Chapter 41
* * *
“Uncle.”
Igor’s feet landed on the battlements of the spire this time.
Gazing silently at the vast, blue-gray forest far in the distance, Laegar did not so much as acknowledge his nephew’s call.
Igor used to laugh, thinking that if you split open his uncle’s head and peered inside, sticky, dark hellish tar would stretch out like a swamp, like an abyss.
But this time, confident he wouldn’t be ignored, Igor stretched his lips into a long grin and tattled.
“Lucy—no, Eredite—is getting married off to the west.”
As expected, his prediction was not wrong. Laegar’s gaze slid slowly toward him.
Giggling maliciously like a frost demon, the nephew prodded his uncle.
“Seems it’s some Margrave Rubel or whatever, guarding the canyon. The wedding’s in a month. Are you really going to let it happen?”
As he spoke, Igor felt a little irritated himself and tilted his head, continuing his muttering.
Why the hell is he just staying still?
Had that blind territorial drive of his uncle’s all vanished now?
Or did such a drive simply not apply to a woman?
Rambling cheekily, Igor suddenly shrank his shoulders at the violent gust of wind sweeping around the narrow tower. But having steeled himself to say what he had to, he kept shouting even as the fierce whirlwind swept him into the air.
“Don’t tell me—you’ve got some idiotic idea that you’re waiting for Eredite to ambush you again first? Mmph…!”
Spitting out the pebble that had lodged in his mouth, Igor screeched in a frenzy.
“Eredite’s a realist, I tell you! She knows she can’t do anything against us. So she’s about to leave. If you’re waiting around for fate to tangle you together again, that’s truly the dumbest thing in the world!”
Clinging with one hand to the battlement, flapping wildly against the fierce wind Laegar had summoned, Igor threw his final trump card.
“In one month, Eredite will be another man’s wife… ack! …Aaaaagh!”
A strong wind that stole even his breath finally hurled Igor into the air.
The persistent boy, plummeting headfirst from the dizzying tower, still shrieked at the top of his lungs.
“Aaaaagh! Don’t just stand there staring like a sulky little girl—go bring her back! You’re so good at taking land—aaaaaagh!”
This last remark scraped somewhere deep inside Laegar.
His gray pupils flared a dark, burning red—like coal set ablaze. The crow messengers, perched on nearby branches and watching the two bicker, shrieked and scattered into the air, desperate not to be caught in the gale.
Only after Igor vanished did the murderous wind—the embodiment of Laegar’s temper—gradually subside.
But a single phrase remained, echoing in his ears like a tinnitus, ringing a thousand, ten thousand times.
‘She’ll be another man’s wife… another man’s wife… another’s wife….’
Smooth as a plaster statue, Laegar’s brow hardened coldly.
Only then did he realize: that Eredite would sharpen her blade of vengeance and storm all the way here—that was a delusion, close to fantasy.
He had been lost in helpless self-comfort.
“…A realist, you say.”
The Eredite of now was not Lucy, who had brazenly beat upon his chest.
He had realized that, too, watching her image projected through the crystal orb by Alfredo all this time.
Her true nature was far different from Lucy’s. So she would not fume in anger and come back to him, protesting.
He raised a cold hand and pressed at his brow, as if correcting the bleak thoughts pooling there.
* * *
Time flowed swiftly, and before she knew it, the day had come for Eredite to depart for the domain of Margrave Rubel.
By Edawin’s command, the maids adorned Eredite within the bounds of what would not further disgrace the honor of the Haldegard royal house.
To conceal the shameful secret that his sister had rolled in the Demon King’s arms, Edawin had lavished her with silks, jewels, and pearls without restraint.
Draped in a cream satin dress under a fur cloak, she turned before boarding the carriage and looked around at the tower, the ramparts, the guardhouse—the places where she had spent her days since childhood.
‘Leave without a fuss.’
As per Edawin’s grim warning, it was a departure in the deep dawn, told to no one—so not a single soul had come to see her off.
As she let out a long breath, something white like frost bloomed in the air.
She looked once at Watch Tower, once toward the distant Belluk territory, then lowered her gaze to her own body.
Seeing herself wrapped in ill-fitting jewels and silk, a bitter taste spread in her mouth—once again, she felt like a tool being discarded.
Eredite glanced at the maids and the few escort knights craning their necks as they waited for her, then silently climbed into the carriage.
The carriage, embossed after its own fashion with the crest of the Haldegard royal house, at last began rattling down the rugged mountain road, and she closed her eyes.
Sent here at eight years old—to a place little better than exile—she was now leaving what had become something like home.
A cold wind blew through the gaps in the carriage, piercing straight into her chest, leaving the area around her heart raw and aching.
At the same time, countless thoughts stormed through her head.
Should she throw herself out now and seize freedom?
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