#109

Why does she keep asking such obvious questions? Even in my dazed state, I felt irritated, and my sweat-soaked brow furrowed involuntarily.

[Oh.]

The knight let out a short exclamation with a nonchalant attitude. I sensed him blatantly scanning me from head to toe. Normally, I would have been startled by such rudeness, but even as I clearly saw his gaze, I couldn’t muster any particular reaction.

That day, I wasn’t in my right mind, and the knight before me must have known this, hence his fearless behavior. I staggered again. It felt like I might collapse at any moment.

[I can see why. Sit down here. I’ll get you a sword.]

I suddenly looked up at the knight’s voice as he supported me, and then, led by his hand, I awkwardly sat down among the group of knights. My head felt as heavy as a water-filled jar, making it difficult to hold my neck up. Eventually, I bowed my head again and covered my face with both hands.

Stumbling and swaying, my weakened waist couldn’t stand straight and wobbled back and forth. Then, as if pushed by something, I seemed to rest my temple against a smooth metal plate. It was probably the shoulder guard of the knight sitting next to me.

The arm covering my face suddenly dropped, and cool air touched my swollen eyes. I panted like that, leaning on someone’s shoulder. Even a fish out of water might look better than this. How unsightly. I dully self-evaluated, imagining how I must appear to others.

[Have you been drinking? I don’t smell alcohol. Why are you crying in this state?]

The knight who had offered to be my sword asked me with a smile. His hand seemed to caress and embrace my waist. I answered to the air, panting slightly.

[Crying… me?] [Those around your eyes can’t be sweat, can they? You were so fierce just a moment ago, what’s making you so sad now?]

There’s no reason to cry. I couldn’t properly respond to his smiling question. My limbs felt unbearably heavy. Then the knight’s other hand came up to my eyes and gently rubbed my eyelids. Strangely, I felt a lump in my throat. Despite not feeling particularly bad about that familiar yet unfamiliar touch, somehow my throat was choking up.

Ah, you too…. You always rub my eyes just like this. You, who are usually as sharp as a sword, become uniquely flustered when it comes to me, as if you don’t know how to comfort me, so awkwardly….

Ah, how delightful this is.

The voice that interrupted the memories flooding in like tears belonged to the twelve-year-old girl who had been quiet for a while. She whispered quickly, as if trying to prevent my deviation.

He kneels before you so much, yet you don’t love him.

…….

Don’t waver. You hold the sword hilt….

[Beautiful lady, who are you and where are you from?]

As the girl in my head disappeared, leaving only a cold lingering sound, the knight beside me asked, as if following up. Yes… that’s right. You’re correct…. How fortunate indeed. I’m glad that at least I don’t love him, I answered the girl in my head, ignoring the knight right beside me.

I was no different from the woman sitting on the windowsill of a black tower without an exit, trapped in a strange inn’s annex. A woman with the same face as mine, watching intently the breathtaking sight of my sibling, who had monopolized all the light in the world, desperately climbing the stone wall, unable to possess only me.

Weak as I was, every time I saw that beautiful sight, I mistook the rising intoxication for love and ignored the hatred within me. Sometimes, as if swayed by a gentle breeze, I would wiggle my toes and whisper to the one who imprisoned me. My sun, go a little madder. Shudder a bit more. As if I, trapped in this black tower, were the owner of your light.

And so I let him into my tower. The night he embraced me was, as always, full of wounds. Just a continuation of confinement, one after another. Foolish me closed my eyes under the pretext of love, but today, borrowing the eyes of a nightmare, I looked back at the scars left by the light, and ah, I.

I will put an end to this self-deception that only leaves pain.

I will no longer repeat the foolish act of embracing both fleeting ecstasy and long shadows. Now, I will step on his shoulder that barely grasps my ankle, kick him into the void, and withdraw my feet from the windowsill. Will this be difficult?

No. I should be able to do it without much difficulty. Even if you were in love, I wasn’t….

Suddenly, I felt the puzzled gaze of the knight sitting next to me. Instead of answering him, I repeated to myself several times that because I didn’t love him, I could be his weakness. I was immensely pleased with this clear fact. And the second fact that I knew this better than anyone else.

To me, these facts were now like a spearhead I had just realized. A spearhead that had burrowed deep into my solar plexus without my knowledge, one that I could grasp and pull out myself. Ah, with this spear, I will kill him. The numbness in the back of my head intensified.

