kscans

Chapter 7 - The Outside World

The village, subdued by the knights the previous day, lay silent. A few knights standing guard shot harsh glares at the girl.

"…What happened to the villagers?"

The men of the village, who had been prepared to resist to the last, had all been cut down by the knights. Many of the women, clad in mourning dresses, had taken their own lives. They were women whose husbands and families had been killed by the new royal family when the old one was overthrown. They likely didn’t wish to endure any further shame. Most of those remaining were children not yet of age, but their fate was to be disposed of eventually.

The boy hesitated over how to tell her, but in the end, he told her the truth. He expected her to be hurt, but the girl accepted the villagers’ deaths with a calm detachment.

"I see. They would not have stopped even if I had told them to. They followed their folly through to the end. As for the women, if they took their own lives, then I have nothing to say."

"They were your followers, yet you speak so coldly."

The girl’s dispassionate words pricked at the boy, and his irritation flared. But she deflected it like a willow branch in the wind, a faint smile touching her lips.

"If I am the rightful princess and queen they wished for, then it is only natural to accept some sacrifices for the happiness of the people. Even if they were close to me, personal feelings have no place in such matters."

"You say your people were sacrificed for the happiness of a populace that does not even know you?"

"I am a seed of conflict. For the sake of the people, I should disappear. As should those who would rally behind me. However, on a personal level, I feel pity for the young ones. It was not by their own choice that they were in this village."

The girl’s quiet acceptance of both his frustration and her own fate drove the boy to an urge to scream. He had a younger sister, born after his father ascended to the throne. A princess by birth. She had received an education befitting a princess, raised surrounded by things befitting a princess. From his perspective, she was adorable, a little selfish, and a cherished being.

But what of this girl’s inviolable dignity? Despite being given nothing befitting a princess save for her birth. The destitute princess in her mourning dress, without even an ornament to tie up her hair, was only two years older than his sister, yet she was incomparably more of a princess. What about him, the prince? As a royal, did he possess such resolve? Could he offer up his own life for the sake of his people, telling them to simply take it? The girl was so perfectly a "princess" it was almost unsettling. Like a puppet called "princess," her true personality was imperceptible. This fact stirred the boy’s heart into a tempest.

Unaware of the boy’s inner turmoil, the girl slowly, deliberately pressed her feet into the earth, as if savoring the sensation. And then, her stiff, serene expression softened.

"Outside, even the smells, the air, the color of the sky are different, aren’t they?"

In the middle of the desolate village, thick with the stench of death, the girl’s whisper was so full of wonder that the boy couldn't bear it. He swept her up into his arms.

He placed the surprised girl onto his horse, and ignoring the knights’ alarm, spurred the horse into a gallop. The girl, held tightly in his arms, didn’t struggle. She clung to him, desperately enduring the unfamiliar rocking of the horse.

How long did they ride? The boy stopped the horse at the edge of a steep cliff. Below them spread the town closest to the hidden village. And beyond it, across the green plains, the capital was faintly visible.

"Look, that is the town of Regis. And what you can barely see over there is the royal capital."

"It’s so… so vast."

The girl’s eyes widened as far as they could go, her voice trembling. For a girl who had known nothing but the narrow sky of a hidden village buried in a dense forest, no other words would come.

"Shall we go down to the town?"

The girl didn’t answer the boy’s question. But he turned the horse’s head, intent on descending into the town.

The knights, who had caught up at some point, wore grim expressions but did not try to stop him.