EDTATO 19

Chapter 19

Perhaps the heavens themselves were helping my little act of rebellion. The sky was dark, as though it might pour down white snow at any moment.

The castle had always been staffed with only the people who were necessary, but that night, not a single person appeared—not even as I walked out the door alone.

My outing that night was almost absurdly quiet.

Was it really this easy?

I stopped for a moment and looked back at the castle, which still seemed enormous.

Even though so many people lived there, it was a place so eerily silent that it sent chills down my spine.

Suddenly, I had a feeling that I shouldn’t go any farther.

It felt as though, if I left this quiet place, something irreversible would happen.

That intuition was a warning.

And yet, I ignored it.

I was simply too excited about going out alone for the first time in years, like a child waiting for her first school picnic.

I quietly made my way toward an ordinary village where ordinary people lived.

The place I had finally mustered the courage to seek out was a tavern on the street.

It was a large wooden building packed with people, overflowing with a liveliness that seemed almost incompatible with winter.

Clutching the edge of my robe, I swallowed nervously and stared, entranced, through the entrance.

The smell of people there was unfamiliar, but it was cleaner and lighter than I had expected.

Perhaps that was because what I had been breathing in all this time had never been entirely happiness.

I breathed in the tavern’s noisy scent as though I could gladly stop breathing altogether.

“Hey! We’re busy here, so quit bothering us and move!”

I was eventually treated like a crazy woman, but I didn’t let that deter me. I quietly found a table tucked away in a corner and sat down.

The owner had looked ready to throw me out at any moment, but the moment I discreetly slipped a gold coin into his hand, his attitude changed completely and he began fawning over me.

I ordered some random drink and absentmindedly observed the people around me.

Why is everyone so busy?

What did they have so much to talk about? What made them so happy or sad? What made them so angry or sorrowful?

Was I really all right, having forgotten all those things?

All I could do was eavesdrop on bits and pieces of conversation and imagine the circumstances of these strangers’ lives, but even that was enough to entertain me.

I sipped the cheap liquor, which wasn’t particularly to my taste, and enjoyed the languid passage of time.

Perhaps spending some time alone like this every once in a while wouldn’t be so bad.

I’ll talk to him when I return to the castle.

I’d carefully tell him what happened today and ask if I could occasionally go into town by myself.

He’ll understand.

Because he loved me.

More sincerely than anyone or anything else in this world.

“Hello?”

While I was freely imagining a happy ending, a stranger approached me.

He was an ordinary-looking young man who appeared to be around my age.

“What brings someone from such a distinguished household all the way here?”

“A distinguished household?”

“You seem to be trying to pretend you’re an ordinary lady, but no matter how I look at you, you seem like a well-bred young lady who sneaked out.”

“…”

“Good grief, I was only joking. Next time, even if someone sees right through you, don’t make such a face.”

“What did my face look like?”

“Your ears turned red.”

The man looked me over from head to toe and laughed.

Ah, yes.

A man whose name I couldn’t even remember. Someone whose face had already become hazy in my memory.

But the terror of that day remained crystal clear.

“I was feeling stifled, so I came out.”

“What was making you feel so stifled?”

“I don’t know…”

“You look like you have something troubling you.”

“It’s not exactly a problem, but…”

I hesitated before slowly beginning to speak, mixing in just enough lies as I told him about what had happened to me.

Perhaps because I believed I would never see this man again.

Before long, even things I could never have told him slipped effortlessly from my lips.

The man listened with interest, and in return, he casually shared his own troubles—how one of his servants had been giving him a hard time by refusing to listen, how his earnings this year were different from last year’s, and other trivial complaints.

It was comfortable.

Even though we sometimes had to shout over the tavern’s characteristic din to hear each other, I felt far more enjoyment than discomfort.

I gripped the enormous mug with both hands and gulped down the strong liquor inside before complaining,

“I think I might need a friend.”

The man laughed at me with almost absurd openness.

