Episode 115
“Let’s go back, Rizan.”
When Rizan froze where she stood, Ejekail, too, sensed that something was wrong. He tried to lift her into his arms. But Rizan pushed against his chest.
She stood up on her own and looked around. Ejekail, her mother, her father. Everyone in this space was someone who worried about her.
And yet she could not have felt lonelier. It was as if she had lost her way.
Rizan looked at the three people scattered throughout the parlor, then took a couple of steps backward. Then, at once, she turned and left the annex.
But Ejekail was not the sort to stand by and watch her go. He immediately chased after Rizan.
“Rizan, where are you going!”
She could feel him following right behind her. It was only natural, given the difference in their strides. The only reason she had been able to move through the mansion until now without feeling rushed or pursued was because he had been matching his pace to hers.
Rizan touched her throat. She wanted to tell him not to follow, to let her be alone for a little while, but no voice came out, and only her breathing rose and fell sharply.
It was the first time—the first time the voice she had lost had suddenly made her chest tighten in frustration.
But it was a voice she did not even know how she had lost. No matter how hard she exhaled or how desperately she squeezed her throat, there was no way the vanished voice would come back now.
Ejekail easily overtook Rizan and blocked her path. Startled by the massive mountain that had barred her way, she tried to dodge in a hurry, only for her ankle to twist. Ejekail caught Rizan just as she was about to fall headlong.
“Why are you doing this? Is it because you’re angry?”
Even after Rizan quickly righted herself, he did not loosen the arms holding her back and waist.
She knew he was not gripping her with force, afraid he might hurt her. And yet the hands she felt were firm. He did not seem to have any intention of letting go.
“That house……”
Ejekail chose his words slowly.
“You haven’t been there yet, so you wouldn’t know, but my men broke down the door and searched the whole inside. It isn’t in any state for a person to live in. If you want to leave this mansion but the west is too far and inconvenient, I’ll look for another house for you.”
Rizan shook her head, meaning that was not it, that she did not want that.
How was she supposed to convey that the problem was not the location of the house, but the person?
That is, that I’m the problem…….
She felt dizzy. Rizan bit down on her lower lip again and again.
“Stop biting it. You’re bleeding.”
A finger slipped between her lips and gently stroked over the surface. Until then, Rizan had not even realized she had been biting her own lip hard enough to draw blood.
She quickly turned her head to avoid him. Even so, his finger persistently followed. The moment she struggled to free herself from the arm coiled around her waist and the finger wiping her lip—
The cup, filled to the brim, finally overflowed. A tear that suddenly fell wetted his finger.
“……Rizan?”
— Please.
Rizan moved her lips soundlessly.
— Please let go.
— I can’t breathe.
She did not know how to explain this feeling.
She was not all right. She had not been all right for a long time, yet she did not know the exact reason why.
Why she felt this was not a place where she belonged, why it kept feeling as though her heart had rusted.
Where on earth this burning anxiety inside her had begun.
“Come this way. There’s no one here. No one can even come into my office to clean without permission.”
Rizan stared blankly at the unfamiliar scenery.
It was her first time entering his office. She did not clearly remember how she had ended up here. All the way from the annex to the main building, Rizan had struggled to escape his arms, and the more she did, the more anxious Ejekail became, refusing to let her go.
“Rizan.”
The door closed behind her.
A low sigh reached her ears.
“……When you cry, I think of that day. When you had just lost the child…….”
His voice trembled in fragments. Rizan remembered that time as well. Ejekail had believed she was pregnant with Akenaus’s child, and when he heard of the miscarriage, he had mocked and ridiculed her with scorn.
“You had been dragged off to the camp so calmly, but that day, without making a sound or even twisting your expression, tears just kept falling from your eyes as if you might melt away and disappear……. I had never seen such a desperate weeping anywhere. Even though I had been terribly misunderstanding you, I was so shocked by your tears that I couldn’t say anything and just stared at you.”
He wiped Rizan’s damp eyes. His face looked utterly wretched.
“You don’t usually cry easily. Even when your body hurts, you endure it without showing a thing and never complain. So now I know, too. If you cry, it means.”
