Episode 14
The marchioness approached me with the quickest steps I had ever seen from her and snatched the Guardian Stone from my hand.
Then she raised her other hand and struck my cheek without mercy.
Smack!
My body, still reeling from the shock of falling, collapsed to the floor again.
Her hand was so harsh that tears sprang to my eyes. I had been hit so hard that my head spun. On top of that, the metallic taste of blood filled my mouth, so the inside of my cheek must have split from the impact.
“How dare you touch the Guardian Stone with those filthy hands?”
The marchioness’s sharp voice struck my ears as I lay fallen.
Even through the pain, a faint laugh escaped me. Who was calling whom filthy right now?
Fortunately, since my head was bowed, the marchioness did not notice that I had scoffed.
“I-I’m sorry. I thought of Father, so I came to pay my respects, and it was so beautiful that I couldn’t help myself……”
Since my eyes were already wet and I was in pain besides, acting came remarkably easily.
I staggered to my feet and, with a pitiful expression, bowed deeply to the marchioness in apology.
“……”
The marchioness did not say it was all right, nor did she tell me to raise my head. With her lips pressed tightly shut, she merely used a handkerchief she had taken from her breast to carefully wipe the Guardian Stone—no, the imitation. As though something dirty had gotten on it.
She would never even imagine that the truly important essence had been changed.
Feeling the weight of the real Guardian Stone in my trouser pocket, I remained standing with my head bowed.
When one apologized, one was not to raise one’s head until the person receiving the apology said it was all right. That was an unwritten rule of this house.
Only when my shoulders began to ache and my neck started to hurt did the marchioness finally open her mouth.
“Enough. I can’t stand the sight of you, so get out.”
She probably wanted to tell me to disappear at once. If not for the hollow shell called Croizen, she might have whipped me instead of slapping my cheek.
“Thank you.”
I bowed my head in thanks and turned around.
Perhaps because I had fallen twice, my entire body throbbed, but I pressed it down and tried to move toward the door.
I had to leave this place as quickly as possible.
But the marchioness’s voice was faster than my movements.
“Wait.”
Had she realized I had switched the Guardian Stone?
For a moment, my heart dropped.
No, that could not be. When I had switched them, the imitation had been indistinguishable from the Guardian Stone by appearance alone.
I turned back to the marchioness, tense, and felt inwardly relieved.
If she suspected anything about the Guardian Stone, there was no way the marchioness would have placed it back on the dais.
After returning the Guardian Stone to its original place, the marchioness put the handkerchief back into her breast and turned to approach me.
She seized my chin and forced me to look at her, then spoke as if threatening me.
“Never go near the Guardian Stone again. If I see you do that even one more time, I will make sure you can never enter this room at all.”
Ah, foolish marchioness.
Do you truly think I came here because I wanted to see the marquis?
Now that I had obtained the Guardian Stone, I had no reason to come here again. So I could promise as much as she liked.
“I promise. I will never go near the Guardian Stone again.”
Trembling faintly like a small herbivore caught by a beast of prey, I gave her the answer she wanted.
Only after receiving my vow did the marchioness release my chin.
“Go.”
Accepting that cold order to leave, I staggered toward the door, and the knight standing before it quickly opened it for me.
There was pity in his eyes.
“Thank you……”
I greeted him in a voice that was barely audible. There was nothing bad about appearing pitiful to the other people of this mansion.
Pity would soon create sympathy, and sympathy would make cracks form in once-solid hearts. Like a dike from which water had begun to leak.
Feeling the gaze that continued to follow me from behind, I deliberately slowed my steps.
Slowly, with drained movements as if I might collapse at any moment. So that they would pity me after the marchioness had struck me.
But I did not know then.
That this behavior of mine had affected not only the knight watching from behind, but him as well.
After leaving the “Sacred Room,” I went up to my room as quickly as I could.
As my room drew closer, elation surged through me at the thought that I had safely obtained the Guardian Stone.
It did not matter that I had fallen or been struck. One day, the time would come when I would return the pain of this moment many times over.
The first thing I did after entering my room was lock the door. No one was likely to come, but it did no harm to prepare for the unexpected.
“Ow, ow……”
As soon as the tension left me, the pain was the first thing I felt.
When I took off my shirt, I saw dark blue bruises all over the arm and shoulder that had hit the floor.
There were places where the skin had been scraped or scratched here and there, but I had no medicine to apply.
Thinking they would heal someday if I left them alone, I carefully took the Guardian Stone from my trouser pocket and looked at it.
The joy that it had now become entirely mine came flooding in like a tide.
Barely calming my excitement, I hid the Guardian Stone in the bottom drawer of my desk.
First, I needed to wash. I had been out and about all day, and after rolling and falling, my whole body was covered in dust.
I took my nightclothes and went into the bathroom to wash my dirtied body.
Every time water touched the scratches, it stung so terribly…….
