Chapter 118
Could he possibly have been following the carriage all this time?
Why would he go so far...? She was flustered, but she could hardly let it show.
After checking the direction, Rizan began trudging forward. Ezekail, too, followed at a proper distance, matching her pace.
As the sun was setting, she looked for an inn nearby. Since she had to save as much money as possible, she chose one that looked small and inexpensive.
She paid a day’s room fee in advance and received the key. At that moment, the young men sitting in the adjoining dining room and eating lifted their heads and glanced at Rizan.
Rizan swallowed a sigh. When staying at inns, every so often, low-quality thugs appeared and behaved filthily toward the guests. Still, if she ignored their harassment as best she could and locked her door properly before sleeping, it was frightening, but it usually did not become a serious problem.
Ah, my voice.
Rizan felt around her throat with both hands.
Since my voice won’t come out, I won’t be able to tell them I don’t like it or ask them to move aside.
Thinking it over carefully, even ordering food was inconvenient. Unlike other matters where one could pay the set amount and others would more or less understand without words, with food, there was the troublesome need to point at whatever dish someone else was eating. It was a difficulty she had never felt at the Valdemaera estate, where fixed meals had been brought to her on their own each time.
One way or another, I suppose I won’t be able to eat dinner.
Having given up on eating, she was heading upstairs to where the guest rooms were when Ezekail, who had left his horse at the stable, abruptly came inside. The instant he swept his cool gaze over the interior of the inn, the thugs flinched in advance and turned their heads away. Tension flowed through the room as if the temperature had suddenly dropped by ten degrees.
It seemed his innate air of intimidation did not go anywhere even when he took off his uniform. Taking advantage of the inn falling quiet, Rizan went up to her room.
Around the time she was looking around the cramped room and preparing to rest, someone knocked on the door. Rizan tensed for a moment and stared at the door when she heard an unfamiliar woman’s voice.
“Guest? Are you inside? I brought the meal you requested. I’ll leave it here in front of the door.”
Of course, Rizan had made no such request. But she could guess who had.
After confirming the footsteps had receded, she opened the door. Warm bread and stew had been placed neatly at the threshold.
Wondering if Ezekail might be nearby, Rizan looked around. But the man was nowhere to be seen.
After a brief hesitation, Rizan pulled the tray of food inside.
Before sleeping, one must always secure the door properly.
Click. After fastening the thin latch, Rizan shook the door a couple of times. Perhaps because the facilities were old, a slight gap opened between the door and the frame. It was common in inns like this,
It should be fine if I close it well before sleeping.
Rizan pushed the door firmly shut and lay down on the bed.
From the dining room downstairs, the drunken guests’ rowdy singing and drunken rambling rose up through the floor. Rizan plugged her ears with the coarse edge of the blanket.
Tomorrow, she had to set out early in the morning. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to sleep, but the drunken commotion grew louder and louder. It seemed they were about to end their drinking and come upstairs to their rooms.
Just as she was thinking she wished they would pass by quickly, she sensed someone sit down with his back against the space in front of her door.
“Agh! You startled me.”
At the sudden sound of a drunkard nearly fainting, Rizan was startled as well.
“Brother, did you hide a jar of honey in your room or something? Why are you blocking the hallway with that big body of yours?”
...You still haven’t gone back.
Perhaps because he was dressed in plain clothes, or because the inn was far too shabby for a guest of noble status to stay in, or because the alcohol had blurred their vision, the drunkards seemed unable to imagine that he was Ezekail of Valdemaera.
The cowed and quietened drunkards crept past Rizan’s room. She did not know how long he had been sitting there, but throughout that entire night, not a single person raised their voice in front of Rizan’s room. Rizan removed the hands covering her ears and fell asleep peacefully.
The next morning, Rizan woke to the brightening sunlight and hesitated briefly before opening the door. As if nothing had happened overnight, there was no one in front of it.
But when Rizan finished packing for travel and set out on the road again, a massive silhouette appeared, leading a horse by the reins, and guarded behind her like a shadow.
