Chapter 149. Broken Glass Fragments
2024.01.27.
"Come out."
The jailer who opened the door gestured. Miela flinched at his indifferent attitude.
Nearly half a month had passed since she was imprisoned in the imperial dungeon, but she could never get used to someone treating her coldly. She had always been a priestess, basking in the favor and reverence of those around her.
Miela was dragged out by the jailer.
Today was the day of her trial. Yet she still found her reality utterly absurd and bewildering.
She had only wanted to save the man she loved from an unjust marriage—how could that be a crime?
'The spectators will surely sympathize with me.'
Spectators always attended trials. They had no real authority over the verdict, but if they deemed a ruling unjust, they could appeal to the judges.
She had lived her entire life as a priestess in service, and in doing so, had won the favor of countless people.
Miela entered the courtroom, expecting the spectators to shape public opinion in her favor. However...
Contrary to her expectations, the gazes directed at her were utterly freezing.
Among those stares, Herdin watched with indifferent eyes as Miela's face grew paler than ever before.
Soon, the trial began.
"The criminal Miela Elias abused her position to frame an innocent civilian as a black mage, and incited knights of a foreign nation to induce war between two countries."
At the word "war," the spectators began to murmur. The judge continued with the verdict.
"The crime of creating innocent victims is exceedingly grave, and thus a fitting punishment is hereby decreed. Sentenced to forced labor in the southern Santes border region."
Santes was a region bordering the Labyrinth Kingdom to the south, a place where bandits that even the kingdom had abandoned roamed in large numbers, and conflicts large and small never ceased.
But what was more terrifying to Miela than that punishment was the way the spectators looked at her.
"Good heavens, war... Even if she was blinded by ambition for honor, how could a priestess do such a thing?"
"Maybe honor wasn't the purpose. They say she helped the Pope who was a black mage."
The spectators either referenced the nature of priests whose value and fame rose during wartime, or tied Gerard to her, suspecting Miela's true intentions.
Just like when they had exaggerated the rumors about Blair.
Standing amid the pouring cold gazes, she felt as though she had become some heinous villain. She couldn't breathe.
"Why...?"
At first, unable to accept the situation, only questions arose. Then came anger.
'How much did I serve for your sake?'
Why.
Why are you looking at me with those eyes?
For her, who had believed herself to be a good child, a righteous person her entire life, the moment she was reduced to a villain was harder to bear than any punishment.
Unable to endure the criticism and speculation hurled at her, Miela turned those arrows outward.
"Shut up!"
Miela covered her ears and screamed at the top of her lungs.
"Don't look at me with those eyes! I'm not a villain!"
But the more she did, the louder the murmurs grew. Miela grew hysterical.
"How hard did I work to help you who weren't chosen by God? How many people have I saved until now? Does a few foreign knights dying erase all the good deeds I've done?"
It was a sight bordering on madness, unlike the angelic figure she had shown until now. Her golden eyes, screaming in frenzy, were crumbling endlessly.
It was a fitting end for a woman who had committed evil deeds while intoxicated with a sense of justice.
Soon, the imperial knights approached and subdued her.
Herdin, who had been watching Miela's final moments with dry eyes, rose from his seat and left the courtroom.
* * *
A carriage waiting in front of the courtroom loaded him and departed immediately. Herdin leaned against the carriage and watched the scenery flowing past the window.
Then, a clock tower came into view. The same clock tower he had climbed with Blair last spring.
The area in front of the clock tower, which had been full of blooming cherry blossoms, merchants who had set up stalls, and people out for flower viewing, was desolate.
Bare trees stripped of leaves and a biting wind.
Autumn had passed, and winter was now right before them.
The season you came to my side.
Remembering that fact, Herdin's eyes grew distant like a winter lake of unfathomable depth. Just then, a clothing shop caught his eye.
More precisely, baby clothes displayed in the window.
Herdin, who stared blankly until it disappeared from view, suddenly knocked on the carriage wall.
After ordering the coachman who stopped the carriage to wait, he got out and headed for the clothing shop.
The clothing shop was a small store specializing only in baby clothes.
As he stepped inside, a gentle music box melody greeted him. The owner was absent, perhaps having stepped away momentarily.
Inside the shop were displayed adorable clothes no bigger than the palm of his hand.
Scanning the shop, Herdin discovered something tiny, the size of a finger, on one side. At first, narrowing his eyes, not knowing what it was, he soon realized its identity.
Baby socks.
'So even those tiny feet are still feet, and they wear socks.'
