Chapter 54
YUKI snapped awake. She felt a lot like when she accidentally fell back to sleep after her alarm went off and woke up a second time when it was too late to go to school. Panic from sleeping too long forced her mind to an active state. This time she woke up completely aware of her situation.
“…Luca!”
She pushed herself off Luca’s chest, causing a slight dizzy spell. The dizziness didn’t matter; she needed to confirm his condition. She groped around for him—her fingers brushed against rough skin, rubbing off the scabs.
The pustules and pocks had healed into scabs she could peel off.
“…Thank goodness,” she said hoarsely. Through fuzzy vision she ran her hands down his arm in search of the healthy skin color hiding beneath the dried, cracked skin. Luca didn’t look like he was going to wake up anytime soon, but there was relief in knowing he wasn’t going to die.
“Who did you get such a bad case of the Ten Day Fever from?” she cursed under her breath and weakly collapsed on him. Her head rested on his abdomen. The rhythmic up-down movement from his breathing lolled her back to sleep.
“Isn’t the answer obvious? He had the same exact symptoms as the queen.”
Yuki’s eyes snapped open at what sounded like Vivi confessing to being the origin of Luca’s illness. She lifted her head from his stomach and looked behind her. Vivi lay on her stomach on the end of the bed kicking her feet up and down and grinning like the Cheshire cat.
“Why…?” she coughed.
Why did Vivi do something so horrible? How can she be calm and not feel any guilt for the awful thing she has done?
Vivi rolled off the bed and eyed Yuki with disdain and disgust. “Why? Do you have to ask? It’s her punishment, obviously. That wretched woman used a hex to try to kill me. I just turned her own hex back on her. And then she contracted a strange case of the Ten Day Fever. That’s all there is to it.”
“A…hex?”
“Aaah, right, you don’t know anything about anything. Shouldn’t you do something about that? For your information, a hex is a curse. Humans have no power over words like we do—they require a sacrifice. It’s a form of ancient black magic even humans can use.”
Curse. Hex. Sacrifice—sacrificial prince. What did the queen, who Vivi demeaned a wretched woman, sacrifice to cast the hex?
“She…sacrificed Luca for her hex…?”
“Haven’t I been saying that all this time?! I can’t understand why you would heal the woman who sacrificed your Knight and nearly killed him.”
“But why would the…queen do it?”
Why Luca?
“Good question,” Vivi responded, putting her index finger to the side of her chin and cocking her head like an adorable child trying to decide what ice cream she wanted. “‘I want to kill that Witch! But I can’t even touch her with my measly power. I know, I’ll curse her to death! But to do so, I need a sacrifice. And a high-grade one to have any effect.’ Isn’t that what went through her miserable little head? And then it occurred to her: ‘I can use those children I have no use for,’” Vivi said, mimicking the queen’s voice.
“What the hell…?”
Who are the children she has no use for?
“Any child will do aside from the ones she birthed—all others are fair game. One of the sacrifices already died. The first hex caught me by surprise, so that wretched woman weaseled her way out of my quick-fire retaliation.”
“One of the sacrifices…?”
When she first met Rifaenotis, he had informed her Adolunde’s Third Prince had died of the Ten Day Fever.
“Don’t tell me…”
Vivi nodded and swung on one of the posts decorating the four-poster bed.
Poor guy.
Yuki turned away from Vivi and examined Luca’s face. He slept peacefully with his face encrusted with reddish-brown scabs. Seeing his chest move with regular, stabilized breathing brought a tremendous amount of sadness to her. Had she been any later, he would have ended up like the other sacrifice whose breathing had stopped.
“…Why did you punish the sacrifice as well? Isn’t that unfair? I mean…they didn’t do anything wrong. They were the victims here…yet—”
“You really are a foolish girl. They weren’t innocent bystanders who did nothing. They used their entire body and soul as a source of power to curse me. Even if they weren’t a willing party in it. Their hand in it is a fact and the result is all that matters. For all you know, your Knight might have despised me from the depths of his soul. If he did, it’d be his lifelong desire to be sacrificed to get at me.”