“You really are an amusing young lady. By the way, it’s gotten pretty late.”

“Hm? Has it?”

“Isn’t it about time you hurried back to that mysterious castle of yours? It’s going to get dark soon.”

Following his gaze, I looked out the window.

The moon was already shining brightly in the night sky.

But I had obtained an entire day of freedom, and this village wasn’t far from the castle.

It’s a little late, but surely I can indulge myself a little longer.

It was a careless thought.

“You go ahead. I’ll leave later.”

“My lady, I told you it’s getting late.”

“It’s fine tonight.”

I was merely sharing a drink with a harmless man in a large tavern.

“Because he’s not here tonight…”

I murmured to myself as I asked the passing waitress for another drink.

No matter how much I drank, I didn’t feel the slightest bit intoxicated. My mind remained perfectly clear.

If only I had been so drunk that I couldn’t even move a finger.

No.

I was terribly drunk.

Otherwise…

“Heine.”

There was no way I could have mistaken such a gentle voice for something terrifying.

I knew exactly who the person whispering with a hand on my shoulder was.

My hatred and my curse.

My blessing and my hell.

And my only… my love.

It was him.

“Are you enjoying yourself?”

The warmth that had spread through my body from the alcohol instantly vanished, replaced by cold.

I was too flustered to speak.

He didn’t seem to care. He simply pressed a gentle kiss to my forehead.

“I came to get you. You seemed so absorbed in your little game.”

Game.

For some reason, I hated that word.

And yet, despite that, I couldn’t muster even a single word of protest.

My face gradually hardened with cold.

Though I couldn’t even bring myself to speak, a heavy sense of guilt pressed down on my chest, making me feel as though I had to offer some kind of excuse.

“Who are you?”

The man who had been keeping me company looked back and forth between my pale face and his.

He seemed to have absolutely no idea who the person with his arm around my shoulders was.

Run.

I screamed the word silently with a mouth that refused to open.

Please. Please, run.

I couldn’t even warn him.

I hated myself for trembling there like a coward, unable to do the slightest thing, and mocked myself bitterly.

“Don’t waste your precious time in a place like this.”

He bent down gently, as though he hadn’t even heard the stranger’s voice.

Then he whispered with perfect tenderness.

“You don’t belong in a place like this. Let’s go back.”

“…”

“We don’t have enough time together as it is, do we?”

He, who surely knew better than anyone what eternity meant, was pretending that we were short on time, as though it were something precious.

The night had deepened, and before I knew it, heavy snow was falling from the sky.

It was winter, yet that day had been strangely warm.

And for reasons I didn’t understand, I suddenly felt terribly sad.

“Yes. Let’s go back. To our castle.”

I was thoroughly upset, but that was the best I could manage.

I thought that whatever I heard and whatever happened after we returned was something I would have to endure.

I foolishly believed that as long as I alone bore the brunt of him within our private space, no innocent people would have to suffer.

I don’t know why I had come to think that way.

He had never once been violent toward me.

He had never even done anything that should have made me fear or hate him.

And yet I trembled like an animal instinctively sensing an enormous disaster.

“My lady, are you all right?”

But the stranger who had been sharing those fleeting drinks with me happened to be a kind man.

Of all people.

Someone I had met for the first time that very day, yet who had somehow understood my feelings with horrifying speed.

“You look like someone who’s being dragged somewhere to die.”

And then he offered me a completely unnecessary concern, unaware that he was hastening his own death.

But you’re right.

I didn’t want to return to the castle.

I still loved him, but regardless of those feelings, I wanted to escape from the life I was living now.

Days that stirred little emotion.

The temperature of a life that had grown numb along with me as I became accustomed to the idea of death.

A strange reality where everything seemed to be according to my own wishes, yet there wasn’t a single thing I could actually do as I pleased.

Cold mornings when I realized that, despite being sick to death of it all, I could never bring it to an end.

The time filled to the brim with his love had, before I realized it, become a burden too heavy for me to bear.