The Black Flame Witch (4)
The elf left the drawing room as though she were fleeing.
She walked aimlessly through the corridors. Her heart was beating so unpleasantly hard that standing still seemed impossible.
Destroying someone else's memories without their permission is something that can never be forgiven.
Theorad had said it almost playfully.
Yet his words drove into her heart like a dagger. An unfamiliar, bewildering emotion clouded her thoughts and made it difficult to breathe.
She wandered on, increasingly angry at the pounding in her chest. As the first shock subsided, she began to turn Theorad's words over in her mind.
Unforgivable? You were the one who asked me to do it!
Eighteen years ago, in the garden behind the mansion, they'd made a promise. She hadn't forced him.
She'd told him the truth without concealing anything. Theorad had listened, taken pity on her, and proposed a promise—something like a wager—with a gentle smile.
You asked me to erase your memories! You agreed to become my toy!
And now the same man spoke as though someone who erased another person's memory was unforgivable.
The thought made her hate him.
If it weren't for you, I would already have…!
She would never have needed to look at those disgusting humans again.
She could have eradicated the world's evils. After announcing her resolution two years before, she could have brought everything to an end.
It was Theorad who had made her put those plans aside for the sake of an uncertain future. He had stirred emotions that she'd ground into fragments and abandoned long ago.
Against her wishes, he'd given her a reason to continue living. He had asked her, in effect, to wash the stains from her heart for a while and carry the burden of fellowship with others.
So…
So this isn't my fault.
“…”
Without realizing it, she had reached the mansion's courtyard.
A few traces of an earlier explosion remained on the ground, but butterflies fluttered peacefully above them. She watched one beating its patterned wings, and her anger began to ebb.
Only then did she recognize what she was doing.
She had let the shackles of the past distort her thoughts.
Theorad doesn't know anything.
She was the one who had erased his memory. He had no idea what he'd asked her to do eighteen years earlier.
He hadn't even known she was standing outside the drawing-room door, listening.
He'd simply agreed with something Pares had said during an ordinary conversation. Those words had never been meant for her ears.
The elf stopped.
She'd been absurdly unfair.
Her face grew hot with belated shame.
Idiot…
She covered her face with both hands.
After a while, butterflies began landing on her head and shoulders. Elves carried a faint fragrance like a deep forest, and the creatures seemed drawn to it.
She let out a slow breath and lowered her hands. Her emotions had finally settled enough for her to return to the drawing room.
Bonk!
Something struck the top of her head.
She flinched and turned.
It was Havid, the elderly chief chamberlain, his mustache bristling with disapproval.
“You! Didn't I tell you to rest? Why are you wandering around the courtyard?”
“Chief Chamberlain.”
“And didn't I tell you to stop glaring at me?”
Was the old man simply oblivious? Or had age somehow deprived him of fear?
One sharp look from her was enough to make most servants keep their distance. Havid, inexplicably, never seemed intimidated.
Of course, if she frightened him with magic, her peaceful life as a household slave would come to an end.
She answered with a resentful look.
“I've rested enough. That's why I came out.”
“Always talking back! Whether you've rested enough isn't your decision. As chief chamberlain, that's for me to say. Are you planning to get another fever and spend the next few days in bed?”
“I won't. You needn't worry.”
“It's not you I'm worried about. It's the young master. You're a slave he takes special care of, so you ought to stay healthy.”
She said nothing.
That wasn't an answer she knew how to give.
Havid reached out with a weathered hand and touched her forehead.
When he found that her fever had eased, his face relaxed into a relieved smile.
“Well, you do seem better. Still, it's wiser to rest a little longer until the fever has gone completely—”
“Take your hand away.”
She knocked his hand aside, turned her back, and walked off.
Havid watched her go with a long, exasperated sigh.
“That impudent little…!”
He pointed after her, then lowered his hand and clasped both hands behind his back.
A small laugh escaped him.
“At least you've recovered.”
Pares and I went on talking for quite some time after the story of the monster that stole memories.
The formal questioning had long since fallen by the wayside, but I didn't mind. I was enjoying myself, and Pares seemed happy to have someone listen to her.
She told me about all sorts of things besides the Black Flame Witch.
“At first I was going to apply to the Imperial Reagent Office when I graduated. The pay is good, and they have wonderful benefits. But I've changed my mind.”
“Oh? What are you thinking of doing instead?”
“I'd like to work for the Dokwol Guild. Humans are probably wary of it, aren't they? But they say the organization is very open, with people treated more equally and much less of that awful seniority business. And maybe I could help find the Black Flame Witch!”
That was what she said.
Her real hopes, though, were rather easy to read.
“You're worried that your grades aren't good enough to enter the Reagent Office, aren't you? The Dokwol Guild is easier to join. And having personally seen the Black Flame Witch, who's been missing for twenty years, would make you quite an attractive applicant.”
Pares's shoulders jerked.
