Episode 87
Eeeee—A long ringing filled her ears. The tinnitus burrowed deep into her eardrums and shook her skull. It was like the shock of being pierced by a needle.
Rizan gasped in shallow breaths.
It had been the one wish she had left. The hope that even if she was here, her family at least would be safe had allowed her to endure the grueling life in the camp. How relieved she had been, overlaying her mother’s and father’s faces onto the faces of the elderly prisoners, thinking it was fortunate she was going through a place like this alone.
And yet… they had turned themselves in.
They had asked to bear their child’s crime in her stead.
Rizan wrapped both hands around her throat. Because of the hard lump blocking her windpipe, no air would pass through.
She had begged them so many times not to mix among people….
Afraid that if she said she would shoulder the crimes of all three alone, they would not let her go, but unable to send her parents to the camp either, she had worried and racked her brains for a long time before persuading them that they absolutely had to hide in a sparsely populated village.
“I told my parents that, through the principal’s arrangements, I’d gotten a position as a live-in tutor and was going away to work. I said it was a small town, so it would be hard to contact them for a while, but that meant it would be that much safer. I made up all sorts of excuses, but honestly, I’m not confident how much of my story they believed. Still, they’ll at least hide and be careful for a few months.”
Now she understood. Her mother and father had not believed her desperate pleas. Just in case, they must have hidden for a short while, then quietly slipped back among people and heard the rumor that the “criminal” captured by Ezekiel Valdemaera had been dragged off to the camp….
They must have come running in utter shock.
Rizan stared blankly at Ezekiel. She wanted, somehow, to find even a sliver of hope, but the shadow cast over his face was so cold that it only sent a chill through her.
Rizan moved her bloodless, cold lips.
Where… Where….
She had no strength to form long sentences. Complicated, lengthy sentences would not be conveyed properly anyway. She repeated the simple word until Ezekiel understood.
Ezekiel’s gaze followed the shape of her silently moving lips.
“Where?”
At last, the meaning got through. Rizan nodded urgently.
“You’re asking where your parents are?”
Her heart lurched. Rizan nodded again. At the same time, she glanced sideways at the other rooms.
Had there been any newly arrived prisoners lately?
There were so many rooms divided throughout the camp that it was difficult to know every face among the new prisoners. Still, if the parents of the woman who had tried to harm Ezekiel Valdemaera had been brought in, rumors would have spread.
“You must have been expecting a family reunion in the camp.”
Ezekiel let out a scoff.
The expression on the man’s face, one she could never quite grow used to, cut coldly somewhere around the pit of her stomach. Ever since she had been dragged into the camp, Rizan had been facing an Ezekiel whose face felt unfamiliar every time. Never before had the common phrase “a look that could choke the breath from you” felt so painfully real. To him, she was a woman who deserved his hatred.
Rizan lowered her eyes for a moment and gathered herself. She lacked the courage to meet that icy gaze for long. Moreover, he had seen through her thoughts with perfect accuracy. If her whole family was to be captured anyway, she would rather they be in the same camp. Then they could at least confirm with their own eyes whether each other was holding up.
“Don’t get your hopes up.”
But that hope was burned away as it stood.
“Your parents were transferred to the North. How would I know what sort of plot you’d hatch if I imprisoned them in the same camp as you?”
For an instant, the world lurched violently.
“Still, at least this isn’t a northern camp. They say it snows there at all hours, don’t they? With a snowstorm hitting every other day, people’s arms and legs freeze blue until they’re all covered in frostbite, and a lot of them freeze to death every night.”
“I heard that unlike us, they’re happy over there when they get sentenced to lifelong labor. Camp life is harder than labor, they say.”
She tried to stand, but no matter how hard she struggled, no strength would enter her legs. Rizan dragged herself on both knees, crawling her way through the prisoners. Clutching the bars, she collapsed to her knees and burst into tears. If it could soften Ezekiel’s thirst for revenge, then begging and pleading meant nothing at all.
