Episode 24
Almost mockingly, Suma had folded its wings and vanished.
He had awoken from a hazy doze.
It was a crimson dawn.
True to the North's infamously humid climate, the rain that had scattered intermittently and even the sound of wind rattling the windows had uncharacteristically ceased, leaving everything in boundless silence.
Excessive quietude is rather noisy. It was a strange paradox, but from the standpoint of one who had lost his sight, silence was also a factor that stimulated the hearing as acutely as ordinary noise.
Ezekiel had been dragged back into the gloomy reality in an instant.
Dawn air holds a unique scent. Though it differs slightly with each season, a spring dawn gives off a clear, fresh, blue smell.
Estimating the time by scent and temperature, he tossed and turned until he detected the thighs supporting the back of his head and the hand covering his forehead.
It was Rose. She had fallen asleep with his head resting upon her thighs.
Even while briefly dozing, she had tried to cool his fever.
And so that she could notice and awaken immediately should even the slightest abnormality arise in him.
“Did you know? Lady Rose worries about you a great deal. She is a young lady who treats people with all her heart. Such people are rare.”
After assigning Rose to him, Madame Selva would often let slip praise of her. Sometimes secretively, sometimes with deep feeling, and sometimes subtly as if testing him.
Rose certainly possessed an altruism that moved others. Because she had been by his side, he had safely weathered several crises, and even now he was enduring the aftereffects of withdrawal.
Perhaps she would naturally become part of his daily life going forward.
How had a woman like this appeared like a gift?
Until recently, Rose had been a complete stranger to Ezekiel. Moreover, had the accident on the day of the triumphal ceremony not occurred, he would never have fled down to a remote backwater like Derosa in the North, and so there would have been no opportunity to meet her at all.
Life occasionally flows in utterly unpredictable directions. It was simply astonishing.
“It's all right. You really will be all right soon. All of this will become nothing more than a memory someday.”
Rose's comfort had been accurate.
The excruciating pain that had tormented him to death had subsided considerably. Though he had slept for what felt like no more than a couple of hours, the effect of the rest was remarkable. It was far more bearable than before.
Chasing the fragments of a dream, he reached out his arm and sensed Rose.
Having fallen asleep with her head deeply bowed, her flowing hair tickled his cheek. It was nearly identical to the scene in his dream.
So, it had been you.
Ezekiel murmured again.
I saw you.
The sound of steady breathing reached him. Her exhaled breath moistened his fingertips. It was warm and ticklish.
Ezekiel traced his way up that shallow breath and fumbled for Rose's lips. It was the part he had regrettably not seen in his dream.
As if proving the hardships endured, the surface of her lips was rough and raised; they were severely swollen. Following the plump line of Rose's lips as if retracing it, he moved before groping to cup both her lips and cheek at once.
Her small face fit so easily into one hand. Recalling the sensation from before, he drew his thumb down from her protruding forehead. Below the round curve of her forehead, the straight line of her slanted nose bridge was taut.
Had her cheekbones jutted out prominently or had her nose been hooked, he would have felt those features while touching them, but Rose's facial contours had no particularly prominent points. Neither did her cheeks abundantly fill his palm, nor were there any scars on her skin that would serve as distinguishing marks.
Madame Selva had once said that Rose was a rare beauty born with harmonious features.
Could it be that harmonious facial features meant having no distinctive features was her distinction?
Even after carefully feeling her, the only impression that came to him was that her bone structure was remarkably slender.
His fingers, which had been slowly moving up and down her smooth contours, paused for a moment.
A faint sheen of sweat had formed at the boundary of her forehead where her baby hair stood up softly.
There had been no signs of suffering, so it was more likely due to his body temperature than pain. Having held and soothed a man like a ball of fire the entire time, her whole body must have been sweltering, if not hot.
And yet Rose never revealed it. She had never let slip a single word about how hard it was, even by accident.
A woman who had been caught in the front lines at school with enemy forces at the doorstep before being dramatically rescued by his unit.
