TRHK Chapter 8

Are you out of your mind? As if I were the irrational one.

I lowered the fanning hand with what I could only describe as sheepishness.

"A leaf actually fell onto you... I was trying to remove it..."

It was clearly an explanation and yet it sounded like an excuse. Kahron's expression of sour disbelief didn't shift. Reading the atmosphere, I quietly straightened up. As my chest lifted from pressing against his, there was a brief, soft motion that I immediately decided not to think about.

"I brought some bread—would you like some?"

The bread sold secretly to the servants by the kitchen was originally meant for the nobility, so it was very soft and very good. Seyron had managed not a single bite and had left with only a paper bag for breathing purposes, but Kahron wouldn't be needing a paper bag.

"This is the same water as before. Try some."

Kahron was still frowning, watching what I offered him without moving to take any of it. Was he worried something harmful might be in it?

"If you're worried, I'll drink first."

I lifted the bottle and demonstrated. The herb-infused water. Drinking it would improve one's mood. I wanted to take the edge off Kahron's temper a little.

Gulp. I must have been thirstier than I'd realized—I took a few extra swallows without meaning to. A drop ran down my chin and I wiped it away with my hand.

"See? No poison."

I was not going to offer him a taste of the bread by eating it first. Biting something and then handing it over as a gift struck me as mortifying.

"Ha."

Kahron laughed. On reflex I started to smile back—and then remembered this was a person entirely capable of pairing that pleasant expression with truly unpleasant behavior.

"An actual rat probably wouldn't deserve to be paid..."

He raised his hand toward my face. I went still. A palm full of calluses stroked my cheek with unexpected gentleness.

"So what exactly are you, then?"

The dark red eyes, a shade lower than usual, seemed to be measuring something. I didn't understand what he was saying. I only knew I'd been tired of the little rat business for quite some time.

"I told you—Maylin."

We should call each other by our names. And also.

"Your Madness... I know how to cure it."

I'd intended to give him the herb water first to soften his mood, then raise this. But he showed no sign of actually drinking anything. So I had no choice but to go straight to it.

The warmth left Kahron's eyes in an instant.

Whoosh!

"Ah—!"

The hand that had been stroking my cheek became a hook—it seized my throat and drove me to the ground.

"Hkk—ugh!"

He pinned me with one hand at my throat and asked in a completely composed voice:

"Madness? What madness."

The calm, utterly at odds with what he was doing with his hands, was far more unsettling than shouting would have been. I wanted to answer, but my throat was compressed. He wasn't exerting his full strength, and that was somehow worse—he was applying exactly enough pressure, with no wasted force.

Kahron lowered his face toward mine. The face I'd always thought looked like an angel's fell into shadow. Angel. What a joke. A demon seemed more accurate.

"What are you, exactly?"

"Hrrk—let go—let go—"

"Family sent you, after all?"

Those dark red eyes looked almost blood-colored now. He was—genuinely—the red-haired knight being consumed by madness.

The struggling of my body was slowing. Some instinct told me I wouldn't escape his hands no matter what I did. My body gave up first, my mind half a step behind. Both of my hands, which had been scratching and pulling at his arm, dropped to the ground.

"Hahh—!"

Kahron released me. Air exploded from my chest in something between a cough and a gasp. Hk. Hrrr. I twisted onto my side, tears and saliva running freely down my face without any dignity whatsoever.

"It's because—hkk—I saw it—in your eyes—the madness—hk—that's how I knew."

"......"

The line the wandering healer—the protagonist's companion—had spoken to the red-haired knight in The Sword God's Adventure.

"My grandfather—once treated someone's madness before—I heard about it from him."

That I had transmigrated into the novel—that I already knew this chapter because I'd read it—I couldn't say any of that. If I did, my throat would be seized again, and this time he wouldn't let go.

"And you expect me to believe that..."

"In exchange—help me."

More weight entered my voice. Something real. Kahron felt the difference; the sneer didn't come. He watched me instead, measuring.

No other plan had presented itself no matter how many times I'd turned the problem over. A righteous protagonist from a novel would help without conditions, freely and gladly—but the protagonist becoming a Sword Master and returning here with his companions was still a very distant future.

I needed to break free of the binding contract before Joel Courtner returned from the academy.

Breaking a magical binding contract required advanced magic or aura. As a Sword Master, Kahron could, I believed, solve that problem.

Of course, I couldn't let on that I knew he was a Sword Master—so I explained without mentioning it. Being suspected of knowing too much about his Madness was already liability enough.

