Chapter 37
“Carlisle Everett. Forget that person.”
Liandre cupped Helen’s left cheek. It was a soft touch without a hint of roughness.
But Helen couldn’t refuse that utterly unfamiliar touch. Because of the words that had fallen like a sharp rebuke.
She had promised to forget by winter—after this spring passed, summer passed, and autumn reluctantly yielded. She was to drink the potion Liandre made and forget everything.
The promise that she wouldn’t remember a single thing she had seen or felt since birth had seemed so distant. And for good reason—three seasons remained until winter.
But did they want her to forget already? Spring had only just arrived. Moreover, they asked her to forget the most unforgettable thing among countless memories.
She recalled Carlisle’s embrace. Thanks to twisting her ankle by chance, she had been held in the arms of the person she longed for. She had wanted to be held even if it meant breaking her own resolve.
As Helen thought of someone she could never forget without a magic memory-wiping potion, Liandre drew close. He seemed to confine Helen, who sat up straight.
“There’s still plenty of time until winter, and until then, the Emperor will use every means to summon you to the imperial palace. To brew the potion you want, we cannot leave Hexilof.”
As Liandre said, it was only spring now; she had to pass through summer and then autumn before the long-awaited season returned. In winter, the rampaging demonic beasts dwelled only in the northern forest at Hexilof’s border, so as he said, they could not leave that place. It meant even if they fled far away until autumn, they would have to return.
Vivid green eyes and white eyes stared at each other. The verdant hue reflected in the white iris trembled greatly, like pebbles thrown into still water.
“He’s someone you’ll forget anyway. The Emperor will use Duke Everett. He won’t consider the wounds you’ll receive. So just forget him now.”
As Helen turned her head away first, the green eye reflected in the white eye vanished. Instead, red hair filled the empty space.
I must forget. I have to forget. Even this small longing for you—I must forget that too.
The ankle Carlisle had touched throbbed as if burned. Her right shoulder too. Even both arms that had wrapped around his neck ached.
She felt so suffocated she wanted to claw at her chest. At that moment, a heavy, rigid voice settled in her ear.
“Talk to me. Hmm?”
“.......”
“Don’t see that person anymore.”
Don’t look at him with eyes that don’t see me. Don’t act as though you won’t forget him even in death.
It was a forceful tone unlike his usual self. But Helen didn’t obey his words.
Liandre seemed to move away from Helen, then enveloped her hand with his large hands. And he rested his head atop them. Her hand was cold and motionless, as if ice had been placed upon it.
“I was happy about your choice to forget everything and try living a new life.”
“Even though you said you hoped it was a lie.”
When Helen murmured as if reciting, Liandre’s hand flinched. On the evening when they stole and drank the Count’s treasured wine, he hadn’t said anything like being happy about her choice.
From the day they first met until now, she could never grasp his true feelings. Wasn’t this the man who wore more lies than Violet’s life?
Helen put strength into her arm to pull her hand free from his grip. Even as her palm slipped out, her slender fingers were caught again.
“I lied. Because it seemed like the only way to make you happy.”
Liandre raised his head. His even deeper white irises trembled delicately.
“Why are you so obsessed with my happiness?”
“Because I promised.”
“I’ve never asked you to make me happy.”
A promise? If she had made such a promise, she should certainly remember it. But aside from asking him to erase her memories, no other request came to mind.
As Helen met eyes with Liandre, she watched his eyes curve gently and even his eyelashes tremble. He looked somehow happy, ill-fitting to the atmosphere.
No, he truly looked happy.
“There is.”
“There really isn’t.”
“It’s a very old promise, so you wouldn’t remember.”
Even adding up all the time she had lived as Violet, it was barely a little over two years. Too short to dismiss something as a very old promise.
Could she have met Liandre before that? Among the tangled memories of her days as her former self that she could never return to, she had met the white magician when she returned as a lonely, half-complete noble.
Helen tilted her head and listened to Liandre’s following words. It was his old memory that no one except the person himself could know whether it was real or an illusion.
“......How many times you stole my candy.”
“Me?”
“And how mischievous your pranks were.”
“I really don’t remember.”
As for pranks, during her childhood at the Platini mansion, she had been quite mischievous like any child her age. Even then, she had chosen times when the Count was absent so as not to catch his eye. The targets of her pranks were mainly the mansion’s servants.
Among them, there had been no magician, nor anyone entirely white.
Watching Helen furrow her brows and struggle to remember things she couldn’t recall, Liandre chuckled.
“I told you that you wouldn’t remember.”
He muttered softly in a gentle voice. Then he flattened Helen’s hand and overlapped it with his own. At a glance, the difference was about the length of one knuckle of the index finger.
“This makes it feel just like old times.”
Helen jerked her hand away in surprise. It was a prank mostly done by innocent children or lovers. Getting angry, pleading pathetically, grinning sheepishly, and now even playing pranks. Was he slightly mad?
Helen removed the ice pack on her ankle. The swelling had visibly subsided. She would have to limp if walking alone, but with support, she could walk fairly normally.
“At this rate, I’ll miss the important part.”
“The true love’s kiss?”
“You really must be crazy!”
A true love’s kiss! Just how did he process people’s words to come up with such a bizarre idea!
Helen’s face flushed rapidly, and she cooled her cheek with the back of her hand. Unable to completely cool the heat that had reached the nape of her neck, she fanned herself continuously, yet it wasn’t enough.