Ejekail’s eyes distorted.
“……That I’ve done something very, very wrong.”
His voice, added as he touched the fingers that had wiped away her tears, stung. As if he had been burned by the fallen teardrops. Though there was no way tears could have been that hot.
“Rizan, if you don’t tell me, I won’t know. You have to teach me what I’ve done wrong again.”
He pulled out a chair and seated Rizan. The chair, designed to fit his build, was so high and large that Rizan had no choice but to sit awkwardly, leaning against the desk.
The desk in the office was cluttered. All manner of unorganized documents lay spread out in disorder.
The whereabouts of Akenaus and the remaining forces of Levian are still shrouded in uncertainty. Since they, too, are fundamentally soldiers, the problem is that once they have properly gone into hiding, it is not easy to track their traces. For now, given that they suffered damage close to total annihilation, it is believed most likely that they crossed the border and fled to Davis long ago. However, if they are hiding within the country, it is expected they may seek out the lady of House Valdemaera. Since she is not in Cleris, it would be easier for them to approach her in secret…….
Suddenly noticing a report that felt familiar, she unconsciously lowered her gaze, then startled herself and quickly looked away. She was no longer the maid who read a blind man’s mail from his subordinates in his place. This was a place even the employees could not enter easily, so she must not recklessly read military reports.
Besides those, half-written letters and official documents awaiting approval seemed to hint at the hectic day of an army officer who squeezed out spare moments to deal with work that had piled up.
Now that she knew, he was in fact this busy, yet whenever Polina and Anna stayed for a few hours and left, he immediately returned to her side and did not leave. He was so constantly near her that it was almost strange, the way the man existed wherever she set her eyes.
He was always putting her before all this work.
It was something she should be grateful for. Something she should be moved by. Something she should feel sorry about.
Her head knew that, but her heart did not.
“Rizan, you’re difficult for me. Let me know you a little.”
Rizan agreed with his confession. I’m difficult for me, too.
She had no idea what words she would end up writing down. It would certainly be incoherent. The words would not be refined, and because she herself could not organize what she was trying to say, it would be a complete mess.
Because that was exactly what the inside of her head was like.
It was different from last time. Back then, her thoughts had been organized in their own way, and while reading books, she had chosen in advance words that seemed as though they might be useful someday. That was why she had been able to maintain a calm and rational attitude.
Even so, Rizan grasped a blank sheet of paper. She pulled it in front of her, picked up the fountain pen, and dipped it deep into the ink. Because her hand was trembling, she could not delicately control the amount, and too much ink soaked in. The blotches that dripped onto the paper spread like black tears.
Someone had appeared who said he would take responsibility for this incomplete body for the rest of her life, and everyone said it was fortunate, that it had turned out well and she should live that way, and her parents were extremely pleased as well.
Yet her own feelings were…….
So miserable.
……that she could not bear it. Yes. She was not thrilled at all. She was not even the slightest bit happy.
The hand that confessed as if pouring out her innermost thoughts into a diary trembled violently. The strokes lost their neatness and wavered.
If my crimes are to be pardoned, I know in my head that I should be grateful. I know that having any other feelings is shameless…….
Even though the noose around her neck had been removed, her heart did not feel lighter in the slightest. Instead, it only felt strained and heavy, as if one more burden had been placed upon her chest.
— It hurts so much. Because I thought of it as paying for my sins, I accepted that even if my heart suffered and my body broke down, I had to endure it. But after I opened my eyes in the middle of being executed, reality had suddenly changed as if all of that had never happened.
— Everyone treats me like someone who has woken up from a long nightmare.
But to Rizan, it had not been a dream. It had been reality. The scars left on her body and mind were too great for her to dismiss it as a dream and move on. She kept going back over the past. Her body and heart ached too much.
Before Rizan’s wounds, there was only one thing Ejekail could say. He apologized.
“I’m sorry for hurting you. I…….”
Rizan, gone pale, clutched the fountain pen.
— No.
He stopped speaking and looked at Rizan.
— That’s not it.