A Distant Reverie

Chapter 65

Suisei froze. Mouth agape. A dumbfounded look plastered on her face. Vesper was staring at her in disbelief. Without another word, he crawled off the bed. Bit by bit, he inched towards Alice's dead body. His movements were sluggish and labored. It must have been the aftereffects of whatever substance put him asleep.

Suisei wanted to say anything. A word, a statement—something to defend herself and explain the situation. But the words refused to come. Only short incoherent gargles escaped from her pathetic attempts as if a lump of lead have been shoved down her throat. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't bring herself to utter a single word.

Why?!

Why can't I say anything?!

She did nothing wrong. She was only defending herself. She was trying to save Vesper from being assassinated in his sleep. It was all Alice. She was the one who betrayed the princess. She tried to kill them. She was the enemy.

Surely, Vesper would understand that. Right?

Suisei's rationalizations felt flat. Her body refused to let her move. She stood there—frozen, trembling as if she was stranded in the cold winters of her home town. But there was no snow. No chilly breeze. Nothing, except for the uncertainty of what Vesper will do next.

Vesper dragged himself beside Alice. His eyes grew frail as he stared innocently at her corpse. He raised his hands and brushed the side of her face with an unmistakable tenderness.

"Alice?" he whimpered.

But the dead does not respond.

Vesper's hands dropped flatly onto the floor. Suisei stared at him, breaths abated. Her heart thumped with a disturbing cadence, ringing thunderously inside her ears.

Vesper spun around. Their eyes met. Tears streamed down the side of his cheeks. His eyes were wide, distraught, overflowing with devastating grief. Then without warning, they narrowed.

Suisei gasped. Her heart screamed. Her neck suddenly itched. The bottom of her chin burned, tightening like it was being constrained by an invisible thread. Vesper's glare was so intense that she almost forgot how to breathe.

"Suisei," Vesper uttered, his wretched tone nearly torn her apart, "Why?"

Suisei took a step back—no longer able to withstand the resentment suffocating the air.

"Why?!" Vesper howled like a wounded animal.

Despair turned into rage.

Suisei forced herself to move. All of Vesper's feats and battles flashed across her mind in an instant. The ravaged scorched earth in the forest of Prosperia. His command over lightning against the monstrous Quetzals. The trembling of the earth at the snap of his fingers.

Her worst nightmares were coming true. The things that she feared the most when this journey began became reality.

Her companion, who was capable of tearing the earth asunder, wanted her dead.

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Marine shot up from her bed. Her joints creaked. Pain pulsated across her body. It burned, buzzing with a dull sear that refused to dissipate. The faint throbbing helped her regain some semblance of cognition. She winced. Her dreary room was illuminated by a stream of abnormally bright moonlight.

It's still night.

She groaned. Sleep hadn't come easy despite her exhaustion and the plethora of injuries plaguing her weary body. With the threat of the duke's rebellion looming overhead, her mind refused rest. Her instincts kept her on edge from the slightest of sounds and reverberations from the castle keep.