107.
Bella was suddenly overcome by dizziness and sank to the ground.
It was becoming harder and harder to endure the blazing midsummer sun.
Beads of sweat, whether cold sweat or not, gathered on her forehead and trickled down.
In her field of vision, which had held only the dirt ground, a dark brown handkerchief abruptly appeared.
Bella slowly lifted her gaze.
With the sun at his back, the man’s face was hidden in deep shadow, making it difficult to read his expression.
He was someone who had settled in this small city, where outsiders were rare, after the war ended.
And he was also the man who had declared himself Bella’s guardian, though they had never once met before then.
“……Thank you.”
Bella accepted the handkerchief and wiped her forehead and cheeks.
“You seem weak to the heat.”
The man’s voice sounded quietly.
Bella tried to find traces of someone familiar in that voice, and tears suddenly welled up.
Because she found herself so ridiculous and pathetic.
Pretending to wipe her cheeks with the handkerchief, Bella wiped away her tears and raised her head.
“Have you perhaps heard of it?”
“Heard of what?”
“The legend surrounding the Heart of Merynis.”
“If you mean a legend, what sort of…….”
“The legend that says if you offer the ‘Heart of Merynis’ to the lover you cherish, that love will continue forever even after death.”
“…….”
Bella looked up at the man, whose face and build—and above all…….
Even his age—were different from the man she loved, and asked him that.
“Do you believe those words?”
The man’s closed mouth did not open for a long while.
* * *
“We’re finally here.”
I climbed down from my horse and muttered, utterly exhausted.
This place, which looked closer to a village than a city, had quite a few people glancing our way, as if strangers were unfamiliar to them.
For now, we decided to unpack at an inn on the busiest street.
“After that, how about we move separately? You must be tired, so you can rest if you want.”
At my words, Prien was silent for a moment before carefully broaching the subject.
“I knew there must be a reason you did not mention it, so I have not asked until now, but…….”
Our steps gradually slowed.
“By any chance, are you seeking the antidote, Baron?”
Now that we had come this far, I did not particularly want to pretend not to know something we all suspected.
Besides, I had already steeled myself when I agreed to let them accompany me on this journey.
“That’s right. I came here to find the ingredients for the antidote.”
Jaka, who had heard it from me before and already knew, pressed his lips tightly together and turned his gaze into the distance.
I was curious about the duke’s reaction, so I glanced back.
Unexpectedly, he showed no sign of trying to oppose me either.
He was calm, as if he had naturally expected as much.
Lastly, I looked at Prien.
‘Ah…….’
He looked a little confused. He also seemed less than pleased.
Well, this was the normal reaction of those who had drunk the potion.
I had heard that, generally, they came to vaguely fear losing the “feelings” within them.
It differed from person to person, but I had even found records of people pathologically rejecting the antidote and harming themselves.
I lightly tapped his arm.
“You said you would have liked me just the same even without the potion.”
“…….”
“Aren’t you curious if that’s really true? So…….”
It was then.
From the left side of the street where we had come to a stop, someone staggered out and collapsed limply at my feet.
“Hey? Are you all right?”
I immediately stopped speaking and bent down on one knee in front of the figure.
The woman was groaning and sweating as if she had been caught in the rain.
When I held her shoulders and shook her gently, the woman’s eyes trembled, then slowly opened.
I could not tell whether her eyes were focused or not.
Jaka crouched down across from the woman and said indifferently,
“Honey, it could be a trick they use on outsiders. Why don’t we just go?”
“She seems genuinely sick.”
“They could be using someone who’s genuinely sick to pull a trick.”
“You really.”
Almost at the same time I narrowed my brows, Prien tapped Jaka on the shoulder.
I continued speaking to the woman.
“Can you see me? Can you speak?”
The duke came to my side, examined the woman’s condition, and said,
“I’ll carry her.”
Without another word, I supported the woman’s arm and helped her onto the duke’s back.
Just as the duke was about to rise with her, the woman faintly said something.
“What did you say? I can’t hear you. Could you say it one more time?”
“……No.”
Even as she groaned in pain, the woman covered her deeply bowed face with a trembling hand.
“You must never see me…… never…… you can’t.”
At that pitifully desperate voice, I faltered.
I took off my coat as it was and draped it over the woman’s head.
Then I quickly decided on our destination.
“Let’s go to the inn first.”
“All right.”
“Jaka, you take responsibility and bring a physician. We’ll be at the inn up ahead. Got it?”
“Got it. If anything happens, stay right next to those two.”
Lastly, Jaka glanced at Prien and the duke, then slipped into an alley and vanished in an instant.
When we reached the inn, we immediately rented a room and went upstairs.
