Chapter 169
He could have simply left her there and gone on, but he had already stepped into the muddy water and dirtied his clothes.
He did not want to make his own effort meaningless.
He walked beneath a large, beautiful tree while being soaked by the drizzling rain.
During that time, the little girl pouted her small lips and chattered something.
The sight of her acting arrogant while soaked to the bone by the rain was amusing, so when he lightly scolded her, her face, which had been pale enough to make his eyes ache, gained a little color.
He carefully observed that sight beneath the hood he had pulled low.
Was she about Ayla’s age?
Her height was similar to Ayla’s, but her build seemed smaller.
Through the wet fabric, he could feel a frame as thin as a bird’s.
Contrary to how she had boasted that she was the daughter of an important person, it was not difficult to guess that she was in a position where she was not being properly cared for.
“...It is none of my concern.”
Wondering at himself for feeling displeased, he bent down to set her down.
At that moment, he heard something like a small whistle.
He stopped moving and lowered his gaze to the hands she had gathered over her chest.
“What are you holding?”
The little girl, who had been looking up at him with hesitant eyes, carefully opened her hands.
Between them, something like a muddy grayish-brown bundle of fur was revealed.
He frowned.
“A bird?”
When he murmured suspiciously, the child’s cheeks flushed even darker.
“It’s because it fell into the muddy water. Originally...”
The girl, who had been trying to argue with an indignant face, soon fell silent with a dejected expression.
He could not understand why the dying bird made her sad, or why she had been holding it protectively even while being rained on.
However, the shabby bird this little girl could not bring herself to abandon reminded him of something he had lost long ago.
While immersed in a strange nostalgia, he adjusted her in one arm and pulled her small hand inside his hood.
The skin that touched his neck was cold enough to make him doubt whether blood was even circulating through it.
“Your fingers are like ice. How long were you standing there?”
As he looked down at her with a displeased expression, he met the large eyes staring straight into his own.
What was she looking at so intently?
As he made a puzzled expression, the girl murmured in a hushed voice, as if she had found a rare treasure.
“Hey... there is a silver crown inside your eyes.”
He looked back at her, speechless.
This little girl was the one with strange eyes.
They were so dark that the border between pupil and iris seemed unclear, and yet, oddly, they did not look black.
Rather, they seemed to shine with a terrifying transparency.
Suddenly, he remembered that he had seen this clear light somewhere before.
It was the light that had poured down over his head a very long time ago when he ran across the endless plains.
The moment he realized that fact, his vision became clear, as if a curtain covering his retina had been lifted.
The change happened so suddenly that he could not properly understand what was happening to him.
As he stared without even blinking at the vivid light that had suddenly flooded in, a feast of color that began from her eyes spread outward.
The next moment, he realized that the girl’s hair was a bright gold like the fields of mid-autumn.
Just as he unconsciously tried to reach for it, her head whipped around.
To keep himself from grabbing that small face and turning it back toward him, he had to clench his fist.
The girl murmured with a troubled expression.
“I have to go now.”
Her tone sounded reluctant.
If you do not want to go, you do not have to.
He nearly said that without realizing it, but closed his mouth.
She was a child he had only just met.
There was no reason to hold her back when she said she was leaving.
He slowly bent down and set her down.
The girl, standing on the ground, held out her hand toward him.
“Will you take it with you?”
He stared at the small bird lying in her palm, then carefully reached out his hand.
When he wrapped his palm around the young starling soaked with rainwater, he felt its small heart beating rapidly.
He brought the cooling little bird to his cheek and pulled his hood forward.
The little girl, who had been looking up at him silently, asked in a voice filled with strange longing.
“That bird... can it live?”
“......Yes.”
Varkas, realizing there was no certainty in his voice, added firmly,
“It will live.”
A faint smile spread across the anxious-looking girl’s face.
It was a smile that was very bright and somehow sad.
She soon turned around and began to run.
Following her receding footsteps, various colors spread their domain like paint bleeding outward.
As he stared blankly at that sight, Bernadette’s voice rang in his mind.
“Someday, the day will come when you discover something that keeps you alive.”
Impossible.
It was a meeting that had lasted only an instant.
There was no way his life would change just because he briefly crossed paths with a nameless little girl.
He let out a faint laugh and soon turned around and began walking.
The bird she had given him let out a frail cry.
He opened his collar, pressed the bird close to the hot part of his neck, and widened his stride a little more.
The path he had taken hundreds of times looked like an entirely different place.
For a moment, something like a strange dizziness rose in him.
He looked up at the few streaks of light seeping through the gray clouds, then lowered his eyelids.
***
Heavy footsteps pushed through his blurred consciousness.
Varkas, who had been making up for his lack of sleep while sitting in a chair, slowly lifted his eyelids.
He heard murmuring from beyond the rainy tent, and a short while later, a black-haired young man in golden armor pushed through the flap and appeared.
“Is it true that you pushed for peace talks?”
The Crown Prince, who had thrown his orichalcum helmet to the floor, shouted in an angry voice.
He picked up the goblet placed on the simple table and replied in an indifferent tone.
“I merely offered a proposal. The one who actually pursued the talks was His Majesty the Emperor.”
“That’s the same thing!”
The Crown Prince strode up to him and growled, his bright green eyes flashing.
“Negotiating with traitors... Are you in your right mind? Those who raised a banner against the Imperial Family should all be hanged!”
“Do you think it is realistically possible to execute every noble in the north?”
Varkas wet his lips with wine and let out a heavy sigh.
“Let us say you execute all the Balto nobles as Your Highness wishes. How do you plan to govern that vast northern territory?”
“I can bestow it as spoils on my close aides! Or divide it among the conservative nobles! There are plenty of nobles drooling to gain even a single span of land...”
“The Balto people will never accept lords of another people.”
When he replied somewhat irritably while gripping his forehead, the face of the Crown Prince, who had been flying into a rage, turned cold.
He exercised patience and added an explanation step by step.
“The north is also territory of the Empire. If the war is not stopped at this point, the damage will return to the Roem Imperial Family. Above all, an excessive response may provoke resentment among the lords.”
“Including you, you mean?”
The Crown Prince sneered, his eyes flashing.
He did not answer.
He silently looked at his younger cousin, whose mind never seemed to grow, with tired eyes, then slowly rose.
He was about to leave the tent when Gareth blocked his path.
“You pretend to care about the Roem Imperial Family, but the truth is you just want to end the war yourself. Did you think I wouldn’t know why you refused the position of commander-in-chief and only stayed near the eastern border?”
His snorting breath touched the edge of Varkas’s chin unpleasantly.
Gareth thrust his face close to his and ground his teeth as he spat,
“It is so you can go in and out of Kalmor whenever you have the chance.”
“......”
“You probably think you are the only one who knows me well. But I know you too. I have watched you for nearly twenty years.”
The Crown Prince’s green eyes darkened almost to a dark green.
Their temperaments were nothing alike, but whenever Gareth had eyes like this, he always reminded Varkas of the dead Empress.
He spoke through clenched teeth.
“Did you think I would not notice that your heart is completely somewhere else? You pushed for this meeting only for your own convenience!”
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