Chương 305: 66. Parasites 3

By the time the session broke up and everyone had filed out, Fina slumped back in her chair as if every ounce of strength had drained out of her at once. Her eyes were unmistakably red. I walked over and stood in front of her.

"You did well." She looked up at me, her voice still a little unsteady.

"... Brother. I almost looked at you just now."

"I know."

"Why didn't you save me?"

"Because you weren't drowning," I said flatly.

"You were learning to swim. If I pull you out now, you'll just choke on the water again next time." She blinked at me—and then, unexpectedly, she laughed. It wasn't a pretty laugh. Her eyes only went redder.

"Your way of comforting people is genuinely terrible."

"Just finding this out today?"

"No." She sniffled, and said quietly, "But today... I think I actually like it this way." I didn't answer that. I just reached out and set my hand on top of her head. Very lightly. Like I was afraid that if I pressed too hard, I'd shatter the little bit of courage she'd only just managed to prop upright. By the time dusk fell, Thornhold had finally begun to look like something other than a graveyard. People moved through the corridors again. The braziers were relit.

The watchmen's footsteps sounded considerably more orderly than they had the past several days. This fortress was still nowhere near a place anyone could call safe—but at least it no longer looked like a corpse propped upright by nothing but habit and lies. I finished the last of the sentry reassignments and sent for Charlotte and Lorelei. I chose the side parlor next to the ground-floor room where Fina was staying now.

From the window you could see the inner courtyard; the light was warmer here, and it didn't have the main hall's particular talent for making everyone who walked in suddenly remember whose corpse had been sitting in which chair. Charlotte looked straight at me the moment she came through the door. Lorelei stood half a step behind her, deep chestnut hair tied back, sleeves rolled slightly, as if she'd come straight from sorting Fina's medicine and clothes.

The faint white scar on her right palm caught the lamplight for a second, and my gaze snagged on it far longer than it had any business doing. Troublesome. I cursed myself silently, then spoke.

"Sit." Charlotte didn't sit. She just shook her head.

"If you've got something to say, say it." I didn't push. Some people are more themselves standing than sitting. Charlotte was one of them. She'd probably spent her entire life standing—blocking the wind for someone, carrying hot soup, tucking in blankets, and scolding people, all in the same breath. I looked at the two of them and got straight to it.

"For Thornhold to hold steady from here, Fina can't be left without someone by her." Charlotte gave a quiet nod.

"I figured as much."

"So I want you to stay," I said.

"By Fina's side. Not just as her wet nurse, and not just as an old familiar face. Someone needs to guard her household, her meals, her daily life, her medicine—the people she can actually trust. All of it." Charlotte studied me for a long moment. Her expression was complicated—like she'd guessed this was coming, and had also been waiting a long time to hear it said out loud.

"You want me to be her person."

"Yes."

"Not just a prop?"

"If I only wanted a senior figure standing behind her to make the picture look right, I'd have found someone with a louder voice." My tone stayed even.

"You're staying because Fina needs you. And because you're the only one here I actually trust." The corner of Charlotte's mouth twitched—like the start of a smile that changed its mind halfway through and turned into a faint, sour sigh instead.

"You," she said quietly.

"You've been like this since you were small. Never a decent word out of you on an ordinary day—and then when it actually matters, you say something that doesn't leave a person any room to argue."

"So that's a yes?"

"I was never planning to leave in the first place." She met my eyes, steady as ever.

"Whether this fortress turns a new page or has to start over from nothing, Fina needs someone with her. I'm old. My legs aren't fast anymore. I can't fight and I can't fly. But looking after one child and one household—I'm not entirely useless for that yet." I nodded. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

"Then it's settled." My gaze shifted to Lorelei. The air grew a shade quieter. She didn't look away. She met my eyes with complete, level candor. Those honey-colored eyes were so calm under the lamplight it bordered on dangerous—not aggressive, not endlessly yielding, but that exact, precise middle distance: familiar, steady, and utterly impossible to pretend nothing was happening underneath. I clicked my tongue silently in my head. Wonderful. So it's not just me. This is a two-way problem.

"As for you," I said. Lorelei blinked.

"Me?"

"Mm."

"When you pause like that before saying something, it makes a person think you're not about to assign a duty—you're about to hand down a sentence."

"If you'd prefer, I can go find a scroll of official documents first. Set the mood properly."

"I'll pass," she said dryly.

"Whenever you bring out paperwork, it's rarely good news." Charlotte coughed, small and deliberate, beside us—the universal signal for the two of you should remember there's an elder in this room. Neither of us was entirely stopped by it. I looked at Lorelei and finally laid it out plainly.

"I'm not planning to leave you here at Thornhold." Her lashes trembled—barely perceptibly. Charlotte's gaze slid from me to her, then back to me. The meaning in it was unmistakable: You'd better finish that sentence cleanly. I understood. So I didn't half-say it.

"First—Fina has Charlotte. That's enough. Second—if you stay here, sooner or later this fortress is going to pile every old grudge, every rumor, and every bit of spite it's got straight onto you." I paused.

"And third—" I stopped. Lorelei watched me, as if waiting to see whether I'd hand her the last blade myself.

"Third. I need someone by my side too." She didn't answer right away. Charlotte spoke first instead, her tone even but direct.

"Be specific," she said.

"Are you taking her as a person, or as property?" A very Charlotte question. And exactly the one that needed asking. I looked at her and answered without a shred of hesitation.