After laying the woman, who was breaking out in cold sweat, on the bed, I hurriedly removed the coat from her head.
The woman let out shallow breaths and swayed her head from side to side.
I quickly tucked a pillow behind the woman’s neck.
“Sir Ijanar, what do you think? Could it be serious?”
The woman’s pale complexion already looked grave, but when we laid her on the bed, I had confirmed that her body was so thin that all I could feel beneath my hands were bones.
“Could you perhaps help her?”
“If it is your request, Baron.”
Prien sat on the edge of the bed and checked the woman’s complexion.
Then he brought his fingertips to the woman’s forehead.
A faint radiance flowed down Prien’s hand and illuminated the woman’s face.
The woman’s breathing, which had been labored as she sweated constantly, gradually improved. Then she seemed to fall asleep at once.
“We will need to get an accurate diagnosis, but it seems she has already been ill for a long time.”
Having let out a breath of relief, we each roughly found a comfortable place to sit near the bed.
When the physician came later, he would give an accurate diagnosis, and then we would at least have done the bare minimum.
“Earlier, she seemed to dislike showing others that she was sick.”
“It is not particularly strange.”
He had probably seen many sick people in his line of work, so I silently nodded.
More than that, the woman’s face felt strangely familiar, or rather, it gave me a sense of déjà vu…….
Even though I knew it was rude, my gaze kept returning to her face.
‘Where on earth did I see her?’
Judging by her appearance, she seemed to be from here, and there was no way she could have crossed paths with me when I had spent my whole life in the capital.
If I had not met her in person……?
As I pondered a question for which no answer readily came, Prien suddenly asked,
“Baron……. Do you want us to drink the antidote?”
“Yes.”
More easily than with any other question I had ever heard, I was able to answer.
“But you don’t believe it.”
“Believe what?”
“That even if we drink the antidote, everything we’ve been through won’t vanish like a mirage.”
“Memories are special because they hold emotions. A memory without emotion is merely recollection.”
“But, Baron……”
It was then.
“Don’t force her, Izanar.”
The duke was leaning crookedly against the wall with his arms crossed, staring this way.
“What exactly have I forced?”
I rolled my eyes and fell silent.
The atmosphere between the two, who had begun their conversation by dropping all courtesy as if they had been waiting for the chance, was anything but ordinary.
Come to think of it, the duke had seemed unusually wary of Prien Izanar before.
He had said anyone else was fine, but not Prien Izanar.
But they had seemed to get along well enough on the way here, so I hadn’t paid it much mind.
Now that I thought about it, maybe they had simply been treating each other as if the other didn’t exist.
Compared to the squabbles he had shown with Jaka, which now felt like jokes, I could feel on my skin how sharply the two men’s wariness clashed.
“You were so overcome by those feelings yourself that you followed her all the way here, so why don’t you stop playing the saint already?”
Prien’s voice was colder than ever before. The words within it were even more merciless.
“Still better than you, who only knows how to exploit someone’s weakened heart and shamelessly beg and pester.”
I couldn’t say for certain, but it somehow seemed as though both their hands had moved closer to the scabbards hanging at their waists.
“Um, fighting in front of a sick person is a little……”
Even as I spoke up to mediate, I glanced at the woman asleep on the bed.
‘I collapsed from illness, and when I woke up, a sordid romantic drama was unfolding before my eyes.’
……A situation like that was a bit much, wasn’t it……
“Anyway, both of you, stop it. I don’t think of either of you that way at all.”
“……”
“……”
“But does that mean you’ve been thinking that way inside the whole time we were coming here? I didn’t see either of you like that, so why are you both so narrow-minded? No matter how much you fight like this, you’re both going to drink the antidote anyway, so how are you planning to face each other later? Think rationally, rationally!”
Then, for some reason, the more I spoke, the more things to point out kept coming to mind.
“And why are you saying you won’t drink the antidote, why! Do you think I went through all this trouble to come here for my own sake? Even if you say you like me right now, you just look like sick people to me, all right? What am I supposed to do with those people, are they going to cause trouble before they drink the antidote? I have a headache, a headache! Of course you don’t want to drink it! But how can people live only doing what they want? Shouldn’t a person live on their own terms? Do you want to live liking someone just because someone else made you? After you drink the antidote, then do whatever you want to your heart’s content, or don’t! And another thing, was I the only one having fun on the way here? How did you hold back wanting to fight like this the whole time? I was the oblivious one! If you hate each other that much, why are you even in the same space? Just split up. From today on, let’s travel separately!”
“……”
“……”
“Ah, why aren’t you saying anything? Say something, will you?”
Just then, someone raised a trembling hand and said this.
“I’m sorry, but, um, I think I’m awake……”
It was the woman lying on the bed.