SALP Chapter 7

"I brought Lanthe sis, my lord!"

Nina knocked on the large, heavy door and called out. She glanced sideways at Lanthe with a grin at the gatekeeper, who grinned back. They seemed to have some understanding between them. Whatever deep bond existed between the fierce-looking knight and a nine-year-old girl was beyond knowing.

"Go on in, Nina."

The gatekeeper gave permission to enter even though the room's owner hadn't answered.

Creak.

Nina turned the handle and pushed the door open with both hands.

"Pardon us."

Lanthe, standing awkwardly beside her, spoke quietly and stepped into the room.

Dazzling sunlight poured out from inside. She squinted against it, her eyes accustomed to dim interiors, and then cold wind rushed in with a whoosh, striking her face. It felt like she'd stepped outside rather than into a room. She quickly found the source of the sunlight and wind—a large window on the right side of the room stood wide open.

"I brought Lanthe sis!"

Nina announced the completion of her mission again, cheerfully and firmly.

"Good afternoon, my lord!"

Vigo sat before a black desk in the center of the large room. His chair was turned toward the window, so only his profile was visible.

It was a distinctive room. Grand-looking, somehow hollow. Probably because aside from the furniture lining the walls, there was only one desk in the wide center. One wall had large double glass windows, while the opposite wall featured shelves and cabinets with magnificent gold-trimmed borders, displaying all manner of books and sculptures freely.

"Good work. Off you go, Nina." He didn't look up.

"Then I'll leave you two to talk in peace. I'm going to see the reindeer."

For some reason delighted, Nina even lifted the hem of her skirt and curtsied.

When she left and the door closed, silence settled.

A moment later—flip—a single page turning. Lanthe pulled her wool coat tighter and spoke.

"Aren't you cold?"

He sat reading a letter with his shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest. A thick fur was draped over his shoulders, but watching him sit there completely unbothered with his face and bare skin exposed to the cold wind made her feel colder.

"I was surprised when Nina told me yesterday. That Vigo is the lord here."

Actually, he'd changed so much that addressing him familiarly felt a bit awkward. Still, silence felt more awkward, so she kept talking pointlessly. In the past, she'd never been silent even for a moment when she was with him. They'd had so much to talk about they could chatter all day.

It's amazing you're a lord. You seem to be doing well. Those kinds of words were somehow difficult.

In case it sounded like she was reproaching him—why didn't you visit home when you were doing so well—even though that was a little bit true.

"...Surprised?"

After a pause, Vigo set the letter down on the desk and laughed low. 

He really did seem like a stranger. The darker hair, the more defined features, the strong jawline, the long thick neck continuing below it, the outline of his solid body.

If she'd met him like this for the first time, without encountering him yesterday—would she have even recognized him as Vigo?

He glanced sideways at her.

"Not as surprised as learning you became Gebimonde's woman."

"What?"

Gebimonde, out of nowhere? She'd heard the name, but it was absurd.

He must mean Pavel Gebimonde. The lord of the vast Raphelik territory. As the head of the Penmark Allied Kingdoms to which Derek belonged, the one who held Oden's supremacy. Fiarelle had once spoken with hostility about how he was currently winning the people's hearts through good governance, but was an ambitious man planning to become Penmark's first emperor and wield absolute power.

"How am I that kind of person's..."

When Lanthe trailed off with a confused expression, Vigo narrowed his eyes.

"That necklace you're wearing. Isn't it his?"

His insolent gaze and his extended index finger—both landed on her chest. 

Lanthe looked down at her own chest.

Only then did she notice the small gold pendant of the long necklace.

"Ah."

She'd completely forgotten she was wearing a necklace engraved with his family crest. Of course she had. She'd escaped Newbella in confusion and slept for four days after. While eating and dressing as the maid helped her, she hadn't properly examined her own body. Looking at oneself in mirrors was something only people of a certain class did anyway.

"I heard you're engaged to marry the younger Gebimonde."

He pinned her with an indifferent curl of his lips.

"No!"

Lanthe grabbed the necklace chain like touching something filthy and ripped it off, throwing it away. Clink—the necklace hit the floor and slid across the gleaming surface, rolling all the way under the desk where he sat.

She hadn't known Derek's surname. Fiarelle had always gone on at length about his plans but never taught her his family name.

"I'm not, I'm not that man's woman. He's..."

Vigo's gaze, looking somewhat surprised, traced her reaction.

