He could have simply left her there, but he had already stepped into the muddy water and ruined his clothes. He had no desire to let that effort go to waste.
Through the drizzling rain, he carried her toward a large, spreading tree.
The entire way, the girl prattled on, her small mouth pursed in a pout. It was absurd to see her act so haughtily while soaked to the bone, so he chided her lightly—bringing a touch of color to a face that had been painfully pale.
From beneath his deeply pulled hood, he observed her closely.
Was she around Ayla’s age? Her height was similar, but her frame was even slighter. Through the drenched cloth, he could feel a bone structure as fragile as a bird’s.
Despite her boast of being the daughter of someone great, it was easy to see she was neglected.
‘…It is none of my concern.’
Wondering why he had let himself care at all, he bent down to set her on the ground.
At that moment, he heard something like a faint whistle.
He froze, his gaze dropping to the hands she held tightly against her chest.
“What are you holding?”
Looking up at him with hesitant eyes, the girl slowly parted her hands. Between them lay a muddy bundle of grayish-brown down.
His brow furrowed.
“A bird?”
At his skeptical murmur, the color in her cheeks deepened.
“It only looks like this because it fell in the mud. Originally, it was…”
She began to argue with a defiant face, only to fall silent, looking dejected.
He could not understand why a dying bird made her so sorrowful, or why she had lingered in the rain just to shield it in her hands.
Yet this wretched bird she refused to discard stirred the memory of something he had lost long ago.
Seized by an unfamiliar nostalgia, he shifted her onto one arm and drew her small hands into the shelter of his hood.
The skin brushing against his neck was so cold he wondered if blood even flowed through it.
“Your fingers are like ice. How long have you been out here?”
He looked down with disapproval, only to find her wide eyes fixed on his.
What was she staring at so intently? As his brow furrowed in question, the girl whispered in a hush, as though she had uncovered a rare treasure.
“You know… there’s a silver crown in your eyes.”
He stared back at her, speechless.
It was she who possessed truly strange eyes.
Their color was so deep that the boundary between pupil and iris blurred away, yet they did not appear black. Instead, they shone with a terrifying clarity.
He suddenly remembered where he had seen that lucid light before.
Long ago, it was the light that had poured down upon him as he raced across the endless plains.
The moment he realized it, his vision cleared, as if a veil over his retinas had been stripped away.
The change came so abruptly that he could not fathom what was happening to him.
As he stared unblinkingly at the rush of vivid light, a feast of color blossomed from her eyes and spilled outward into the world.
A heartbeat later, he saw that the girl’s hair was a brilliant gold, like an autumn field in full bloom.
Just as he reached out toward it on instinct, her head whipped away. He had to clench his fist to keep from seizing that small face and turning it back to him.
The girl murmured, troubled.
“I… I have to go now.”
Her voice was reluctant.
If you do not wish to go, you need not.
The words nearly escaped his lips before he swallowed them down.
She was a child he had only just encountered. There was no cause to hold her back when she said she had to leave.
He bent slowly and set her feet upon the earth.
Standing on the ground, the girl held out her hands toward him.
“Will you take it with you?”
He looked down at the tiny bird in her palms, then reached out with care. As he cupped the rain-soaked fledgling in his hands, he felt its frail, rapid heartbeat.
Bringing the cooling bird against his cheek, he drew his hood forward.
The girl watched him intently, then asked in a voice aching with strange longing,
“Will it live?”
“…Yes.”
Sensing the hesitation in his own answer, Varkas added firmly,
“It will live.”
A faint smile touched the girl’s anxious face. It was strikingly bright, yet somehow carried a shadow of sorrow.
Soon she turned and broke into a run.
As she drew farther away, brilliant colors spread outward like ink seeping through silk. Standing motionless as he watched, Bernadette’s voice returned to him.
“One day, the time will come when you find something that makes you feel alive.”
It could not be.
It had been a fleeting encounter, nothing more. A brief brush with a nameless girl could never change the course of his life.
Letting out a dry laugh, he turned and began to walk.
The bird she had given him gave a faint peep. He parted his collar, nestled the creature against the warmth of his throat, and lengthened his stride.
A path he had walked hundreds of times looked entirely unfamiliar.
A sudden vertigo washed over him. He looked up at the thin beams of light piercing the ashen clouds, then closed his eyes.
Heavy footsteps shattered his drifting thoughts.
Varkas, who had been resting in his chair, slowly raised his eyelids.
No sooner had he caught the commotion beyond the rain-drenched barracks than a dark-haired youth in gold-trimmed armor shoved aside the screen and strode inside.
“Is it true that you pushed for peace talks?”
The Crown Prince slammed his orichalcum helmet to the floor, his voice raw with fury.
Varkas lifted the goblet from the low table and answered without inflection.
“I merely made a suggestion. It was His Majesty the Emperor who pursued the negotiations.”
“It makes no difference!”
Closing the distance between them, Gareth snarled, his vivid green eyes flaring.
“Treating with rebels… have you lost your mind? Every last traitor who raised a hand against the Imperial Family should hang!”
“Do you believe it is feasible to execute every noble in the North?”
Varkas took a sip of wine and let out a weary breath.
“Suppose we put all the lords of Balto to death as you wish, Your Highness. How do you intend to govern that vast northern expanse?”
“I can grant the land to my retainers as spoils of war! Or carve it up among the conservative lords! There are plenty of nobles drooling at the prospect of gaining even an inch of soil—”
“The people of Balto would never stomach a lord of another bloodline.”
As Varkas rubbed his brow with an edge of irritation, Gareth’s face went cold with venom.
Summoning his patience, Varkas laid the matter bare.
“The North is also part of the empire. If we do not halt the fighting here, the ruin will fall upon the Roem Imperial Family. Above all, an excessive reprisal will invite resentment from the feudal lords.”
“Including you, I take it?”
The Crown Prince sneered, his eyes glittering.
Varkas did not answer. He looked at his younger cousin—who had never seemed to grow up—with eyes laden with exhaustion, then rose slowly to his feet.
He moved toward the exit, but Gareth stepped into his path.
“You pretend this is for the sake of the Roem Imperial Family, but all you want is an end to the war. Do you think I don’t know why you refused the position of Commander-in-Chief and chose to linger by the eastern border?”
His ragged breath struck Varkas’s chin.
Gareth thrust his face close, his words grinding through clenched teeth.
“You wanted to slip in and out of Kalmor whenever the chance arose.”
· · ·
“You think you are the only one who sees through people. But I know you, too. I have watched you for nearly twenty years.”
The Crown Prince’s green gaze darkened to the color of a shadowy forest.
Though their temperaments differed entirely, Gareth always brought the late Empress to mind whenever his eyes took on that cast. He pressed on, spitting out the words.
“Did you imagine I wouldn’t notice your heart is somewhere else entirely? Even these talks—you pushed for them solely for your own convenience!”
END