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Chapter : 75
The End
“Why would I be here if I were dead?”
Humans die and return to the gods. Bones buried in soil crumble, and even that dust becomes earth again.
That means when a person dies and returns to nothingness, every tie to the living is severed, and lingering attachments are let go.
“If you’re dead, that’s the end.”
Then why—
“Why couldn’t I die?”
That is what one calls returning. After death, I set foot on this land again.
Bare feet retracing the feel of soil, cutting soles on blades of grass, clawing at dirt until every nail was torn.
“You believe me? Why—believe it?”
Benhamin answered Sharlof.
“Those are not eyes that speak lies. You may hold your tongue, but you have never whispered falsehoods to me.”
Sharlof ran a hand down the back of his neck and murmured,
“You could just not believe me.”
“Why not?”
“Because showing someone the bottom of myself is never pleasant.”
That bottom was far too muddy. He just wanted to forget it all.
“You can pretend it never happened, but that doesn’t make it so.”
“Are you all right?”
“I died. Yes, I really did die.”
Sharlof wrapped a hand around his own throat and dug in with his nails.
Scritch.
Nails tore skin open. Ah, how hateful. Sharlof swallowed a gag.
It was raw, vicious self-loathing—nothing more, nothing less.
“Are you feeling sick?”
“A bit nauseated.”
“A self-defense mechanism, I suppose. It’s fine. If you feel like vomiting, just let it out.”
Bile rose in his throat, bitter.
I hate how weak I am.
A body steeped in weakness grows ever frailer.
And once so weakened, I collapse with no strength left to endure.
“I’ll call the palace physician—”
“No. Leave the outside empty.”
“You want to hide—from their eyes.”
Benhamin stroked his neck, pressing into the tense muscles.
“How were those last moments, before death?”
“I had Rupertic disease.”
“Was it painful?”
“My lungs stiffened, and I couldn’t breathe. That part was suffocating. The memory right before I died is blurry. No mirrors, so I don’t even know what I looked like. I burned myself badly once, so every mirror around me was taken away.”
In his past life, he had been shut inside. The end of his desperate escape left nowhere else to run, and so he reached death.
“I didn’t have a life.”
“That must have been harsh.”
“Nineteen years old. I died, and when I woke, I was back in that time—just a child mourning my family’s death…. And here I am.”
Breath surged up his throat. The damp unease scraped at him. Awful. Disgusting.
His throat closed up, rasping. He wanted to vomit up everything stuck inside. It was like barbs lodged there.
Emptiness swelled, drowning his awareness.
“You all right?”
Sharlof pressed a trembling hand against the rising nausea.
“Don’t let self-loathing tear you apart. It’s no different from self-harm.”
Even as he died, he believed the end would be rest.
“I really did die.”
“You had an odd look on your face whenever you stood at that grave. Was it the same expression you wore thinking of your dead mother?”
“It’s too distant. Too unfamiliar to retrace, too dear to forget. And the resentment was mine alone to carry, so I just… lived with it.”
To drag it into the open would have meant showing every inch of that filthy underside.
“Now I see why a fragile child carries such a hard core.”
Instead of pulling away, Benhamin held tighter.
“Can you relax your arms?”
“Ah—ah, yes.”
“You may scratch if you must, but your nails will suffer. Ladies’ nails break and splinter easily, I hear.”
Only then did Sharlof realize.
“Oh—no, if I scratched you, I should pull away!”
His arms fell at once. Bits of flesh clung to his nails.
“I’m sorry. Ah….”
“A defense response is the body trying to protect itself.”
Benhamin’s skin was solid. Sharlof’s nails throbbed instead.
“If I’d forced you away, you would have gotten hurt.”
Lyan whined, pawing at his own neck before flopping onto his back, belly bare.
“I wasn’t threatening you. No need to be afraid.”
Sharlof rubbed Lyan’s belly.
“When did you die and return?”
“Nineteen. After my mother died.”
“That was when you were left alone.”
“I’ve been married before. I lived through a future already. But my world was only a manor. No outside news, family ties cut, a marriage made, and the gates locked. I spent life staring out windows.”
Lyan licked his hand.
“And then I died.”
“You—do you even know where the front line is?!”
Aster entering the palace felt the hair on his neck rise.
Both Emperor and Empress were away. Worried the palace defenses might weaken, the imperial house had asked House Windsor to reinforce them.
Now word arrived of their imminent return. Aster finally abandoned his duties and raced to court.
