Fading Embers
I shoved her away, yet she clung tighter than ever. Her wrist— the one I’d shaken off— was seized instead, and she yanked me closer, fingers twisting my collar as if to choke the truth from me.
“You disappeared whenever you felt like it… so where exactly do you think you’re running off to this time?” I snapped.
“It’s not like you need to worry about that. Hah… damn it, come on out already.”
I wrenched my collar free and tried to step back, but she grabbed my arm again.
At this point, chasing after her was pointless. I had no idea where she’d gone anyway.
Thanks to this pathetic orphan brat in front of me, I wasn’t even free to wander off as I pleased.
Mother left because of that wretched girl, too. And now I had to watch Arin slip away right before my eyes because of her?
I needed to at least act like a proper madman.
“The carriage you took that day at the ball… no one knows where you went. Even Father said there was nothing to search for. Roselyn’s been in tears, that new Bernmont heiress gave me some nonsense answer… and then I finally find you, and the first thing you say is to get out of my way?”
“Lione.”
“……Why.”
“Am I really supposed to pretend I know you?”
I stepped forward, still clutching my arm, exhaled a long sigh, and dropped her hand.
Her grip had loosened, as if she’d taken a blow.
I said quietly, “……Come inside and talk.”
I pulled her into the professor’s office, shut the door, and let go.
Lione’s voice trembled the moment it closed.
“Pretending to know you… even if we fought last time, we’re family.”
Her fists were clenched white, and her words broke at the end from barely contained rage.
“I heard every word you said that day.”
“…I don’t mean anything by the furious things I spat out.”
You always did what you had to.
Always. Even when you shattered my head back then.
“So… you came looking for me?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“…What kind of question is that?”
“Why did you go looking? You never treated me like a person. Still don’t.”
“I didn’t say ‘person.’ I pointed out your flaws. Don’t you know how pathetic, weak, and useless you are?”
“You came all this way just to wrap around a useless piece of shit who got beaten? Just for me?”
“That’s……”
“And if I was useless, would I even be here?”
“Then why are you here, brother?”
“The Lord sent me.”
“……What?”
“You heard me. Don’t pretend not to.”
“Why did the Church send you here…… hah.”
Lione sighed and spoke like she was teaching me.
“Do you even know how little the Church likes our family?”
“Father doesn’t either. And that man hasn’t set foot in the Church since Mother died. If you’re disgusted, go pray there.”
“…You’d be lucky to hear that.”
“So why are you here?”
“…I was told I’d join the Imperial Knights as vice-head.”
“Hah, must have been drunk.”
“Don’t mock me.”
“Why? Gonna pull out a sword again? Like last time?”
“You think you can?”
“The Lord sent me here himself. Can you really touch me? When did the Empire and Church start feuding?”
“……”
“Sit. Neither of us can draw a sword in this situation anyway.”
Lione sighed and stared at me before pulling a chair over and sitting.
I leaned against the windowsill, took out a cigar, lit it, inhaled the smoke, and exhaled.
The open window let the smoke billow out and vanish into the breeze.
“Remember what you looked like after the academy? And yet… here you are.”
“Wonder how many years it’s been.”
“Back then I crashed every single ball, no matter how low. I’d latch onto even the lowest knight in the order and beg them to take me in just once. Selling the Gryan name along the way.”
I remembered it all too clearly.
No shame attached.
The person who should feel ashamed is Lihen.
“Roselyn was already fed up with you, so when Father wanted to send you to the war to get rid of you, she ran away like a coward, hung herself in the room…….”
Even that I could listen to.
That’s why I was hanging from the ceiling on the first day I was born.
This mess was Lihen’s fault, not mine.
Still, I ran into Arin in the end… I’m secretly glad.
I have no idea where she went because of that pathetic blood relative of mine.
If it were someone else, I might kill them for leaving me like that.
She said she still loved me… so she wouldn’t do something like that. But the unease lingered for no reason at all.
“Even if the Northern Front is a place where people are sent to die, if you came back alive, you must have been the Gryan. You probably didn’t even fight that much, just rotated through safe rear positions. No one would dare mess with a Gryan.”
I would have felt nothing then.
I wouldn’t be soaked in alcohol and cigarettes.
Maybe I lived pretty happily.
