Delusion (22)
Delusion (22)
We left the library.
Serepina walked ahead of me.
I followed.
Neither of us said a word.
We just walked.
Past the lake, the old benches, a small square with a nameless statue.
We walked for a long time.
Without a single exchange.
The air between us didn't invite me to speak first.
Before I knew it, we were on a secluded path near the dormitories.
Leaves rustled in the wind.
Serepina stopped.
She turned and faced me.
Her face was in shadow.
"You're marrying the Saintess. Is that true?"
Her voice still had a hollow, barren quality.
"That's likely how things will go."
"How did the two of you even meet?"
"I just—crossed paths with her while I was at the church."
"You crossed paths, so now the Saintess loves you?"
Serepina spat the words out.
I didn't answer.
I had nothing to say to the word love—no idea what I was supposed to give in return.
"You know it wasn't chance. Levina and the Duchess vanished at the same time, and the moment you become Family Head, only Levina comes back.
And now suddenly the Saintess and you... word is going around that you'll be husband and wife soon."
"It wasn't chance."
Serepina's eyes widened slightly.
"What does that mean?"
"I asked for it.
I begged. I said I'd give her anything if she'd just do something about my fucking sister and my family."
I said it flatly.
As if I were talking about someone else.
"And I'm so——"
Before I could finish, something caught my ankle.
I lost my balance.
My body pitched forward.
In the instant before I fell, Serepina grabbed my collar.
And hauled me straight into a slap.
Crack.
The sharp sound tore through the quiet path.
My cheek burned.
Slowly, I peeled her hand off my clothes.
I brushed the dust from my legs, then straightened up.
"You say you're sorry, but you're not sorry at all, Ravin.
Not even a little. Look at me. You're not sorry at all."
Her voice was trembling.
When I gave no response, she seized me by the collar and shoved me back against a tree.
My spine hit rough bark.
"Do you hate me that much?"
"How could I hate you."
At my answer, Serepina cupped my face.
Her hands were cold and trembling.
"If you're going to say that, look at me when you say it. Look me in the eyes! Why!
That broken engagement everyone talked about—I threatened my own family to bury it. I was ready to spend my life with you, only you!
Whatever you did, I was going to stay!
You and that maid, holding each other and whispering—I—I didn't even ask what you said."
Serepina spoke through tears.
"I wanted to know so badly. I wondered if you were badmouthing me.
I was terrified you'd said I'm just a front, a girl you keep around for show, and she's the one you really love! And through all of it you never said a word!"
Tears tracked down her cheeks.
"Is— is it because I treated you so carelessly?
Because I couldn't love you properly?"
She wiped at the tears as she kept talking.
Everything she felt came spilling out.
"Because I didn't believe you?
Because I said cruel things to you? Because back then, I wished you would just die, and
God is punishing me for it?"
"......."
"Why did you start looking at me with those eyes that day, like you'd turned into a completely different person?
From the day you looked at me like that, I dreamed of you dying. Every single night."
"Because in my dreams I don't do anything?
Is that it? Because of something I didn't even do?
You hate me for something I never did? Is that it?"
She drove the words at me.
Then she looked into my face, and our eyes met.
I don't know what she saw in mine.
I don't hate her.
I don't dislike her either.
When she threw the coffee she brought me in my face, in front of everyone. When she burned my letters right before my eyes. When she insisted I'd done things I hadn't. When I went to talk to her and she pushed me away with an excuse about being busy with friends. When she told me someone like me should die. I don't think I hated her through any of it.
If someone asked whether I loved her, I might even say yes.
But I thought back to everything I'd done.
Half-listening to Serepina as if her words were a chore, nodding along without hearing her.
Setting aside real conversation, deeper feelings, just passing the time.
Clinging to Levina like a parasite while feeding her nothing but lies.
Putting a bullet through the back of her head the moment she was about to become Family Head.
Dangling my worthless body and heart in front of Estelle, then refusing to hand them over properly, claiming even that was too hard.
Hoping someone would come close and offer love—then bristling, scared, driving them off the moment they did. It was laughable, even to me.
Even porcupines wouldn't treat each other like this.
With Serepina, there was no finding a safe distance where neither of us got hurt.
We were already too close. A single quill, barely raised, and we'd pierce each other.
I hate being alone.
I hate the loneliness, so I approach—and get shoved away. Or told I'm too close, and I'm the one who pulls back first.
A man who deserves to be pointed at.
A whore's son.
A vile bastard.
A contemptible piece of trash.
A worthless punk.
If the man I used to be—the one who, before Levina blew his head off, told himself none of it was true, why were they saying these things to me, I'd at least lived decently—if he could see me now, what would he say?
He'd point. Curse me out just the same.
He'd say I should never have done this, if regression was even possible.
He'd ask how I could repeat the same things to everyone around me, after suffering so much because of the people around me, the people who wouldn't believe me, because of love itself.
And I wouldn't have a single word in reply.
The speck of conscience I have left, barely worth the space it takes up, would mark me as someone with no right to answer at all.
Serepina's dreams were surely not dreams at all, but things she had lived through. Even so, for her, maybe it was a mercy that they stayed as dreams.
"I wish you'd tell me you love me, the way you used to.
Is this because I told you not to lie, back when you said it?
If— if I can't have that because I didn't believe you, because I treated you carelessly, then I just wish you'd let me stay by your side."
Her pitiful, trembling voice was agony to hear, no matter when I heard it.
Her old way was easier—always smiling, or at least getting angry because she couldn't trust me.
"But if you marry the Saintess, the engagement to someone like me gets broken off, and I can't even see your face again—then I won't even have that anymore."
"And there are still so many people trying to kill you.
There are plenty who hate the church, and you think there aren't men who'd try to kill you because the legitimate bloodline is still alive and some bastard is sitting in that seat?
So we don't know what might happen. Let's run."
Serepina took my hand.
Her hand was cold, trembling slightly.
"Ravin, if you still love me, if you like me, I'll do anything.
I'll do anything for you. Run away with me somewhere.
Just the two of us. Okay? We could escape to another continent and live there.
A mage of my caliber can always find work, so living won't be a problem. Just the two of us, running away—"
Serepina spoke through her weeping.
The offer was sweet.
Far better than anything I'd ever proposed.
I don't have any remarkable skills like Serepina does.
Even if we ran, Estelle would come for me, leading the holy knights who once guarded me.
If we were caught, Estelle might spare me, but she would burn Serepina alive and still have cruelty to spare.
I didn't want Serepina to burn to death the way I had.
It's a sensation too monstrous to be left even as a dream.
What did I say to her, back then.
Right.
"What reason would I have to trust you and follow, Serepina."
I said it quietly.
"I'm sorry. But it really isn't possible.
Even if I still love you, it isn't possible. Even if I trust you."
My voice had gone hoarse without my noticing.
"I took too many wrong steps this time."
No answer came.
A faint blue light shimmered around Serepina's body.
Then, moving with terrifying speed, she slammed me back and wrapped her hands around my throat.
Her fingers dug in.
"Hurk— kgh— nghh——"
As my consciousness began to dim, a thought flashed through my mind: I didn't think it would start over like this again. My legs thrashed.
I looked at Serepina.
Our eyes met, and her grip slackened.
She stared down blankly at her own hands, looked at me with that same empty expression—and ran.
Like a terrified deer.
I slumped to the ground and touched my throat.
The ghost of her hands was still there.