Chapter 92

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Heiden village was a very, very distant place. Even the name Heiden was fading from people's memories.

It had been a place where people raised sheep and planted barley and buckwheat. The soil was poor, but with so few people living there, they had apparently managed to get by.

Looking over the tragic ruins smothered in grass, Ricard felt the transience of all things.

He needn't have let it hurt him so deeply. He should have forgiven them, even out of hatred rather than love. Hadn't he shown mercy even to Veszprim the Meat Cutter?

At last, he could understand a little of what “his lordship” had meant. It hadn't been the world that cursed him and burned him at the stake. It had been himself.

The wind felt cold. For some reason, his chest felt tight, and a melancholy settled over him.

He wandered through the ruins. He even looked around the temple where he had locked people inside and burned them. Not so much as a bone remained.

Eventually, he came to the newlyweds' home where a boy who had never known happiness first discovered what it meant. This was where the tragedy had begun.

Ricard couldn't quite bring himself to go inside. He lingered aimlessly around it, memories of happiness mingling with those of mounting hatred and explosive rage.

With it all behind him, looking back from a new life, there were things he could see only now. He had been the only one in love.

The woman the village chief had introduced to him had been a widow. She hadn't married him for love in the first place. She had simply needed a man to provide for her. The village community had merely entrusted a woman with nowhere to go to Ricard.

She must not have had much faith in him. He had been so inept at everything.

He calmly recalled the past he had been reluctant to dig up. Rather than letting it bind him, he released his old memories to the wind, one handful at a time, like scattering cremated ashes over the sea.

It wasn't so much that he had reached a decision. He simply stepped into the abandoned house with a quiet heart. Unexpectedly, a girl all in white was huddled in a corner. What was this?

The sight was so utterly out of place that the words escaped him before he knew it.

"Huh? There's someone here."

At that moment, the girl jerked her head up. Squinting slightly against the sunlight, she stared straight at him.

Ricard suddenly felt as though he had seen her somewhere before. Daisy had been so filthy and grubby in the past that she was difficult to recognize.

"Huh?"

"Someone's here? Could she be a spy?"

Marie came over from examining the ruins. Just then, the girl flung herself at Ricard.

"Darliiing!"

A memory flashed through Ricard's mind like lightning. This was the girl he had rescued while crossing the mountain pass with Arno after leaving home. Daisy.

Caught up in that sudden recollection, even Ricard, with his monstrous reflexes, failed to react. He ended up catching her in his arms.

"Daisy?"

"Yes! It's me! Riki! You came for me! You've come to save me! I'm so happy!"

"Huh? Uh, no, that's not why. I was just looking around here... What are you doing here, anyway? Oh, right, I met your mother. She said you'd become a sister?"

"That's right. A Sister of Prophecy of the Church of Judgment. Michela is my name as a sister."

"But what brings you here?"

"Well, I had to see my darling, didn't I?"

Daisy had her arms wrapped around his waist and showed no sign of letting go. Just as before, she was calling him darling without his consent.

Ricard was bewildered, both glad to see her and dumbfounded, when a sudden chill ran down the back of his neck. He looked behind him and nearly stopped breathing.

Perhaps because of her distinctive Mana Drive, Marie's hair had spread out wildly, as though charged with intense static electricity. Her eyes stared at the two of them, looking somehow unfocused.

"M-Marie? Wait a second. Let go, Daisy."

"Who's that woman? She looks like a witch. I'm scared, Riki."

Daisy pressed her face against his cloth-covered breastplate while staring fixedly at Marie. Contrary to her words, she didn't look particularly frightened. Ricard was the only frightened one.

But instead of shouting or exploding with rage, Marie spoke in a remarkably calm tone. That made it all the more terrifying.

"You'd better choose your answers carefully from now on. Otherwise, everyone might end up dead. Who is she?"

"Oh, well, well, a long time ago..."

"Excuse me, we're already married. We even exchanged rings. Didn't we, Riki?"

"What are you talking about? When did I do that?"

Ricard's eyes widened at those disastrous words. In truth, his memories were hazy. What one person treasured for a lifetime could be no more than a passing incident to another.

In any case, those were words Marie couldn't bear to hear right now. Without even drawing her sword, she whipped it through the air. Light blazed from within the scabbard, and the blade sliced its way out.

Holding a purple blaze beneath the midday sun, Marie spoke.

"Fine. We can all die. Don't worry, Riki. I'll be right behind you."

"Wait! Waaait! Calm down! Calm down! That never happened! No! It did! They were just flower rings! Flower rings! I was ten years oooold! I wasn't even an adult! How could that be a marriage?"

Terrified, Ricard squeezed his eyes shut and shouted with frantic desperation. Memories kept coming back to him in the midst of it, leaving him babbling incoherently.

Normally so impassive, with barely a ripple in his emotions, he had never been this shaken or flustered in either of his lives.

"What do you mean, Riki? You thanked me. When I said that meant we were married, you said yes."

"I never said yes! Never! We were both just children! Don't make me angry!"

Ricard forcibly unwrapped Daisy's arms from his waist and shoved her away. The powerless girl hit the wall of the abandoned house and crumpled to the ground.

"Ow!"

That finally subdued Marie's anger a little, but Ricard felt guilty for pushing Daisy.

