Chapter 30: The End of Obsession (5)

[30] 4. The End of Obsession (5)

When Clara threw herself into my arms, I thought it was over.

And I wasn’t talking about a good ending.

I thought my life was over.
Not just mine, but also the lives of everyone in the mercenary group.

An ordinary mercenary group attacking the Vatican, a place said to be closest to God. And to top it all off, we even shot an arrow at the saint.

Unless we were all idiots, it was hard to believe that we could get away with this.

…But sometimes, the world sides with fools.

Surprisingly, we were able to get off scot-free. They even treated us as VIP guests and gave us rooms in the White Palace.

To put it simply, this was all thanks to Irene.

She told me that our goals somehow aligned with those of the bishops who didn’t want the Pope, who had ascended just a month ago, to kill herself. It was a dramatic compromise.

To be honest, I don’t know the details.
And I didn’t even have the energy to care.

I looked in the mirror.

A grotesque monster stared back.

A monster whose body was covered in scars,
A monster whose body was half metal.

…Well, not ‘half’ anymore.

I lifted my right hand, which was now made of flesh and bone, not bronze. And carefully touched my left eye.

Instead of the hard feel of the prosthetic, I felt something soft.

When I removed my hand, red eyes, the same color as Clara’s, gleamed in the mirror.

…In the end, Clara’s ritual was partially successful.

My left eye and right hand.

I had regained the body parts that I’d almost forgotten I’d lost.

But I wasn’t happy, nor could I bring myself to be happy.

To be honest, I didn’t even know what to feel.

All I could do was to choose my words carefully, with a heavy heart.

“Lady Clara has awoken.”

Until she woke up.

***

Clara was imprisoned.

On the charges of harming the body bestowed upon her by God.

And ironically, the place she was imprisoned was the same place where I lost my eyes.

Recalling my memories, I slowly descended to the basement.

I might be reminiscing, but my memories of that time were hazy.

It just hurt, and it was sad, but for that very reason, I was also relieved.

That it was me, and not someone else, who had to suffer.

“We’ve arrived.”

I looked up at the guide’s words.

It was eerily similar to how I remembered.

Iron bars lining the sides of a long corridor, reminiscent of the hallway in the Crystal Palace.

But there weren’t any whimpers or groans.

Because there was only one frightened girl here.

Feeling a knot in my chest, I approached the cell and peered inside silently.

At first, I couldn’t find Clara.

Because she was curled up in a corner.

She had even rubbed her white clothes and hair with black dirt, as if trying to become one with the wall.

The only reason I could barely spot her was thanks to the red bandages that were wrapped around her left eye and right wrist.

I stared at her for a moment, speechless. After a long hesitation, I finally managed to say,

“…Clara?”

Her reaction was too pathetic to even be described as ‘violent’.

She started to shove her fingers into her ears.

Seeing blood oozing out, I quickly rushed inside and grabbed her hand.

“Let go! Let go of me! I said, let go!!”

She struggled, but without holy magic, she was just a frail woman.

I pinned both her wrists with one hand and used the other to tilt her chin upwards, forcing her to look at me.

And then I met her eye, the only one she had left, filled with terror.

“Kill me, Rem.”

“Please kill me, as painfully as you want.”

“But… please, make sure I’m far, far away from my eyes and ears. Make me as blind and deaf as your eye and ear.”

“Don’t let me hear your voice cursing me, make sure I don’t feel your hateful gaze.”

“Just that…”

Her eyes, which had been welling up, finally spilled over.

“Please… just that…”

And then, her body slumped onto the floor. Covering her face with her hand, she began to tremble.

I watched her silently, and then rubbed my face.

Suppressing the feelings rising in my throat, I finally spoke,

“Clara, there’s something you need to hear.”

“I don’t want to…! Please, no more…!”

“I was the one who betrayed you first.”

Clara’s shoulders twitched, and then her struggling stopped. She looked up at me with her eyes full of confusion.

“I never thought the day would come when I’d be telling you this.”

I smiled bitterly.

“This is the story of what happened after you confessed to Ivan, when he and I were alone.”