A woman who, upon hearing the news that he had gone blind, had suspended her studies and rushed over to help.
Consistently calm, considerate, and devoted….
“….”
It seemed the hand stroking her face had finally woken her. Rose's tranquil breathing halted briefly.
He suddenly realized. The distance between him and Rose was closer than he had thought. By the height of his outstretched arm, he could only vaguely guess, but Rose, who had opened her eyes to face him, would be sensing it far more clearly.
He felt a calm gaze.
Whether bewildered by the unexpected contact or unable to easily come to her senses due to deep exhaustion, she remained motionless with her cheek entrusted to him.
It was still a silent dawn.
In the extreme silence that dulled his ears, he recalled an old memory.
Dawn holds a dreamlike magic.
When had it been? Right after finishing a battle, he had happened to look up at a dark-azure dawn.
There was not a part of his body that did not ache, he was so exhausted that even blinking took effort, and the ground reeked of a foul stench from being soaked in the blood and sweat of countless soldiers; yet the dawn he looked up at while sprawled on the dirty ground had been serene, peaceful, and purely blue, as though it cared nothing for the sordid affairs of the earth. Finding the surroundings so suddenly quiet, he had looked around to see the subordinates of the 37th Regiment each lost in their own thoughts, gazing at the same tranquil dawn sky.
With faces that had realized this was the only moment they had to catch their breath.
Dawn did not linger long. Branching out in every direction, sunrise ushered in another repeating day. He devised strategies, commanded his subordinates to carry out operations, some days defending the fortress from sieges and other days mounting offensives to conquer enemy positions. And seizing moments when the surroundings were settled, he often looked up at the bluish silence above his head. The mysterious stillness detached from reality, one that made him forget reality.
The feeling of that day closely resembled today. Forgetting the pain gnawing at his body and the delirium that had chaotically scattered his thoughts, he savored a brief peace as if bewitched. If possible, he wished to stretch this time out and linger in it.
Just like this, right now.
Ezekiel drew in the hand that had been cupping Rose's cheek. Rose followed without resistance.
He pressed his lips to his dawn.
To his dawn that granted him incomparably tender and gentle, mysterious rest.
❖ ❖ ❖
“What kind of woman would a man like that marry? He's still unmarried, right? Right?”
After the Millena Girls' School caught in combat had been narrowly rescued, the students' greatest interest for some time had been Major Ezekiel Valdemaira of the 37th Regiment, the main force behind the pitched battle that had barricaded the school gates.
Age, hobbies, personality, anecdotes. If it was related to Ezekiel, the students busily gathered all manner of rumors of uncertain origin like mother birds carrying food. Though most were groundless rumors that even they half-believed, the truth mattered little to the schoolgirls. With looks and a background that fulfilled fantasies, along with a dramatic entrance and a gentlemanly exit, the man was more than enough to stimulate the maidens' romance. Students who lived as if trapped in a mountain girls' school far from civilian homes gathered in the dormitory every night to imagine and thrill over the man who had rescued them like a knight from a fairy tale.
“Can't you tell? He's from the Valdemaira family. He'll pick and choose among beautiful, smart, well-bred women for a strategic marriage. One thing's for sure: it's not us.”
“Right, different worlds. Under normal circumstances we'd never mix; it's only because of the war that we happened to meet.”
“Yeah, marriage? Dream big.”
Even while facing reality at times, the girls added impudent fancies.
“Ah, I know it's absurd. But no one knows, right? What if he went through women left and right like a womanizer.”
“What, a womanizer? Major Ezekiel would never do that. It doesn't suit him. I don't even want to think about it.”
“But I heard the eldest son is like that... Famous for losing his head around pretty women. Ah, right. A woman who had somehow occupied the position of his mistress for a while said something like this—that the Valdemaira heir might have some unusual sexual inclinations.”
“What kind?”
“Well... She said he puts in a lemon.”