North x Northwest

Lil, who had been stubbornly ignoring him, turned her head when she kept hearing the sound of something bumping into the bars. The source of the noise was the red jewel, handing on the end of the necklace, hitting the wooden poles.

Lil’s face, which had been full of hostility, suddenly hardened. She stuttered as if her throat was being strangled.

“…How… how did you…”

Her chair screeched as she jumped to her feet. She was dazed for a moment, but then she started moving. When she was running toward the bars, she tripped on the leg of the couch and fell forward.

Mireille leisurely observed the scene and grinned. Not even thinking about getting up properly, Lil crawled closer on her knees.

“Give it to me!”

As soon as she got a hold of the bars, her arm stretched out between them.

“…How?!”

Mireille easily dodged her desperate action with a quick retreat. Lil’s gesture of reaching out her arms appeared so earnest that it made Mireille burst into laughter.

Yet Lil continued to catch the air with her fingertips.

“…How… How can this be? How did you get it?!”

“Converted people need careful management. They are mentally weak and you can never be sure when they might betray you again. If you used them to testify, you should have at least guaranteed a pardon, but instead, you told them to pay for their sins? Of course, they would betray you.”

Lil’s face turned pale. She blurted out a name, even though she couldn’t believe it.

“…Maxwell?”

“After his testimony, you should have disposed of him so there would have been no other repercussions. That is why you can never touch me. I thought you were showing off some tricks, but as expected, in the end, you got carried away by your clumsy emotions and made a mistake. What a pity…”

“You despicable bastard…”

“I wondered why you were so confident and revealed that you were a pirate… You never expected that I would have guessed your usage of a relic, now did you? That was an amazing move I must say. I commend you.”

“..!”

Mireille clapped his hands. The slow but strong clapping continued three or four more times before abruptly stopping.

“But was there not something you overlooked? The fact that I was the one who gave the Marquess of Roahn the information about this artefact? Did you think that I, who even managed to catch a mermaid, would not understand what this artefact could do?”

Lil could only helplessly sit on the floor and glare at Mireille. A situation with which Mireille was most satisfied.

‘It is exactly as I hoped… Jeanne became so obedient that it was no fun anymore. She did as she was told and she regarded what she was told not to do as if it were law. The same was true for the slaves. Men who are afraid to be whipped and obey flat were not fun for me anymore either. What gives me excitement is to see someone being dragged and beaten while rebelling to finally scream before breaking…’

“Beg His Majesty to let you be my wife after all. Tell him that you may have been crazy for a moment, but that you, in fact, still love me. This way, I will reconsider revealing your identity. There is no marquess to protect you now, nor a brother to take care of you as a blood relative. One is tied up in the aftermath of his failed southern expedition, and the other one has been kicked out by your own hands. The only reason why the southern expedition happened in the first place was due to the Marquess’ obsession with the relic. In the end, it is your own fault you got deceived and locked up all alone…”

“…”

Despite all odds, Lil didn’t ask for her life to be spared or said that she would do as Mireille told her.

‘Her amazing pride is still the same.’

However, Mireille knew well that even that would be broken once she returned to his residence.

“You should have waited for the Marquess. A girl like you dared to jump into Sesbron without any support. I thought you would have learned from past mistakes, but it seems that nothing has changed.”

“..!”

Lil’s arm, still struggling to reach out, slowly lowered. Her lips tightened and her face hardened. A certain determination was visible on her face, and Mireille easily read the meaning.

“Why, do you think it would be better to die as a pirate? Your imagination surely runs wild. I will never kill you now. While it would be nice to see you executed, I will never let you off the hook so easily. You will live your life begging to be executed because instead of letting you go, I will take you as my wife for real this time.”

Lil finally opened her mouth, affirming Mireille that his assumption had been right.

“No…”

Her screams rose higher.

“No!”

Lil shook the bars violently in a desperate attempt to break free but to no avail.

“You crazy bastard! I will kill you!”

Mireille contendly looked down at her hands that gripped the bars. There were already tears in her eyes, and her body was shaking with rage. The redness of her face seemed to be a repayment of the anger that he had felt at the banquet, satisfying him greatly.

“I will save your life with a tearful appeal. Then no one will be able to complain or doubt my true feelings for you.”

Lil screamed and cursed.

‘It is obvious why a woman who knows how to use her brain would curse rather than persuade or threaten… It is because she has no other cards left…’

Lil, driven to the edge of a cliff, stretched out her hands and tried to grab her necklace as if she had lost her mind. Her eyes looked at Mireille harshly like he was an insect worth trampling on.

When the guards heard the commotion and returned, Mireille watched the woman’s futile struggles a little longer before turning around with satisfaction…

***

The night deepened.

Darkness came over Lil, who was scattered on the carpet. As she listened carefully, she heard a familiar sound. The sharp sound of a knife being sharpened came from somewhere. Not long after, laughter mixed with the scratching of metal. Lil stared at the ceiling, motionless. The shadow of the chandelier hanging from the ceiling stirred in the moonlight while the growing darkness shrouded her vision.

…Black… Shadow… Darkness…

Suddenly a burst of laughter broke out.

“…Hahaha…”

“Hahahaha!”

Lil laughed louder than the sounds of her hallucination, and Mortu’s breathing slowed down.

‘How ridiculous. Who is afraid of the shadows? Who on earth shivers at the darkness that erupts when a shadow is cast?’

“…It’s me…”

A woman answered, curled up in the past. A woman bleeding with her bones cut and her flesh falling away.

Lil stood up and walked over to her. She sat close to the woman and told her of what had happened today. The woman shook her head, not believing Lil. Still, Lil didn’t give up on her. Lil steadily persuaded the woman that she no longer had to cut out her tongue, that she no longer had to tear off her limbs bit by bit and offer them Mortu.

Of course, doing so didn’t mean that the wounds from the past were easily healed or her scars would disappear. But just because she was damaged didn’t mean she had to be locked up in Mortu’s castle forever. However, staying any longer meant permanent damage. So even though her ankle was cut off, she had to crawl out. If she didn’t have elbows, she had to push herself off the floor with her shoulders.

No matter how broken with fear and despair the past was, the future to come was not. Because countless shadows would reach out to her to save her. Shadows, as vast as half of the empire, were strong and bold enough to conquer even Mortu’s castle.

So she didn’t have to suffer anymore.

Lil comforted her past self for a long time.

Till Liloa was no longer scared or anxious.

‘Now, the shadows I remember are from those who are half of the world’s subjects. Human figures draped over my head one by one. The darkness turned into shadows that proves the existence of humans who saved me by standing upright with me. So, how can I ever let fear defeat this salvation?’

The shadows gradually appeared on Lil’s ever-lonely road. Everyone was walking little by little on their own, some with hesitations on whether to move forward, nevertheless, there were already so many of them. Even if they didn’t walk side by side, they were already together, even by simply standing on a certain street corner.

Her surroundings were bathed in immeasurable shadows. Shadows of companionship that she had been waiting so long for.

Lil quietly closed her eyes. As her auditory hallucinations slowly faded into silence, she became convinced.

‘The god of death, Mortu, will never reach me again. For the shadows have healed me forever.’

***

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