Chapter 084………………………..
She turned her back without a word.
I watched the princess walk toward the secluded balcony and then followed quietly.
When she opened the door and stepped inside, she tilted her head slightly.
As I entered, she immediately drew the curtain.
I glanced up at the sky, dyed a deep indigo before my eyes.
Leaning against the railing, the wind brushed against my face.
Hearing the click of her heels, I lowered my arm from the railing and looked back at her.
“It seems I am not the only one with something to say.”
In the Vandola Empire, if there was anything different from the past in this banquet, it was her.
“Princess, what is it that you wish to say to me?”
“Whom does the saint serve?”
It was the first time I heard her voice, openly hostile like this, and my eyes widened for a moment.
Someone else seemed to overlap with her in my mind.
“What do you mean by that?”
The princess scrunched her face and laughed, a mocking, sharp sound.
“Are you enjoying yourself? Merely attending such a banquet? Do you even know how a saint like you came to set foot on Vandola Empire soil?”
Though I spoke respectfully, her mocking tone carried raw emotion.
I lowered my gaze slightly. In my eyes, her clenched white hand filled the frame.
“Was the war His Majesty spoke of perhaps waged just to summon me?”
My fist trembled, as if from the force of my grip.
Under normal circumstances, her reaction would have pricked my chest with guilt.
Yet strangely, my emotions felt like calm, cold waves—unnaturally cold.
“Hah, it seems the saint already knew.”
“I merely deduced it.”
When the princess squinted her eyes, I lifted my head.
In her gaze, I felt nothing but contempt directed at me.
“As a saint, I did not even know that the Melissa Temple desired the relic, nor that it would cost so much along the pilgrimage route.”
Ignorance was no excuse. It was too late to undo anything. It was my fault.
I had to atone for the countless lives lost in the war caused by me.
Yet something was strange.
I felt none of the emotions I was supposed to feel.
I should have felt disgust at myself, but I didn’t.
“How shameless. You expect me to believe that? With every step you took toward this empire, people died, one after another.”
Her lips trembled.
The thought of all the people who had died because of me—so many of them—made her lips quiver.
The war had broken out. Its reason? Nothing more than seizing the relic necessary for the pilgrimage.
My existence had become the start of someone’s misery. My steps had turned time into blood for others.
I wanted to say something to the princess.
But my lips remained sealed.
I wondered why.
And yet I didn’t want to dwell on the reason.
“Say whatever you want. The innocent Maroon Kingdom suffered hell because of you, endured unspeakable horrors.”
“……”
“All for the sake of a single curiosity: obtaining that relic and summoning you.”
“……Why are you taking it out on me?”
Through the gap of my unyielding lips, I spoke words unbefitting a saint.
Even I couldn’t believe the coldness of my own voice.
The princess let out a short, incredulous laugh.
“What…?”
“I understand your concern for the citizens of a defeated nation. But did I start that war? Did I threaten anyone, saying, ‘I shall come, prepare the relic, or make one if none exists’?”
“This war happened because of your words about receiving relics for the saint’s pilgrimage!”
“A war that should never have occurred, initiated by an empire that doesn’t worship the gods, simply out of a childish curiosity to summon an orphaned saint. Was war truly the only way to obtain the relic? Did I force it?”
The princess glared at me without a word, her eyes full of tension.
I looked into the black depths of her gaze and spoke.
“Was it I who stole the country and killed innocent people? Was it not your father who filled a simple curiosity? Then he should have been stopped. How could one start a war just to see a saint?”
“Do you think I agreed with that war?! I opposed it more than anyone else!”
“But in the end, you could not stop it. Seeing me stand here unscathed, you eventually gave up, didn’t you?”
Her breathing grew ragged, audible to me, while my heart remained unnaturally still.
“Did you try to stop it with a sword at your neck? Did you stand before the departing knights, arms spread, blocking their path? Or did you simply give up after the king scolded you for opposing him?”
Tears welled in her black eyes, distorting the reflection of myself within them.
“You didn’t hear me? I was trapped in the palace until you arrived!”
“Are you saying that you wanted me to understand that you opposed the war until the end, but His Majesty’s wrath prevented you from stopping it?”
Her tears hung precariously, refusing to fall.
I chuckled softly, and she stared at me as if I were a devil.
“Are you laughing now? Knowing all the truth?”
“Princess.”
“……”
“You did give up.”
“Did you not hear what I just said? Or are you pretending not to understand? Or are you claiming innocence?”
She looked utterly wronged. I shifted my gaze to the deep indigo sky.
Her breathing trembled. Just as she was about to speak again, I hurried my words.
“You kept your mouth shut out of fear of being cast aside. You forgave yourself, thinking your opposition had sufficed. That was your choice. And the fact that you could not stop the war was also your choice. Why, then, are you angry at me?”
Though I said this, I felt she had every right to be angry.
I thought it justified—but still, why was I speaking so harshly to her?
The tears that hung by a thread finally fell.
Her black eyes reflected me like a mirror.
Under the moonlight, my face was laid bare, unflinchingly clear.
I realized then that the harsh words I had spat at her were really directed at myself. And that the harsh words she had spoken to me were directed at herself.
The contempt she showed contained disgust and cowardice aimed at herself.
I, too, had projected the misery and injustice I felt in my very existence onto her, blaming her.
Though these were my own feelings, unrecognized, we expressed them as mutual resentment.
Perhaps at that moment, she, too, was seeing her own reflection in my eyes rather than looking at me.
A silent calm, as if time had stopped, fell between us.
For some, it may have been a long silence—but not for her and me.
Only after recognizing our own emotions could we truly see each other.
The faint music that had seemed to stop confirmed that time still flowed.
At last, I looked at the princess I could now see and spoke the words I had belatedly wanted to convey.
“Gain the strength so that Melissa Temple is never summoned again.”
May courage fill you, so that you never again give up helplessly.
Her expression hardened as she understood my meaning instantly.
A gentle wind blew. In her moonlit eyes, a new, unprecedented sparkle appeared.
