Vestige (2)
Vestige (2)
"I just... I don't know what to do about any of it."
Serepina's voice sounded as if it were echoing faintly from inside her teacup.
Instead of answering, I picked up a pastry thick with cream and bit into it.
The sweet, airy cream melted across my tongue.
"Same here."
I didn't know what to do either, and every direction I'd flailed in had gotten me precisely nowhere.
I'd become Family Head, but only because I let myself be dragged along by the vague notion that I had to do something—and once I had the title, I'd done nothing with it.
Nothing I did changed anything. A man like me wasn't going to suddenly make things go right just because he made an effort.
Still, I was going to live as if something might come of it.
I couldn't do everything, but I could do something. I had to believe that.
Because I wanted to believe that when Serepina died, and Levina, and Estelle — they hadn't died for the era's greatest fool. They'd died for someone they loved.
Spending a night with Estelle and living together as husband and wife in the manor had made one thing clear.
I wouldn't care if I were the only idiot. But somehow, when I lived like this, it felt as though everyone around me came apart too.
Especially Estelle, right beside me.
She came to me, saved me, stayed at my side — and I behaved like a man selling his own body.
I demanded payment for love.
I'd thought I had to give her at least that much to keep her tied to me.
The moment you start weighing love against a price, the word transaction fits better than love ever will.
Thinking back, I couldn't say the Church was entirely wrong.
Keeping Estelle beside me and refusing to let her go was exactly the kind of act you'd expect from some vile whore of Satan who'd corrupted the Saintess.
And yet Estelle had loved me anyway.
"Something about you... it feels like you've completely changed."
Serepina was watching me as she spoke.
I shook my head as if nothing had changed at all.
"No, you really did change—you changed a lot. Maybe I just didn't want to accept it."
Her hair swayed faintly.
"All that time buried me. Maybe I never really looked at you properly."
"Don't think like that. Let's just watch the street.
You don't get to see this very often."
"It looks exactly the same as it does every day."
Serepina gazed outside as she answered.
I thought back to how those streets had looked — emptied out, steeped in silence, every passing face twisted in pain and misery.
All because of me, of course.
At least right now, everything was intact.
Even if it was all teetering on the edge of ruin, right at this moment it held.
The demons were going to invade.
No one would believe it now, with the world so peaceful.
"Ravin."
Serepina was watching the couples out on the street.
"Why is it that whenever I look at you, I see you dying?"
"...Dying?"
"Yes. Every time. So hideous I can't even convince myself it's just a dream."
My own deaths surfaced in my mind.
Even to me they were sordid and shabby — memories I had no desire to revisit.
All the more so because they made me feel like a cursed creature who brought nothing but misfortune to everyone around him.
The moment I consciously thought the words cursed creature, a haze of static crept through my skull and my thoughts blurred.
"I walk into the room and the Heir Apparent is holding you, a hole blown through your head.
I ask Lady Levina what she's doing, and she just looks up at me and smiles."
A flicker of killing intent passed through her eyes.
"I close my eyes and open them again and you're hanging from a rope right in front of me.
I can't stand to see any more so I squeeze my eyes shut, and when I open them you're burning in front of me, your whole body twisting."
Serepina gave a small sniffle.
"The smell of blood, the stench of something charred to nothing, something rank — it all drifts past my nose. Just like it's real."
The bridge of her nose had gone a little red.
"I tried to tell myself it was just a horrible nightmare.
That I kept seeing it because I treated you so cruelly, because every single day I had these terrible thoughts — that someone like you should just die, that maybe I should just die too.
I figured God was punishing me."
She drew out the end of the sentence.
"And then I saw you — standing in a church, marrying someone else."
Her voice sounded waterlogged.
"It had to be a dream. I knew it was a dream. But it hurt so much my heart felt scraped raw. Because of course I should have been the one beside you, and instead there was this breathtakingly beautiful person in my place.
It was agony. Worse than watching you die. Ridiculous, isn't it, when it was all a dream?"
When she laughed with that waterlogged voice, it came out like a sob.
"What's even more ridiculous is that when Father brought up your name and said it was about time we broke off the engagement, I nodded.
And when the Heir Apparent told me she'd spoken to Father and asked if it was true, I smiled and nodded, and that's what I've been doing ever since."
