#112

With that silent cry, I stomped hard on the head of my other half. I sensed that if I let it protest recklessly, even the cornerstone of the resolution I made that night would be completely shattered. After finishing that round of slaughter, I sharpened my anger anew.

In the meantime, my exhausted head finally slid forward. I desperately mumbled, skipping over the previous story entirely.

“…You must hate him too. Here, lend me your knife. I… I can repay him on your behalf. I’m serious. Really. Serious…”

Henrik was silent for a while. I assumed his silence was the silence of time calculating in his head, but that was just my misconception. After a moment that could not be gauged as long or short.

“…My goodness.”

Henrik laughed softly.

“You think I would hate that monster?”

My eyes widened. It was a completely unexpected response. Henrik seemed to laugh a bit more above my head. As I raised my face like a torn seam, Henrik, who was looking down at me, opened his mouth again without removing the faint smile.

“Rather, I was thrilled that day, Giovinetta.”

“…What?”

“You probably will never know how marvelous the screams of a family crossing over the castle walls can be.”

“Marvelous… No, what kind of crazy…”

“Ah, don’t glare. I’m not particularly hoping for your understanding.”

Henrik showed me both his palms, paused for a moment, and then laughed like a sigh.

“Well… To be honest, it was an unspeakable shock. I’ve taken plenty of lives before, but it was my first time experiencing the mass death of familiar faces. It was so surprising that for a moment, I felt as if I was standing in the center of the massacre even though I was clearly outside the castle walls. Well… thanks to that, I miraculously realized it that day.”

“…Realized what?”

Henrik didn’t answer. After looking at me for a moment, he stepped back one step. Soon he leaned slowly against the door. His firm neckline was finally revealed as his shoulder touched first, followed by the back of his head sliding back.

That relaxed movement. It was emanating an atmosphere I could hardly believe was Henrik’s. I blankly watched as an expression of comfort I had never seen before appeared on Henrik’s slowly closing eyelids.

“The day that damn castle crumbles will come after all.”

“……”

“That old snake really did die.”

“……”

“Sometimes the process is more important than the result, Giovinetta. If you miss the process, you’ll be left with regret even when you get the result, and the cost of scraping away that regret seems to be more than you’d think. Still, I didn’t feel it was too much of a waste.”

“……”

“I think I stood there for quite a while. It felt like exhuming the corpse of a salted old man and dismembering it myself. It was a stroke of luck, if you could call it that, that your brother didn’t discover me.”

I was completely taken aback. It was as if I had been hit in the face by the shadow of a blooming branch above my head. When did his eyes open? The green eyes that seemed like they would show their leaf veins directly if light were to break through were quietly gazing at me.

Those eyes finally seemed ‘alive’. Though they must have been accustomed to the buried daily life, how transparent they looked that day. It was a helpless and cruel green that had finally sprouted using the flesh of relatives as fertilizer through someone else’s hands. Why? I found that green pathetic, and yet…

At the same time, I craved it madly.

“So.”

As if a breeze had suddenly blown, the branch above my head gently swayed. It seemed I had unknowingly placed my palm on his chest.

Henrik gathered both my hands in one of his and came close to me. I instinctively stiffened my shoulders. Dark green eyes gazing at me. His quiet exhale scattered as it hit the curve of my forehead.

“Since I met you today, I’d like to resolve the second regret as well, if possible.”

“…Regret?”

“Answer this first. What do you mean by saying you’re his weakness? I can’t even begin to guess.”

“What do you mean…”

Distracted by the gentle yet cowardly color, I hadn’t managed to collect my thoughts and hastily lowered my eyes. After shaking my head once from side to side and erasing the remaining green from my mind, I was able to stammer a response.

“He… he… if I were to stab him, he would let himself be stabbed even with his eyes open.”

“Ah.”

“He won’t resist me at all. No, he can’t.”

“Is that all?”

“What else is needed besides that?”

“Hmm.”

“……”

Under his incomprehensible gaze falling on the bridge of my nose, I hurriedly closed my mouth. It was because I had just then realized that I had been thinking something terribly wrong. Yes, Johannes won’t be able to stop me. I’ll be able to stab him more easily than anyone else. I’ve never been more certain of a result than this. But, but… if I stab him…

What then?

My heart sank.

“I saw an arrow pierced in that bastard’s neck. Clearly.”

Henrik, who had been quietly examining me, said. His expression, which had already put on its familiar mask, was blank. Henrik studied my complexion as if trying to grasp my thoughts.

