SALP Chapter 28

6. Season of Reprieve

"What? The Lord will not attend the monthly meeting?"

White vestments with golden tree embroidery. Must be a priest of Batiya.

Lanthe hastily lifted her book to hide her face. It was the moment her eyes met the Batiya priest conversing with Rix in the garden visible through the luxurious full glass wall. Of course, her ears remained perked towards those beyond the glass window.

"Ah, yes. As you know, the Lord was slightly injured fighting monsters during his recent Northern Sea inspection and is convalescing."

Rix's voice came through, answering in a deliberately haughty tone. It was quite different from his attitude before Vigo or Lanthe.

"Convalescing... I see."

The priest's troubled voice made her flinch for no reason.

She peeked outside with just her eyes above the book.

The priest had good reason to be flustered. The Lord's appearance he was currently witnessing was far from that of a patient convalescing.

"Hmm."

Vigo sat in an armchair with both legs stretched long atop the table, looking at a picture book. A fur coat with glossy sheen draped precariously like a cape over his broad shoulders, his shirt was unbuttoned brazenly down to his solar plexus where bandages were wrapped, and his feet wagging on the table wore slippers with toes fully exposed.

"Yaaawn."

He opened his mouth wide and yawned with sleepy eyes. His hair was a complete bird's nest from lying down half-dried after bathing last night.

Even a neighborhood miscreant wouldn't look more slovenly than that.

"He should rest in his room. Why rest where everyone passing by outside can see him..."

Lanthe muttered quietly so he wouldn't hear.

She'd already tried persuading him several times to rest in his room, but it hadn't worked at all, so she'd given up. Now all she could do to protest was grumble to herself and occasionally glare at him.

"What are you staring at?"

But Vigo actually scolded her boldly for glaring at him.

"It's not like you've only seen my face for a day or two."

If only that mouth of his would shut.

"Mm. Convalescing..."

The Batiya priest trying hard to accept this was pitiful.

"Regrettably so, but haha. Our Lord is such a faithful devotee, isn't he? He'll definitely attend next month's Batiya Temple monthly meeting."

A conversation that embarrassed her to hear continued. While Rix stood guard outside the glass wall, several passersby threw similar concerns and questions at him before moving on.

And about an hour later.

"Aren't you feeling unwell? Aren't you getting too much cold air for too long? Wouldn't it be better to go back to your room?"

She couldn't take it anymore.

Lanthe tried again to get Vigo back to his room somehow.

"I don't have a cold. What's the big deal?"

He brushed it off carelessly again and glanced at her.

"Is our prisoner perhaps feeling cold?"

"Right. I'm cold, so I'm going inside now."

I'd rather not watch. At least I should escape.

The moment she stood up.

"Where are you running off to?"

He grabbed her arm firmly.

"To scheme and conspire with which guys again?"

No, why make her suffer embarrassment too?

"Rix has been following me around all day—who am I conspiring with about what?"

At her rebellion, his eyes sharpened slightly.

"Until now, that guy's been stuck to you every day, but you met Skaeli and even plotted to escape to Floretta with her."

She'd heard this story ten times in the past two days.

"It was just something that came up once spontaneously."

"Wake up. I've lived through it."

But this was new.

"Floretta?"

Lanthe stopped her fleeing steps at Vigo's words.

"I used to live there."

"Really...?"

"Yeah. You absolutely couldn't survive there."

You absolutely can't—his low voice rang bleakly through the chilly indoor air.

"When did you live in Floretta?"

She asked, standing beside him suspiciously.

"...At first."

Vigo released her hand.

As if nothing had happened, he returned his gaze to the picture book and continued speaking while leisurely turning pages.

"After I left Roas, the place I went was Floretta. I lived there two, three years maybe. After that, I came to Hermea."

He was telling his story for the first time.

About his past that Lanthe didn't know. About the whereabouts of the disappeared boy that everyone in Roas had wondered about.

But a strange sense of discord shook her chest turbulently.

Hadn't he just said it was the first place he went after he 'left' Roas? As if he'd left Roas of his own accord, erasing the existence of whoever had lured and kidnapped him as a young child from the story.

But she held her breath and listened quietly. Afraid he might close his mouth now that he'd finally opened up about himself.

"Well, getting Floretta citizenship isn't difficult. It's somewhat true that rewards are given according to effort and ability."

He was looking at the picture book but didn't turn the page. His eyes seemed to gaze at a distant world beyond the picture.

"But think about it. If you had to fight all the people in the world on equal terms to survive, how long do you think you'd last?"

A question that could only be thought to stem from something twisting his thoughts.

"Do you have to fight?"

At her hesitant answer, he laughed without sound.

"The number of loaves is fixed. If a milk-reeking ten-year-old has to compete equally with knights who've rolled around battlefields for ten years, what would that be like? To get even one slice of your own bread, you'd barely have a possibility even if you alone picked up a sword. You could beg or steal, but the three types the Floretta Lord hates most are beggars, thieves, and orphans."

"That's a lie."

Lanthe snapped back before he even finished.

But her voice faded uncertainly.

Which is the truth?

Hadn't they called it a 'free city'? Fiarelle had talked about Floretta as if it were a city of dreams and hope. Even if Lanthe didn't trust her completely, she respected the vast knowledge she possessed.

That Fiarelle had called Floretta a 'free city'—the 'rival' cited as capable of checking Pavel Gebimonde's ambition to reign as an all-powerful ruler. It wasn't a subjective statement. It came up while explaining the 'reputation' created by people of the world, by Florettan citizens.

"You think I'm lying?"

I don't know.

Lanthe couldn't answer his question rashly.

"You think it's a lie, don't you? That Floretta is actually a city of dreams and hope, a modern paradise on earth."

As if reading Lanthe's mind, he pressed on with a raised lip corner.

"My mother believed that too, until she was twenty."

"Your birth mother...?"

At her question, he nodded silently.

"You lived in Floretta with your mother..."

Again he nodded.

"Then maybe ten years ago too... That day, did your mother come to Roas and take you away?"

Vigo silently raised his eyes slightly. Beyond the glass wall where his gaze pointed, there was nothing but bare trees. Only Rix's back as he peered curiously at an empty nest the birds had left.

"......"

Time seemed to stop.

Because he gazed quietly at empty space for a long while without even blinking.

When he finally blinked slowly and drew new air into his lungs after a long moment, time felt like it flowed again.

"No."

At last he spoke, narrowing his eyes. With eyes holding that smile devoid of warmth.

"That woman was a witch."

A lie...

"While boiling water to eat me, she fell into the cauldron and died."

He's lying.

Her chest ached as she looked at his cold profile.

She felt a little frightened and pitiful toward him for speaking harsh words about his birth mother who'd lived with him.

What on earth happened? What kind of time has he spent since leaving Roas until now that he...

"Anyway, what I want to tell you is this."

Vigo returned to his lightly swaggering attitude and began turning pages again.

"Wake up."

Lanthe glared at the direction he'd been looking at earlier with her mouth firmly closed.

She didn't know what he'd just been looking at. She didn't know what he'd experienced or where until now.

As long as he didn't tell her, she would never know.

But if he said neither here nor there would accept her, what was she supposed to do?

Was living as a trophy in the hands of the one who trampled her homeland the only future she could choose?

"That can't be..."

Lanthe murmured quietly, gazing at the blurred garden scenery.

The landscape of the outside world was losing color day by day, growing darker and paler. Rain from last night had seeped into the shaded wall and become thin ice, gleaming.

In just a few more days, the rain would turn to snow.

The blade of the season when everyone would be unable to budge, trapped inside the castle, had approached right to their feet.