It seemed as though everyone in the castle had gathered before the cage. At the sight of the bent iron bars, all of them were struck silent. When someone murmured that the guardian deity had departed, they nodded as if they had forgotten the days when they had regarded it as nothing more than a troublesome pile of filth.
The envoy flew into a rage, but when Rosia said that if the legendary snow ring bird had reached the time to leave, how could anyone stop it, he could not offer a proper rebuttal. It was hard to imagine that someone would have released a bird that had attacked people and torn apart corpses just the day before. Perhaps the reason there were no traces of whoever released it was that the bird had swallowed them as well. Thinking along those lines, the envoy returned to Northern Maer after leaving behind only a demand that the promise to march to war be kept.
A new year dawned, and spring arrived. Fir Tree Castle grew busy with preparations for deployment. By then, the people of the castle also knew that Rosia’s leg had become impaired. The spearmen assumed that this campaign would be led by Jaeim. However, as preparations were nearing completion, Rosia announced that she would personally lead the spearmen. Rosia was sixty-one years old. This would likely be her final march.
Since the start of the new year, Rosia had rarely gone outside unless there was some special matter, so the residents seldom saw the lord’s face. They did not know that by this time Rosia could not take a single step without opium. Jouel and the other elders and captains all tried to dissuade Rosia from going, but it was useless. They said she should send Jaeim in her stead, that he was old enough now, but Rosia firmly shook her head.
On a drizzling spring night, someone knocked on the outer window of Rosia’s room. After a moment of thought, Rosia replied,
“It’s open.”
When the window opened, Deni was there. Beyond the window was nothing but a sheer wall with nothing to grasp, yet he was standing there, as if he had come stepping on the wind. Deni hopped into the room and walked up to the bed, and Rosia said,
“You certainly have nerve, coming into another man’s wife’s bedroom.”
“If you said it was open, what else could that be but permission?”
Rosia was sitting sideways on the bed. A candle was lit, but she was neither reading nor speaking to anyone. She had simply been staring into empty space. Deni dragged over a chair and sat beside her, then muttered,
“One worthless freeloader leaves, and the freeloader left behind feels lonely.”
“Is that a poem?”
“I’m a mage, not a poet.”
Wind blew in through the window, making the candle flicker. Rain splashed inside as well. Yet neither of them moved to do anything about it. After a while, Deni spoke.
“Why are you so stubborn?”
“How could I abandon the spearmen I’ve protected all this time?”
Deni would have known better than anyone. Rosia, once the beautiful wife of the lord, had tamed the ferocious spearmen, led them into war, and protected Fir Tree Castle amid enemies on all sides. How could that not have been difficult. Raeven, who had hated such a mother, became steeped in suspicious magic and left home. Siardric, who had tried to take on such a mother’s burden, died in his first battle. Den, who had feared such a mother, fell for a maid, stole the family’s gold ornaments, and fled. The spearmen were what remained after enduring all of that. Rosia became the Queen of Fir Trees, but it was nothing more than a crown of thorns placed upon her head.
“If you keep that up, you’ll end up crippled.”
“We all die one way or another.”
“Why don’t you trust that grandson of yours? He turned nineteen this year. Siardric had already fathered a son by that age.”
Rosia let out a low sigh.
“Jaeim is weak. Rosa would be better.”
No one in the castle would ever hear Rosia say such words aloud. Deni snickered.
“So you do know. Back then, when you offered Nebe’s cup, you did it on purpose, to see if that blood would take with her, didn’t you?”
“She did well. That girl is vicious.”
“And what about you? You had the same viciousness, and you fed every mouth attached to this castle. Watching Rosa throw away her temper to save her brother, she’s exactly like her grandmother. If it weren’t for her, what would have happened to the snow bird this time?”
Rosia nodded readily.
“She protected Daeier’s pride.”
