#66

Yes, he truly did not appear to be in his right mind. I momentarily forgot the purpose of coming to the bedroom and snapped at him.

“You don’t seem much like a living person anyway… Why don’t you just go out and die?”

“You don’t like it?”

Completely ignoring my harsh words, he quietly asked back. To that, I muttered in a small voice.

“That’s right. I don’t like it.”

“Think about it again.”

“No.”

“…Then never mind.”

Henrik’s tone was quite bland for how persistent he had been earlier. I couldn’t bear how infuriating it was. Even his nonchalant attitude seemed to ignite sparks and spread heat. If I had a bit more energy, I would have thrown something at him.

Ah! I buried my flushed face in the blanket and grumbled. Finding my behavior amusing, Henrik let out a short laugh like a shallow sigh from where he stood. Without raising my face, I shouted.

“You, get out.”

“Do you dislike it when I visit occasionally too?”

That must be about the fief again.

“I told you to get out.”

I had not the slightest desire to properly respond to his words that cut off all context. However, when there was no reply or sound of him leaving, I briefly turned my chin to glance sideways. Henrik’s face, glimpsed through the crumpled blanket, was still pale and expressionless. He stared down at my eyes blankly and added.

“Surely you can endure it once per season or so.”

“You… Why don’t you just take me away now instead?”

Henrik’s eyes widened round.

Of course, it wasn’t sincere words from the heart. I just wanted to poke at his weakness and mock him. Feeling a faint sneer spread across my lips, I continued speaking.

“It seems it would be better for both you and me if we ran away together even today. Yes, I think this is a good idea. Let’s run away. Instead of troubling yourself to visit occasionally, let’s just live together…”

Thud.

It was then that a sound like furniture creaking came from somewhere. A low, short sound. Henrik and I looked back at the same time. Through the wide-open window, only the chirping of mountain birds departing westward with the setting sun leisurely drifted in. After the flock of birds left, with both of us falling silent, the inner chamber was quiet without a single noise. Did we hear wrong?

As if the tension eased in that languid silence, Henrik opened his mouth again.

“Run away, you say… Leaving this place behind?”

I turned my head sharply towards Henrik, startled by his sudden voice. At that moment, Henrik was pretending to look around the inner chamber lavishly decorated with expensive wall tapestries and splendid candlesticks.

Of course, what he meant was not my bedroom but Indridason Castle. As his nonchalance appeared to me only as an attempt to cover up his own flaws, my brows immediately furrowed.

“…Don’t pretend this place is important to you.”

In the end, I criticized him, forgetting even my startled heart.

“You just don’t have the confidence to accomplish anything, do you? Where did you throw away all that boldness you had when kissing me? Coward.”

Henrik didn’t say anything more. I watched him for a while as he just stared blankly without making even a rustling sound from his clothes. But there was no reaction. I finally just closed my eyes tightly, hoping he would disappear.

As I forcibly swallowed the anger that had nowhere to go anyway, suddenly the letter came to mind and my heart constricted again. At the thought of wanting to read the letter as soon as possible, my hands and feet tingled. I was anxious. And then.

“You are… an arrogant woman.”

Henrik, whose very existence seemed static, opened his mouth again after being silent for a long time.

“A reckless woman who doesn’t know how to think of others and is subtly selfish. You, with an expression that looks soft enough to carelessly break if one just reaches out, scratch people with a voice that knows no guilt.”

Only then did I sluggishly raise my body. Henrik was gazing at me intently with an uncharacteristically comfortable smile. My forearms, bent angularly to support my upper body, trembled with anger. Arrogant? Selfish? So you’re determined to have it out with me after all. It felt like glaring at a thrown gauntlet.

“When did I ever…”

“But.”

Henrik cut me off and said.

“When I watch from afar, I can’t help but lose my mind. It’s as if you might do something for me, you know. It’s strange… I don’t know why. See, even though you’re such a powerless and useless woman.”

Straightening my upper body, I spoke with force in my quivering jaw.

“I am not such a selfish person. I’ve never acted on my own whims. I don’t understand why you keep talking like that.”

“Of all things, was that part unpleasant to hear?”

“A grudge? It seems you were quite offended by my words.”

“You just won’t back down, will you.”

“…”

“You said ‘keep.'”

I could feel the subtle force in his voice as he repeated my words. His words seemed to snap off at the ends.

“…I suppose that man you detest said the same thing.”

“Man?”

“The man you left behind in your hometown.”

