I See Nothing
Thalia reflexively searched Barcas’s face.
A dry wind whipped across features so cool that not even a fragment of emotion could be found there.
Barcas, who had been gazing up at the sun veiled in a thin film of cloud as if gauging the hour, cast a calm look toward his adjutant.
“Tell the Wolfram Cavalry to prepare for departure at once.”
“Understood.”
As soon as Daren withdrew, Barcas turned without delay.
Thalia wet her lips, uncertain what she ought to say.
Should she try to comfort him?
Yet Barcas truly seemed untouched. Perhaps that was only natural. He had been sent to the capital at the age of five. There could have been little affection left for his father.
“It appears we must leave today after all. How is your condition?”
The question came abruptly the moment Barcas stepped into the hall.
Thalia answered in a tense voice.
“I’ve rested thoroughly these past few days. I’m fine now.”
“You are not fully recovered yet.”
His tone suddenly hardened.
“Traveling a long distance in a weakened state will place a heavy burden on you. If your condition worsens, tell me at once.”
After a moment spent reading his mood, Thalia nodded weakly.
He climbed the stairs at a pace neither hurried nor slow. Beyond the windows that lined the corridor, a dull sky stretched out. It occurred to her that rain might fall during the funeral.
The journey home was smooth.
Racing steadily across open plains, they reached Laedgo Castle a full two days ahead of schedule.
The moment the gatekeeper spotted them from afar and blew his trumpet with a clamor, the drawbridge lowered. The Wolfram Cavalry passed through the gates without pause.
“Welcome home!”
As they entered the courtyard, the servants who had been waiting surrounded Barcas at once.
Thalia, who had been watching the scene through a window, straightened her clothes and stepped outside.
The maids lined at the entrance of the hall came down the stairs to receive her.
“You must be weary after such a long journey.”
The head maid offered the greeting on their behalf. Thalia answered with a single tilt of her chin and moved to Barcas’s side.
Barcas, who had been receiving a report from the steward, looked her over carefully.
“I must see Father at once. Will Your Highness come with me?”
Thalia hesitated. In truth she had no desire to face that cantankerous old man ever again. Yet neither did she wish to leave Barcas alone—even knowing he felt no grief.
“……I’ll go with you.”
As if the answer had been unexpected, Barcas looked down at her in silence for a moment before nodding toward his younger brother, who stood some distance away.
“You come as well.”
Lucas, who had been standing stiffly with a darkened expression, followed his brother’s order mechanically. Consciously turning her face away from him, Thalia trailed after Barcas.
Forcing her stiff legs to move, she managed to enter the main keep, only to be struck by the sharp scents of myrrh, frankincense, and sandalwood—incenses burned for those on the brink of death.
“Lucas!”
Just as they began to climb the stairs, a slender girl burst from the Grand Duke’s chamber.
“Why are you only arriving now! Do you have any idea how long I’ve been alone………!”
In a single breath the girl crossed the corridor and threw herself into Lucas’s arms. The boy, who had been rigid with tension, wrapped his arms around his sister’s shoulders, tears welling in his eyes.
Watching the scene with an uncomfortable expression, Thalia flicked her gaze toward the chamber where darkness lay thick.
Inside the room, dense with drifting smoke, a high priest and the retainers stood in ranks. Barcas strode in and put a question to the priest.
“How is his condition?”
“……Regrettably, it appears he will not last the day.”
The elderly priest, his face gaunt from nights without sleep, spoke in a heavy voice.
“Prepare yourself.”
As though she had heard the words, the girl’s sobs grew louder still. Standing awkwardly and rolling her eyes, Thalia quietly pressed herself to Barcas’s side.
When she cast a cautious glance toward the curtained bed, she caught a glimpse of an emaciated old man. It was hard to believe this was the same person who had once lashed out with such venomous words; he looked so terribly aged.
How long had she been staring at the man reduced to such a wretched state in little more than a month? Someone roughly seized her coat and yanked.
“Why is this woman here!”
Raina Raedgo Sieorkan’s tear-stained eyes glittered with vicious light.
“You cursed our father to hell, didn’t you? How dare you show your face in this place! Get out! Get out this instant!”
The screaming girl dragged her roughly toward the doorway.
Barcas firmly pulled his sister away and wrapped one arm around Thalia’s shoulders. At the sight, the girl’s face grew even fiercer.
“You’re just the same, Brother! Bewitched by that witch——!”
“Stop it, Raina!”
Lucas hurriedly pulled his sister against his chest and covered her mouth.
Panting with a face full of resentment, Raina Raedgo Sieorkan soon buried her face in her brother’s arms and began to wail without restraint.
Then a rough voice, like metal scraping metal, rang out.
“What is this uproar.”
Thalia flinched and turned her head.
The man who had lifted his wrinkled eyelids was glaring at them with eyes that seemed filmed with rheum. The girl who had been sobbing dashed to the bedside in a flurry.
“Father! Are you conscious?”
After looking at his daughter’s face for a moment, the old man rolled his eyes and carefully scanned the room. Then he found Thalia standing to one side and narrowed his gaze.
She retreated behind Barcas’s back, certain the old man would not want her present either.
Yet the old man remained surprisingly quiet. After staring at her for a time with dark eyes, he at last turned his gaze upon his eldest son. A strange light flashed across a face that had turned ashen and mottled.
“……I was waiting for you to come, Barcas.”
A fit of coughing choked off the rest of his words.
Gasping for breath, the old man raised a hand as thin as a withered branch. In answer to that silent demand, Barcas bent over the bed.
The old man’s milky eyes settled upon Barcas’s cool face.
In that instant, the man who had never lost his harshness even at the threshold of death crumbled.
“You…… must resent me.”
It was less a question than a statement.
Barcas neither agreed nor denied it; he simply looked down at his father in silence. Rough waves rose in the old man’s eyes. With bony fingers he roughly clutched at Barcas’s clothes.
“Answer me just one thing. In your eyes…… what do you see.”
At the sudden question, everyone present held their breath as one.
He continued with desperate force.
“In your eyes, something…… different must be visible, must it not? Tell me. You must know. What lies after death…….”
From a throat boiling with phlegm, it seemed blood might spurt at any moment.
The faces of those surrounding the bed turned deathly white. The terror of an old man standing at the brink of death seemed to overwhelm the entire room.
Clinging to Barcas with stubborn strength, he forced out a metallic voice.
“Speak! What the hell lies beyond this——”
Only then did Barcas’s tightly closed lips open.
“Nothing.”
The Grand Duke, and every person frozen in place watching the confrontation, stopped breathing. Thalia too stared at him with eyes clouded by bewilderment.
Quietly looking down at his father’s ashen face, Barcas added gently,
“I see nothing with my eyes. So please, calm yourself.”
A tremor ran through the old man’s lips.
The priest, recovering his wits a moment too late, hurried to the bedside and soothed the Grand Duke.
“Your Grace, you must cast off your fear. The messenger of God will guide you to the world of rest.”
The old man who had been staring so persistently at his heir soon lost every last scrap of strength and went limp.
Looking down upon that sight with calm eyes, Barcas rose to his feet.
Thalia carefully took hold of his sleeve. Somehow it felt as though she must.
He looked down at her with glass-like blue eyes, then turned his gaze back to the bed.
Soon the priest began to recite a prayer in a devout voice. Yet the fear lodged in the old man’s eyes did not easily fade.
Muttering occasional nonsense and gasping roughly, the man finally entered eternal rest only as the sun was setting.