Was it some kind of cheer? I heard the knights sitting around the table shouting something and giggling. I also heard the knight supporting me scolding them to ‘be quiet’. Although his tone was quite rough, it wasn’t completely angry. Rather, it had an undertone of subtle amusement. And then.

[I can’t stand to watch anymore….]

Among the group, only one person. The one person who sat at the end of the table, wearing a sleeveless long coat over his head, not making eye contact with me, suddenly opened his mouth as if complaining. The man downed the remaining alcohol in his glass in one gulp. The empty glass hit the table with a dull, cracking sound. After staring at the empty glass for a moment, the man spoke to the gazes focused on him.

[It would be better not to get involved with that woman.] […You were so quiet, why the discouragement now?]

The knight who had his arm around my shoulder made a deflating sound as he met the man’s gaze. I sluggishly raised my body and looked at the man sitting diagonally across. Under the shadow of the hood that covered even his eyelids, his unusually dark green eyes seemed to meet mine. However, he quickly lowered his gaze as if avoiding me and muttered in passing.

[I’m saying this for your own good. That woman, she’s cursed.]

My lips slowly parted. It was because I had received the impression that the shadowed gaze I had briefly seen earlier and his plain tone didn’t seem to match. I was not unfamiliar with this strange disharmony. That voice that firmly concealed its inner thoughts while showing no sharp edges at all. A voice deeply suppressed like a dog sensitized after serving a tyrannical master for a long time.

Henrik.

“Hen….”

I called his name without realizing it.

“What on earth have you been doing that you couldn’t leave the south until now?”

But Henrik cut off my voice, asking bluntly. I think the knight beside me asked in a confused tone if we knew each other. We turned to the knight simultaneously. As the knight hesitated at that momentum, Henrik stood up from his seat.

“This isn’t right….”

I saw Henrik’s bare eyes, which had already erased even the shadows, wandering in the air for a moment. It was a helpless look as always, but his subsequent movements were as efficient as someone who had never hesitated before.

“This isn’t right.”

Muttering that to himself, Henrik rose from his chair and strode behind me as if nothing was wrong. Then, the motion of slipping his hands under my armpits was as casual as a knight reaching for his scabbard.

Until then, I was too stunned to even let out a short scream. I only felt my damp, cotton-like body being pulled up into the air and going limp.

“Stand up.”

Henrik ordered brazenly after arbitrarily setting me on my feet.

“I hear you two have split up, so don’t cling to another man in front of me.”

“What? I never clung…”

“And why do you look like this? It’s not even cold. Are you really drunk?”

[Hey, what’s the meaning of…]

“Hm?”

Henrik, who had pretended to be deaf for a moment by covering his ear with his remaining hand, lowered it just like that. The shoulder of the knight, who was about to stand up following me, was pushed down by his palm. Ugh. The knight, who sat back down as if falling on his bottom, let out a short groan, and Henrik, ignoring him, looked down at me. His gaze, as big and round as a child’s, fell on the bridge of my nose.

“Anyway, this is how we reunite. I guess the bond of a mother and son, even if temporary, isn’t easily broken.”

A self-mutter colored with pure surprise. And Henrik’s appearance as he shook his head slowly with a sigh didn’t show any fierceness in fact. However, his grip seemed unable to hide his intense true feelings.

I still remember the throbbing pain on the inside of my arm held by his hand. I felt my lips parting from the pain of my flesh being pressed, yet I could only stare blankly. The reason was that I couldn’t believe the survival of the man before my eyes.

“You, you…”

“Can you stand properly?”

“…How are you ali- Ah! Ugh.”

Henrik swung my shoulder, which he had held high, pulling me out from behind the table. As a result, I lost my balance greatly as I was dragged out, spinning around the end of the long bench, and right on cue, Henrik’s arm wrapped around my waist.

“Let’s move somewhere else. It would be better for both of us to continue this touching mother-son reunion where there are no listening ears.”

Henrik whispered secretly. I looked up at him while leaning against his side, almost clinging to him. Henrik wasn’t looking at me. The infuriating profile I encountered after several weeks still had that bland, colorless look as if wearing someone else’s skin.

After staring blankly at his complaining companions as if looking at cattle or chickens, Henrik noticed my gaze and slightly stretched both corners of his plain mouth, greeting me.

“I missed you, mother.”

Was it because of the cold I realized belatedly? I think my stomach trembled in his embrace.