"He's insane. A crazy person. Going on about reviving Raphlang or whatever, Roas, Roas..."

Her breathing grew uncontrollably rough.

She stopped speaking, her shoulders heaving. If she kept talking, it felt like tears would burst out disgracefully.

Vigo just watched her quietly. His expression was serious, but showed no sign of being moved even after hearing the name of his hometown. Hearing the name "Roas," he seemed unable to feel the same emotions she did anymore.

Under his cold gaze, Lanthe's head cooled and she bit her back teeth before continuing.

"Roas burned down and is gone. He murdered Aunt Louise and the village chief. Erin and the young children too, all of them probably."

He harmed them.

Silence surrounded them both again.

Realizing her nails were digging into her palms, Lanthe released the tension from her hands.

"I see."

The voice that came back was deeply sunken. His shoulders, which had been large enough to intimidate when he'd loomed over her yesterday pressing her into the bed, rose slowly and fell.

He exhaled a soundless sigh and turned his gaze to the window.

An expressionless profile. Eyes whose thoughts she couldn't read. Those violet eyes that had always brimmed with abundant emotions—kindness and affection and compassion and fear—now looked completely empty. The boy who'd had the most readable expressions in the world...

"Alina died the year before last."

Lanthe hesitated, then added quietly. Vigo's adoptive mother who'd raised him wasn't a victim of this incident.

"She caught pneumonia."

"I see..."

Even at the news of the old woman's death—the one he'd loved, calling her mother, mother—Vigo only answered quietly, "I see." His eyes glittered in the sunlight as though holding moisture, but only for a moment.

Soon his eyes as he looked at her again seemed utterly dry. As dry as Newbella's lukewarm, parched wind.

"So."

His low voice struck near her ear like a tap.

"You ran away because you were dissatisfied with Gebimonde."

A voice that seemed faintly tinged with mockery.

Ran away? The words dried up entirely.

Lanthe stared at him blankly. She was already flustered that he'd summarized and dismissed the events in her hometown so simply, and now she'd heard something completely incomprehensible.

Ran away? Dissatisfied? Were the crimes Derek committed the kind that could be diluted with such a light tone?

"...I risked my life to escape, Vigo."

She parted her dried lips and continued quietly.

"I threw myself into the lake prepared to die to get away from the man who destroyed my family and hometown. Do Penmarkians call this running away?"

Ten years. It wasn't a short time. But she didn't think it was enough to completely change a person's soul.

Vigo seemed to have become a different person.

The low temperature she felt from his violet eyes, the size of the hand toying with the armrest, the jewels and gold buttons decorating his glossy fur coat extravagantly... not one thing belonged to the him she'd known.

"Lanthe, you were lucky."

The most lovable Raphlishian. You.

"I was lucky...?"

Could you change this much?

"Don't you think you're lucky you survived and can become a queen?"

Survived.

"Who said I want to be a queen? He just wants to use me to satisfy his greed."

She'd been breathing without any chance to feel joy at having survived.

She'd reunited with the boy she'd lost, but he wouldn't give her time to say thank you for being alive.

"Use you how?"

She felt no warmth from his smile—perfect as something painted on. His eyes narrowing like a crescent moon reflecting the cold season of water felt unfamiliar.

Lanthe felt utterly bewildered facing this changed him.

Should she tell him? She hesitated.

You're a princess? Raphlang's princess? So what? Wouldn't she just be mocked?

"How did you get all the way to the Northern Sea?"

He changed the question.

"I don't know. I don't remember well."

This time she answered without hesitation. She knew her words would be interpreted as a refusal to answer. But it was somewhat true anyway.

Vigo nodded slightly as if unconcerned and said,

"If you don't want to talk about it, fine. The fact that you're safe is what matters."

"Thank you for rescuing me..."

"Save your thanks for your fiancé. Gebimonde said he's grateful I rescued you and will give me 20,000 krone as a token of his appreciation."

"What...?"

"He'll arrive tomorrow or the day after. He said he'll come get you himself."

"How does he..."

How did he know to come here?

Goosebumps rose on her arms, forgetting the cold.

"Who knows. I heard he keeps a useful prophet."

He looked down at the letter on the desk with lowered eyes. His eyes, suffused with the reddening evening sky, looked deep and dark.

"Anyway, rest well today. It may be a humble castle compared to Newbella's palace, but it's more comfortable than Roas, isn't it?"

He spoke in a deliberately kind tone and gave a lukewarm eye-smile.

"It was good to see you, Lanthe."