That part of the tree pulsed as though it contained a heart. Gripping the wooden rod, Luke drove it in with all his strength, as though it really were an axe. At the same moment, an enormous scream tore through the air. He nearly let go and covered his ears.
Gene, lost in the fight, had just pierced Nikephoros’s chest for the second time. He was thinking it would heal again anyway when something astonishing happened. The wound gaped wide, and black blood poured out.
Nikephoros said nothing. His eyes were wide. Looking down at his own chest, he reached out and touched it, as though faced with something incomprehensible. A red glow rose from the wound.
“…”
Then Nikephoros fell. At the same moment, the corpses around him began to seethe. Realizing what was happening, Tahyang shouted.
“Get away! The bodies are exploding!”
Tahyang and Gene flung themselves toward places clear of corpses. Fortunately, Luke was high above. Turning to look for Rosa, Gene’s eyes widened. She stood by the altar, surrounded by bodies. With her ankle broken, she had barely managed to move a few paces.
For an instant, Gene forgot his own danger. As he ran through the bodies, something passed before his eyes, like mist, or a veil. A white shadow, and… a familiar smell.
Rosa had not given up. Even crawling along the floor, she tried to escape. But safety was too far away. Then something seemed to seize her, and her body rose into the air.
She did not immediately understand what had happened. When her senses returned, she was flying. Below her, corpses burst with thunderous sounds. She flew into a corner of the hall she had been unable to see in the darkness, then soared upward through it.
“Ah…”
The world abruptly grew bright. Blue sky and sea filled everything, and her mind went hazy. Her body went limp. Then she heard a whisper.
“Stay awake. You’ll fall.”
Their speed slowed. Opening her eyes, she saw sunlight resting on the horizon. Looking down, she saw white down beside a firm part of the creature’s body, shaped like scales. Just as in the dream. Tears filled her eyes.
“Is it like your dream?”
The bird banked upward again. Far below lay Delphinad’s coast. Once, she had asked him to fly over it. In her place. Now they were flying together. It was a small wish, one she could not remember when she had last seen even in a dream. As she looked toward Delphinad, she heard laughter.
“No. That would be far too conspicuous.”
Long ago, in Rosa’s homeland, an enormous bird called the Snow Bird had been kept in a cage. Filthy with excrement, shunned or mocked by everyone, it was only Rosa who had recognized the noble being within that dirt and silence.
She had approached and spoken to it countless times. Years passed without even a single answer. At last, Rosa set it free to save it from those who meant to kill it. Thinking it an eternal farewell, she asked it to fly through Delphinad’s sky in her place. Even then, she could not have imagined that she herself would come to Delphinad, meet him again like this, and fly over it with him.
“Are you satisfied now?”
At the voice, Rosa smiled.
“No. I want to go higher.”
“No. Any higher and you won’t be able to bear it. The wind’s too strong.”
After one turn, then another, the bird descended over the sea. Skimming its surface, he rose again and rode the wind. Rosa’s eyes were closed. She was too happy to experience the moment only with her eyes. Tears flew from them.
“I’ll tell you about Randri.”
Long ago, when Randri left Fir Castle and arrived in Delphinad, he had nothing and knew no one. He was little better than a beggar. Having killed someone at home, he had fled and traveled for two years before barely making his way here. Even then, he lacked the money to rent an empty room.
Alph Sidin had happened to meet him and taken him in. They grew deeply attached as teacher and pupil, but the subject Randri truly wished to study was different from Sidin’s specialty. When Randri said he wanted to join a school so that he could borrow books, Sidin founded one himself. In three years, it attracted only seven disciples. It was a school that did little but cost money, yet he did not mind.
With a teacher like that, it was only natural for Randri to risk his life searching when Sidin disappeared.
“There wasn’t a single clue. Even Sidin’s daughter gave up, but Randri didn’t. Meanwhile, imprisoned by Sing’s people, Sidin was asked to awaken as a god. He refused. And not only refused. He cast a spell that turned his body to stone.
“Because he founded a school of geography, people thought Sidin wasn’t a mage. But he was. He simply didn’t want to teach magic to others.”
When the people of Sing failed to persuade Sidin, they kidnapped his grandson, and that was how Randri found them. The little boy, born to Sidin’s daughter after her marriage into a distinguished family, was ten years old. Randri had been very fond of him.
Threatening to kill the grandson, the people of Sing won Sidin’s consent. But during the ritual, Randri intervened and damaged the tree, causing it to fail. As he escaped with Sidin, Randri fell into the sea.
“But how did he survive?”
“How did you survive?”
The sky was blue, its radiance all around them. Her hair streamed like small feathers. It was a sight she could never forget. Rosa spoke.
“So it was Deni.”
“They say he flew straight to Fir Castle. Sidin died on the way from loss of blood, though. And Randri’s wound never healed in the end. That’s why he died two years later.”
Rosa nodded. She also remembered how, before he died, Randri had made Deni promise to raise young Snowden at the castle. She did not know what it had meant for Snowden, but it was because of that promise that she herself was alive now. Perhaps the Snow Bird really had been Daeior’s guardian spirit.
“The god of plunder left Sidin’s body then and entered the boy.”
Rosa’s eyes widened in surprise.
“Then that boy was…”
“Yes. That wretch, Nikephoros.”
It was a strange feeling. Randri must have wanted to save that boy. But Rosa and her companions had killed him. The god of plunder had taken so much. And in the end, he had even plundered the lives of his own handful of subjects.
“He was originally a good-natured child. Perhaps it was the god’s influence that made him so fierce afterward. Unfortunately.”
Before she knew it, they had reached the coast. It was not the shore her party had left that morning, but somewhere farther away. No one was about. Lowering Rosa to the sand, the bird tilted his head and looked down at her. She looked up at him. Someone had once feared those jade eyes. And one person…
When Rosa gave a little smile, the voice sounded again.
“Stop threatening me with your life. I’d like to live quietly.”
“The others are safe, aren’t they?”
“Hmph. Worried to death, are you? Perhaps I won’t tell you.”
When Rosa reached out, the bird’s beak approached. In that form, he had once sliced a man in two. Now he only touched the back of her hand gently.
Rosa whispered,
“Deni has fallen asleep.”
The bird did not answer. Rosa continued.
“When I said I was going to look for you, he said he wouldn’t wake even if you came. But go anyway. For once, he worried about you.”
The bird flicked one wing, as though to say she worried about the strangest things. Then he spoke.
“I’m going, then.”
“Can we meet again?”
His wings spread. Magnificent, as they had once been before.
“Don’t create a reason for it.”
The bird rose lightly into the air. Even then, she heard the voice, right beside her ear.
“All three are safe. One’s a little hurt, but to be honest, I don’t feel especially sorry for him.”
Rosa watched the white wings recede over the blue sea, and the black rocky island in the distance. Then she looked toward Delphinad. It was not particularly close. Watching the bird, now a speck in the distance, she muttered,
“But my ankle’s broken.”
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