The Unyielding Flower (4)
"I want to die."
It was a phrase I had let slip from my lips more times than I could count.
But this time it wasn't the unconscious habit it usually was — a verbal tic I barely registered.
This time it was a voice I forced out through a throat worn completely raw, words carrying the full weight of what I truly meant.
I had always exaggerated my despair as a way of protecting my own sanity, but today — today I genuinely, honestly wanted to die.
"Hnnngh······."
It was around the time the sweat had begun to dry on my skin that a sudden chill made my body shudder.
Or perhaps it wasn't the cold at all.
The wounds on my body had long since healed, but the sensations remained vivid.
I never saw it coming. No matter how thoroughly the nobility seemed to be populated by beasts, I had assumed that a banquet hall packed with people was the one place I would never suffer such a thing.
No. Rationalizing it changes nothing.
I let my guard down.
In a world with lawlessness this rampant, dark back alleys are not the only places that demand caution. I should have realized far sooner that a marquis in heat — alone in his private villa — was every bit as dangerous. No, more so.
To crawl into a tiger's den of my own free will and then fail to keep my wits about me. I was far too complacent.
At first, I thought I could talk my way out of it. So instead of screaming, I chose to negotiate.
And I have regretted that choice every second since.
The word of a mere commoner physician was never a consideration for a marquis in the first place. There was no weighing or measuring to be done — my mouth was simply shut for me.
Once he seized my wrist and covered my mouth, the memories I had desperately, painstakingly tried to bury came surging back with terrible ease.
That memory summoned helplessness in an instant, and the helplessness curdled into fear that devoured my entire body.
By the time I came back to myself, I had stopped resisting altogether.
No — I had become incapable of resisting. My movements were pinned and my mouth was sealed, but more than that, I had lost every last shred of the will to fight back.
That wretched ordeal did not last long, in the end. Perhaps his function had been subpar to begin with, or perhaps the exposed openness of the space unsettled him. Or maybe — just maybe — he'd simply grown bored of violating a doll of a woman whose will to resist had snapped and whose consciousness had slipped away, trapped in her own trauma.
When the grip on my waist finally loosened, I crumpled to the floor where I stood.
The marquis stared down at me for a long moment — and then, without a word, vanished with the swift stride of a man fleeing the scene.
It was a nimbleness that reminded me of someone all too well.
"He's the one that Hero bastard introduced me to. Of course he wasn't going to be normal······."
Strength had begun creeping back into my body. I pulled my shoulder strap back up and let out a long, shuddering breath. Only now did the unknown terror that had held my body in its thrall finally lift.
But my hands were still trembling. And the wish to die had not improved in the slightest.
I have to get out of here.
I need to leave this place, now. The thought consumed me entirely. A creeping dread washed over me — that if I stayed a moment longer, the same thing might happen all over again.
But leave, and go where? Run to whom?
The instant that question formed, the legs I had hastily straightened while fixing my clothes gave out beneath me all over again.
The Tavern Boss? No. I can't bear the thought of a man touching me right now. I don't want to see any man.
Irina? Still no. Because I only ever want Irina to see me at my strongest.
Sasha is even more impossible. I could never let her hold me — that pure-hearted emblem of innocence — in this filth-smeared state.
Then what about Leopard, the Hero? Absolutely not. He's as good as the culprit who set this whole catastrophe in motion.
I had learned he was a woman, learned he liked women, and felt a flicker of kinship because of it. I had even dared to hope that maybe he wasn't a complete piece of garbage after all······.
The sense of betrayal ran deep. Never mind that I couldn't even be sure what we had deserved to be called a bond in the first place.
I don't want to see a single soul.
No one could truly empathize with me. No one could offer a comfort that wouldn't ring hollow within moments. In this world, I am alone. I fell here without friends, without family, without anything — so of course I am.
Powerless to do anything as I wish, unable even to choose death for myself, I am utterly, completely alone — without a single soul who understands.
Today, that truth cut deeper than it ever had before.
"I really do want to die."
Then, quite suddenly, I found myself wondering.
Am I truly a body that cannot die?
The only reason I believed I couldn't die was the word of that gloomy priest. Even he had admitted he wasn't certain whether it was simply rapid regeneration, or a genuine Curse of Immortality.
Verifying it would be simple. All I'd have to do is tie a rock to my ankle and drop myself into the sea. If the priest lied, I would drift into a peaceful death. If he told the truth, then I would spend eternity with my lungs flooded — living, quite literally, a suffocating life.
I know it's a gamble. But isn't that what life is, in the end? Sometimes you have to know when to bet boldly if you want to win a happy old age — no, a happy death.
So right now, this very moment······.
"Mommy!"
"······."
Lightning flickered, and in that same instant light spilled in through the window. When I saw the small figure standing at the end of the corridor, I froze solid.
No — she wasn't that small anymore. She only looked small to my eyes.
My pointlessly sharp vision caught it in that fleeting instant: tears welling up in Tia's eyes.
Why did she come here? No — more importantly, how did she even know to come?
"How did you······."
"I followed Mommy's smell!"
