Episode 117
“If I say I’ll wait for you after sending you off, will you come back?”
Rijan quietly lowered her eyes.
“Whether it takes a year or two, I don’t mind. The time doesn’t matter. Learn everything you want to learn, and if there’s something you want to do, do it all and then come. Whenever is fine. As long as you come.”
In his heart, he wished to block Rijan’s path and keep her from leaving.
If Rijan had shown even the slightest sign of hesitation, if she had left any opening to hold her back by saying “I want to return to school” or “I’m thinking of going back to school,” he might have done so. If she had shown him a smiling face just once, if it had hurt just a little less, if he hadn’t lost his voice—to be honest, he would have seized upon any excuse whatsoever.
Even at this very moment, his mind was busily searching for reasons to dissuade Rijan.
After sending her away, he would surely regret it.
He would live each day in time that had come to a standstill.
Yet the reason he couldn’t bring himself to tell her not to go was just one.
Because it was better for him to regret than for her.
“I know now where it all went wrong, but I didn’t know then.”
There was no way to overcome this regret.
“If only I could go back to the past and undo all these things… Even if I went blind again, I would gladly endure it.”
Bewilderment settled in Rijan’s eyes.
She was the one who had watched from the very front lines and fought alongside him through the grueling process of how he escaped withdrawal and reached the point of eye surgery.
— You were suffering back then, Colonel.
— A relationship that can only be maintained if one person is hurting isn’t right.
“But still….”
Ezekiel smiled bitterly. Since Rijan wasn’t smiling, he had to smile in her stead.
“Back then, you loved me.”
❖ ❖ ❖
Ezekiel had tried to form an escort to take her safely and comfortably to Milena Girls’ School, but Rijan refused.
— I’ve been riding stagecoaches alone between home and school since I was much younger.
One morning, a purse stuffed with gold coins had been discreetly left there. It was an amount that would remain even if she hired a private carriage and spent extravagantly without working for several years.
Rijan opened the purse, then put it back down. She didn’t need this much money. Just the costs of eating, sleeping, wearing clothes, and receiving treatment here until now must have already been enormous. Hadn’t he even taken responsibility for her parents?
Moreover, if she had wanted a wealthy life, she wouldn’t have decided to leave the mansion in the first place. She had entered empty-handed, so it was only right to leave empty-handed.
However, clothes and shoes were unavoidable. The little luggage she had carried when dragged unconscious to the detention camp had all been lost long ago. His subordinates hadn’t bothered to retrieve her belongings left at the inn. The blood-soaked clothes she had worn and lived in at the detention camp had already been discarded by Ezekiel’s hands.
When she asked Ezekiel for ordinary travel clothes and shoes with sturdy soles, he immediately escorted her to the dressing room. Rijan was startled by the sight of the room packed with dresses, coats, gloves, shawls, and other accessories. Even a considerable amount of them were new, untouched.
“These were all things prepared to fit your body anyway. They were all yours.”
Rijan hesitated for a while before choosing the one dress that looked the most modest. The other dresses looked more like a noble lady’s procession than a traveler’s.
She prepared to leave step by step. However, she failed to convince her parents. It was somewhat inevitable since Ezekiel was the one acting as the interpreter in between. Her parents could not accept their daughter’s decision to return to the cold north, leaving behind the promised wealth and honor.
After much consideration, she decided not to leave any farewells. Quietly erasing her traces and disappearing would be enough.
Rijan neatly cleaned up the traces left in the bedroom and placed a pair of knitted gloves on the table.
— When you want to scratch your body until it bleeds, wear the gloves.
Her skills were clumsy, so it wasn’t something fit to be presented for use. The woolen gloves wouldn’t match the uniform he wore, and he probably had many better, more expensive gloves.
But if he scratched his body wearing soft woolen gloves, at least it wouldn’t leave raw wounds and bloodstains. Ezekiel had never shown himself suffering from withdrawal symptoms in front of her again, but opium was a drug one must never let their guard down against. Even if barely overcome, it possessed an addictive nature that easily pulled one back in. Rijan hoped that Ezekiel would remain victorious, at least against the drug. Because it was the most meaningful result among the things she had helped him with.
