Chapter 84

EPILOGUE Col was laid up with a fever. As he slept, he had repeated dreams of Myuri in her wolf form dragging him across a grassy plain, which grew and grew until the grasses stood as tall as a wall, flipping the earth and the sky on its head. He could do nothing in this backward world, only shiver in fear at the prospect of falling from Myuri’s back. The irritation from his hard breathing, the pain racking his body, and his leaden limbs had woken him up countless times. Whenever that happened, he would be relieved that it was just a dream. At the same time, he understood that his irritation at his difficult breathing and pain and leaden limbs all came from how Myuri clung to him in reality. After two days and two nights of fitful slumber and startled awakenings, Col’s fever finally abated on the morning of the third day. “Rule number one of travel: Say something when you feel bad,” Myuri said, pointing at his forehead. “I was so scared! I didn’t think you’d collapse like that while you were talking to the Church people.” Her anger was proof that she was genuinely worried about him. Col took her hand and pulled her in for a hug. “I’m sorry.” “Huh?! Ooooh, uh… Oookaaay…” Myuri was immediately flustered when Col initiated the hug, despite how confident she was when it was the other way around. Her wolf tail swished back and forth hesitantly and tentatively, unsure how she was supposed to feel. “………” The reason she remained so still in his arms was because she sensed something off about all this. “…Did you have a bad dream?” When she asked, Col gave her slender frame one more squeeze before finally letting her go. “Yes.” Myuri, now collapsed on top of him as he lay on the bed, looked at him as though she was going to say something, but then nuzzled her face into his chest as though scrubbing that thought away. “I’m here.” Col at first considered how reassuring that was, but he broke into a smile because at least eighty percent of the pain in his nightmares came from how Myuri would lay on top of him like this, perhaps because she would fall asleep as she watched over him. “What happened to Lord Nordstone and the others?” When he asked, Myuri gave her answer as she joyfully crawled into his covers; the knight was apparently on a break. “Most of the townspeople were on the old man’s side. You remember that, right?” “Yes.” After Myuri left the forest with Nordstone, they found the people of Raponell rising in revolt against the Church. The commotion Col had heard before entering the house came from the people defying the Church’s claims of heresy. “The port was in chaos, too. In the end, the Church people backed off with their inquis-y whatever stuff.” It was during official negotiations with Stephan that Col developed a sudden fever and collapsed. “But the old man acknowledged that he really had been smuggling things, so…Stephan? The guy who always looks like he’s going to cry? He asked the old man to leave this land in exchange for letting his crimes slide, and the old man accepted.” It was a fair decision, considering how the priests needed to save face after the whole commotion. “The crybaby lord decided he was going to kick the old man out, but someone gifted him a whole bunch of wheat and stuff and loaded it onto the mice’s boat. It was only townspeople that came to see them shove off, but the crybaby lord was there on the coast and chased the boat for a long time. He’s really bad at riding, though.” Stephan put his land’s wellbeing above all—he was no ingrate. His position demanded that he preserve order, so he had been unable to openly bid farewell to the elder Nordstone. “Az told me that all the important village people who mind the fields already knew about the fertilizer. It’s a trade secret, though, so they’re planning to keep it that way, even though they can’t use smuggling ships anymore. They said they’ll play things fair and square by using sheep and pig bones from now on. It’ll be more expensive to buy those, so the price of wheat is going up to make up for it, and Az told me it gave him a headache. I think it’ll be the same for Blondie.” To Eve and Hyland, the ones that were on the purchasing side of the transaction, this was not going to be pleasant news. “What about Miss Ilenia and Miss Sharon?” “The chicken went right back to Rausbourne. Miss Ilenia wanted to read all the books that came out of the old man’s house, so she got on Vadan’s ship.” “Wait, she went west?” Col asked in shock, and Myuri, who had gone right back to being a dissolute, rambunctious girl, clung to his arm and replied with a big yawn. “The old man and the rest went to the capital to collect money so they can head west, I’m pretty sure. I think the reason he didn’t rely on you was because of his pride.” There was delight in her voice as she spoke—she had run alongside Nordstone through the forest to chase away what they thought were arresting forces, after all. Col, however, saw a slightly different reason why Nordstone quickly departed, almost as though he wanted to avoid contact with him. “Hey, Brother?” Myuri spoke up in a wheedling voice. “We should get back soon, too. Rausbourne’s much more fun and lively.” But as she said that, she looked fully ready to go back to sleep. “So I guess this solves…yawn…this incident…” She spoke with a yawn, almost as though she were sleep-talking already, and Col recalled Nordstone’s house. Col was never good at hiding things, and Myuri had the keen wolf’s eyes and nose. But he had not yet spoken about that night, and the reason she did not seem to realize that yet was because Col himself still thought of the whole thing as a disturbing dream. Had it been his own phantasm? Or perhaps the phantasms of an alchemist? A new land was said to lay beyond the western sea. If people learned that it did indeed exist, then he imagined it could serve as the first step toward lasting peace between the Kingdom and the Church, whose dispute was causing so much discord throughout the world. But if his dream from that night was indeed real, then the situation would bring on something much deeper, much more serious. “Myuri.” He called her name, but she was already dozing off—either because she was tired from looking after him, or because she had been taking care of matters with Az while Col was sleeping, now that things were more or less over—her ears flicked in his direction, waiting for what he was going to say next. “If…if I am haunted again by nightmares, will you save me?” He felt her stir, and that was because she laughed. “Brother.” She lifted her head from the blanket they shared, her exasperated reddish eyes looking at him. “Didn’t I say I’m your knight?” This silver wolf had followed him even into the depths of the dark, icy seas. There was no falsehood in her words. “Then we should get up and give our regards to Lord Stephan.” “Huh?” Col peeled back the blankets and sat up, and Myuri instantly curled into a ball in the cold air. “Come now, time to get up. Are we not returning to Rausbourne? It is already morning. We must also write letters of thanks to Mister Kieman and Miss Diana. We have no time to be lazing about.” “But you’ve been sleeping this whole time!” Col paid no mind to her protests; he opened the window and let the bracing wind fill the room. The sunny Raponell harbor was bright, and the sea shone clear blue. Many people had surely dreamed of what lay at the end of it. And there were people in the world who were bigger dreamers than Myuri. “Let’s eat first, Brother!” He turned around when she said that, and there stood the energetic girl. He always found himself drawn to her innocent smile, no matter how difficult times got. It would not be long before he had to tell Myuri what he realized back at the house. When he tried to picture it happening, he pictured her not trembling with fear, but her tail puffing out in excitement. That image alone was enough to chase away the fear in his heart that had plagued him with a fever for three days. “Oh, that’s right,” he said to her as he took his coat in hand. “You left the forest with Lord Nordstone and stood up to the people doing the Church’s bidding, correct? It seems you did not come into conflict with the villagers…but it sounded quite lively from a distance. Did it really end peacefully?” “Oh, yeah! Listen! The old man was super cool!!” Myuri spoke with delight, having completely forgotten her knightly manners, and grabbed his hand as they left the room. “Yeah, so when the old man let out this huge roar…” Col listened as she told her story, gripping her smaller hand in his the whole time. He had dreamed of the world getting flipped upside down. There were yet countless, unbelievable secrets hidden throughout the world. Shocking ones that would completely outshine the conflict between the Kingdom and the Church. “If only you were there in the fight with me!” There was no way he could face them alone. But so long as this silver-haired knight stayed by his side, he could go anywhere. “But, Brother, I really wish I had a legendary sword, though!” He gave her a smile in turn, and once again, he opened the door that led outside. The world was a great, big place, and many things they had not yet seen were still waiting for them.