"As a person." I paused, then added:"As someone who belongs at my side. Personal attendant, household aide, whatever title we settle on later—that's negotiable. But she isn't a trophy. She isn't a reward. And she isn't something anyone gets to reach out and touch." The room stayed quiet for several breaths. Charlotte studied me—weighing, the way she always did, how much of that was sincerity, how much was temper, and how much was just a man running on conviction and too little sleep. Finally, she gave a slow nod.

"Now that," she said, "sounds like something worth saying." Then, deliberately, she took a step back. Just one small step. But it was exactly enough to hand the room's center—and the line of sight—over to the two of us. No wonder she'd raised several children through to adulthood. At moments like this, she knew better than anyone exactly where to stand, and exactly where not to. Lorelei let out a soft breath, as if only now letting the words fully land.

"So," she said, the corner of her mouth lifting, "the young master's here to recruit?"

"You could also call it poaching."

"And the wages?" I almost laughed.

"You're negotiating this right now?"

"Of course." She said it like it was the most natural thing in the world.

"My mother taught me—no matter how pretty a man's words sound, ask about the pay first."

"Remarkably forward-thinking, your mother." I nodded.

"Top-tier attendant rate, then. Doubled. Lodging, clothing, travel, and medical costs calculated separately." If Jessi had been in the room, he'd have jumped out on the spot to file a formal complaint about my labor practices, followed immediately by a tearful retelling of the time he lit my campfires for an entire winter and got exactly one silver coin for it.

Fortunately, he wasn't here—otherwise this reasonably dignified job offer would've derailed instantly into a wage dispute starring one broke, aggrieved wandering minstrel. Something flickered with amusement in Lorelei's eyes.

"That doesn't sound bad."

"So? Your answer?" She didn't reply immediately. Instead, she looked down at her own right hand. That thin white scar lay quietly in her palm, like a sentence begun years ago and never quite finished. Then she raised her eyes back to mine, her gaze settling, level and unwavering.

"What if I say no?" I held her eyes.

"Then I'll ask again."

"And if I refuse a second time?"

"Then a third." She finally smiled—not her usual faint smile with the edge hidden underneath, but something more genuine, as if something inside her had just confirmed itself, and her mouth simply relaxed on its own.

"Is that supposed to be an invitation?"

"It is," I said.

"Just a stubborn one."

"You've always been like this," she murmured.

"Quiet most of the time—but when you finally say something, you don't leave anyone a door to walk back out through."

"You're only noticing that now?"

"No." She shook her head, just slightly.

"It's just that this time, it sounds a lot less like a joke than it used to." I was quiet for a moment. Then, for the first time, I said it properly. Not as an order. Not as an offhand arrangement. As an invitation.

"Lorelei." I looked at her, and spoke slowly.

"Leave Thornhold with me." She held my gaze without answering right away. In those few breaths, the room felt unreasonably still—as if even the lamplight understood not to flicker too much, for fear of scattering something that had taken far too long to arrive at this point. At last, she drew her hands back in front of her and gave me the smallest bow.

"... All right," she said. Her voice wasn't loud. But it was steady.

"I'll go with you." In that moment, I felt something stranger than anything I'd felt hanging Chris and Boris. It wasn't satisfaction. It wasn't relief. It was closer to this: after an entire season of blood, fire, rotten ledgers, and corpses, there was finally, for once, one thing that wasn't about settling a score, explaining myself to someone, or shutting anyone's mouth. It was something I actually wanted for myself.

The thought arrived so bluntly that for a moment I genuinely didn't know whether I should admit to it. Fortunately, Charlotte rescued me from having to. She looked at Lorelei, clear reluctance in her eyes, but her voice held its familiar toughness.

"You can go with him," she said.

"But remember—you're not going as anyone's accessory. If you're ever wronged, even from halfway across the continent, you send word back to me." Lorelei smiled.

"I know, Mother."

"And you." Charlotte turned on me immediately.

"I'm entrusting her to you. I am not giving her to you. If you ever turn into a bastard about this, I will chase you down with a cane if I have to." I rubbed my nose.

"... Aunt Charlotte, is your trust in me running a little thin?"

"Not thin," she said.

"Accurate." Beside her, Lorelei finally lost the battle and laughed out loud. Fair enough. In certain respects, mother and daughter really were cut from the same cloth. Looking at the two of them, I felt something settle quietly in my chest. Thornhold still trailed plenty of loose ends behind it—but at least the people who needed to stay had stayed, and the one who needed to leave was leaving. Fina would find her footing here. Charlotte would hold the household together for her.

And Lorelei— Starting today, she was no longer just a foster-sister, an attendant, or a familiar face this fortress had made a habit of overlooking. She was coming with me. To my side. Into whatever storms and wars hadn't arrived yet. Thinking about it, I pressed two fingers to my temple and exhaled slowly. Next season's wars, whatever they turned out to be, suddenly felt considerably more manageable than this one room full of women standing in front of me right now. Naturally, I kept that thought to myself.

I intended to keep living. So in the end, I simply let out a quiet breath and told Lorelei:"Pack your things. Starting tomorrow, you're with me." She looked at me, something like firelight flickering through her amber eyes.

"Yes, Young Master."... Troublesome. Just from that one line, my mind had already circled back—to that corridor last night, that single lamp, and the dangerously familiar way she'd said something almost exactly like this once before. It seemed the truly difficult part of cleaning up this house was nowhere near finished. And unfortunately— That part was standing right in front of me.