Though it hadn’t been intentional, the fact of the matter was that the barely fourteen-year-old girl had taken another person’s life. Overwhelmed by regret and fear, she had locked herself in her room and barely ate anything. The confidant, obstinate girl had lost everything resembling ambition or aspiration. Even when she slept, she was tormented by nightmares, making it difficult for her to rest. As expected, the lack of proper sleep quickly took a toll on her appearance.
Even so, perhaps due to some misplaced pride in her noble station, she refused to so much as utter an apology, constantly muttering about how she had done nothing wrong.
During that time, Deenoark had recovered to a point where he could speak with his children, and so he met with her and Hydgene. No one outside the room knew what was discussed inside, but when the trio came out long after they were expected to finish, the family decided to go visit Misha’s home in the forest. That said, Deenoark was still not healthy enough to ride a horse and was still busy handling the fallout of the end of the war.
Few people knew the precise location of the forest home, and Deenoark wasn’t keen on letting more people know about it, so a small number of people who had already been there, Kite included, were sent instead. The group consisted of Lyla, Hydgene—who insisted on seeing the house as well—a man to ride with each of them, and two additional guards. Though it was a startlingly small group, considering their desire to keep the outing a secret, they had decided they couldn’t afford to bring anyone else.
Kite had ended up riding with Lyla. As much as he’d wanted to object, he had no authority in his position within the knighthood to do so. So he obediently followed the same road he had run down with Misha, this time with her half sister on his horse.
It took them half a day to reach the house. After a long, winding journey through the trees, Lyla was stunned to see the small cabin Misha had once inhabited. In her eyes, the simple accommodations were akin to living in destitution.
On the journey back, Lyla had been very quiet, her expression dark.
“She couldn’t handle her responsibilities, so she abandoned them all and retreated to the woods to live in luxury with her daughter. And as if that weren’t enough, she kept taking father’s precious time, even though he was so busy. That’s what mother always told me. But she was lying, wasn’t she? I was such a fool. I just wanted to stay on mother’s good side, so I never thought about things for myself a single time, never looked around with my own eyes...”
Those words she had murmured on their way back had stuck with Kite.
Afterward, Lyla had requested that she be sent to a monastery. She wanted to offer up prayers for the life she had accidentally taken in hopes Leyas would find happiness in the next world, and she longed for that quiet environment to rethink how she saw herself.
Officially she would be there as an apprentice nun. Depending on her behavior within the monastery, there was a chance of her returning to the secular world eventually, but as of yet there was no saying when that might happen.
The majority of those who knew of Lyla’s haughty personality assumed that as laudable as her moment of self-reflection was, it wouldn’t last long. Only time would tell whether they were right or wrong. As for Kite himself, he felt that something had changed in Lyla during their short journey together, but that was something he wasn’t about to share with anyone.
After quite a long wait, Misha finally returned with the promised medicine.
“There wasn’t as much as I thought, so I made some extra. I also have some salves and painkillers for my father,” she said when she finally returned, coming into the room balancing bottles of various medicines and ointments in her arms. Kite simply nodded and accepted them from her.
Misha probably hasn’t moved beyond her mother’s death nearly as much as the people around her seem to think. That may be a bigger hurdle than even she realizes. Trying to talk about all this will just hurt her. It’s better if I just warn those around her about the potential danger and let them take care of it.
That was the conclusion Kite had reached while he waited for Misha’s return.
Luckily it seems they’ve been very strict in choosing who to position as her attendants, so I don’t think it’ll be a problem.
There was that butler, who had so brazenly tested Kite on his arrival in Redford, and the maids who showed all kinds of emotion on the surface but always had a calm and collected look in their eyes. When Kite and Misha went out to explore the city, there were always guards watching them from just out of his line of sight. And though he hadn’t met any of them face-to-face, Kite had encountered many signs of those known as Shadows keeping an eye on her.
Just how tight does their security have to be?
Kite was just starting to get tired of listing the numerous and unique people surrounding and protecting Misha when she finally returned. She had given him plenty of time to come to his conclusion.
Misha seemed to have entirely forgotten that he had brought up Rosmaria and Lyla, judging by the way she “invited” him to come see the burning of the lanterns with her, pulling at his hand without waiting for his answer. To Kite, that looked very much like an unconscious defense mechanism. With that realization, even knowing how improper it was for a foreigner like him to be walking around the castle at night, he didn’t have the heart to refuse her. So he allowed her to pull him along, and he ended up climbing a tree with her like he was a kid again.
“Wow, it’s beautiful.”
“Yeah. You can see the city from lots of places in the castle, but I was told that if you wanted to see the burning of the lanterns, this is the best place.”
Misha and Kite sat in a large tree in the corner of the castle garden. At first it looked like climbing the large tree would be a challenge, but it had been surprisingly easy for the two of them to scale it and position themselves in its upper branches.
The most interesting part had been when Kite had been puzzling over how to get Ren up with them, and Ren had simply hopped out of his arms and bounced up the tree, branch to branch, on his own.
“I’ve never seen a dog climb a tree before.”
Misha burst out laughing at Kite’s shock. “I looked into Ren’s background. It seems like he’s an albino jumping gray wolf. They’ve got sturdier hind legs than other wolves, so they’re good at jumping. The book I read said that while they’re not great at climbing, they can hop from branch to branch like that to get up trees. Apparently they come from the Isu Mountains, so a pack of them must have come down south looking for food and established themselves here.”
Misha tried to lift up Ren’s hind legs to show Kite, but the wolf pup evidently didn’t appreciate it, as he scowled and hopped up to a higher branch to escape. Misha and Kite laughed as they turned their attention back to the city.
The lanterns gathered around the large altar built on the edge of the lake went up in an enormous blaze. Sparks scattered into the night sky, their light reflecting off the lake to create a beautiful, fantastical light show. Each of the lanterns had also been lit, adding countless sparkles to the greater bonfire at their center.
“Misha...do you like it here in Redford?” Kite murmured, looking down at the great crimson pyre reflecting beautifully off the lake.