“Luca would never—”
“Yes, yes, he might not. Naïve, naïve, little Yuki. Do you understand what you’ve done?”
“What?”
Vivi grabbed Yuki by the collar and pulled her up. Yuki’s dress squeezed around her neck, choking her. Vivi lifted Yuki in the air with a strength mismatched with her ten-year-old appearance. She brought Yuki’s face to hers and sneered.
“It means you saved the life of the wretched woman who tried to kill me.”
The red in Vivi’s violet eyes deepened and wavered. Yuki realized too late it was a preliminary sign of Vivi’s anger.
Vivi spoke with a smile cold enough to freeze an ocean, “…But I guess the timing is just right. Things are only getting worse, and I’ve lost interest in looking after it. This might be the time to make a once in a lifetime risky gamble.”
“Gamble…on what?” Yuki coughed and clawed at the collar of her dress to keep it from cutting off circulation to her throat.
“You’re asking questions again. You ask about every little thing, don’t you?”
“I’m…sorry.”
What in the world was Vivi thinking? Yuki hadn’t the faintest idea what she was talking about. All she knew was the primary cause of the queen’s Ten Day Fever was the queen herself, but Vivi had put Luca in danger to exact her revenge. Vivi’s fury wouldn’t be staved now that Yuki had saved the queen. And she was angry with Yuki for what she had done.
Her mind was stuck trying to think of a way to apologize. She didn’t know the details, but the queen had put Luca’s life in danger. While she wondered why, she didn’t feel resentment or anger toward her. Question marks floated over her head and she was more concerned with wanting answers than becoming emotionally charged.
But…even if I knew what the queen had done, I wouldn’t have left her to die.
“…Your thoughts are written all over your face.”
“They are?”
“Wow. Are there daisies growing in your brain? How gullible and naïve can you be?” Vivi released her hold on Yuki’s collar. Yuki fell back onto the bed. “You aren’t quaking in fear of me because I’m not all that angry…. Oh, don’t be mistaken, it’s inexcusable to try to kill me, but I can kill the wretched woman with nary a moment’s thought.”
“…You can?”
“You know, I’ve been patiently waiting here for you to fearfully ask me, ‘Vivi, whatever should I do? I’m lost without your guidance!’ …But it looks like you’ve gotten impudent while I took my eyes off you. I can’t believe you’ve become this defiant.”
“I-I’m not being defiant…”
“You are too. You don’t look remorseful for what you’ve done?” Vivi snickered and went to say more, but suddenly turned toward the door. “Someone’s here.”
“They are?!” Startled, Yuki looked toward the open door leading to the parlor room. The latched door didn’t move. Vivi glanced at Luca and then at the door.
“…This boy possesses something interesting.” She smiled complacently at Yuki and snapped her fingers. Vivi’s body turned into a storm of red rose petals and dispersed.
“Wait! Vivi!” she shouted at the rose petals. The rose petals rapidly turned transparent until they disappeared completely. The intense fragrance of roses was the only trace of her left. “What do I do?!”
Flustered, she glanced around the room. Who was coming? Why? For what purpose?
“Shouldn’t the door be locked to keep everyone out?!”
“Servants are sent to change his sleeping position.”
Rhad’s statement rang through her ears. She considered the possibility of their unwelcome guest being a servant, but Rhad told her he had bribed the servants to give them space today. Did Orga send soldiers after her?
“…He shouldn’t have.”
If Orga wanted her captured, he wouldn’t have given her the freedom and keys to Luca. Yuki’s poor health made it difficult to think, but Orga seemed different at the time, almost distraught. For the first time, she thought she saw the human behind the monster.
“Wh-Wh-Wh-What should we do, Luca?!”
Panicked, she crawled up the bed next to his face. Sitting beside his face still left plenty of room between them on the bed. She stared down at Luca’s face. She shook his shoulders, but the tranquil look of sleep didn’t change.
“I need to get under the bed!” Yuki leapt from the bed at the speed of light and rolled up the pure-white blankets to find her hopes dashed. “…Why is it made of wood all the way to the floor? …Isn’t it normal for there to be storage space under a bed?!”