Chapter 16: Chapter 16

Langrion looked back at the silver streaks of hair that framed the face of the wide-eyed girl, Shia, who was crying her eyes out in front of her with such compassionate eyes. She had asked him a series of questions that pried at his own morality, making him feel how useless he had been as a prince and as a cursed one all these years...

Honestly, he didn’t know which ones of her words had pierced his heart most painfully – the fact that she thinks that he likes or even enjoys deciding on the fates of people or the fact that she thinks he is her family’s cold-blooded murderer. Either way, her words had positively stung his spirits so badly that he did not know how to respond to her. He had quite definitely run out of words.

The girl, however, was unfazed as she continued to press on. “Aren’t cursed ones people too?...” she said. Perhaps these ones were the hardest words to swallow in Langrion’s opinion.

Utterly speechless, Langrion started to hold her in an embrace. She resisted, just like what she mostly did whenever he is around him or when he tries to get closer to her. After a while though in that forced embrace, her shoulders began to soften up little by little; and then she began to cry openly on his arms. Chibi looked sadly at the two of them and began to chime in their grief with his whimpers.

Langrion looked back at the many times he had asked himself the same questions: ‘Why do people hate cursed ones like me? Aren’t they – and I as well - people too? Am I not a living, breathing, feeling person like everyone else? Must someone lose his or her life just because he or she can do something extraordinary?’ He started fingering the soft strands of Shia’s silvery curls as he thought of these grievances he cannot even begin to speak of outside of himself.

He thought bitterly of how he managed to escape facing the same kind of discrimination just because he was lucky enough to be born within Gascone’s Royal Bloodline. If he were born under ordinary circumstances, he would have suffered the same fate or an even a far worse fate than Shia, Shia’s family, Marmie, or the thousand others who have perished and died at the Capitol’s plaza. He only escaped because he was a prince, an esteemed noble. He knew that far too many people had suffered unjustly enough just because they weren’t as privileged as he was.

The two of them fell silent for quite some time as they tried to comfort each other. They remained motionlessly locked in an embrace. After a while, Shia had begun to say something in his chest that was too muffled for him to hear.

Langrion did not realize that he was holding her so tightly that she seemed out of breath as she repeated what she said. “Are you my family’s killer?...”

Shia looked at him with her big, brown eyes that dazzled even in the night time. She was staying so close to him that the scent of fresh grass and lavender coming from her began to fill his nostrils. It began to entice him further, making his heart beat a little faster than usual. He would have drunk in more of her scent and her beauty if she had not repeated her question a third time for him.

“Three months ago, in the desert of Soccora, did you or did you not kill my parents and my siblings?...”

This was the first time that Langrion heard those words from her without a pang of bitterness, rage, or disgust. It came as a tentative question from her too. It sounded as if she was unsure of her accusation against him now. He felt her hesitation with every word. At the same time, he felt her resolution to get to the bottom of things and learn the truth.

Langrion sighed deeply before he spoke. “Ever since I was born, I had already been a liability to my own family. After they died, I have been a liability to a handful more people. Many have died in my stead, and I had no control over it. They wanted to protect me even if I myself do not want... Or deserve that protection,” he began.

“But I have never murdered someone for mere sport. Indeed, I have hurt enemies and sent them to their deathbeds countless times. I am not proud of what I have done, but if you are asking me, in my heart, if I had ever killed someone out of a whim, out of the sheer want for kill, I assure you with clear conscience that I haven’t.”

He raised her face closer to his and met her stare equally. “You have spoken before as if you were certain I killed them. Tell me, Shia, how did they die?”

******************

The prince was staring at her eyes in a far too close rate for Shia’s own comfort. She shivered a little in spite of the heat that emanated from his embrace, but she braved herself to speak. This was her chance to know the truth.

She slipped her hands away from him and placed it inside the pillow on the opposite side of the mattress. She lifted her dagger from where she hid it and brought it closer towards them as he loosened a bit of his embrace towards her.

