Delusion (23)
Delusion (23)
I took a long moment to steady my breathing.
For a few seconds there, the air had stopped coming, and my body seemed to have forgotten the whole rhythm of drawing breath in and letting it back out.
I got to my feet.
A raw, stinging heat clung to my throat. I touched it with my fingers and they came away red.
Finding Estelle right now would only make things worse.
She would demand to know what happened. If I told her the truth, she would handle Serepina in her own way. Without question.
Which meant I would have to fabricate something plausible, and no decent excuse was coming to mind.
I pulled a handkerchief from my pocket and wiped the blood off my neck as best I could, then headed back to the library.
I picked up the book that had fallen to the floor, returned to the seat I had been in earlier, and opened it.
The arrangement of type on the page was starting to make a kind of sense. I had a rough feeling for how it worked now, a vague grasp of application.
But my body held almost no mana to speak of.
My head understood. My hands could do nothing without a magic stone.
Magic stones were obscenely expensive. Only now that I had become Family Head could I finally afford to touch them at all.
I gathered the books I had been reading and left the library.
The walk back to my room felt unusually long.
I must have looked wrecked. I could hear people murmuring as I passed, the whispers reaching my ears plainly.
That had hardly happened at all since I became the shabby, half-legitimate head of House Edelgard.
I reached my room.
The door swung open. Rineta was inside, cleaning.
She started to greet me, then froze, eyes flying wide. The feather duster nearly slipped from her hand.
"Young Master!"
She rushed over, reaching for my throat, then checked herself short.
Her face was tight with worry.
"You're hurt—is it really all right for you to be walking around like everything is fine?"
"It's fine."
I lowered myself onto a chair. No strength left in my body.
Without being asked, Rineta went to the cupboard and brought out two teacups, setting them on the table. She mixed several kinds of dried leaves into the teapot and poured the hot water.
Steam rose, carrying a faint grassy scent—like a morning in some distant countryside.
"Here."
I took the cup she offered.
"Thank you."
The warmth of the tea seeped slowly through my chilled body.
"I know this is beyond my place, but... may I ask what happened to you?"
Rineta's voice was careful.
"Just a small argument. It got out of hand."
I tried to brush it off.
"Young Master, for a small argument, the marks on your throat look exactly like burns. There's blood, too."
She stepped closer. The concern in her eyes was genuine.
"Would you let me help?"
I told her to do whatever she wanted. She drew a small bottle from her clothes and uncapped it. A smell drifted up—herbs, and under that, something stale and musty, like wet forest earth.
"We used to make this in my village. This one thing will set you right!"
Her voice was bright.
Slightly dubious, I tilted my head up anyway, inviting her to try.
Rineta's expression was sunny as she scooped the ointment onto her fingers.
She dabbed it thickly across my throat. The cold salve bit at the wound with a small sting. From somewhere she produced a strip of clean white cloth and wound it around my neck.
"How does it feel?"
"You just put it on. I wouldn't know yet."
"That's true!"
She hesitated a moment, then spoke again.
"By the way, do you have any plans to visit near the annex?"
"Why the annex?"
"I mentioned it before—I was hoping you might visit my village sometime!"
"Not yet. Once I'm married to Estelle... no, to the Saintess, I might have some breathing room."
Rineta fell silent at that.
After a pause, she asked carefully,
"When that happens... would it still be all right if I keep working at your side like this?"
I no longer had the energy to pretend I could give her everything with a word. The position of Family Head had fallen into my lap, yes, but the situation had twisted itself into a spectacular disaster.
"I don't know."
That was all I could give her.
The conversation died there.
Rineta quietly cleared the teacups and left the room. I returned to the book. I murmured lines aloud as I worked through the method of casting a spell with a magic stone.
I opened my right hand.
I clutched the stone and whispered the passage I had read. My voice came out with a slight tremor.
A pale flame, thin as heat haze, flickered to life above my palm. Small and precarious, but fiercely hot.
I stared at that flame for a long while.
It was too weak to serve even as self-defense, but there was a quiet satisfaction in using magic with my own hands instead of only seeing it in books. The spells I had wielded as a child—without any magic stone—had apparently been larger than this, but the past was the past.
And those weren't my memories. They belonged to Ravin.
Still, this unimpressive little spell was entirely my own.
Borrowed power, maybe. Power acquired by deceiving someone. Power bought with money poured out like water in a position I had seized by ousting Levina and fawning over Estelle.
I laid the book open to the section on storing spells inside magic stones and activating them when needed, and passed the time slowly, picking at the snacks Rineta had brought.
* * *
Time passed fast.
Far faster than I had anticipated.
I had never known time could race this way just because I wasn't tangled up in people, wasn't being shoved around by conflict after conflict.
I graduated from the Academy.
Most ordinary young nobles used the place to recruit talented followers, but nobody was inclined to follow me. My attendance there as a member of House Edelgard had meant very little.
The one small mercy was that I had learned to use spells, clumsy as my skill remained.
The biggest regret was that I could no longer enter the Forbidden Archive to read its books.
But over the time that remained, I managed to pick up most of the essentials for casting spells in a somewhat undignified fashion—hurling stones around like crude projectiles. The method was simple: store a spell inside a magic stone, then throw it.
From time to time, our house retainers, the old knights, and even Levina would come to suggest I show a little restraint with the spending. I had long since told them that if the coffers ran dry, they should just sell off the family jewels, the heirlooms, everything.
It didn't matter.
Dark rumors kept drifting in—demons pushing in from the borderlands, some territory ruined, an entire kingdom annihilated. A fair number of refugees had already reached House Edelgard. But that didn't feel particularly important, either.
Whether I hanged myself in my room, shot myself in the head, burned at the stake in a public square, or fell to my death from the annex, it would all be the same to the people out there living their lives: just an entertaining piece of gossip. Nothing important.
It was the same for me.
My wedding to Estelle was coming soon.
The Church had decided to keep it modest. Given our respective stations—or rather, given the state of things—they opted for a small ceremony and a restrained festival.
A few days before the wedding, Estelle and I wandered through the main streets, which felt strangely hollow compared to how they used to be.
We sat on the second floor of a café, looking down at the street, sharing snacks.
"So it's really all right. We're actually getting married."
"I already walked you through the doctrine last time. You saying you attended church diligently? That was a lie."
Estelle's voice was light.
"I did try to attend diligently. The lack of conversation made it difficult."
"Anyway. Remember what you said back then?"
She set her coffee down after wetting her lips.
"What I said back when?"
"That you had no intention of having a child with me."
She took a sip of coffee, then lowered the cup.
"Has your thinking changed at all?"
I looked out the window. People were passing on the street below, their faces blank.
"I'm sorry."
That was my answer.
Estelle ground her teeth for a second, then broke into a smile.
"It's all right. I'll change your mind."
There was nothing to change, really. Estelle would love a child just as fiercely as she loved me—I was sure of it.
"Every day with me will be happy. I'll make you believe that we can love whatever child we bring into the world."
If she could cling to someone like me, could say she loved someone like me, then if a child came, that child would grow up loved and happy.
"I hope so."
I waved a hand through empty air.
[Collect the Endings. 4/?]
[Rewards Collected: Lingering Fragrance, Afterimage, Lingering Trace]
[Rewards: ???, Redacted]
If only this thing would stop appearing.