“Does that child think she has ninety-nine lives stacked on her shoulders? Children scream over a splinter, and that girl—hunting monsters—!”
“Lord Aster, decorum, if you please. This is the palace.”
“To hell with decorum! Cozette must be screaming from heaven, pointing down at me—‘can’t even watch over one niece, what can you do!’”
Etiquette be damned when your niece marches into a monster war.
His dead sister’s child had gone to the front line—and cast her own life into the dirt.
“You’re in a fury.”
Benhamin stopped him.
“Do you blame her?”
“Learning to defend herself is wise. My worry is only worry; my heart—beside the point.”
“Then why so angry?”
“She stormed off to war without a word! No news, none! A stranger would treat us with more courtesy!”
Aster thumped his chest, suffocating on everything unspoken. Couldn’t she say something?
Why meet every worried eye with silence?
“Where is the Empress?”
A steward answered,
“In the rear garden.”
“Then I withdraw.”
He worried as family. The child of his dead sister.
He had never seen her alive when his sister still breathed.
Only when his sister died did the girl appear—with ashes in hand—and the gap between them felt impossibly wide.
Not that he dumped his grief on her—he never did.
“Everyone’s gone. Speak freely.”
She resembled her mother. Then—
“You have no baptismal name.”
Those were the first words Aster said upon seeing Sharlof again.
“You never received one from the Temple. No pope’s blessing. Baptismal names are old custom, but children given them tend to live long. Parents take newborns to the Temple to receive a name and register the birth—”
“I wasn’t one of them.”
“Why not?”
“They said not to hang anything on my soul.”
“Cozette said that?”
“Um… who was it again.”
Do not bind the true name to a burden—that had been taught to her from the cradle.
“Shar.”
Aster gently asked,
“Would you take one now?”
“You mean a Holy Spirit Baptism?”
A Holy Spirit Baptism cleanses sin from the soul and grants a true name.
Flesh may lie, but the soul is clear.
“You catch colds and your body’s weak.”
“Heals slow too.”
“I worry.”
A child baptized grows healthy—so the belief went.
“You faint so often. Why not visit the Temple?”
Sharlof had never received a name nor a baptism—things usually done in infancy.
“When you were tiny—two years old perhaps—your grandfather went to Tuteur Manor, worried because you were trapped there with no baptismal name.”
“Ah…”
“And Cozette threw him out.”
That day, Leandro had been treated like a trespasser. Family turned outsider, nails bared.
Malice laid bare, teeth clenched, forcing him out.
“She was half maddened.”
Aster recalled. Who cut the tie? The child? House Windsor?
“Even when bonds are severed, blood cannot truly be cut. Cover a river with earth—but water pushes through again. Just like you found your way back to us.”
“Water always flows.”
Sharlof set down her teacup.
“What was forced apart has joined again.”
Aster’s hands shook. He wanted her unharmed. He dreaded the thought she’d run into battle, be wounded, and die alone.
Crunch.
He bit his lip and forced words out.
“Do you know this?”
He placed an old box before her.
“My mother’s diary.”
“Yes. Cozette’s diary. We never opened it—afraid to damage it. But after your visit, it had somehow unlocked itself. I suppose the river opened again.”
Aster pressed his sore eyelids.
“Keep it.”
“…This is from before her marriage.”
“A dead mother’s last keepsake for her daughter, it seems. Once you touched it, the lock loosened—as if it recognized its owner.”
His hands trembled again. He feared for her life.
“Don’t get hurt.”
“I won’t.”
“If you take a harsh road, at least let us know.”
“I will.”
“You’re supposed to say you won’t take the harsh road, you rascal…”
“How is Grandfather?”
“In poor health. Age weighs heavy.”
His words faltered.
“Is he ill?”
“Weak, needs rest. After losing Cozette, he never stopped to breathe. He is finally resting.”
“I’ll send the court physician—”
“Your grandfather sent a message: ‘Just a little joint pain.’ And to keep salve on your hands. He knows you wield a blade. He knows the front lines and the monster graves. You needn’t drag up a single memory—we know it all. Just—don’t be hurt.”
Sharlof rubbed her stiff neck. Aster continued.
“The baptism is a prayer for your safe peace.”
Nothing more.
“I’ll receive it.”
“If you stay healthy, that’s enough for me.”
Aster grumbled, softening.
“A wildflower blooming alone needs no name to be a flower.”
But give it a name, and someone may look twice.
“If someone holds you gently…”
We need no more than that.
