The moat led to a secluded reservoir beyond the castle wall.
Lou, who had been swimming desperately while hiding behind a mossy stone wall beneath the surface of the water, poked her head out.
The world was already shrouded in deep darkness.
Lou pulled the unconscious Les to the surface of the water.
The cold night air enveloped them, wet with air.
"No..."
Dark red blood was gushing out from his back where the arrow was embedded.
"Rosien, you must never just pull the arrow out. If you don't stop the bleeding, you will die soon. Stop the bleeding first and wait for your father, understand?"
But her father was gone. Les's survival depended solely on her.
Lou tore off the heavy collar of the sleeve with trembling hands.
She firmly pressed down around the arrow to secure it. The gushing blood had mostly stopped, but Les still didn't move a muscle.
‘Why on earth?’
When an arrow cuts through the air, she remembers that fleeting moment.
Joachim was clearly targeting her. If Les had let go of her from his embrace, at least he wouldn't have been hit by an arrow.
However, Les neither let go of Lou nor let her get hurt.
The price paid was this horrific.
Wet silver hair clung to his pale complexion. His wet white shirt was stained pink.
Lou hurriedly brought her ear close to his lips, which had turned purple. The breath touching her cheek was faint.
"Just a little, just hang in there a little longer."
Lou took off her outer garment and wrapped it around his body. It was just as wet, but she hoped it would block even a little bit of the cold night air from touching his skin.
Before long, Joachim's soldiers would storm along the moat, torchlit. They had to get out of here somehow. And leave absolutely no trace.
Lou raised her head and looked around.
Behind the reservoir, an iceberg was visible, shining palely in the moonlight.
The cold breath of the conifers was a frozen wasteland shunned by the living, but paradoxically, for the informant Lou, it was the only labyrinth to evade the eyes of her pursuers.
There was no other option
Lou forced her foot, which was sinking into the ground, up and took a step.
The figures of the two people bathed in moonlight soon vanished into the dense darkness.
As she climbed the glacier in a daze, she discovered a cave. The dense trees surrounding it blocked the entrance to the cave like a fortress.
“Oh...!”
As she went inside, it seemed as though wild animals had stayed there. A pungent animal scent stung her nose.
Dry straw and excrement brought by animals were scattered on the ground. Overall, it was clean, and the environment was not bad for starting a fire.
Lou carefully placed Les down on the flat floor. She screamed as if her shoulder would break from carrying a man larger than herself.
Lou bit her lip tightly and moved her body again. There was no time to rest.
She took a dagger from her bosom and lit a small flame on the straw.
She laid Les down next to the campfire she had barely managed to light and came out of the cave.
She knew, having not forgotten her father's teachings she had heard while coming and going.
No matter how massive the iceberg, even in this harsh cold, there are bound to be medicinal herbs that sustain life.
In the dark forest, holding only a dagger in her hand, she was not afraid of any wild beast that might appear.
"Pine resin, cypress..."
Since the only thought in Lou's mind at that moment was to save Les.
A short while later, when she returned to the cave, her hands were a mess.
It was roughly cracked from being scratched by branches and from covering and wiping away the bloodstains and footprints that extended outwards with snow.
However, she didn't care and washed and crushed the cypress leaves in the water from melted clean snow.
When she pulled the arrow out with a red-hot dagger, perhaps because of the arrowhead digging into his flesh, Les writhed and groaned.
"I'm sorry, Les, but you have to hang in there."
She wiped away the clotted blood and applied cypress sap, which has antibacterial properties, to the wound.
And covered the wound with melted pine resin.
Only after the first aid was mostly finished could she catch her breath.
Holding his hand as she still had her eyes closed, Lou rested her forehead against it.
"Please, you can't leave... I don't want to go through this again..."
Since Rupert's death, she has always built a solid wall.
Whether it was love or affection, she turned away from it because it was a luxury too extravagant and full of reasons for her to harbor.
"I like you."
So she ended up realizing it a step too late.
The reason she had been ruminating on this man's every move all this time... the reason she could not shake off thoughts of Les, even at the moment she stood before her lifelong enemy.
"Mom, Dad, Rupert... please help me."
Lou choked up like a child.
Beneath the flickering flames of the bonfire, with his eyes quietly closed, he looked noble like a martyr, making his wretched appearance seem insignificant.
Her heart tightened at the thought that this beautiful man might never open his eyes again.
