Jilted Guilt: the Mermaid and the Hunter - Chapter 16
Struggling, Lavinia dragged herself to the surface, barely able to crawl. Unsure of how to apply force to her legs, she lay down, repeatedly bending and straightening her knees until she managed to stand. She cautiously felt the ground with the soles of her feet, trying to balance and slowly rise.
The queen murmured in slight admiration, “You learned how to walk faster than a toddler.”
Upon rising, Lavinia noticed that the queen was rather tall. Lavinia still didn’t like the way the queen looked at her.
She attempted to mimic the queen’s graceful stride by moving her legs. But her uncoordinated movements caused her balance to falter, making her body sway back and forth. Spreading her arms out, she took a stumbling step. After taking five wobbly steps, she heard the queen’s loud laughter.
“Hahaha, you walk like a newborn fawn!”
“…”
“Well, I suppose that’s sufficient confirmation.”
Despite wanting to stand on his own two legs for as long as she could, Lavinia collapsed onto the wet moss like a crumbling sandcastle. She felt feverish and her legs began to tingle. It seemed that the small amount of blood wasn’t enough to maintain the human form for long. She had barely taken a few steps away from the lake, yet her legs were already starting to grow back her mermaid scales.
“Yes.”
“Are you ready now? Willing to strike a proper deal?”
Lavinia nodded. It was only about erasing the visible scars. And, regardless of who it was, if she got their blood and fled before she returned, it would be enough.
“As promised, I will help you.”
At Lavinia’s words, the queen smiled knowingly.
* * *
“A curse.”
Rosander chewed on the inside of his mouth, remembering the queen’s amulet. She’d gone to such great lengths to hide that cadaverous flesh.
Before leaving the palace, he couldn’t shake off the uneasy feeling and wandered around the mermaid’s lake. She was always a woman with a sour demeanor, but today she seemed particularly odd.
And his vague intuition about the mermaid becoming useful to the queen was turning out to be precisely accurate. The fact that the queen didn’t sense his presence and revealed a vulnerability was a significant misstep.
For ten years since leaving the capital, how much he had yearned to bring that woman down. She had gained strange powers by surrendering herself to a malevolent entity. And if she could eliminate the debt she owed it through the mermaid, it would undoubtedly reveal its true form.
In her arrogance, that woman believed she controlled everything. She had no idea how much power the mermaid had to help her.
Was it a wise choice to spare her? Rosander stepped out of the carriage, unable to find an answer.
Near Archduke Clifford’s domain, the village leading to the Valley of Kings was as quiet as a bear’s den in hibernation. As the year drew to a close, the townsfolk were unwelcoming to outsiders, quickly shutting their shop doors even before the day was done.
The eerie silence carried sounds in the damp, chilly air.
The great hills, or mausoleums as they were called, that shaded the fading sunset were dotted with the names of loved ones past.
The man trudged across the yellowed, dead grass, stopping at two names: Perrendo Breen and Olivia Wayne. Only the Wayne name, freshly carved, felt oddly unfamiliar.
Rosander Wayne knelt down and carefully placed the bouquet of wildflowers on the simple headstone. He still didn’t know what type of flowers these were. All he knows is that Olivia loved them when she was alive, and he’s pieced them together from a collection of memories that have turned to dust.
“They may look crude, but here,” he murmured with a sigh.
He had dressed in his neatest attire and attempted to tidy his unkempt hair. Yet, in his quest for the flowers, the entire day had slipped by.
“You always said every different flower had a name and a meaning,” he said. “I hope I haven’t brought the wrong ones.”
He gently brushed the spot where he had placed the flowers.
“Besides, I should have asked if it was okay to lay you next to Perrendo. I couldn’t leave him alone.”
“…”
“And how dare I even sit next to him?”
“…”
“I’ll lay beneath you if that’s what you’d like,” Rosander said as if they were actually listening.
Perrendo Breen died one year before Olivia. During that time, Olivia Breen, as per her brother Perrendo’s wishes, had remained a Breen, never even gaining a faintly respectable last name as my wife. If only they had known that moment would have been so short.
“If it was wrong, feel free to get angry now. I’m willing to take it. I’ve got plenty of time these days; I can listen to anything you have to say.”
“…”
“Your daughter must be ten by now. I take care of other people’s daughters better. I should come with her.”
When Perrendo entrusted his sister to me, he probably didn’t think she’d cheat. Rosander chuckled bitterly.
He didn’t leave the grave until the sky, tinged orange, turned cold.
He had been sitting in front of the grave for quite some time before he discovered traces of disturbance around the burial site. As he felt around with his hands, he could sense a faint boundary where the grass had been plucked.
Quietly digging through the crumbling dirt, he found what were clearly the marks of an animal. He dug further into the earth and reached into the inside of the grave. Rosander thought the space felt empty, but he sensed a strange texture on his palm.
He rose to his feet and pulled out what he had grasped. He brushed off the dust, revealing the embroidery of a a purple handkerchief. Well, really it seemed more like a cloth tied around a sword handle for good luck than a handkerchief. It was made of black olive tree linen, typical of Belphret’s style—the land of the queen he despised endlessly.
In the darkening hills, Rosander prepared to descend. Damn beasts. They made him have a reason to return to the Capital earlier than planned.