"A magical binding contract?"

"Yes. Can you destroy it?"

I sat up, eyes bright with something like hope. For someone who'd just had her throat compressed by the very same man, I seemed to have a constitutionally weak sense of self-preservation. That observation passed through my mind and I chose to disregard it. Unhappily, he was still my solution.

"......"

Kahron was quiet for a while, as though thinking it over. I wanted to ask what he was thinking. I applied considerable willpower to not asking what he was thinking. Then he opened his mouth.

"A deal, then."

"......"

"Fine."

Fine? I pricked my ears and waited for what would follow.

"If you cure my condition, I'll break that binding contract for you."

......So he could do it. Hope becoming certainty in a single moment. I didn't need a mirror to know the color had rushed back into my face.

"Then—!"

"But if you fail to cure it, you die."

Kahron smiled—pleasantly—and said something appalling. My face, which had just filled with color, locked in place.

"You're not saying you're not confident, are you?"

I had seen hope in him. He clearly hadn't found any in me yet—if anything, he seemed more contemptuous and hostile than before.

It wasn't entirely incomprehensible. His Madness was a sore point. The deepest kind. I bit my lower lip, then steeled myself and answered.

"I'm confident."

And:

"But I have a few conditions."

He settled back and crossed his arms with the air of a man prepared to hear whatever nonsense I was about to produce. I swallowed audibly against the nerves in my throat and made my proposal. The first condition—

"Call me by my name."

No more little rat. That was what it meant.

Strange, to feel a measure of relief after being told that if I failed to cure the Madness I would—more precisely, would be—killed. But it felt as though I'd cleared a major gate, which was perhaps not entirely irrational. I had no reason I couldn't cure it, so long as I obtained the herbs.

Kahron snorted at the request to use my name, but nodded at the condition that he accompany me into the forest to gather herbs. The compliance was so unguarded and unlike him that I stared blankly—and his expression immediately soured. But still.

"Maylin. How are things going with that knight?"

Eifel came close during the hall-cleaning and asked in a low voice. It was the first time she'd addressed me directly in front of the other maids—low voice or not—so I was a little startled.

Sure enough, the maids who disliked me were already sending sharp looks our way. I straightened my back slightly and answered.

"Well. I think it's going well."

The threat had been savage, but I'd made my purpose known and we'd agreed to a deal. That counted as going well.

Eifel blinked with clear surprise.

"My boyfriend says that knight's personality is, ahem... a bit..."

A bit. To put it mildly. A bit quite a lot, more like. I didn't deny it, and Eifel's expression became conflicted.

"Does it have to be him? I can find you a better man."

If the better man happened to be a Sword Master, perhaps. Otherwise, unnecessary.

Eifel clearly worried about me getting tangled up with someone of difficult temperament. I'd been trying not to let my chest warm at that, and failing. I knew what needed to be said in moments like this.

"I'm fine. But... thank you."

"Goodness. If anything happens, come to me or my boyfriend."

Eifel and Hwirozen really did seem like a well-suited pair. I nodded, feeling that embarrassing warmth again.

"You there! Stop chattering this instant!"

The Head Maid's reprimand scattered us in opposite directions.

My hands felt lighter on the cleaning tools after that—until the butler appeared and called for me.

"Maylin. Your father is asking for you."

Had he not said my name first, I would have assumed he was speaking to someone else. I stood there blankly processing the word father, and the composed, middle-aged butler made a disapproving sound at me.

"Go to the main gate. You're being granted this as a special consideration because you've been serving the elderly noblewoman well—this sort of thing shouldn't happen again."

That special consideration was genuinely appreciated. I would have appreciated it more if the sudden appearance of a father hadn't drained all coherent thought right out of me.

"What is it?"

Eifel came over with curious eyes.

"Apparently my father is here..."

"Really? Well, why are you still standing there?"

I was practically pushed into setting down the cleaning tools and walking toward the main gate. But my steps slowed and faltered the whole way.

A father. My father had died when I was very young.

Unless my father from a previous life had somehow been reborn and transmigrated into this novel the way I had—which seemed unlikely—the person waiting for me would be the original Maylin's father.

Within the castle, there had been no one close enough to the original Maylin to notice the change. But a family member was something else entirely. A family member was a close presence. If Maylin's father could see through to the truth of what I was now, I had no idea how to navigate it.

As it turned out, however—

The man waiting for me at the main gate had not noticed his daughter had been replaced. Not even a little.

"How dare you ignore me?"

What he was furious about was something else entirely.