Chapter 25
“Mmm…”
Tina woke to every inch of her body screaming in protest. She must have cried out so much through the night that even the briefest moan came out hoarse.
“You’re awake.”
She rubbed her eyes, and as her focus returned, the man came into view before her. He looked utterly composed, not a hair out of place. It was like everything that had happened the night before had been her doing alone.
“I wish I could let you rest longer, but we can’t stay here much longer.”
“Hm?”
“I don’t want those who hunt me to harm you as well.”
Tina listened in a daze. A buzzing in her head made it difficult for the words to register. Others who hunted him? What did that mean?
“…My body feels strange. It keeps getting hotter.”
Tina murmured in her hazy state. A strange heat coiled through her from the tips of her toes to the crown of her head.
“You probably won’t feel like yourself for a while. The power I shared with you… that is simply its nature.”
The man said something she couldn’t comprehend, so she blinked quietly. Drowsiness was washing over her again.
“It’s all right. When you open your eyes, everything will be back to the way it was. All the bad things will be nothing but a dream.”
Tina couldn’t ask what he meant. Heavy drowsiness had already settled over her eyelids.
“…Rus?”
And when Tina opened her eyes again, everything was exactly as the man had said.
The soft touch of blankets wrapped around her skin; a snowstorm raging beyond the window as though it had nothing to do with her; and above all, the small creature breathing softly before her eyes. Rus.
Everything that met her gaze was achingly familiar and ordinary. She had returned, at some point, to her own room in the estate. To her bed.
“How… how did…”
Her words trailed off into nothing. Her mind was soft and muddled like cotton, and her sense of time felt worn away to nothing. The air was warm, and the blankets against her skin were gentle.
Caught in the peculiar sensation of still being submerged in a dream — or perhaps of having woken from one to face reality — Tina blinked her bleary eyes.
And amid it all, the clearest thing she could see was the small living creature right before her nose. Soft, rhythmic breaths, glittering yellow eyes, a little one watching her with a gently wagging tail. Rus was there, right in front of her.
“You must have been so worried.”
Rus let out a small whimper and burrowed into her arms. Tina buried her forehead in that long fur. A soft warmth seeped through her skin, and her tense muscles melted away.
“Thank goodness…”
The murmur slipped out. The strange, anxious sensation from moments ago had already faded as though it had been nothing more than a passing nightmare. Only the crisp calm of late winter air surrounded her now.
“Hm? What is it?”
But that warmth didn’t linger long. Rus wriggled out from under the covers and jumped off the bed, then began tugging at the hem of her skirt.
Still feeling as though she were suspended in a dream, Tina wanted to brush off Rus’s insistence. She just wanted to pull him close and succumb to the lure of deep sleep.
But Rus was persistent, tugging at the hem of her skirt with his teeth, insisting there was something she absolutely had to see. Out the door, into the hallway, pulling her along again and again.
In the end, Tina had no choice but to surrender. Though drowsiness still lapped at the edges of her vision, she let her beloved creature’s urging guide her steps.
“…Brother?”
And when she finally followed Rus to the room next door, she froze completely.
Her half-brother was right before her eyes. Through her hazy vision, she saw Danian bound and restrained, his face covered in blood.
“Mmph! Mmph!”
A thick cloth had been shoved into his mouth like a gag, and copious drool dripped from its edges. His bloodshot eyes and violently trembling lips strained desperately to scream something.
“…Why.”
Before what could have been Danian’s screams or curses, Tina stood rigid for a moment, unable to grasp the situation.
“Why are you here like this, Brother…”
Too much information collided at once, and her mind refused to process it all. Tina walked slowly toward the grotesquely disheveled Danian. Then, as he convulsed violently, she carefully lowered the gag from his mouth.
“Ugh! Hah, hah. Yustina, untie me this instant!”
Danian screamed immediately. His voice, ugly and cracked, bounced off the walls.
“Hkh— gah! You brought that… that filthy beast in here! Kill it! Kill it right now!”
“…What are you—”
Tina stared at him as he screamed, veins bulging red across his face. The sweat, dust, and blood that covered him entirely made Danian look like a man who had lost his mind.
“How dare you bring that monster in here!”
Danian thrashed in his chair as though he would launch himself free at any second.
“Before I really kill you too, untie me this in—!”
Before his words could finish landing, Tina felt something click into place somewhere in the back of her mind. It was like a forgotten puzzle piece sliding perfectly into the gap. Fragments of memory took shape and rushed toward her.
“Brother…”
The person who had pushed her off a cliff. The person who had tried to sell her off while she was still injured. And now, the person who was spitting in her face, screaming ‘monster’ at the one most precious to her.
That person was right before her. Bound. Helpless.
“I must have been truly abhorrent to you. Enough to push me off a cliff in the winter mountains, even knowing I could die.”
Tina spoke in a hollow voice. The eyes that looked down on him were emptier than they had ever been.
“Even so, I still thought of you as family, Brother.”
“What the hell are you going on about?! Untie me right now!”
“Am I not family to you, Brother?”
Tina gazed down at the bound Danian with flat, emotionless eyes.
“Even when you tore apart and burned every piece of clothing Mother left behind. Even when you locked me in the cellar for days without water, just for the fun of it. Even when you struck me with a whip because something displeased you. You were still family to me, Brother.”[1]
Translation notes:
[1] ↩
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