And so I began the story that she didn’t know.

***

The boy didn’t know Ivan as well as the girl.

Unlike the girl, he had rarely spoken to him.

Ivan often treated the boy as if he didn’t exist, and even when he talked about the boy, he never spoke directly to him.

So the Ivan the boy knew wasn’t the real Ivan, but the Ivan of rumors that spread through the Crystal Palace.

An extreme stickler for rules.

As soon as the holy magic binding him wore off, the boy glared at Ivan and asked.

“Are you going to punish the Would-be Saint?”

Ivan, instead of answering right away, opened the book the girl had given him and started reading. Then, without even looking at the boy, he asked,

“Why do you think that? Didn’t she just say that the saint’s companion is allowed to learn holy magic?”

“Lady Clara hasn’t had her canonization ceremony yet.”

The boy had been living in the church for two years now.

He knew full well how the church’s regulations and laws could change with a single word, a single footnote.

“Correct.”

Ivan smiled, closing the book. Then he tossed it into the fireplace.

“And besides, such an old customary law wouldn’t apply today anyway.”

The old book was instantly engulfed in flames. The boy, his eyes and shoulders trembling, looked at Ivan.

“Then…”

“The rules regarding holy magic are the foundation of the church. Of course, even the daughter of God wouldn’t be exempt from them.”

Ivan smiled his usual benevolent smile.

“Don’t worry, your punishment will be carried out in the same place, for both you and Lady Clara.”

As he spoke, Ivan didn’t sound human.

He sounded like a monster wearing human skin, a monster that had never known compassion or empathy.

The boy’s legs began to tremble involuntarily.

Fear was threatening to make him collapse,
It tried to bury the words he’d prepared.

But he gritted his teeth.

“What if… it wasn’t Lady Clara who taught me holy magic?”

Ivan’s eyes turned cold.

“What do you mean?”

The boy could feel his body trembling so violently that it was difficult to stand. But he forced himself to remain upright.

Extending his wrist, he recited the verse,

“Le-dian, Tu’ Aero fio.”

And the merciful Heavenly God answered his prayer.

A glowing crystal appeared floating above the boy’s wrist, a crystal that seemed to spread warmth throughout the body just by looking at it.

However, Ivan simply narrowed his eyes.

“Yes, I’m aware that you’ve learned holy magic…”

“This isn’t the holy magic that Clara taught me.”

The boy said with a trembling voice.

“Bishop, I stole holy magic.”

It was the most desperate confession.

The boy’s tearful voice continued,

“I thought that as long as holy magic was passed down orally, there had to be a record of it somewhere, as long as it’s in the form of Ancient Tongue.”

“So every night, with a piece of hard rye bread and an awl, I would go to the library. I would carve and memorize everything that looked like traces of holy magic onto the rye bread. And when I memorized it, I swallowed the bread to destroy all evidence.”

“Then, three months ago, I found a desk with deep marks carved into it. Someone had repeatedly written a verse on it.”

“I carved that inscription from the desk into a piece of rye bread, memorized it, and spoke it for the first time.”

“That was the day I first learned holy magic.”

“It wasn’t the day Clara saved me.”

Ivan’s face had turned pale at some point. He stared at the boy with emotionless eyes.

“Why? Was Clara’s favor not enough to satisfy your greed?”

The boy shook his head.

“The opposite.”

The boy realized that he was crying.

Because he was terrified of the future that would come after this confession.

But instead of crying, he swallowed his tears and forced the words out.

“Clara is only eleven years old. Even if her affection is long, how long could it possibly last?”

Then he held out his blunt wrist to Ivan.

“How long could she possibly love something so broken?”

The handless boy couldn’t wipe away his tears. He simply let them flow as he continued.

“I believed I would be abandoned someday. I’ve thought so from the beginning. That’s why I stole holy magic. I hoped that I’d be able to survive on my own after being abandoned.”

His voice cracked.

“I… I wanted to fix my hand.”

The boy got down on his trembling knees, his forehead pressed against the floor. The floor of the Crystal Palace was cold as ice.