If they had killed the castle’s guardian deity at the envoy’s demand, the honor of the Daeier lord would have been dragged through the mud. Yet they also had to avoid all-out war with Northern Maer at all costs. By saying that the bird had departed on its own, both problems were resolved. Whether Kyprosa had done it knowing that, or simply because she wanted to save the bird, no one could say. In the end, it was the child who had done what needed to be done.
“You promised that envoy you’d kill the bird because you knew Rosa would do something like that, didn’t you? Grandmother and granddaughter working in perfect sync without even opening their eyes. So why do you treat her so harshly? You said you hated that she looked like me, and that’s exactly it, isn’t it?”
Rosia turned to look at Deni. A smile, rarely seen by the people of the castle, surfaced on her wrinkled face.
“How does she look anything like me. She’s the spitting image of Landry.”
“Is it because you hate Landry? Do you think slapping Rosa’s cheek will make the man who abandoned you topple over in the afterlife? Wasn’t one Raeven enough, that you had to add Rosa too?”
“Enough.”
More than forty years had passed. It would be a lie to say that the anger from back then still remained, and an even greater lie to say that love remained. What lasted longer than either was responsibility. Landry had wanted to leave the castle since childhood, and though not in the way he had imagined, he ultimately did. On the other hand, the late Jaeim had proposed to Rosia even knowing she carried his brother’s child, and had accepted Raeven as his eldest son. He had even regarded Raeven as his heir. Though he was a scoundrel, Rosia’s parents, who had lost their only son, the Daeier lord and lady, who bore the disgrace of a son who had committed murder and fled, and Rosia herself, whose lover had suddenly become her brother’s enemy, were all saved by Jaeim’s generosity.
Rosia had resolved to be faithful to such a man all her life. Even after his death, she meant to protect everything he had left behind, by any means necessary. Sometimes she would give a bitter smile, imagining how startled Jaeim might be to see how she had changed if they met again in the afterlife. Even so, she would see it through to the end. His castle had to remain safe forever.
“You’ll regret it someday.”
“I know. I do. But every time I see her face, I can’t help getting angry.”
Knowing that this was the most honest answer Rosia could give, Deni did not press her further. Just as Rosia had loved and hated Landry, she loved and hated Raeven. Because of that conflicted affection, when Raeven, who wanted his busy mother’s attention, strayed further and further, she did not try to understand or embrace him, but instead pressed down harder until she finally drove him away. Though Den had also left home, she could forgive him, but she could not forgive Raeven.
Whether he had talent or not, Jaeim’s bloodline would be made lord. Landry’s descendants would not. Rosia knew that Kyprosa had been studying magic using her father’s books. She was not unaware of what the child wanted, yet she let it be. Kyprosa was ultimately the same kind of existence as Landry. The castle was to be protected by descendants like Jaeim.
“When I see how much that child wants to leave the castle, I sometimes wonder if I’m the one who set things in motion.”
“You must regret it, since Rosa has more talent than Jaeim.”
“Talent is just talent. Landry was the same. Everyone said he should have been lord instead of Jaeim. But who ended up protecting the castle? Jaeim will grow too. What’s needed is time. And I’m the one who has to buy that time. If not me, then who?”
Kyprosa would never know that Rosia had once nearly left as well. On the night Landry accidentally killed Rosia’s older brother and fled, he risked everything to come to her and ask if she would go with him. Rosia shook her head. Even though she carried Raeven in her womb, Fir Tree Castle was her entire world at the time. She could not imagine leaving such a place and continuing to live.
Even after Landry left and she became Jaeim’s wife, Rosia replayed that night’s choice hundreds of times. Each time, the answer was the same. That was why she could not forgive Landry or Raeven. Seeing that Kyprosa carried the same blood, the blood of those who leave, made her hate the child even more. No one understood better than Rosia how heavy the position of the one who stays truly was. Whether lacking or excessive, Rosia was the guardian of whoever took on that burden.
“By the way, Deni. Let me ask you something.”
