The Man with Golden Eyes
He approached the bed slowly.
The lamp that lit the room stood at his back, so his face was difficult to make out. Even so, those golden eyes — flashing with a threat all their own — were vividly, unmistakably clear.
"Wh-who are you? Why are you doing this to me...?"
I tried not to let the fear show, but the voice that asked the approaching man his identity trembled beyond my control.
I had been kidnapped. In Caliwood, a city where I knew no one. If something were to befall me now, who would even know? I could not begin to guess at his purpose, and so I could not begin to predict what would come next.
The trembling that had started in the hand clutching the blanket's edge spread through the whole of my body.
The tall man who had walked with unhurried steps to the foot of the bed opened his mouth in the darkness.
"Teredoa Dvorden. Aside from Baron Dvorden, who has long been confined to his sickbed, you are Dorothy Cecilla's only living blood. Is that correct?"
A heavy, low voice. An imperious manner of speech. And above all, the thick loathing in the man's eyes as he spoke my sister's name.
At that look — which could only be called contempt — sorrow and a stubborn flash of pride rose in me at once.
"If you want an introduction, I believe courtesy demands you give your own name first."
At my words, the man leaned in. When he bent at the waist to meet my eye level, I could finally see his face.
Dark, heavy brows and a long line of lips. A face of bold, strong lines regarded me with a cold, expressionless look, as if searching me out. Then, suddenly, he let out a faint scoff of a laugh.
It was a sneer.
"You're hardly in a position to stand on ceremony, are you?"
His words were not entirely wrong. I had come up to the capital alone after receiving news of my sister's death, only to be all but turned away at the door by my brother-in-law, and then kidnapped from a strange bed by some unknown man. In such a predicament, manners were a luxury.
But did that mean I had to be meek about it, too?
The very hopelessness of not knowing what would happen next stole the fear away.
"If you mean to take my situation into account, then just answer me. Who are you? Where is this? What do you intend to do with me?"
The man did not answer. He looked at me for a moment, then sat on the edge of the bed. Bracing one hand on the mattress, he tilted his weight to one side and crossed his long legs. The leisurely expression, as if he found me faintly amusing, was more threatening than anything.
"My name is Lyft. You don't need to know where this is, and what I do with you depends on your answers. Now then — are you in the mood to answer my questions, Lady Teredoa Dvorden?"
He was asking, but it was not a question.
The man who had introduced himself as Lyft was a walking contradiction. His hair was black as pitch; his eyes were bright as the sun. His long lips were smiling, and yet his gaze searched me with an icy cold. For a ruffian who kidnapped a woman in the dead of night, he sat as proudly as a king with a traitor in his keep.
Feeling like a criminal despite having done nothing wrong, I gathered my defiance once more.
"The reason you kidnapped me — is it because of Dorothy?"
"You're quick on the uptake."
"What was your relationship with my sister?"
"I ask the questions first."
Lyft cut me off and held out the papers in his hand. Two sheets of letter paper that still faintly carried the rose scent Dorothy had loved. It was that strange letter, written in her dear, childish hand, filled with words I could not make sense of.
Lyft must have gone through my belongings while I was unconscious. I snatched Dorothy's letter from the hand thrust before my eyes and glared at him. He paid it no mind at all.
"You're going to have to tell me what the writing in that letter means. I couldn't make head or tail of it. Some kind of cipher only sisters would understand?"
At his question, I lowered my gaze to Dorothy's letter. I did not know how many times I had reread it after receiving news of her death. I had even memorized certain passages. It was so full of things even I could not begin to guess at that, to an outsider, it would indeed have seemed like a cipher.
To my dear sister, Lady Teredoa Dvorden.
Sister, spring has stolen upon us before I knew it. Beyond my window I can hear the clear, bright sound of ice melting into running water.
Spring must be arriving at our home in the Dvorden Barony as well. Have the spring blossoms opened on the low hills of Mount Toteng, where you and I used to ride? Or is the wind still too early for them?
This past winter was uncommonly cold. Did you pass it in good health, Sister?
When spring comes, the capital holds an unusual number of balls. The nobles each tend their beautiful gardens and spare nothing in sharing that beauty with those they know. As the lady of House Cecilla, I too must attend a great many gatherings.