— I was wrong. I’m sorry….
Ezekiel watched Rizan’s lips repeat the same movements.
— I can be executed. That’s fine. Please, let my parents live.
Afraid he might not understand, the woman desperately repeated each and every syllable.
When Ezekiel showed no response, an arm so thin the wrist bone protruded reached out between the sparse bars and grabbed the hem of his uniform. Her hands, swollen and chapped from cold and labor, were blotched with purple.
— Please, even if you only tell me whether my parents are all right….
“Why are you asking me that?”
As if she were clinging to her last lifeline, the woman held on to his clothes, but Ezekiel coldly struck her hand away.
“I told you what happened to them. Is that not enough? Must I go and find out how your parents are doing for your sake as well?”
At his single remark, every trace of color vanished from the woman’s face. Ezekiel watched without blinking as her expression changed step by step from unease to fear, then from fear to despair.
There was no way Rose could be this woman.
It could not be this woman.
Because he had wasted his attention on the wrong woman, he had drunk opium and seen those pathetic hallucinations. So this woman had to disappear.
At first, he had not intended to leave her so quietly, but because the woman had gone and drunk poison on her own and lay groaning in pain, he had left her be. Somehow, that had dragged on sluggishly all the way to this point.
“You may be sick of me, but I’m sick to death of you as well. It is time we finally put an end to this ill-fated tie between us.”
He had come to tell her that.
Because the nature of the woman’s crime was so unusual, an official letter from the judge had come to Ezekiel asking for his opinion on her disposition. Though it was outwardly phrased as a request for his opinion, in truth, it was a request for him to decide the conclusion. Given her status, the judge had no choice but to be mindful of the Valdemaera family’s feelings, and would sentence Rizan according to whatever Ezekiel decided.
At first, he had considered granting a reprieve until Akenaus was dealt with and questioning her further about her crimes. But after the hallucination incident, he had resolved to get rid of her as quickly as possible.
Even without him lifting a hand, the woman had brought several punishments upon herself, so this was enough. She had lost the child in her womb, lost her voice, and was someone who would soon part from her family as well. At this point, it was enough to say she had been repaid more than what she had done.
“The child who went first will be waiting, so you won’t be lonely. If you wait just a little, you’ll be able to meet that man soon as well. I’ll try to send him to your side as quickly as I can.”
The woman no longer cried. She no longer tried to convey her thoughts. She merely sat there, blank and still. Her empty eyes were like those of someone who had lost her soul.
Ezekiel withdrew his gaze and strode out of the camp.
“What is this? Aren’t you going to move?”
Though the visit had ended, Rizan’s shadow remained leaning long against the bars, unmoving, and a guard approached. When he saw her hand hanging limply outside the bars, he kicked it hard with the toe of his boot.
“I’m sorry. She doesn’t know any better….”
A woman hastily made excuses in her place and grabbed Rizan’s hand to pull her back.
Not even knowing that the beaten hand hurt, Rizan staggered along as the woman tugged her. She had no strength to sit upright, but there was nowhere to lean either, so she simply collapsed onto the floor as if falling.
“Hey, you didn’t faint with your eyes open, did you? Come on, get a hold of yourself. She’s still breathing, right?”
Someone shook Rizan roughly.
Rizan stared numbly at her hand, flung carelessly to the side. She felt as though she had just been shattered into pieces, and yet she could not understand why the shapes of her limbs were still intact.
She was certain something had broken with a bright, ringing crash. She was certain she had become fragments….
What had it been?
She could not know.
Some time later, the verdict was handed down.
One third of the prisoners received reprieves, one third received lifelong labor, and the remaining third—those among them imprisoned for the gravest crimes—were sentenced to death.
The sentence was to be carried out at midnight on the first day of the new year. Most of the condemned were to be executed by firing squad, a method that preserved the bare minimum of human dignity, but Rizan alone was sentenced to the lowest method: hanging.