Chapter 34
TIME passed as Yuki lost herself in her thoughts and the light spilling in from the window had taken on an orange hue dyeing the room a violent red. Vigo and Selena were away. Listening closely, she heard quiet footsteps from the adjacent room. Wanting to see the changing sky, she rolled off the bed and walked over to the window. The orange colored roads were empty of the pedestrians seen sporadically during the afternoon.
I wonder whether we can leave this place tomorrow.
Yuki looked out across the row house rooftops. Even toward the outskirts of the main plaza, houses jutted out in every direction filled by many families and people. Those people were now helplessly suffering from the Ten Day Fever. A desire to cure them all overwhelmed her, but the logical side of her knew the futility of her desire.
I didn’t know how difficult it would be to help so many people. Her mind flitted back to the young man she promised to see again. I think I understand how he felt now.
Pasch said he wanted to play with the children at the orphanage instead of thinking about the crisis he was faced with.
I want to stop thinking too. She folded her arms on the windowsill and looked down. Her eyes widened on the people she saw below.
“Knights,” she murmured.
Two armored Knights walked the streets deep in conversation.
Were they on patrol? Corona had been frightened to death of being found when they came across her because she had been walking around during the Witch’s Hour. Yuki’s suspicion was aroused by the way they looked. Instinctively, her time traveling with Luca and his men left the feeling they weren’t on patrol.
Why? …What are they doing?
Trying to get closer, she bumped her nose against the window. She placed her hand on it and strained her eyes to get a better look at the soldiers—the nudging suspicion came to a head then.
“Why are they laughing?”
The Knights were chatting about something and laughing. Anger bubbled inside Yuki.
All the townspeople are suffering and in pain. Fury over how they could laugh turned her hand white from the pressure she pressed it against the glass. Why aren’t they doing anything to help? They take advantage of the people by locking them away at night and dare to laugh?
Here Yuki was lamenting her inability to do anything to help. And there the Knights who had the power and authority to do more laughed and strolled the streets at the times they restricted. Unlike the fallen Rvydom, the people of Fol should’ve had the support of their country. Their lives should have been better.
How can the soldiers who are supposed to be helping—laugh? Fury reaching its boiling point, even their smiles brought her ire. Their smiles are nothing like the children.
The numerous children she encountered in Rvydom tried their best to be cheerful despite the pain and suffering. In spite of their young age, they knew if they showed their misery on their faces their hopes would be dashed.
The glass clattered—from Yuki’s enraged shaking. Noticing it didn’t help her regain her cool.
They laughed. Not just any laugh—one like they were having all the fun in the world. They laugh and smile in a town where everyone is suffering and dying.
Yuki’s feet moved of their own accord, tiptoeing without her thinking to do it. Silently opening the door, she held her breath and shut it behind her. Slowly maneuvering through the hallway where she could hear Selena’s voice from the adjacent room, she made her way to the stairway at the end and descended the steps one foot at a time. Once at the foyer, she soundlessly slipped outside. Making a sound would let on to the roiling anger coursing through her veins.
✦ ✦ ✦
YUKI darted off the moment the door shut behind her. She had one goal in mind: to find the Knights who strolled around laughing. She dashed out to the road and looked in the direction she saw them disappear. The sky had lost its light and with it came a darkness blotting out the distance. Going by what she had seen of the roads from the window, she ran and quickly found them.
The two Knights walked at a leisurely pace. They didn’t check their surroundings, but looked at each other’s faces while they blabbed on. Seeing them drudged back the exhausting sorrow Yuki felt earlier in the day. The anger didn’t persist and she found herself feeling like a lost child.
Sad. The Knights made her sad. The country made her sad. They seemed to have given up on helping Fol. Just like the sun setting beyond the horizon, Yuki’s heart dropped to the pit of her stomach. With every passing second the last vestiges of dark-blue transformed into the pitch-black of night.
It’s fine I came after them, but… Trudging through the nighttime streets doused her wild rage to a simmer. What do I do now?
It was a bit late to worry about her actions, but she felt like smacking herself for running outside without informing anyone. Corona had been so frightened being outside after curfew that she quivered the whole way home. There had to be ample reason for such a deep fear to take root. Recklessly foraying outside would incur Selena and Vigo’s wrath when they found out too.
What excuse should she come up with? As she contemplated her options, the Knights came to a sudden stop.
Crap!
Frantically scanning for a hiding place, she slipped in to a narrow opening between two buildings. Peaking her face out ever so slightly, she watched the Knights. They nervously glanced around the area and hastily twisted the doorknob to a nearby building. A dazzlingly light spilled from the opened door and the men squinted against it as they set foot inside.
“…Is this a lodging house? Maybe?” Yuki muttered, staying in her hiding place thinking they might turn around and come back out. The darkened sky erased her shadow and light trickled outside through closed curtains.
Things could have ended there if she had been content to think it was a lodging house. However, Yuki couldn’t let go of the way they nervously looked about before going inside.
Are they doing something they shouldn’t be? Her initial thought was Knights wouldn’t stoop that low, but the sneer on their faces shattered their trustworthiness.
“…I’ll just steal a peek inside through the window. I’ll go home as soon as I check it out.”
And then I’ll let Vigo harshly scold me.
Yuki slipped out of the gap between the buildings. Raucous voices grew louder the closer she came to the place the men had entered. The voices were oddly merry. It reminded her of the sounds and noises she often heard in the school cafeteria. She walked at a crouch to the side of the building and popped her head up under the window so her eyes were level with the lowest pane of glass. Nothing obstructed her view inside the building she instantly knew was a bar.
Is this a joke?
The bad feeling she had was on the money. Knights filled every corner of the bar. Many of them had stripped off their upper body armor and caused a ruckus with a bottle in one hand.
I can’t believe it. Yuki trembled. The boiling pit of feelings that finally started to simmer down had the heat turned back up. I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it. I can’t believe it!
She accepted the spectacle in front of her as reality. But she couldn’t comprehend how it came to be.
Adolunde and Maruk are at war. Fol is the closest city to the border. The city was already taken over once. There’s nothing to guarantee it won’t happen again.
Corona told them the large numbers of Knights were there to stop another takeover.
And here they are drinking away the night.
The majority of the town’s population suffered from the Ten Day Fever. Only a handful of the infected had the strength left to reach out and accept a helpful hand offered to them.
Yuki stood up on an impulse. A man with long, copper hair tied loosely behind his head looked straight out the window at her. Their eyes met through the window.
“I can’t believe it,” she said louder this time.
Yuki marched over to the front door and put her hand on it. Logically, she knew she should skedaddle back to the inn before things took a wrong turn. She shoved the door open with her full strength and rudely stomped inside.
“I can’t believe it!” she shouted.
Silence started from the copper-haired young man and spread across the bar as all eyes turned on Yuki. One of the men opened his mouth to say something to her, but she glared at him and lashed out before he could get a word in edgewise.
“How can you be drinking your brains out at a time like this?!” she couldn’t stop herself from shouting.