The dagger belonged to Shia since she was a young girl, but the addition to the dagger was a special gift from Shia’s father not too long ago. Its handle was made of gold, and it was encrusted with a big sapphire stone at its helm where the letter “A” was elaborately etched. She touched the bejewelled part of its handle and clicked a hidden lock. Then all at once, a small portrait that showed seven, jovial faces was revealed.

“This was my family. This was a picture my father has commissioned for my last birthday. He had put this portrait here as a reminder for me...” Shia said. She began showing him their happy, beaming smiles and telling him each one of their names. Slowly, she began narrating to him the story that played every night in her dreams of the way she had lost all that was precious to her. He listened to her without any interruptions.

The dawn soon settled in as she continued to tell him what happened three months ago. The cold, misty air penetrated the insides of the tent, but the closeness of their bodies, the comfort of the soft mattress, and Chibi’s massive form that took more than half of the bed made them oblivious of it.

Shia wanted to ask Langrion the part about the tattooed image of the bird, but she did not know how to ask him about it. Finally, when she gathered enough courage to speak of it, the servants had interrupted them. It was now time for their breakfast.

Seeing the sumptuous dishes that the servants prepared for breakfast reminded Shia that Lord Fincher was to leave for the Capitol early that day in account of the engagement party.

“I-I would like to go somewhere... It won’t take long,” Shia quickly said to the prince, and she rose from her seat.

“Where do you plan to go? Let’s go there together after we have our breakfast,” he answered.

She hesitated, “I...I just wanted to see Marmie one last time before she is taken to the Capitol....”

The prince, midway from cutting the fish in his plate, had suddenly ceased what he was about to do.

“No, you mustn’t,” he said, “Don’t go.”

“Why not?... It might be the last time -”

Before Shia could finish her sentence, Langrion reached out to her hand from across the table. “I forbid you. You mustn’t see her.”

Shia was about to implore his majesty further, but the budding sounds of a commotion from outside had gained their attention. Without any sort of warning, a knight suddenly burst inside their tent.

“My lord! My lady! The servant girl – she is dead!” he declared.

Shia and Langrion’s eyes met each other for a moment. Her big, brown eyes grew wider than ever in shock, but his stare remained calm, unmoved and suspiciously impassive. She stood up and was about to go find out if what she had just heard was true, but he continued to hold her hand.

“My lady, don’t do this. Don’t go and see her,” he said.

Despite the tenderness in his voice, she let go of his grip and ran as fast as she could outside to where throngs of people were rushing with the same aim.

Breathless, Shia soon reached her destination. It was in a small tent that stood at the opposite side of where she and the prince were staying. Shia waded through the crowd to get to the entrance of the tent while a thick mob of onlookers blocked her path.

After some time, she was finally able to reach the entrance of the hut, but a pair of knights stood guard at the helm, making it impossible for her to go any further.

All at once, a group of men carrying a makeshift bed emerged from inside the tent. They seem to be holding a body covered in a thick, white blanket. A shiver came over Shia’s spine and her heartbeat began escalating as she surmised what – or who – was beneath the blanket.

Shia’s hunch proved to be right when something had accidentally slipped out of the cloth covering it; it was Marmie’s pale and lifeless arm which Shia had held so tightly on earlier that day.

From the exit, Shia could see Lord Fincher’s snobby features walking to and fro inside the tent. He was looking around as if hunting for something around the floor that was filled with haystack.

One knight ran close to the Imperial Guard’s leader and said in a low voice that Shia was still able to hear clear enough. “Sir, the doctor was positive; it was poison.”

As soon as the knight finished his sentence, a curious thing began to catch Shia’s attention. It must have been so faint for everyone else, but the scent was just enough for Shia’s sensitive nose to pick up; everything from Marmie’s passing dead body to the interiors of the small tent where she was kept reeked with a weak mixture of sweet, sour, and bitter scent akin to that of bitter root, citrus, and sugar.