LFDD 21

Chapter : 21

The night sky was filled with twinkling stars.

The girl took out the pocket watch hanging around her neck and held it up against the moonlight.

Even now, she still couldn’t understand what kind of object it was. What kind of power it held.

How was this supposed to protect her?

This time, she wanted to live for a long, long time. Because she was finally happy.

So, if danger came, she needed the strength to face it herself.

‘Let’s just go back to my room.’

Hiazelki let out a small sigh and retraced her steps back toward her room.

“Where have you been?”

As she neared her room, Hiazelki spotted a silhouette sitting by the window in front of it.

“Papa? Why aren’t you sleeping?”

He seemed to be drinking, holding a wine glass in his hand.

“And what about you? Why are you out instead of sleeping?”

Hiazelki slowly approached him and smiled brightly.

“I just… woke up and couldn’t fall back asleep.”

“……”

At her answer, Kael’s red eyes faintly glimmered.

“Hia, don’t lie to me.”

At his firm words, Hiazelki pursed her lips and fidgeted with her fingers before moving closer to Kael.

Then she leaned against the window frame and spoke softly.

“I’m sorry…”

“Why did you come out without sleeping?”

“Well…”

Trailing off, she hesitated for a moment before smiling faintly.

“I had a nightmare… hehe…”

“…You’re still having nightmares?”

Kael muttered quietly, and Hiazelki quickly waved her hands.

“Only sometimes! Really, only very rarely. And I don’t even remember them well, so it’s fine.”

“You don’t remember the dream… or you don’t remember what happened?”

“……Um……”

Hiazelki looked away with a troubled expression.

‘Isn’t it more considerate to just let this go…?’

Seeing she wasn’t answering, Kael seemed uninterested in pressing further and lifted his wine glass.

“Would you like a drink too?”

Hiazelki, who had been avoiding his gaze while fidgeting, burst into laughter at the question.

“Papa, children aren’t supposed to drink alcohol.”

“Is that so? I thought enough time had passed that you might not be a child anymore.”

It reminded her of the first time Kael had offered her wine when she woke up from a nightmare long ago.

Back then, she had been very afraid of him.

Because of what she had read in a book in her previous life about the Dragon of Judgment.

About how he once judged an entire region in the western lands.

‘Why is it… that he’s so kind like this?’

On top of that, Kael even seemed reluctant to punish sinners.

The crime was listed as “blasphemy,” but what exactly had been done and what punishment had been given was not recorded in any document.

Of course, Hiazelki had no intention of digging into it.

Letting out a short sigh, she straightened her body from the window frame.

“Then I’ll head back to sleep now. Papa, don’t drink too much and go to bed too.”

“Very well.”

Waving lightly, Hiazelki slipped into her room.

Kael took a sip of wine and looked out the window.

Human time flows quickly.

‘…Good thing she’s not old enough for that yet.’

Feeling inwardly relieved, he turned his head and stared at the closed door of Rihen’s room next to Hiazelki’s.

Keeping two human children in the castle—something he never could have imagined.

Kael looked up at the sky briefly and sighed as he stood from the window.

His footsteps echoed faintly down the silent hallway.

He stopped in front of Rihen’s door.

Then, with his free hand, he lightly knocked on the door.

“Go to sleep already.”

Leaving those words behind, Kael returned to his room.

‘I had a nightmare… hehe…’

While reviewing what he had learned from Albert, Rihen glanced at Hiazelki sitting beside him.

She was quietly focused on her book.

Since arriving at the castle, Hiazelki had stayed by his side the entire time.

Maybe it was because of what Ziel had said—to take good care of her—but it did feel… reassuring.

Having someone stay by your side constantly.

The voices that told him to die were still vivid, unchanged and sharp in his memory, yet she felt unfamiliar.

Not swallowed by darkness—clear, vivid.

“Why are you staring, Rihen?”

At Hiazelki’s voice, Rihen jolted and quickly turned away.

He had been staring at her without realizing it.

His pen moved slowly again, but his gaze soon returned to her.

‘…Is she still having nightmares?’

Kael had said that.

That meant she, too, was tormented by nightmares.

Rihen himself still struggled to sleep at night.

Voices telling him to die painfully. And bodies collapsed around him.

Blood pooling on the ground, slowly dragging him down.

That suffocating sensation would wake him up.

Thinking she might be experiencing the same pain made him uneasy.

“Um… about yesterday…”

Rihen hesitantly spoke while glancing at her.