So many flowers have bloomed in my garden. Beautiful flowers, and sad ones.
Sister, how wonderful it would be if you could go to these gatherings with me. My beautiful sister, who loves beautiful flowers. Any gathering would be a joy if you were there.
No. No. Beautiful flowers always have thorns, and the capital is as frightening as it is beautiful.
Not long ago, at a garden party held by House Nord — who had boasted that their early spring flowers were already in bloom — I was bitten by a snake. How it startled me. It was such a cold day.
A snake is a truly wicked, treacherous thing. There was nothing of the kind in the Dvorden Barony.
Ah, Sister. The Dvorden Barony is such a beautiful place. I am always grateful to you for keeping it, but sometimes I am terribly envious.
I should never have been so stubborn. Foolish Dorothy always understands, only after time has passed, that her sister was right. How foolish I am.
Sister, did you know? They say that if you plant red roses and lilies in the same bed, the lilies bloom red.
Then is that red flower a rose? Or a lily? A lily ought to be a white flower to be a lily at all, but I simply could not tell, and so I had no answer.
When the flowers fade, red roses grow. All roses are red. Yellow roses are red, and pink roses are red, and white roses are red.
But this is a secret, so you must keep the secret too, Sister.
The wild roses that bloomed in the Dvorden Barony were truly beautiful. But Dorothy no longer likes roses.
A snake will be lying in wait beneath the rose vines, you see. If a snake bites you, you must cut the flesh open and draw out the blood.
A sharp sword is needed, but swords are frightening. You know what a coward Dorothy was, don't you, Sister?
Mother's memorial day is nearly upon us. This year I must come to see you.
The Viscount will not come with me. The Viscount must spend a very busy spring in the capital. So, Sister — I am coming to you.
To beautiful Dvorden.
The 2nd of March, in the 21st year of Johannes II
From the garden of Cecilla, where the roses billow,
Dorothy Dvorden
I read through the letter once more, but it was still nothing but strange. The only passage I could even try to connect to my sister's death was the account of being bitten by a snake at House Nord's garden party.
Dorothy had died less than a week after writing this letter. Perhaps the snakebite had festered. Perhaps the letter's contents were so disjointed because she had been suffering from the venom. I had heard that a severe fever can unhinge the mind. I even entertained the terrible thought that she might have thrown herself from the third floor in a delirious state.
But if that were so, I could not understand Viscount Cecilla's manner at all. And besides — what on earth was a red lily? Had she written that, too, meaninglessly, in her delirium?
Nothing was certain, and the one who ought to have given me answers had avoided me. My head felt as though it would split from the anxious suspicion.
"I don't know..."
"What?"
"I don't know either. My sister sent this nonsensical letter and then killed herself, and I don't understand a single thing!"
The tears I had been holding back fell in fat drops onto the letter paper. The ink bled where they soaked it, and I quickly set the letter down and covered my face with my hands.
I did not want to cry. Because I could not believe it. I did not want to believe that my sister had taken her own life, that she was no longer in this world — I did not want to believe any of it. Crying would have felt like accepting Dorothy's death, and so I did not want to cry.
All through the frantic journey to the capital, I had thought it might be one of her pranks. She was the sort of child who did odd things from time to time. I had wanted to believe she was playing a truly wicked trick, just to summon the sister she had not seen in so long. I had raced here thinking that when I arrived at Viscount Cecilla's residence, she would stick out her tongue and greet me with a sheepish little grin...
I truly had no idea that her absence — which no one else seemed to mourn — would leave me so wretched.
As I choked and heaved out the grief I had forced down, I heard a tutting click of the tongue. Then something dropped onto my knees with a soft thud.
A white handkerchief, its corner folded neatly.
To think I had fallen so low as to receive a ruffian kidnapper's pity. I found my own state so ridiculous and so pitiful that I tried to ignore the handkerchief. But I wiped and wiped at the overflowing tears with my hands until I had no choice left, and I picked it up.
Except for when I was a child, this was the first time I had ever cried in front of someone. I did not want to show weakness before a kidnapper whose identity I did not even know, but I simply could not stop. I was collapsing helplessly under the incomprehensible misfortune that had stretched from the day I received Dorothy's death notice until this very moment — and Lyft, true to his nature as a ruffian, never once left the room.