follow us inside the greenhouse, leaving just Estelle and me.
Through the glass walls, the others looked like faint silhouettes.
Soon enough, servants brought food and drink.
We sat across from each other at a white wrought-iron table, barely wetting our lips with tea.
"So, Ravin. You might run around doing stupid things by the dozen, but you're not an idiot."
Estelle set her teacup down. The small sound shattered the greenhouse's stillness.
I drank my tea without replying. An astringent bite lingered on the tip of my tongue.
As if long accustomed to my silence, Estelle continued.
Her voice was drowsy, soft.
"What's happened with breaking off your engagement to that girl?"
"We fought that day. I haven't seen her face since."
"That's no surprise. The pendant you smashed was worth more than you'd think.
She's busy attending classes, spending every spare moment running around doing spellwork for pocket change, scrounging up money. Not that I care if she ever gets paid—as long as you break off the engagement."
This was the first time I'd heard any of that. I stared at her for a moment before answering.
"I could just pay that money myself."
"She wouldn't take it, even if you offered. If I handed her the money to settle the debt on your behalf, I'd simply charge her with stealing a holy relic of that value and throw your fiancée into the underground prison."
Estelle smiled.
"It's a bit much to say this after stripping away all your options, but I do want to hear it directly. Can you give me an answer soon?"
I set my cup down and looked at her.
Sunlight streaming through the glass ceiling turned her silver hair dazzling white.
"Can the Saintess even get married or anything like that?"
Estelle burst out laughing at my question—a clear sound, like glass clinking against glass.
"God commanded us to be fruitful and multiply. What kind of joke is that?"
She leaned forward. Her red eyes bored into me.
"All the people who were going to toy with you—every last one has their eyes shut, doing absolutely nothing.
Even that capable branch-family member the Duchess brought in? I buried him myself.
How long are you going to keep pretending not to see?"
Estelle flung her teacup and saucer to the side of the table.
Crash!
White porcelain shattered against the tile floor, shards scattering everywhere.
She rose from her seat and closed in on me.
She grabbed me by the collar and kissed me—a rough, desperate kiss.
The bitter scent of tea leaves mixed with the sweetness of her breath.
She pulled her lips away and stroked my face gently, backing me against the wall.
The cold glass pressed against my spine.
"Say you love me. You're the one who taught me how to kiss, how to hold someone like this, how to push them against the wall—everything."
She whispered, "So tell me you want to marry me.
Even if it's a lie. Please?"
"It hurts. Get off me for a second."
At that, Estelle pressed even closer.
Her body was soft and warm.
I wondered, distantly, if she might crush me to death.
I grabbed a fistful of her hair and kissed her for minutes on end.
I could feel the warmth of her breath against my skin.
Then I pushed her back and asked.
"Is that enough? Now I break off my engagement, play the part of your devoted little brother?"
"Why are you talking about being my brother all of a sudden?"
"You're acting just like Levina."
Her face was frozen, but the corners of her mouth still held a smile.
"If you want to get married, I'll do it. Anytime."
I pulled her into a tight embrace and spoke against the curve of her throat.
"Then make me the Family Head. I'll break off the engagement.
I'll tell you I love you.
I'll kiss you all you want. We can spend every night together as long as we're careful."
"..."
"But I have no intention of having a child with you.
Even if a normal kid were born between us, there's no chance they'd grow up normal."
Estelle heard this, and her face went blank with a strange sadness.
Her eyes trembled, and tears slipped out.
Suspended in those red irises, they looked exactly like tears of blood.
"If there's no fruit of love, then there's no love either."