“Hmm?”

Hiazelki blinked in surprise, as if it was unexpected that he initiated a conversation.

“Yesterday… did you not sleep well?”

“Huh? No?”

She smiled brightly, looking completely fine.

“Yesterday… you woke up at night because of a nightmare, didn’t you…”

“Ah… you heard?”

She scratched her head awkwardly.

“…Why do you have nightmares?”

“Hmm?”

Hiazelki, who had been slightly excited that Rihen spoke to her, was momentarily caught off guard.

She turned toward him fully and waited for an answer.

But she couldn’t find the words.

“Um… that is…”

She hesitated and glanced around the study to make sure no one else was there.

“It’s a secret, Rihen.”

Kael might already know, but others probably didn’t.

And Hiazelki didn’t want them to know.

They cared about her too much—it would only hurt them.

“…Okay.”

At his answer, she smiled softly.

“In my village, there was a plague… and I was almost offered as a sacrifice. That’s why I sometimes have nightmares.”

Of course, she also saw fragments of past lives in her dreams, but there was no need to mention that.

Rihen’s eyes widened as he looked at her.

“But it’s okay. It doesn’t happen often anyway.”

She smiled brightly, completely unchanged.

Not even a little tainted by darkness.

Being offered as a sacrifice meant she had nearly been killed.

Yet she spoke of it so casually that Rihen found it strange.

“…Your village…? You didn’t always live in this castle?”

Rihen, unusually talkative, nodded after she confirmed it.

“But how…”

He hesitated.

Still, Hiazelki looked so fine that he couldn’t stop his curiosity.

“Then… how did you become… family?”

He really did pick difficult questions.

‘Family?’

Hiazelki couldn’t answer easily.

The only “family” she knew had rejected her, hated her, tried to kill her.

Everyone in the castle was kind—Kael, Albert, Lisa, Yuri.

But it felt different from what she understood as family.

“…Do we… look like family to you?”

Rihen nodded cautiously.

“Isn’t it?”

“Ah… no… it’s just that the family I know isn’t like this.”

“What are they like?”

“Um… my family… only ever hated me. I thought that’s what family was.”

Even though she called Kael “Papa.”

Maybe she kept calling him that because she wanted it to be true.

But she couldn’t fully call him “father,” afraid that real family would end up hating her too.

At her casual smile, Rihen frowned slightly.

“You really thought family was like that?”

Hiazelki shook her head.

She knew it wasn’t true. Books said otherwise, and she had seen other families in the streets.

But after being hated by her parents three times in past lives, that’s what “family” had become to her.

“Because… my parents agreed to offer me as a sacrifice too.”

When the village chief first brought it up, her parents’ faces had twisted.

They asked how they could do such a thing while looking down at their child.

But Hiazelki couldn’t forget.

That twisted expression came from guilt—wanting to live by giving their child away, the shame of being such people.

There was no emotion of refusing to let their beloved child die.

Instead of Hiazelki’s awkward smile, it was Rihen who looked like he might cry.

“Ah, I’m fine. I’m really okay.”

Seeing his expression, she quickly waved her hands and smiled brightly to prove it.

“…Why… are you okay?”

Hiazelki opened her mouth as if to answer, but no words came out.

She lowered her head.

‘Why am I okay…?’

She thought carefully.

Of course, she had only said she was fine because Rihen looked like he might cry.

But thinking about it, she truly was okay.

She had nightmares sometimes, but only rarely.

She lifted her head again.

Rihen let out a small gasp when he saw her expression.

“Because I’m loved now.”

Her eyes softened and her lips curved gently.

She looked truly happy.

Come to think of it, maybe Rihen was right—it was family after all.

What she had read in books and seen on the streets matched what she had now, in a way.

Rihen quietly repeated her words in his mind.

“Rihen, you too.”

“Hmm?”

He etched Hiazelki’s clear smile into his eyes.

“You’ll be okay too.”

Late at night, Rihen quietly slipped out of his room and left the castle.

Even though it was dark, he wasn’t afraid. He had endured even more terrifying nights before.

Besides, the northern lands had bright moons, so it wasn’t completely dark.

Heading to a corner of the garden, Rihen picked up the wooden practice sword he used for lessons with Yuri.

‘You really kill even children who talk back like that?’

‘Just do as you’re told.’

Whoosh. Rihen swung the wooden sword.

Between Yuri’s voice correcting his stance, another voice tore through his memories.