“What is it?”
“The bird has gone, hasn’t it. Then doesn’t that mean you can leave now too?”
Rosia knew everything. Why the great Denistrios had shut himself away in Fir Tree Castle, enduring decades of being called a clown and a freeloader. Why the bird that could call down avalanches had stayed confined in a cage instead of biting through the bars. There was no way iron bars could imprison such a being. Only a promise could.
The contractor Landry had died, but that power had passed to Raeven, and then to Kyprosa. That was why Kyprosa had been able to set it free. Deni was the guardian and intermediary of that contract. A bird said to protect the castle, a gift Landry had desperately wanted to leave behind. Yet perhaps the one who had truly protected the castle all along was not the bird, but Deni.
“That’s true. Damn bird, the moment Rosa told it to go, it left without hesitation. It didn’t care at all about a poor bastard stuck in the middle. Still, it’s over now, so I feel lighter.”
“So you’re going to leave?”
“Would you like that? For the record, I’ve got plenty of places to go. And I can still live another hundred years.”
“A hundred years? Not a thousand?”
Deni’s expression as he looked at Rosia grew strange.
“Now that I look at you, it seems you know far too much.”
“And what if I do? Will you call down an avalanche?”
After a pause, Deni chuckled and brushed dandruff from his white hair. Rosia waited.
“Well. The weather’s warmer now, for one thing. And besides, isn’t there something you want me to do for you?”
“There is.”
“You’re awfully good at pushing off what you should be doing yourself. You really are a nasty old woman.”
“I’m such a nasty old woman that I can’t do it with my own hands. I’ll have you lead them.”
Deni nodded and rose from his seat.
“Rosa was right. Thirty years is plenty of time.”
When the day of departure arrived, the entire castle buzzed. The Daeier spearmen were the husbands, fathers, and sons of the castle’s residents, and with such an unprecedentedly large force assembled, it was no exaggeration to say that everyone in the castle had someone among them.
Kyprosa climbed the high tower and looked down at the gathered crowd. As Rosia inspected the troops, she looked as though her leg did not hurt at all. Jaeim followed his grandmother closely, lips pressed tight, trying to learn everything he could. Having been ordered to act as regent in Rosia’s absence, Jaeim had been tense for days. Even the skinny cousin who had confessed in the rooftop garden that he hated spears more than anything, and who had been teaching Kyprosa letters behind his grandmother’s back, was growing in his own way.
Jaeim’s path was the path Rosia had walked, the path his father, his grandfather, and his grandfather’s father had walked. To walk that path, he had to put on the blood-soaked clothes the one before him had taken off. Even if they did not fit, even if he hated the stench of blood, it did not matter. Would Jaeim become a Daeier lord like a tiger or a wolf? He would. He had to. Watching his grandmother drag her numbing leg to the battlefield to protect him, the responsible boy would inevitably become that kind of man.
Kyprosa had been excluded from that path from the start, but she did not envy Jaeim. She believed she had another path. Compared to the capital of the world, Fir Tree Castle was like a toy, just as it had looked when she gazed down from the snow bird in her dreams. But the snow bird was gone. What, then, would save her now?
The castle gates opened. In the morning light, spearheads were red like millet stalks.
The army began to move. Spring flowers thrown by the people were trampled underfoot. From the crushed flowers that looked like drops of blood, a floral stench rose thickly. It was something that had happened countless times before, so no one found it strange. Some people grew dizzy and collapsed. That too was nothing new. The army moved farther and farther away. Kyprosa did not see anyone off. Rosia would not have expected Kyprosa to do so either.
Kyprosa went down from the castle with Ochidna and visited the back garden for the first time in a long while. The falcon mews, emptied when the hunters departed, were silent. The path that a shabby little girl used to walk stealthily now saw Kyprosa, who carried the air of a young lady, and Ochidna, like a carved cherub from a music box. From the mud, softened by melting snow, rose the smell of iron.