I watched Serepina and tried not to let anything show on my face.
"I kept it all locked inside. I wasn't going to say a word."
Because everything that had happened before had become something that never happened.
"And saying it out loud hasn't made me feel any lighter."
We stayed like that at the café for a long while, Serepina and I.
Neither of us spoke.
All that drifted between us was the noise of the street and the occasional clink of a teacup.
Before we rose to leave, Serepina said quietly,
"I don't want to part from you. If we part, I think I'll spend the rest of my life regretting it."
"Then we'd both better work hard not to part. You and me."
She nodded faintly.
When I paid the bill, my wallet emptied out completely, but I didn't let it show.
The lightness in my pocket felt, for some reason, exactly like the lightness in my chest.
The walk back felt different from the walk there. Somehow, it was hard to breathe.
Even before she'd taken the steps that led to her death, Serepina had never demanded love from me.
For her sake, for Estelle's sake, for Levina's sake if it came to that—I had to do something.
I had to love, too.
Not thinking about what I'd give and what I'd get back. I had to love, the way Estelle did. Ready to give the other person anything.
I couldn't let myself think things like, 'At this point I've done enough; I've loved you this much, so you owe me in return.'
Because living that way once was more than enough.
I walked Serepina to her door.
Our fingers were still laced together. I tightened my grip, pressed my body against hers, and nudged her back toward the door.
Her back met the cold wood.
"I don't know what to do either."
I leaned my face close to hers.
"Ra-Ravin. What if someone sees us here?"
Serepina's face flushed as her eyes went to my lips.
Even as she said it, she moved closer.
Her pupils wavered.
As if it had all been a joke, I dodged her approaching lips and brought my mouth to her ear.
"You said you keep seeing me die."
At my whisper, Serepina flinched.
"At the very least, I won't die the same way you saw."
After that, I pulled away, told her goodnight, and turned on my heel.
* * *
I went back to my room and spent a long stretch practicing magic, casting spells over and over.
Days passed like that, filled with nothing but practice.
I could fill the time without drinking or smoking. Often enough, I'd cough up blood and pass out, so there wasn't time to drink anyway.
It wasn't painful, and whatever else it was, it was producing small results—rewarding in its own way.
I kindled flames above my palm, formed droplets of water, stirred the wind.
They weren't exactly small anymore, but they still didn't look strong.
The dazzling magic from the books, the kind Levina and Serepina had shown me — I was still a long way from using any of that. Mostly I just conjured fire until I collapsed. But at least I'd reached the point where I could mimic a clumsy mage.
The sensation of mana gathering and scattering at my fingertips had grown familiar.
Sometimes, when I overdid it, the skin at my throat would split into shallow cuts, and I'd vomit blood and lose consciousness—but I was brimming with the satisfaction of finally being able to do what I'd never managed before, no matter how desperately I tried.
So I ignored the taste of blood in my mouth and kept a spell suspended above my palm.
Knock, knock.
The door opened at the sound.
Levina stood there looking hollowed-out.
She stepped inside, saw what was floating above my palm, and her eyes went wide.
Her stride stopped cold.
"You... that—how in the world...?"
Her voice trembled.
"The Forbidden Archive. It wasn't you, was it?"
She approached slowly.
The sound of her footsteps shattered the stillness of the room.
The spell above my palm flickered in time with her steps, then scattered.
Like a candle before the wind.
Levina came close and seized my wrist.
Her hands were cold as ice.
"How did this happen?"
I didn't know what answer to give.
The hand that gripped my wrist was trembling violently.
The tremor traveled up my arm.
"Please. Just don't tell me you're tangled up with heretics or demons. Do not say a word like that."
I hadn't expected to see Levina's pupils shaking at this point in time.
"No. Even if it were true, you could repent starting right now. So don't tell anyone."
"Would it be so unacceptable if I told you I did it under my own power?"
"There's no way you could. You, who lived like that ever since you were a child. Is that right?"
Levina exhaled and pulled back slightly.
But she didn't let go of my wrist.
"You haven't shown anyone else?"
"...No one."
At that, she released me.
She'd held on so tightly that the marks of her fingers were stamped white against my skin.
Levina rubbed her face with both hands, then looked around the room and murmured,
"At least you've been keeping it clean."