They were so small, so impossibly small that he could barely believe anything could wear them.
Asiel was like that too.
So small that the very act of breathing and moving seemed miraculous.
Yet for all that, her stamina was remarkable—she would leave Blair exhausted from playing with her.
Recalling Blair and Asiel from his previous life, whom he had secretly watched, he remembered the movement he had felt on that final night. The vivid motion transmitted through his hand still lingered like an afterimage.
How lovely would the child soon to be born be?
But it was a father's love not permitted to him.
As Herdin stood there unable to put down or buy the baby socks, a woman's voice came from behind.
"Is it a girl or a boy? If you tell me how many months along, I can help you choose the color and size."
The clerk showed several socks by color and size as she explained.
Herdin, who had been listening quietly, finally set down the baby socks he had been holding.
It was all futile.
* * *
"Why did you buy this?"
Ruth asked upon discovering the baby socks placed on Herdin's desk.
Herdin, who was looking at them as if he didn't know they were there, even though he was the one who had put them there, replied lowly.
"Send them to Ikar."
"I think they might feel burdened..."
"Say you bought them."
*She's not even on close terms with the former madam.*
Those words rose to the tip of Ruth's throat, but having watched him most closely, she swallowed them, able to roughly guess his feelings.
Just as Herdin was about to light his cigar, a knock sounded.
"Your Excellency, the elders have come..."
It was a servant's voice. At the news he delivered, Ruth glanced at Herdin and swallowed a sigh.
'Again.'
The news of Blair and Herdin's divorce had already spread throughout the capital. At this point, it was obvious what they had come to say.
Given that they had come the moment Mason took a single sick day, it seemed he had been quietly keeping things under wraps on his end.
Herdin, looking at the door with cold eyes as he exhaled smoke, answered.
"Tell them all to get lost."
"...Pardon?"
He could sense the servant outside, who had been waiting for his answer, was considerably flustered.
Recalling what had happened between the elders and Herdin when Blair disappeared from the ducal estate, Ruth stepped forward to mediate.
"I, I will go handle it."
Ruth hurried out of the office before Herdin could go meet the elders.
Herdin, looking at the closed door, turned his gaze out the window.
He saw the garden, desolate now that winter had come. The path Blair used to walk along as she came to him after finishing her consultations with Agnes.
Unconsciously recalling that memory, Herdin scoffed and leaned his head against the window.
It was simply wearisome. All of it.
* * *
Time passed slowly yet quickly.
He still couldn't sleep. Even though it was well past three hours beyond midnight.
It was a symptom that had persisted since Blair left.
In the end, Herdin had no choice but to drink again today. But even as intoxication set in, sleep did not come.
Giving up on sleep at that point, Herdin rose from his seat. If the office light was on, Mason would come looking for him.
With sluggish steps slowed by intoxication, he arrived not at his own room, but at Blair's room next door.
Smiling bitterly at himself for habitually seeking out an empty room, Herdin then erased the smile and stepped inside.
The room was exactly as it had been when Blair lived there. Except for the fact that its owner was gone.
Unless he gave permission, this room would likely remain unchanged forever.
Tracing the furniture her hands had touched with his fingertips, he entered the bedroom. It was the place in this mansion where her traces and scent still lingered most strongly.
Every breath he took, her scent that penetrated deeper tore at his lungs agonizingly.
As he stumbled and tried to lie on the bed, he knocked something off the nightstand. A sharp shattering sound broke the silence of the winter night.
Herdin, sitting on the edge of the bed, picked it up.
It was the painting by the street artist he had bought for Blair beneath the clock tower on a spring day when the cherry blossoms were in full bloom.
'Every time I see this painting, I think I'll remember today.'
A palm-sized painting brings back your happy, smiling face. At the same time, your figure from the previous life, unable to leave that bed.
A laugh that sounded like a sob escaped.
"...You beast."
You who wanted so desperately to see the outside world.
You who were happy as if you had gained the whole world just from briefly viewing flowers and climbing the clock tower.
I should have done more with you. I should have shown you a wider world.
I was the one who locked you in this bedroom.
...No, I exploited your feelings of loving me, and made you lock yourself away.
Realizing this too late, Herdin's expression contorted in pain. He couldn't bear how horrific he was for hurting her that way.
At that moment, the broken glass of the frame, hidden behind the painting, pierced into his palm.
Staring blankly at the falling drops of blood, Herdin drove the shard of glass he was gripping even deeper.
Only then did sleep finally flood in.