“So, Bishop, Clara is innocent…!”

He begged, tears dripping onto the cold floor.

“This is all my fault. I coveted something I shouldn’t covet, and wished for something I shouldn’t wish for. So…!”

The last words got stuck in the boy’s throat and wouldn’t come out. It was his survival instinct blocking them.

But the boy’s face twisted and forced himself to speak.

“Please… just punish only me.”

And then, silence.
A silence that made the boy’s brain felt like it was sizzling.

The boy swallowed his tears, his small back trembling.

And then, after an eternity.

Ivan’s heartless voice finally reached his ears.

“You understand what this means, don’t you?”

“…I-I understand…”

“Those who steal holy magic are punished with more than just getting their eyes gouged out. They’re branded as heretics. You won’t be able to set foot in this Crystal Palace ever again, and no priest or church will ever help or protect you. Even so, is this what you wish for?”

The reason orphans could survive on the streets was because of the church’s charity.

And the boy, who had been able to come this far thanks to their help, knew this better than anyone.

But the boy nodded.

“…I’m okay with that.”

Silence fell once more.
But this time it didn’t last long.

“You’re telling the truth, aren’t you?”

The boy felt both relief and despair. Trying hard to steady his trembling voice, he said.

“There should still be some rye bread with the verses carved into them in my room, still inside the drawer.”

“I see.”

He could hear footsteps approaching. Soon, a dry hand lifted his chin.

In the boy’s black eyes, Ivan’s face, wearing a benevolent smile, was reflected.

“If what you say is true, then there’s no reason for Lady Clara to be punished. In fact, she should be rewarded for reporting someone who learned holy magic.”

The boy’s eyes widened, and Ivan smiled even wider, continuing,

“And Lady Clara would be saddened if she heard that you were punished. So I’m planning to tell her that you just left. Would you be okay with that?”

“It, it’s okay…!”

That was exactly what he wanted. His eyes trembling, he stammered,

“I-I’ve already written a letter in case this happened…! It’s in my drawer…”

“Yes, I’ll make sure to deliver it. But before that, there’s something I need to ask you.”

The boy’s face went blank. Ivan looked at him with a satisfied expression and asked,

“Why don’t you resent her?”

***

“Why…?”

Clara asked blankly after hearing my story. It was the same question Bishop Ivan had asked me back then.

And back then, I had answered,

[Because she’s my master.]

But that was nowhere near the truth.

It was an answer excessively inflated with the typical shyness of an adolescent boy and his immature heart.

The truth was, that wasn’t what I should’ve said.

I placed a hand on Clara’s cheek.

And then, finally, spoke the words that I had repeated countless times to myself since she had fallen asleep.

“Because I loved you.”

It was the period that had been missing from the unfinished story for the past 13 years.

Words that should’ve been said but ended up buried in a boy’s heart.

I felt my new grown eyes malfunctioning. My vision blurred, and hot liquid streamed down my cheeks.

It was the feeling of tears that I had long forgotten.

“How could I have not loved you?”

A tear rolled down Clara’s remaining eye. She slumped down, her hand that had been clutching my clothes, slipping away.

Feeling my face crumble, I wiped away her falling tears with my thumb.

“And I’m sorry.”

Clara’s eyes trembled.

“I couldn’t keep my promise that I’d come back, no matter what.”

I said, trying to force the tears down.

“I… I thought it was for the best.”

And then Clara broke down.

She threw her arms around me, burying her face in my chest, her voice choked.

“You… came back now…!”

And then Clara burst into tears. She clung to me as if she’d never let me go, her hand clutching my back tightly.

I hugged her back, tears streaming down my face.

***

It was a pathetic ending, befitting a pathetic story.

The time the boy and the girl had lost could never be returned. Nor could the scars be erased.

The boy and the girl would have to live with that pain.
The warped past would continue to appear in their dreams.

A happy ending where they could live happily ever after.
They were not allowed such an ending.

But at least for this moment.

Just for this instant, as they held each other tightly, crying pathetically in a filthy prison cell.

It would be their happy ending.