Unable even to get up, Daisy stared at him in shock, then began to cry.

"Every day, every single day, all I thought about was you... I don't care about some God... I don't care..."

Though he hadn't exerted himself, the surge of emotion had left Ricard a little breathless. His lungs throbbed.

"W-what am I supposed to do...? I never agreed to that..."

In his previous life, hatred and rage had nearly driven him mad. Now it was bewilderment, helplessness, a sense of injustice, and guilt.

All those tangled emotions blended together until he had no idea what to do.

Thank heavens, at least Marie seemed to have calmed down a little. The light faded from her sword. But with its scabbard ruined, the cold blade gleamed in the open, with nowhere to return.

"So you got married as children? When you were ten?"

"Yes! That's it! But I never agreed to it! And she was even younger! How old are you!? I should have listened when Arno told me not to be nice to you!"

In his panic, Ricard spoke rather harshly.

"A marriage between minors is invalid without permission from the heads of both houses. That settles it, then."

"Nooo! Forget whether it's valid! We were just kids..."

"Then I just have to die. All right."

Daisy spoke from where she sat slumped on the ground. Tears streamed down her face without pause, but her expression was blank. The shock seemed to have hit her hard.

"W-why do you have to be so extreme too? Just leave your memories as memories, will you!"

"Stop shouting. We can hear you perfectly well."

"..."

Marie silenced the agitated Ricard in an instant. Then she gazed quietly at Daisy.

Something about those endless tears stirred a sense of kinship in her. She, too, had spent many nights crying over Ricard. Her seething anger cooled still further.

"Listen. Your name is Daisy?"

"... Yes, you witch. You threatened Riki with that sword, didn't you? Didn't you?"

It sounded like an absurd accusation, but it was true. Marie had once confessed her feelings to Ricard with her sword pointed at him.

"You'd be better off letting go of your resentment toward me. It won't make Riki look your way. He isn't that kind of man."

Daisy flinched at the words “He isn't that kind of man.” But she immediately pressed her dainty lips together and glared at Marie through tear-soaked eyes. It infuriated her. It was bitterly unfair that Marie knew Riki better than she did.

"I knew him first. And we're husband and wife. That's the truth, no matter how much you deny it."

Marie snorted. If stubborn insistence like that were enough, she herself would have gotten together with Ricard long ago, without all the heartache.

"There are plenty of ways I could make you angry, but I won't bother. First, you said you belonged to the church? Does that make you an enemy or not? Let's get that straight. If you're an enemy, I'll have to kill you. And let me tell you now, there won't be a shred of personal feeling in it."

"Th-that's a little..."

Ricard, who had been standing with his head bowed like a guilty man, tried to intervene. But Marie ignored him and kept staring at Daisy.

Daisy glared back without yielding.

"I'm not a believer. I've never believed in any god. I believe only in Riki. And we're one. If that's what you mean, then you and I are enemies, witch."

At Daisy's bold reply, Marie gave a chilling grin. Whether it was mockery or an expression of confidence was impossible to tell. Perhaps both.

She simply turned on her heel and started toward the camp.

Ricard hesitated, unsure whether to follow her. The pitiful sight of Daisy made his heart ache.

"I'm sorry I pushed you. But I don't want you to get the wrong idea. It's a little late to say this, but it's good to see you."

"Riki..."

"Anyway, it's dangerous here. I don't know how things are going to turn out either, but I hope you'll be careful."

"Can't I come with you?"

"..."

He couldn't have been in a more awkward position. He was here on a campaign against the church, so he could hardly tell her to return to it. Yet Daisy had nowhere else to go.

Ricard couldn't decide how he should treat her, or whether he ought to turn his back on her, however cruel that might be.

The decisiveness that shone so keenly on the battlefield failed him completely in a situation like this.

But when Daisy saw him at a loss, a gleam entered her eyes. Then she put on the most forlorn expression she could and rose weakly to her feet.

"All right... I'll go... Take care..."

She began limping back toward the church. She seemed to have sprained something in her leg, but she hadn't. She was only pretending.

Ricard, however, thought he had injured her when he pushed her, and couldn't simply stand by. Damn it!

"Wait. Come with me for now. I'll carry you."

As though she'd been waiting for those very words, Daisy promptly climbed onto his back. Beaming behind him, she buried her face in his neck.

"Am I heavy?"

"No."

"Ever since we parted, I've thought about you every day. What about you, Riki? Did you think about me?"

"Sometimes."

"That's mean."

"I can't lie to you."

"Then can't you think only about me from now on?"

"Daisy, you can't stay a child forever."

"But I can't lie either. I love you so, so much, Riki. You're my prince and my savior."

"... Who am I to save anyone...?"

Ricard had nothing to say to that. A woman's obsession was truly frightening. He thought he was finally beginning to understand a little of what Ice so often said.

The northern fields stretched far and wide. Once green, they were slowly drying to yellow, starting at the tips of the leaves. The wind was cold, though not enough to make him huddle against it.

Far ahead walked a girl with a sword. Behind her followed a man carrying another girl on his back. Far, far from the ruins. Like the present pushing the past away.

Ricard's melancholy had vanished so completely that he couldn't even remember it. Not that he had wanted a situation like this instead.