She fidgeted with her teacup, then cleared her throat.
“Let's just say that's one way of looking at it.”
“So you are counting on it. You should try being more honest with yourself.”
“Oh, stop teasing me! I worked hard. What am I supposed to do if the results don't show it? This is all because Professor Luikus, that Menstrual Witch, gave me such awful marks—”
Creak.
The drawing-room door opened.
Speak of the devil.
“Cough! Cough!”
Pares broke into a violent fit of coughing.
Professor Luikus gave her a suspicious glance as she approached, then bowed politely to me.
“Thanks to Your Lordship's consideration, our investigation is complete. Thank you for cooperating so sincerely with what could easily have been an intrusive inquiry.”
“There's no need to thank me. All I did was sit here and talk. You were the one who had to do the work.”
“Indeed. I begin to see why your reputation is so favorable, and why Count Leonberg places such trust in Viscount Theorad.”
Luikus smiled calmly.
“Then we should be on our way.”
She placed a hand over her chest and bowed once more before tapping Pares on the shoulder.
“Can't we stay just a little longer?” Pares pleaded.
One look from Luikus made her rise reluctantly.
As the professor headed toward the door, Pares followed, then turned to give me a small wave.
I waved back.
Her lips moved, but no sound came out. I thought she was saying, See you again!
I nodded with a smile. She brightened at once and followed her professor out.
What an entertaining young woman.
So not all witches are cynical.
When my father took me to church as a child, the priests had said that witches were cunning, bitter people obsessed with their own gain.
Yet the witches I'd met were hardly different from ordinary humans.
Come to think of it, didn't a witch begin as a human, distinguished by the seal she'd formed?
Why must we draw a line between them and us?
I didn't know what had truly happened during the witch hunts of the past, or exactly who had caused that first conflict.
If the truth could come to light, perhaps humans and witches might live happily alongside one another again.
I shook my head with a rueful smile.
This wasn't the time to lose myself in questions of society.
Now that my guests had gone, I needed to check on the elf.
If her fever had worsened, I would call a physician from the territory.
I raised my hand and activated my surveillance ring. A blue viewing screen opened, showing the elf's room.
But…
Where has she gone?
The room was empty.
I searched the rest of the image. She was nowhere to be seen.
Usually she clung to me like glue when she was well enough to leave her bed. Her absence gave me an uneasy feeling, though I had no desire to go looking for her.
After checking once more, I sighed and dismissed the screen.
I didn't know where she was or what she was doing.
Please, just don't hurt anyone.
“Home at last…!”
After flying through the night, Pares returned to her single-person dormitory room and hurled herself onto the bed.
Poof!
The soft mattress seemed to absorb the weariness in her bones.
“Ahhh…”
She rolled over and rubbed her cheek against the bedding in bliss.
There's nothing like being home.
Strictly speaking, it was a dormitory, not a home. That hardly mattered. Having somewhere she could lie down and rest was a wonderful thing.
She ought to have started writing her report.
But after reaching the bed, the idea suddenly seemed much less important.
I'll sleep first. I can write it afterward.
She closed her eyes.
Whoosh.
Cool air stirred the hair across her forehead.
That's odd. Didn't I close the window before I left?
Pares opened her eyes.
Standing beside the bed, the hem of her black robe swaying in the breeze, was the Black Flame Witch.
“Eek! Wha—mmph!”
Pares tried to scream. The witch clapped a hand over her mouth.
“Quiet. Shut up and listen.”
The voice was colder than the night air.
Pares nodded frantically.
The witch held out a letter.
“Take it. Give it to any elder of the Society. There's a mark on it proving that I wrote it. They won't mistake it for a forgery.”
Pares shook her head.
The witch removed her hand from Pares's mouth.
Pares took the letter and looked up at her in awe.
In a large, pointed black hat, looking down with eyes dark as graphite, the Black Flame Witch was almost unbearably imposing.
Pares could feel her heart fluttering with admiration.
The witch frowned.
“You understand that if you spread that rumor again, I'll kill you?”
“Huh? What rumor?”
“That ridiculous storm… What did you call it?”
“Oh! The Gwangpung Black Spear?”
The witch let out a deep sigh.
“Yes, that. In any case, don't tell anyone what we discussed here. And one more thing.”
“One more?”
“Don't fall in love with Theorad. If you do, I'll really kill you.”
What?
Before Pares could ask what that had to do with anything, black light wrapped around the witch.
A shock wave rippled through the room, rattling the furniture.
Then she was gone.
Pares had reflexively squeezed her eyes shut and curled in on herself. She opened them slowly as the objects around her stopped trembling.
There was no one there.
Only the letter in her hand proved the witch had ever visited.
Spatial movement magic…?
She'd used magic of that level without a wand or an incantation.
Pares couldn't help admiring it. But she also felt rather aggrieved.
Why does the Black Flame Witch hate the Gwangpung Black Spear so much?
It's a really, really cool name for a technique…