"...Oh God."
Could you at least look after this man who resembles you?
Lou, who had been repeating prayers all night, soon snapped her head limply.
Even as her exhausted body swayed from sleep, her hands held onto Les's hands desperately, as if they might break.
"..."
The dim moonlight illuminated the inside of the cave. A thin streak of light enveloped the silhouette tangled beside the campfire.
As if the two sleeping people were joined together like a thread of fate.
***
The moonlight faded, and the pale dawn light filled the entrance of the cave.
"Uh, what should I do..."
Until the sun was high in the sky, Les's body heated up like a ball of fire.
The handsome man's face was contorted with pain, and his whole body was drenched in cold sweat.
Wiping his forehead with a towel soaked in cold snow all night was of no use.
Lou reached out her hand.
Hoping that the coldness of her fingertips would alleviate his pain even a little, Lou carefully rubbed the space between his eyebrows and placed the back of her hand on his hot cheek.
"The sunlight on the hill... Ugh, it tickles my cheeks..."
A faint singing sound echoed weakly inside the cave.
The song was mixed with unsuppressed tears.
"When the wind... hugs me... and I close my eyes, sob, sob, so sweet..."
She hoped that the song of the most peaceful and safe time she could remember would bring him some comfort in his pain.
In fact, this was all she could do right now.
It pained her agonizingly to realize that these useless lyrics were all she could convey to the man who took an arrow in her place and fell, to the one who had finally made her realize her feelings.
Overwhelmed by a terrible sense of helplessness, tears streamed down Lou's wet cheeks.
Lou tightened her grip on his hot hand. Soon, a powerful force pulled her.
“...Les?”
The beautiful eyelids that had been tightly closed trembled, and finally, the long-awaited blue eyes met Lou.
***
Peleus's hazy vision seethed.
The screams of the countless battlefields he had passed through and the distorted faces of enemies who had fallen beneath his sword surged in like a nightmare.
"Peleus, where are you? Why did you leave me here?"
With young Medea, crying hysterically and searching for him.
"Pel. You have disappointed your father."
Behind his dying father, the groaning people of Valdina filled his vision. Peleus stepped back.
He wanted to turn around immediately, leave them behind, and run away, but...
Knowing that he couldn't do it, he stood there as if a nail had been driven into his foot.
"Pel, come here."
Someone reached out a hand to the young boy, who was freezing up, unable to do anything.
A streak of golden light descended, cutting through the nightmare, and gently guided him.
As Peleus took one step after another, led as if entranced by that touch, a familiar melody reached his ears.
It tickles the cheek.
When the wind embraces me, if I close my eyes, will a gentle landscape come to me in my dreams?
"Mother...?"
The golden streak that danced before his eyes like a ray of light soon took on the form of a beloved woman.
“Is that you...?”
"Pel, my good boy."
She reached out her hand. Her slender hand covered Peleus's hand.
“Mother, I..."
I tried my best. I wanted to prove myself.
That I can protect Dea, this land, and your people even without you.
As if he had returned to his very naive childhood, Peleus wanted to cry.
Just then, a soft hand stroked his head. His mother nodded.
"We know, Pel. We've always been proud of you."
Warm and affectionate words enveloped him, as if comforting a boy who had to become an adult far too early.
"...I miss you."
Peleus muttered to himself without realizing it.
He repeated the words he had always kept bottled up, feeling as though he would collapse the moment he uttered them, and which he had somehow forgotten.
"Because I missed you..."
If it had been enough to simply exist as a carefree boy of that age, running and playing freely under the protection of his father and mother, he would have desperately missed those tranquil and peaceful times.
"Ahaha! Pel, how is it? Fun, right? Can't you see to the ends of the continent?"
"...Please let me down, Father."
"How can you throw Pel that high?!"
A golden streak illuminated the blue hill.
As he laughed heartily, the lyrics of the song stopped playing softly behind his father's laughter and his mother's shouts running toward him.
The moment he realized it was the end, Peleus muttered.
“Don’t go.”
Just a little more, just a little more. It's been a very long time, so...
However, cruelly, the golden hues faded and all traces scattered like a mirage.
Peleus reached out his hand toward the two people without realizing it.
And finally, he grasped that form.
The moment he saw Lou with her hands held and her amber eyes wide open, a stream of hot tears flowed down his cheek.
Support Novellate!
Comments
Post a Comment