The moment I fell asleep, I always dreamed of that time.
My head splitting, or mine being split.
When I didn’t dream those, it was the day I left Arin, or sometimes the day that blood relative in front of me smashed my head in.
“Coming back from the front after only half a year and acting like someone who’s seen every kind of storm… like a normal person. Half a year. That’s all. How did that turn a person into such a monster?”
Half a year.
It had been a little more than half a year, maybe. But it felt like ten years had passed.
At least in my body.
I learned I could die hundreds of times in a single day.
I learned dying had its own tricks.
After a while I stopped counting how many times I died.
If I’d kept counting, my head would have twisted apart.
The point when I started counting… was when I could survive more than a hundred deaths in one battle after gaining some skill.
My throat felt warm from the inside.
Even listening to a knight who only fights monsters and occasional winnable battles seriously would be ridiculous……
“……Half a year. You could just say it was a half-year mess, couldn’t you?”
Lione’s shoulders twitched once.
“Someone who survived there is feared even by enemies, and you call me pathetic? Would a Gryan be important there? A noble? Do you really think that matters?”
Maybe other people should understand that too.
I didn’t want to show anyone that I was constantly bullied like some lowly coward who hides his strength but still fights well.
Wouldn’t it be better if they just respected me, praised me, and treated me well?
I…… am a person who deserves such respect.
An immortal loved and praised by countless others.
If not for me… the war would have…… the war would have……
Even my own family in front of me doesn’t understand… who else will?
Well, the Northern Front was nothing but a trash bin collecting useless human waste to begin with.
Her voice twisted.
“If you wanted to act like family, you should have gone to someone who could play the part. Bring in a nice male companion and keep him close. I never treated you as a brother back then.”
“……”
“Why do you want to stay by my side? Do you think I can give you the family bond that Father never gave and the mother you killed? How did you treat that person, then?”
Lione stopped answering.
She neither raged nor cried.
She just stared at me silently.
A little time passed… and she spoke softly.
“…Did I say everything?”
“……Yeah.”
“How did it come to this.”
“You know as well as I do. It’s just karma.”
“Brother.”
“What.”
“Even if you call me that, you answer.”
“……”
“You’re not thinking of joining the knight order? Joining the Imperial Knights right away will be tough.”
“What kind of nonsense is this suddenly……”
“If you beat her up with your skills, you could join any knight order.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“But that was your lifelong dream.”
“Dreams are meant to be shattered. And I already knew the knight order is nothing but a gossip circle where worthless idiots suck up to the strong and call themselves heroes.”
“……Don’t cross a line.”
“You who only talked about half-year messes are lecturing me about lines? How dare you.”
“That’s……”
“Go back. I already confirmed you’re here. I even ranted about your stupid knight order idea.”
I ground the cigar out on the windowsill and lit another, sticking it in my mouth.
“…At least tell me where you’re staying.”
“Not your business.”
“……”
Lione pressed her lips shut and stayed seated.
Or maybe not. She turned her back and stared blankly out the window, smoking.
About an hour passed.
The chair scraped.
Footsteps faded.
When I looked back, a faint frost trail brushed the floor.
At the door, her voice came again.
“I have to go in after all. Where are you staying?”
“At the estate.”
“……”
Lione listened, stayed quiet a moment, then let out a small laugh to herself and continued.
“Mother… what kind of person was she?”
I turned and answered quietly.
“A decent person. Unlike you Gryans.”
“……hah.”
Lione’s face twisted.
Angry one moment, sad the next, then some unreadable expression.
“Brother.”
“……”
“If a family member tries to betray the family by sticking to the Church and selling us out, stopping that is the vice-head’s duty.”
Lione’s pupils narrowed.
Like she was aiming at something.
“I saw the portrait. Mother and I… look so much alike.”
“Looks, maybe. You weren’t the type to chase wind.”
“Tell me we’re nothing alike. Then I’ll let it go.”
Lione said that and placed her hand on the sword hilt.
“…Say it.”
“You’re not the kind of person who could resemble Mother, you orphan trash.”
“……”
I’d expected this ever since we faced each other.
I thought she was trying to reconcile, holding back. But I had no such intention from the start.
I didn’t even want to get close.
Lione drew the sword.
Very slowly.