"What a nose······."
"Mommy! Don't say you wanna die!"
Tia covered the long distance in the blink of an eye and threw herself into my arms. Feeling that iron grip squeeze around my waist, I finally, finally felt safe.
Tia hadn't seen a single thing that had just happened. I was certain of it.
"Why? Why, why do you want to die? Tia's right here, so why······!"
"Ah······."
Now that I thought of it — there was one person. Exactly one.
Someone who would accept me exactly as I am, no matter what happened to either of us. A perfect understanding — that is a role only my other half, my daughter, could ever fill.
Of course, I had no intention of saddling Tia with such a crushing burden. A soul three months old in the body of a seven-year-old could never possibly understand what had happened to me today.
She is simply the one person I can hold without guarding my heart, the one I can sob against without shame. For me, Tia is the only existence in this world for whom that is possible.
And also — she is the precious reason I never have to tie a rock to my ankle at all.
"I'm sorry. For saying that. I won't ever again."
"Nuh-uh, don't be sorry! Tia's the one who's sorry! I didn't even know Mommy was hurting······."
At a glance she seemed simply bereft, crying her heart out — but look closer, and it was something a little different. As her mother, I could tell.
Tia was shedding those tears for me. Not from fear of being scolded, not from fear of abandonment — she was grieving, sincerely, for my sake.
She'd grown so much already, hadn't she? The little thing who once knew nothing but wailing and tantrums and her own stubborn demands had learned how to comfort her mother.
I was so proud I could have cried. I gathered her in, the way she burrowed deeper and deeper into my chest like she did when she was a baby — and then, just like when she was a baby, I scooped her up by the bottom and lifted her.
It was hard work. But I could manage it.
Then I ran my hand over the tail that had sprouted like a bamboo shoot when I wasn't looking, stroking it gently above her skirt. I caressed, too, the horns that had begun curving backward as they grew — so much now that even the beastfolk hat could barely hide them.
The things I usually found so repulsive looked, today, unexpectedly steadfast and reassuring.
"If you're hurting, you gotta tell me, Mommy!"
"Yeah? Thank you. I will."
"And you can tell Tia all the hard stuff! Tia will listen to everything!"
"Hnnn······. I love you, my daughter."
"Mmmmmph! Tia's cracking!"
Overwhelmed, I hugged her so hard I nearly cracked her ribs. Because I loved her.
And because I needed to gloss over it.
"I love you······."
As if I could ever say it. That you are the very thing that's wearing me down. That you are nothing more than my insurance policy. That I am raising you solely as a weapon to secure my eternal rest — and that the price of my raising you will be exacted as the sin of killing your own mother. As if I could ever say any of that.
"Thank you. Thanks to you, I feel stronger."
"Really? Mommy doesn't wanna die anymore?"
"Mm-hm. Of course not."
I decided to try holding on a little longer. After all, I hold a guaranteed one-way ticket to hell. As long as I keep this child safe, I can close my eyes in peace whenever I please.
It wasn't time to give up yet.
"What a wretched feeling······."
The Imperial Capital, Dragonia Villa.
The marquis had pulled his hat down low, hiding his face. Thinking back on the previous night, he wanted nothing more than to crawl into a mouse hole and disappear.
"And I went at it like some rabid dog······. Haah······."
It was the first time he had ever committed such an act. No — in truth it was the second, but swept up in an impulse startlingly similar to the first, he had repeated the same mistake all over again.
He had always considered himself a patient man, yet against that ferocious impulse he had been utterly defenseless. It felt as though he had become a different person — a deeply unpleasant sensation.
Of course, he knew perfectly well that this granted him no absolution.
"She won't be coming to work, I suppose."
The marquis lifted the brim of his hat slightly and glanced toward the firmly shut front gate. He saw no sign of a spirit strong enough to return with her head held high after suffering something so grave.
She didn't seem like the shameless sort of woman who would try to leverage a secret liaison with a marquis into a stepping-stone to success, either.
Delicate glass, easily wounded. The flower Leopard had so cherished — and he, unable to suppress a base and lowly desire, had shattered it.
From every angle, the guilt was inescapable.
"My lord."
"······?"
At the sound of a knock behind him, the marquis turned without a word. It was the Butler's voice. The Butler never interrupted him at this hour — had something happened?
"I have escorted the maid to you. As you instructed, her preliminary training was kept brief — confined to forms of address and the etiquette of greeting."
"What······?"
A maid? Had he gone and picked one out from among the household staff on his own, to replace the woman who would no longer be coming? Why would he do something he was never asked to do?
The marquis wondered if, after so long a stretch of loyal service, the time had come to let the man go. He spoke with unmistakable irritation.
"Just open the door!"
"As you wish. I will show the maid in."
"It is an honor to see you again, my lord."
"······!"
The moment the door swung open and a woman in neat, tidy attire appeared, the marquis froze, utterly unable to hide his bewilderment.
The very woman who had collapsed the night before, her face drained and hollow with shock — was now standing before him, glaring at him with piercing, burning eyes.
Eyes that had not bent. Not even a little.