But unable to get what he wanted, his gaze slowly drifted downward. Henrik stared at the back of his hand for a moment in silence. Or more precisely, he was staring at my hand that had begun to twitch slightly under his palm.

No.

“…He jumped from that high tower with such a serious injury, but when I found you in the forest, that bastard was too fine. I thought I had seen things in the urgency… until he destroyed my father’s castle, as you said. Hearing it today, it doesn’t seem like you instigated it.”

“……”

“Anyway, I was quite surprised. That monstrous body… Those huge wing bones, and the body completely tattered… If I had been told it was a corpse mauled by a beast, I might have understood that appearance more easily. But after living outside for a while, I heard rumors that your maternal family is a family that uses demons. As someone who has seen it, I suspect the demon in the rumors is your brother.”

“Th-that’s all… false rumors…”

“False rumors? Perhaps you’re so disgusted because you’ve seen that horrible appearance too.”

“No, not exactly…”

“Enough. My point is, is there really a way to harm such a being? There might have been times when mortals hunted demons, but that’s closer to legend now rather than past history.”

“Well, of course… with a… knife…”

“Does something that survives even with its neck pierced die from being stabbed?”

Henrik looked quite perplexed. His question was correct. I had no exact answer to give him. Would he die? Wouldn’t he die? The desperate counter-question couldn’t come out as a sound, and at that moment, I was so flustered I was on the verge of losing myself.

In the end, forgetting even to exhale the breath I had taken in deeply, I just stared at Henrik’s pupils as if to bore through them. I was desperate. At that moment, Henrik was not my past enemy.

He was a pioneer who had, by chance, broken the lump inside himself before me and witnessed the collapse of its remains, and I hoped to find the answer I was looking for while sifting through his green pile.

Somehow it would work out, right? It would be possible, right? I looked into his pupils with all my might. But it was all in vain. The cruel green I saw was entirely his own.

Impossible. Ah, ah, what an incorrigible fool… What was I thinking about someone who revives even after being destroyed…

I couldn’t understand my own ridiculous misconception. Even until this day when I met you and heard the full story of the misfortune, I still don’t understand that time. How did I think of the knife first, how did I so easily imagine the pleasure of stabbing him when I knew it was impossible?

One clear fact is that I had a memory of hot flames that I couldn’t forget. The heat of spitting out all the black soil that had accumulated in my throat for as long as the countless seasons I had spent in cold anguish, confined to the women’s quarters.

I remember crouching under the window sill, catching the last heat with the tip of my tongue while gasping for breath, with seventeen-year-old Johannes’ wet back left outside. So it was just a knife. Somehow, it felt like I could feel that flame again with just that cold, hard metal.

Impossible. As I was shuddering at the realization I absolutely couldn’t accept.

“Are you planning to behead him?”

Thud. That question felt like it pierced my throat. And once more.

“Hmm… Yes. Cutting off the head might work.”

Thud.

My reaction must have been quite unusual. Yet Henrik turned me upside down with such a bland tone. His insensitive attitude might have been the composure of someone who had already seen the end.

“How…”

The words wouldn’t continue. Beheading?

“Hm?”

“……”

“Giovinetta.”

Henrik finally showed a slightly perplexed expression and came very close. As he approached, my head lifted even more. Cut off his head? Johannes’ head? Tears that had welled up in an instant fell in drops. My eyes had dried up from being wide open, but they flowed on their own without a precise reason. The body’s reaction came before understanding.

“What’s wrong?”

Henrik seemed about to touch my face.

“Watch… your mouth, Indridason.”

“What?”

“Be-beheading, beheading. Beheading… H-how can you… say such a horrible thing. How can you…”

“Uh…”

“If anyone does such a thing to Johannes, I won’t let them get away with it, I’ll kill them first. Like a worm… How dare… how dare anyone…”

At that time, I think I was completely shocked and couldn’t close my mouth. The horrific scene of a huge weapon chopping down on the back of Johannes’ neck flashed like a delayed lightning. Johannes’ life pouring out like a broken dam from the cut surface. Even the image of myself standing alone on the red ground where he had disappeared.

Your death.

Is it that someone who has never succeeded even once can persistently wish for success but cannot draw a clear picture? Because Johannes in my nightmares was always by my side even with his dismembered body, I think I didn’t really understand what my resolution meant until then. Your death. Your death.