CHAPTER~05
Final Greetings
Lowering her eyes to N’s hand gripping the wrist that held the blade, Airi watched as he finally noticed her gaze and murmured, “Ah,” before letting go.
“I’m sorry.”
N was a kind child who would grant any request made of him.
He had been Airi’s attendant since the depths of the sea, and the foremost contributor who helped Airi and Michael become bound to one another.
Even N, who had always silently helped Airi no matter the matter, seemed a little shaken this time.
The calm eyes that had never wavered in any situation were filled with an unfamiliar agitation.
Airi stared at his face for a moment, then rose without a word and went to the vanity.
She overturned the contents of the jewelry box onto the floor, placed a dagger into the now-empty box, and laid a handful of cut hair on top of it.
Click.
Closing the lid, Airi held the box out to N.
“N, when you return to the sea, will you deliver this to Brother Matthias?”
“Princess.”
N looked from the offered box to Airi’s face, then called to her instead of taking it.
Keeping her gaze on the edge of N’s jaw, flickering with unease in the light of the fireplace, Airi added,
“There’s no other meaning to it.
It’s just…”
A dry murmur slipped from Airi’s lips.
“An unreciprocated heart is a lonely thing.”
To devote even oneself to another and yet receive not even a single glance—how lonely and sorrowful that heart could be.
Airi had learned, through the years spent trapped in a desiccated palace, that no matter the feeling, if borne alone, it would never be conveyed.
“Tell him not to worry anymore.
That whether my hair is long or short, I have a gentle husband who always tells me I’m beautiful.
And tell Brother Matthias and the other brothers…”
“……”
“And if you should happen to meet my father, please tell him this as well.
That his daughter is living happily, cherished more dearly than anyone in this world at the side of the husband she loves, and that she will continue to do so for the rest of her life, forever and ever.
So he need not dare to worry any longer.”
Pushed into it, N took the box, standing frozen like a child who had lost hold of a parent’s hand.
Airi gently brushed the back of N’s hand.
“If this burdens you, you can just set the box down and leave.
Thank you for being such a great support to me all this time, N.”
And then, she pressed down the words that had piled up deep in her chest and forced them out.
“Meeting you was a blessing in my life that I wouldn’t trade for anything.”
N remained silent, then answered in a slightly trembling voice a beat later.
“…Why.”
“……”
“Why are you saying such things all of a sudden?”
Facing N’s stunned eyes, Airi deliberately replied in a composed tone.
“It’s nothing.
Just a belated expression of gratitude.
We haven’t seen each other in a long time.”
It was true that it had been a long time.
From the very first ball, the people of the Empire—including Michael—had not looked kindly on N, who communicated with others in place of Airi after she lost her voice.
Only later did Airi learn that on land it was rare to keep a member of the opposite sex as an attendant.
After maidservants were assigned to her, Airi stopped calling for N, and N did not go out of his way to seek her either.
However, on nights when Airi suddenly fell ill, N would appear without a sound and stand with his head bowed before her door.
After standing there for a long while, as if rooted in place while waiting for his master’s gaze, N would only kneel beneath the bed and extend his hand to ask once Airi had steadied her breathing and composed her expression.
“Shall we go see the sea, Princess.”
Yet Airi never once accepted that request.
She was afraid.
Afraid that if she followed N back to the sea, the moment her feet touched the coarse sand, every step she had taken until now would vanish like sea foam.
Swallowing her soaked heart, she had struggled desperately to endure upon this parched land.
Believing that if she endured and endured, someday her sincerity would surely reach him…
But she no longer wanted to torment the precious people around her with her own desires.
Etching into her eyes N’s black hair, darkened even further by the night air, Airi spoke.
“When the banquet ends, you may go back, N.”
“…Go back?
Where to…?”
“To the sea.”
Having remained out of the water for so long, N could no longer wield his strength as he once had.
He had even replied that it would be difficult to enter unnoticed a place guarded all day long, when Airi had earnestly begged him just once to let her see her son.
“You’re exhausted too.”