After changing clothes and tying her shoelaces tightly, Rijan left the mansion with a nonchalant gait, as if merely going out for a walk.
From spring, returning to winter once more.
She followed the straight road and escaped the affluent district where the Valdemaira mansion was located. From there, the scenery of Cleris that Rijan knew well unfolded.
When she reached the outskirts, a suitable tailor shop used by ordinary citizens appeared. Rijan pointed to the displayed gingham clothes and gestured to ask if she could exchange them for her own clothes.
“With the young lady’s clothes? You’d be at a loss.”
Rijan knew that too. However, if she traveled alone as a woman wearing the expensive dress Ezekiel had prepared, she would make the perfect target for thieves.
The tailor shop owner looked at the dress Rijan was wearing and nodded in bewilderment.
Rijan chose clothes that were sturdy, if not pretty, tightly woven. While she was at it, she exchanged the coat too. The nicer the clothes were, the more conspicuous they were as outerwear. The shoes hidden beneath the hem of her skirt, she decided to just wear as they were. The tailor shop owner, burdened by having acquired such expensive clothes, gave her some money for the garments. Rijan accepted it. Now she just needed to use this money to secure the fare to Sielsa.
To reach Sielsa, she had to change stagecoaches several times. Because she knew the way well, she didn’t look around and arrived at the station, where she discovered a long line and naturally walked to stand at the end.
This had been her life. It wasn’t a day that revolved around her; she lived adjusting herself to the world’s movements. Sometimes hurrying, sometimes waiting. The daily life she had enjoyed one-sidedly receiving others’ care at the Valdemaira mansion had merely been an abnormal moment that passed in brief.
If you wait, the stagecoach will come eventually, and if you ride along creaking and swaying, no matter how far the destination, it will surely appear.
Rijan stared blankly at the station, then unconsciously looked back.
She jumped in surprise. She had even let out a scream inside.
At a short distance away, Ezekiel was standing. Instead of his usual uniform, he was in plain clothes with only a rifle slung over his shoulder, holding a horse’s reins in one hand.
Had he come to see her off?
He must have come to watch her leave. She had left relatively quietly, but since when had he noticed? He had followed without making a sound, so she hadn’t known. She wondered if she had been that absent-minded.
If he had followed her from the mansion, he must have seen her stop at the tailor shop and change clothes too. Though unintended, it had turned out as if she had sold off the coat and dress he had prepared right before his eyes.
Wondering if she had done something shameless, Rijan shook off her complicated feelings and chose to turn away from him.
Wasn’t this a journey to sort out her feelings anyway?
Just then, a stagecoach arrived. Compared to the number of waiting people, the stagecoach was small. Thinking she would have to wait for the next one, she took a step back, but a gaze that subtly touched her senses—like an itch, like a sting—was felt at the back of her head.
She felt like she knew even without deliberately turning around.
Whose gaze it was, and why it was pursuing her so persistently.
Once she became conscious of it, she felt it even more. It wasn’t easy to stand steadfast with her back to the man staring at her.
Her back went rigid.
This must be the last time.
She should at least bid him farewell, wishing him well….
“Miss, get in.”
“Everyone squeeze in tight. We don’t know when the next stagecoach will come.”
The passengers who had boarded first made room for Rijan to sit by huddling their knees and shoulders together. In the confusion, she was pulled in among the people and squeezed in with difficulty. When she belatedly looked around, her view was already completely blocked by the silhouettes of the passengers.
The horses whinnied and tossed their heads. The stagecoach, packed with people, began to rattle and shake.
She hadn’t seen his final figure.
Rijan was the last long-distance passenger to get off the stagecoach. Her limbs throbbed from sitting in the uncomfortable chair for a long time. The moment her feet touched the ground, as she was massaging her tired arms and legs, Rijan spotted a figure dismounting from a horse behind where the stagecoach had left.
“….”
What.
She thought she had seen wrong.
She had crossed an entire city, and yet there was Ezekiel again.