❖ ❖ ❖
During the several times she changed stagecoaches, Rizan did not acknowledge him at all, and the same was true of Ezekail. Even so, he silently followed her journey. When she climbed into a stagecoach, he rode along on horseback, and when she got down from the carriage, he dismounted in the same way and walked.
It was a strange companionship.
At first, Rizan thought he would watch over her for a day and leave, then perhaps after two days, then that he would be reassured after three. But later, she grew accustomed to the man occupying one corner of her vision.
Ezekail’s innate atmosphere had the effect of drawing people’s eyes while also preventing them from approaching. Thanks to that, Rizan ate and rested safely even in shabby inns. He always stayed in the room beside Rizan’s, and at night, he stood guard in front of her door. Because of that, the area around her room was always strangely peaceful.
It had been a long send-off that had only bewildered her at first, but she had received far more help than expected.
Still, this is as far as it goes.
No farther than this.
When they reached the foot of the mountain where Milena Girls’ School was located, Rizan stopped walking. He had followed her far enough, and the school was now right before them.
To begin with, the reason many girls’ schools were located deep in the mountains was to forbid the entry of strangers as much as possible. It would be unpleasant and dangerous if unidentified nobodies loitered around a place where only women lived.
Of course, he was nothing like a nobody, but that was precisely the greater problem. At the school remained students and teachers who knew Ezekail’s face. Nothing good would come of the other students catching her in the company of a man from the Valdemaera family.
Rizan turned and looked at him.
The man seemed to understand what she meant.
“Are you finally looking at me now?”
Despite her wordless urging that it was time for them to part, Ezekail instead took one long step toward her.
“Rizan.”
Flinch. Her heel moved. It took her a little time to catch herself and stand straight again.
“If I make you uncomfortable, I won’t come any closer, so just stand there.”
Only after hearing his promise did Rizan’s legs, which had been retreating inch by inch, stop.
“I followed you because there’s something I wanted to say. Perhaps you already know, but...”
Rizan quietly waited for him to continue.
“I probably hate myself more than you think I do.”
It was an unexpected opening. Rizan flinched and pressed her lips together.
“So even if you hate me and resent me, that isn’t a problem at all. Is this right, is it wrong—don’t keep tormenting yourself with such worries. To me, you are the most precious person in the world.”
Ezekail took a small box from his pocket. It was a box he had never once let leave his body since he began dreaming of a future with someone.
“I always wanted to propose to you. It’s been a very long time since I prepared for it, though I never imagined there would be so few opportunities.”
Rizan, too, realized what must be inside the box he had prepared. She could not readily hold out her hand.
“I’m not trying to burden you. I know you have no intention of marrying.”
“....”
“You only need to remember. That there is a man waiting for you. If you truly don’t like it, you can throw it away. That, too, is up to you.”
Instead of kneeling and putting the ring on her finger, he placed the entire box in Rizan’s hand.
When he had yielded that much, there was no way not to accept it.
Rizan steadied her heart and wrapped her hand around the square box. The box, carrying his warmth, was warm, and for its size, it was unexpectedly quite heavy.
“Go now.”
After handing over the box, Ezekail stepped back cleanly.
“You go first. I want to see with my own eyes that you enter the school safely, but it seems you really don’t want that. Go up carefully. Don’t hurry.”
His will not to turn away first before she turned her back was clear.
Leaving Ezekail behind her, Rizan slowly began to walk. Because she knew he would be watching her from behind, she tried to step on the ground even more firmly with a steady stride.
Has he gone back now?
Or is he still there?
Is he down there, tracing my shadow with his eyes?
Unable to summon the courage to check, Rizan walked upright, looking only ahead, until she reached the school.
And only at the moment the all-too-familiar gray building came into view, just before she stepped inside the school, did she open the box she had been gripping tightly in her hand.
On soft velvet fabric lay a beautifully set ring adorned with a red diamond. The color, vividly red like blood, seemed as though it had been cut from one corner of a heart.
Rizan stood there blankly for a while.