Chapter 14
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“Is it really okay to go out?”
One day, after three weeks without showing so much as the tip of his nose, Igor came to find Lucy while Laegar was absent.
“I said it’s fine! When you think about it, the Grand Ducal Castle’s owner is me!”
He coaxed her into going out to the forest to ride horses. After tilting her head in hesitation briefly, Lucy ultimately followed Igor out.
As he said, Igor had been the master of the Grand Duchy before Laegar arrived here—in fact, he still was the master—so the maids could say nothing to their lord either.
Lucy, who had never been out except to the central courtyard of the bedchamber, finally stepped outside the castle for the first time in a month.
“Wow.”
A biting wind blew, but stepping on the thickly piled snow, Lucy felt deeply at ease.
She felt as though she had always been in a place like this. If anything, the warm and cozy bedchamber she currently inhabited still felt like an unfamiliar environment she had to adapt to.
Seeing Lucy looking delighted, Igor curved his eyes and sought her agreement.
“See, I told you it’d be fun coming out?”
When she nodded and bounced on her feet, he immediately made a meaningful proposal.
“The horses are ready. How about riding around a bit, then coming back to the forest to hunt foxes?”
Lucy’s eyes rounded and she asked back.
“Do I know how to ride a horse?”
Igor giggled quietly and added slyly.
“I’d say you do.”
At his whistle, attendants who had been waiting somewhere appeared, leading two horses.
Seeing the brown horse presented before her, Lucy flinched and stepped back without realizing it.
But the horse—large-boned and tautly muscled like a warhorse—simply blinked meek eyes at her as if it recognized her, then began nuzzling her mane incessantly. Its snorts and puffs of breath seemed like expressions of delight.
Lucy’s hand unconsciously reached out and began stroking the horse’s mane.
Everything felt natural.
An unidentifiable longing and joy surged forth, rippling inside her chest.
But no related memories surfaced at all.
“Could I really ride such a big horse?”
At Lucy’s continued questions, Igor laughed, his shoulders shaking, and then leaped onto his own horse as if to show off.
At the glance urging her to hurry and mount, Lucy, after a moment’s hesitation, squeezed her eyes shut and jumped onto the saddle.
Astonishingly, she knew how to mount a horse. And skillfully, at that.
Her view elevated, she looked down at the wide-open landscape. As she felt the entirely snow-covered, silver-white scenery was somehow familiar, Lucy furrowed her brow.
Then, to catch up with Igor who had already gone ahead, she instinctively spurred her horse and raced out.
Feeling the cool wind rush into her chest, she laughed out loud.
Cold granules of snow scattered across her face and the whip-like wind clawed past her ears—yet it was nothing but exhilarating.
It was as if she had found a lost piece of herself, and her chest tingled as though some memory might come back at any moment.
Feeling a freedom that seemed ready to burst, Lucy screamed with joy and galloped, and Igor too bounded around her excitedly.
“Igor! I can ride this horse!”
As if utterly unable to believe it, Lucy kept exclaiming in wonder. Igor mostly avoided her gaze, mumbling in an uncharacteristically faint voice.
“…Because you used to ride it.”
But Lucy, having caught the words by some miracle, repeated the answer.
“I see…. I used to ride it…!”
So that was why she felt déjà vu while riding.
Igor, who simply wanted to play together, had a feeling that terrible things would happen if he produced an outcome his uncle disliked, so he quickly changed the subject.
“Let’s go that way!”
In truth, the horse Lucy was riding was her own warhorse—the very one she’d ridden when she had ambushed Igor and Laegar. Back then, the horse had veered aside to avoid the wave of demonic energy, and Eredite—no, Lucy—had taken the full brunt of that power.
Afterward, Igor had searched for the warhorse roaming the plains and had been taking care of it inside the Grand Ducal Castle.
Unintentionally, he had captured both the enemy commander and her horse, and now could play with them.
Watching Lucy ride the horse skillfully while doing nothing but marvel, completely oblivious to her past, Igor’s lips stretched into a grin.
Having gotten fresh air for the first time in a long while, she seemed utterly absorbed in riding.
They galloped across the plains and over hilltops for a good while. When the wind began to pick up, Igor suggested heading back into the forest to begin fox hunting.
But just as they were about to turn their horses around, a few crows descended and transformed into human shapes, blocking their path.
“Damn it! Alfredo!”
Igor’s face went pale. They were the attendants serving Laegar.
It seemed he had returned from outside the castle far sooner than expected.
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