I opened my eyes wide. For a moment, I was at a loss for words.

“To endure even this situation, it must be quite a hatred. I can hardly even imagine it.”

“…”

“That man, what exactly did he do to you?”

I must have unconsciously grasped the blanket at his question. The sound of rustling fabric rang out right beneath my face. My teeth ground together inside my closed mouth. Though he himself may not have realized it, Henrik was the only one in this unfamiliar southern land who kept mentioning Johannes, digging into my mind.

“I see.”

Interpreting my anguished silence as he pleased, Henrik muttered lowly as if talking to himself. Then he took a step back. As if seeping in. Into a place even darker than the twilight streaming in from the window. And he turned towards the exit. I, who had no words to refute anyway, just watched his retreating back. I wished I could push that back away with my gaze.

“I wonder if you know.”

Henrik, who had paused for a moment with the door open, suddenly spoke to me.

“Actually, a woman like you is the flower that those of my kind desire most.”

After muttering those incomprehensible words to himself, he added just before closing the door, pointing at himself with his finger.

“A cowardly cripple, you said.”

I know that. I just furrowed my brow without answering. With a thud, his lingering smile looked flatter and more fleeting than ever.

And I had no intention of waiting any longer. Before the sound of the closing door had even faded, I sprang up from my seat and approached the table, half running. The letter obtained at last after a long wait. Even though I was just picking up a thin sheet of paper whose sender I didn’t even know, let alone the contents, my fingertips trembled incessantly.

I stood there blankly for quite a long time, holding it. For some reason, I didn’t dare to open the letter. I just bit my lips for nothing.

It was strange.

Although I was finally left alone, a peculiar anxiety different from before was creeping over me. It wasn’t that I feared the old man who had left the castle. Rather, the tension rose up to my throat at the thought that it might actually be a letter sent by Johannes, to the point where my heart felt stifled.

Do you perhaps know?

In those days, I would occasionally beg the old man inwardly. To just slit my throat instead of doing this to me. To cut open my belly like before.

To just kill me.

Nonsense.

An absurd wish. Fear was not so simple. Like when I faced Johannes turned into a devil in the middle of the night, fear was closer to an absolute command that binds a person’s arms, legs, and brain the moment they face it. But asking to be killed? No way.

When faced with the old man’s knife, I wanted to live. I truly wanted to live like mad. Seeing his belt slowly unfasten like a vicious whip, I could have licked the tips of his feet, throwing away all pride and dignity. Ah, with each passing minute and second, I was stamped down to the bottom, becoming less than even a mayfly.

I wanted to go back. Day and night, I felt like I would die from missing Johannes.

How many times did I curse God for pushing us into the same boat, saying He had no discernment? Did we perhaps commit some sin in a past life to be born of the same blood? I don’t know how many times I prayed to atone for sins I didn’t even know.

In the end, in darkness blacker than night, I wished a hundred, a thousand times for the loneliness I could no longer choose. That I would rather stay by your side and at least see your face. That I would just stay locked up in the women’s quarters like before, as if dead. And what always blocked such weakness was, again, Johannes.

That face, that name, which I faced again no matter how many times I circled around, as if it were the final destination of fate.

Maybe you’ll get angry. You’ll be sad.

I didn’t have the confidence to show him my battered and broken body. I was concerned about Johannes, who would obviously suffer more no matter what form I took. No.

…No! It’s all a lie!

I was so afraid of the wounds I might receive, not Johannes. I thought Johannes might look at me with contempt. It felt like Johannes would tear me apart just as I had done to him.

After abandoning someone like that, serves you right.

A voice I would never hear seemed to strike my ears. Ah, what if he just turned away? The mere thought was horrifying. More than anything else, I feared his back. I couldn’t bear how shameful and painful his back was, as if it was tearing apart my chest.

What should I do, Johannes?

Something welled up from inside my chest. Though trembling, my fingertips were careful in their loneliness. Having finally steeled my resolve, I opened the letter wide. But…

Blank.

Not a single line was written on the letter. The breath that had been stifled burst out. I couldn’t understand what was right before my eyes.

It was when darkness had filled the empty space with no one around that I barely came to my senses and lay down on the armchair next to me. I didn’t even think to light a candle.

I just pulled my legs up onto the chair. The expectations I had unknowingly raised high were crushed, and even the sudden questions were cleared away. I was just dumbfounded. As if cold water had swept through, something welled up from inside my empty chest.

That night.

Until I fell asleep, gathering up my empty shell of a body, I knew nothing.