She desperately wanted to leave Liandre behind. Had her ankle not been injured, she would have done so without a moment’s hesitation, but right now she desperately needed his help.
Yet she hated Liandre, who sat quietly watching with interest as she fanned herself earnestly.
“Do all magicians live with such sly thoughts?”
“Usually not.”
“But you do?”
“Hardly. At least I don’t have wild imaginations like someone.”
“Who are you saying has wild imaginations!”
“Well. Wouldn’t you know that best?”
Liandre tapped his lips with his finger, stoking Helen’s anger.
He didn’t even give Helen a chance to retort. Instead, he crossed his legs on the chair and conjured a sturdy wooden cane.
Why a cane.
“You can’t be serious.”
“But I am.”
“Wow......”
Really, truly, he was utterly insufferable. How could he stoke her anger like a seven-year-old mischievous child?
He meant for her to take the wooden cane made by magic as if bestowing a favor. Even though today was a celebratory occasion for the imperial family and the Platini household, he brazenly held it out.
At a glance it looked sturdy, but it was completely unsuitable for a noble lady to carry. No, it would instantly become amusing fodder for the nobles’ ridicule today.
Rather than going with a cane that looked like a branch picked up from a mountainside, it would be better to walk dragging her dress.
Helen turned her head sharply and lowered her legs from the bed. When her feet touched the floor, pain flared in her ankle again. It seemed the ice pack hadn’t been very effective.
Before stepping away from the bed, she put on her shoes. Because of the cumbersome dress, it took considerable time and effort.
Helen inhaled deeply and exhaled evenly, then put strength into both legs and stood up. Her body swayed, but she could manage to walk.
While arranging her disheveled hair from lying on the bed, she spoke.
“You use that useless wooden cane.”
“This cane is a masterpiece of mine that an ordinary sword cannot cut.”
“If it’s like that, you should have said so from the start. Give it here. So I can hit someone.”
When she held out her hand with a stiff expression, the useless wooden cane vanished.
Hmph, as if it couldn’t be cut by an ordinary sword.
Helen pouted and stepped forward. With every step she took, she had to hobble. Her walking speed was painfully slow and her stride small, so it took a long time to reach the door.
“Follow me or don’t.”
Even the hem of her dress disappeared beyond the door. The door remained wide open as if telling him to follow.
Liandre knew where Helen was going even as she hobbled on her injured ankle, yet he did not readily spring up from his seat.
Instead, he caressed the bedsheet where red hair had been draped just moments ago. The warmth had not yet disappeared and maintained its place.
He carefully enclosed the white sheet—warmth still lingering as though graspable—in his fist. Then he brought it close to his face and inhaled deeply.
He could not smell her scent that he desired so intensely. Though she had stayed so long, she had left nothing behind. Truly nothing.
“I love you. So much that I wouldn’t mind even if you killed me.”
If it were Helen’s hand, death would be welcome. If she told him to die, he would follow willingly.
“I love you. My......”
Helen.
* Sibello
The national wedding began noisily and ended grandly. Countless people lined the streets for the procession of the Emperor and Empress, who declared themselves the couple that would lead this nation, this empire.
The largest crowds had gathered in the streets since Violet’s funeral. The people cheered and celebrated the national wedding during the procession, and from that moment on, Violet’s death seemed completely forgotten.
Flower shops displayed red roses symbolizing the empire instead of white or violet flowers meant to commemorate Violet.
Carlisle barely escaped from the crowds gathered like swarms of ants. It was the result of his search for Helen, who had not shown herself throughout the wedding.
Right after the ceremony ended, he had gone to the infirmary, but only a middle-aged doctor remained there. The cot where Helen had sat was clean as if no one had used it. The doctor too answered that he had never seen Helen.
It greatly bothered him that Helen was the only one absent while all members of the Platini family attended. Of course, as she had said, he had told the white-haired, white-eyed magician where Helen was. But that alone was not enough.
He knew very well the skills of the Imperial Mage from their experiences on the battlefield together. However, the intuition he felt from the white magician from head to toe was strange. Of course, it could be because they had just met.
It was the first time he had encountered him at the imperial palace, but if the white magician was of Imperial Mage origin, he should have easily treated something like a sprained ankle.
Carlisle slipped out as if pushed by the crowds and passed by a flower shop. The florist was clearing away violet flowers symbolizing the princess. Like any other flower shop, the owner had filled the front of the store with luscious roses. And the violets that had originally been in the roses’ place were crammed haphazardly into a large bucket.
Having witnessed that sight right before his eyes, Carlisle turned his steps. They were the first flowers he had given to ‘her.’ The flowers he had given to her while she rested in the imperial palace gardens were common to the point of being rarely seen there.
Why had it been those flowers? There were many rare and splendid flowers.
He had chosen them simply because they shared her name. Carlisle did not regret that day’s choice.
“I’d like to buy all of those flowers.”
The florist alternated glances between the scattered purple flowers in the bucket and the man who looked somewhat familiar.
That day, Carlisle returned holding a bouquet so large it covered his face. He drew people’s gazes the entire way to the mansion, but he himself was unaware of it.
For a while, whenever people walked around the Duke of Everett’s estate, they smelled a fragrant floral scent. They could never associate the Duke—who could only be called a war hero—with such a thing. They simply accepted that spring had come.