In the end, I finished bathing roughly and came out of the bathroom with my wet hair wrapped in a towel.
When I sat on the bed, fatigue rushed over me all at once.
Perhaps it was a mistake to think I would lie down for just a moment and then dry my hair. As soon as I felt the softness of the bed, my eyelids grew endlessly heavy.
I slowly sank into sleep.
***
Sitting on a sofa in one corner of the lounge with his head tilted back, Rakein raised an arm to cover his eyes. A heavy sigh escaped softly between his lips.
He had prepared himself for it not to be easy, but approaching her was far more difficult than he had imagined.
Above all, she was wary of him. Like a hedgehog with all its spines raised.
Though he understood why she was like that, he could not help feeling suffocated, as if his chest were blocked tight.
That was when he heard the voice of a fellow knight.
“Honestly, the marchioness was too much.”
“What happened?”
When another knight in the lounge asked, the knight clicked his tongue and began to recount what he had seen.
“I was on duty at the ‘Sacred Room’ today. You know, that half-worth young lady. She came to see the marquis’s memorial tablet.”
At the words half-worth young lady, Rakein’s body flinched and stiffened.
His arm, which had been covering his eyes, lowered and his upper body straightened, but the knights were too engrossed in their conversation to notice the change in him.
“And?”
As another knight urged him on as if telling him to speak quickly, the knight opened his mouth again.
“After that, the marchioness went in, so I wondered if I should say something, but I thought, what could happen? So I just stayed there. Then I heard the marchioness scream. When I went in, that young lady was collapsed on the floor. Seeing that she had the Guardian Stone in her hand, it seemed she’d tried to admire it because it was pretty and then fallen. I think she may have grabbed the Guardian Stone in a panic, but since I didn’t see it, that’s just my guess.”
“So what did the marchioness do that was too much?”
“Well, just because she touched the Guardian Stone, she slapped her across the cheek with all her strength. The young lady was already frail, and she couldn’t withstand the force, so she fell to the floor. I felt so sorry for her that I turned my head without realizing it.”
“Good grief. The marchioness must have been furious. Still, to raise her hand like that……. I suppose it’s because that young lady is half-worth.”
“Exactly. If Lady Biat had done it, would she have hit her like that? Anyway, after seeing it, I’ve felt awful ever since.”
“At times like this, liquor is best. Come on. I’ll buy you a drink.”
Blue veins bulged over the tightly clenched fist resting on the sofa.
Rakein waited until he could no longer hear the voices of his fellow knights, then slowly rose.
He went up to his room, took unused medicine and bandages from a cabinet, placed them in a white paper envelope, and headed to the mansion.
Sneaking in was not difficult. Avoiding the eyes of the servants, Rakein arrived before Herna’s room and carefully placed the packet of medicine in front of her door.
After knocking lightly, he listened for sounds beyond the door. For him, whose hearing had been sharpened through training, that much was not difficult.
When he heard nothing, he frowned slightly and knocked a little louder.
Only then did he hear a rustling sound from inside. It seemed she was getting down from the bed.
As the sound of footsteps headed toward the door, Rakein quickly hid himself in the darkness.
The door opened, and Herna, with her hair wrapped as if she had just bathed, poked her head out.
Under the light spilling from behind her, Rakein’s eyes did not miss the dark blue bruises and wounds on her pale white arms and shoulders, and his gaze sank heavily with anger and pain.
Even after she picked up the packet of medicine and closed the door, he remained there for a long time.
***
From somewhere, a faint knocking sound reached me.
‘Is it a dream……?’
My consciousness was growing dimmer and dimmer under the sweet grasp of sleep that held me and would not let go, so I tried to ignore it. But in the next moment, the knocking came louder.
Sleep fled all at once, and my eyes flew open.
‘Who is it?’
It was strange. At this hour, when the night was already deep, there was no way someone would come to my room.
Tipping my head in confusion, I walked to the door, opened it, and poked my head out slightly. As expected, there was no one in the corridor.
“Did I hear wrong?”
Thinking it was an auditory hallucination, I was about to close the door when I noticed a single white envelope placed by the doorway.
Wondering what it was, I picked up the envelope and looked at its contents, then was startled. Inside the envelope were medicine and bandages.
“Who left this here?”
The only people who knew I had been injured were the marchioness and the knight who had been guarding the “Sacred Room.”
Unless the sun rose in the west, it was impossible for the marchioness to bring me medicine.
“Was it that knight?”
Recalling the knight who had looked at me with pity in his eyes, I shrugged.
I did not know whether that knight had truly given it to me, but in any case, it was something I desperately needed right now.
If that knight really had brought it, I thought I should reward him after my power manifested, and closed the door.
Thinking that if I applied the medicine before going to sleep, perhaps it would hurt a little less tomorrow.
And the next day, the Guardian Stone manifested for me.