Chapter 26
With every word, her mind grew clearer. It felt as though everything that had happened until now had all been leading to this very moment.
“What? That’s not what matters right now! That beast needs to be dealt with first—!”
“Stop it!”
Tina screamed suddenly.
“I don’t want to hear it. Please — just be quiet!”
Her voice trembled, sharp with fury. Her clenched fists shook.
The creature who had tried to kill her was now trying to insult what she held most dear.
Was it because she believed all of this was a dream? Every word that left her mouth was clearer than ever before.
“……”
After her scream, silence crashed down at once. Even Danian, who had been twisting wildly, went completely still. Even he must have instinctively sensed something that frightened him.
“But now, I think I can finally understand you, Brother.”
“…What?”
“I never had anything precious before. So I didn’t know. But now I do. When someone insults what’s precious to you, when someone tries to take it away… it feels truly terrible.” [1]
The words pouring from Tina’s mouth were like an incantation drifting through the air, aimed at no one, not at another person, not at herself.
[All the bad things will be nothing but a dream.]
At some point, the words the man from her dreams had spoken began to fill her mind entirely. This was all a dream. Whatever she did, whatever terrible thing she committed, it would all vanish once she woke. Surely, it was a dream.
The man who had appeared like a dream and taught her ecstasy, and her brother, now broken before her eyes. For Tina, it all connected as one continuous dream. The sweet moments and the suffocating scene before her both felt impossibly distant from reality.
If this weren’t a dream, how could the man who had always looked down on her now gaze up at her with such desperation?
And so she didn’t have to be afraid of anything. For the first time, a moment had arrived when that was permitted. This moment was something the man from her dreams had given to her alone.
“Rus.”
Tina murmured in a low, calm voice. Since none of this was real, she didn’t need to hesitate about anything.
As it happened, a massive beast stood at her side, towering well above her waist. The beast that had always guarded her. Her beast alone. When had Rus grown this large? In truth, it didn’t matter. What she knew was this: the name someone had once called Rus — “The Monster of the Winter Mountain” — somehow suited him perfectly.
“You can do whatever you want.”
In a flash, a massive shadow lunged at Danian. A face that vanished without a single scream. Blood soaking the room. The sensation of that spattered blood wetting the tops of her feet.
And then all of it faded, dimly, like a distant story. Tina lost consciousness.
She couldn’t remember much after that. Everything simply drifted faintly, like a low-quality dream.
***
“Hah— hah—”
Tina came to again with ragged breaths. Her entire vision was blurred, as though watercolors had bled across it. Her head throbbed, ready to split open. Her thoughts refused to flow in the right direction.
“Slowly. Breathe out slowly.”
Then, a hot, broad hand covered her trembling one. Its owner stroked her lower back slowly, helping her steady her breathing. It was a tender touch.
“Hah, hah… hh…”
Struggling to reclaim steady breaths, she clutched desperately at the man’s neck. It felt as though she would suffocate if she didn’t lean against something. Instinctive terror engulfed her.
“I- I… my brother, I—”
“Calm down. No one can hurt you.”
The man pulled Tina tightly into his arms. His embrace was tender, yet unwavering in its strength.
“Nothing happened. You don’t know anything. You did nothing wrong.”
“I— I…”
“It’s all right. Think of it all as a terrible dream.”
Like someone standing before a dying campfire, clinging desperately, after a long while, Tina gradually found her calm. Her displaced breathing slowly found its rhythm again.
“…Hold me.”
Tina pressed her lips deep into the man’s neck as she spoke. She was still afraid. She had steadied her breathing, but it felt as though the nightmare-like memories would devour her the instant she let her guard down.
“……”
Before her desperation, the man said nothing. He only watched Tina for a long, long time with deep, still eyes.
“Like yesterday… no, like that time. Hold me like that.”
Tina clung to his body and spoke again, pleading.
In her dizzied state, Tina couldn’t tell whether that moment when their bodies had entwined in endless warmth had been yesterday, or much longer ago.
Yet even so, she wanted that warmth now more than she had ever wanted anything. That searing, scalding heat. She craved, from the deepest part of her chest, the thing that could swallow her whole and render her incapable of thought.
Tina frantically sought the man’s lips, pressed hers to his, and clumsily pushed her tongue inside. Her mind was consumed by a single thought: she wanted that heat to devour every part of her, quickly.
This was not the quiet, empty cave where she had shared the night with the man. Her brother might still be in the next room. The blood on the floor might swallow the entire estate. Her sins might bind her and choke the breath from her all winter long.
“Hurry, hurry, give me more…”
But the heat rising through her body pulled her away from reality. She simply craved more. Something harder, something that would reach her deepest place, and nothing else.
Translation Notes:
[1] ↩
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