The sparks in the fireplace popped and flared, then faded.
In the dying light, N’s mouth opened and closed several times before he finally managed to speak.
“Will you be coming with me, Princess?”
Airi answered without hesitation.
“Yes, I will.”
The moment she finished speaking, relief washed over N’s face.
Airi hesitated briefly, then reached out.
“But, N.”
As she smoothed the disheveled hair of N, who bowed his head like a hunting dog following its master, Airi whispered,
“After I go to the sea, you may leave.”
“What?”
“It means this is enough to atone for your sin.”
N, of a magician’s bloodline, had become Airi’s attendant as punishment laid upon his family.
“It wasn’t your fault to begin with.”
A century ago, a princess who helped another princess in love with a human prince failed to obtain that love and turned into sea foam.
After that, N’s mother became a criminal of the kingdom and was cursed by the Siren clan.
Though she was eventually executed and countless eggs were destroyed, a single egg survived by a miracle, falling into the hands of Airi, who had just been born and was learning to swim.
That egg was N.
From the moment he was born, N had lived solely for Airi, never once doubting that purpose.
How unjust his life had been—having no freedom to choose, forced to take countless risks and stand by her side—was something Airi could only reflect upon after being left alone.
Nothing in this world was a given.
Not even the water and oxygen she had breathed as if they were only natural.
“I’m sorry it took me so long to realize.”
As if he did not understand the meaning of her words, N closed his eyes, then opened them again.
Gazing into the red of N’s eyes, stained by the firelight, Airi spoke as if sighing.
“After you leave me, you’ll understand what I mean.”
Eyes a shade darker than her own hair, red and beautiful like ornate coral.
She had lived her entire life leaning on this steady warmth, like the glow of a fireplace on a winter night.
But she could no longer pretend not to know that even her youthful, radiant dreams had been able to burn away your life.
“You are free, N.”
Instead of replying, N nodded silently.
Unable even to discern whether that, too, was truly his own will, Airi chose to say no more.
N had never learned, not once since his birth, how to defy his master.
That must be why he had granted the absurd request to take her to land.
As if that were not enough, N had given legs to Airi, who could not walk on her own, dressed her in a gown beautiful enough for a ball, and cast a perception-distorting spell on everyone in the banquet hall so that Airi would not become an unidentified outsider.
Thanks to N’s help, Airi became, in an instant, a beautiful princess from some island nation and was able to marry Michael.
All because N recognized the value of Airi’s tears and prepared even countless jewels as her dowry.
I’m sorry.
Swallowing the words she could not speak, Airi lowered her gaze to the box in N’s hands.
She brushed the back of his hand holding the jewelry box once, then let her own hand fall away.
“Go now, N, before it gets any later.”
Watching Airi’s fingertips withdraw, N lowered his head and replied,
“I’ll be back soon.”
Just as she was about to add that he didn’t need to—seeing that N seemed not to understand that granting him freedom meant he need not return—
“We decided to return to the sea together.”
At those words, her lips came to an abrupt halt.
“Even if your wish is for me to leave you, Princess, still.”
“I’ll come back.”
As if making a vow, N vanished like a dying flame.
Where he had stood, only the glittering trace of magic, like stardust sand, remained scattered.
The fading fire in the brazier flared once more, illuminating the back of Airi as she stood alone in the empty room, gazing at the place he had disappeared from.
After confirming that every trace of N lingering in the air had vanished, Airi extinguished the fireplace and rose from her seat.
Looking out the window, preparations for the banquet were in full swing.
She watched people moving large cannons to set off fireworks announcing the opening, and even the hired hands trudging toward the main castle with sacks of gunpowder on their backs shrank to dots beyond the bridge before she reached out and closed the shutter.
By then, the surroundings were swallowed by deep night.
Thinking it might be better if rumors spread that an assassin had broken in, she deliberately left the room cluttered with cut hair and jewels, without cleaning.
Draping a fur coat over a skirt that fell to her ankles, Airi took the finished handkerchief from the table and left the room.