Inside the empty cage, there was nothing. The filth had been cleaned away, and more importantly, only half of the cage remained. A large portion had been dismantled to make weapons for the campaign. Kyprosa stood where she always did and looked up at empty space, just as she had when the bird was there. She recalled the sleeping face of the bird she had begun seeing when she first became aware of things, a face she had watched for over ten years. She had seen it so often that she could vividly picture it as if it were still there. Kyprosa murmured softly,
“Where could it be now?”
“Where do you think? At the capital of the world.”
Deni suddenly appeared behind her and stood beside her, looking up at the cage. Kyprosa stuck out her lips.
“How would you know, Deni?”
“Why wouldn’t I? Am I not a mage?”
“Right. A mouse-catching mage.”
“That’s right. Want me to teach you how to catch mice?”
When Kyprosa did not respond, Deni spoke again.
“Do you know that Landry also wanted to go to the capital of the world?”
It was the first she had heard of it. Kyprosa looked at Deni.
“So, did he go?”
“He did, or else how would he have met me? But when we first met, that man was terribly homesick. I asked him what kind of place his home was that he missed it so much, and he said winter lasted five months a year, snow piled up to your shoulders when it fell, avalanches came every few years, and when spring arrived and you dug under the snow, you’d find half a dozen corpses at a time. I asked him if he really wanted to go back to a place like that, and he said he wanted to so badly he could barely breathe.”
“If it were me, I’d never want to go back.”
Deni snorted with laughter.
“Do you still want to go?”
Kyprosa had never told Deni that she wanted to go to the capital of the world. When she did not answer, Deni rested a hand on the half-remaining cage and stretched out his other hand, stroking the air. Following his hand, golden light spread outward. It was like unfurling a veil wrapped around his arm, yet there was nothing there. It was not sunlight reflecting off anything. It was truly gold. A golden landscape.
“Look.”
Countless rooftops surged and jostled for height. The tiles were sun-faded purple, blue, and orange. Among them rose white spires and domes covered in multicolored tiles. Beyond the arch of a bridge clad in turquoise ceramics, a towering gate loomed, and an endless procession passed beneath it. Horses with dyed manes, camels draped in silk canopies, and elephants bearing dignified howdahs mingled together. On wagons were cages holding strange beasts, and rare fruits gleamed. In markets where red and yellow tents billowed, people in all manner of clothing flowed like waves.
“That place is…”
“The capital of the world, the city of the Great Library, Delphinad.”
It was the first time she had heard the name spoken aloud. Delphinad. A name as satisfying as music.
Kyprosa’s lips trembled. She stared intently into the scene Deni pointed out and described. There, where the blue flags fly, that’s the roof of the library. Behind it is the botanical garden, filled with priceless plants that cost a handful of jewels for a single flower. In that market over there, goods from the entire continent gather. With enough gold coins, you can even buy a dragon’s eyeball.
Absentmindedly listening, Kyprosa murmured,
“Everything from Birgion’s Natural Histories is there.”
“Birgion was from Delphinad. Of course it would be.”
“So you really were a mage, Deni. And my father too…”
“Raeven never listened to what I said. After what happened to him, I decided I would never teach anyone again.”
Deni pointed toward the library.
“Inside there are hundreds who teach magic alone. Those who want to learn are ten times that number. Do you think you become a mage just by drifting around? Countless people come with firm resolve, only to give up and leave. If you fail, you disgrace the homeland you abandoned. Even so, do you still want to go?”
Kyprosa looked at Deni for a long time. Only when Ochidna tugged at her hand did she come back to herself and look down at her sister. Then she pulled that hand close and gripped it tightly.
“I want to go.”
Deni nodded. If there were those who stayed behind, there were also those who moved forward. All of them were children of the castle.
“I’ll send you.”
The snow bird that Landry Daeier had captured was tamed by his granddaughter. It had taken thirty-two years.
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