Guilt

IT WAS agonizing for Larissa to continue walking.

She also found out that the wounds on her legs had reopened. Her stomach also growled in hunger, but she decided to ignore it for the mean time.

At least two hours have passed since she left Rinas but the guilt on her chest remained heavy, and the more she tried to ignore it, the more the image of the dead girl returned to her mind.

Almost as if it started to haunt her even if she is awake.

Shaking her head, Larissa pushed herself to stand up from her previous crouched position and continued walking. She had no destination in mind, but it was better than staying in the middle of nowhere. The darkening clouds above also served their purpose as the girl's motivation to quicken her pace further regardless of how much her legs stung with every step she took.

How much more does she have to walk? How much more pain can she endure?

Larissa slapped herself harshly, her left cheek that she slapped immediately stinging in response. How could she have the audacity to complain when just a few hours ago she watched an innocent person die in front of her?

"I don't have the right," She tells herself. "I don't have any right to complain..."

The next steps that the girl took made her whimper in pain. Her legs were about to give up on her and her sight was slowly starting to be blurry.

And then, everything turned dark.

...

"Mama?!"

A loud, childlike voice woke her up. The first thing that Larissa saw was a ceiling made of straw. Droplets of water dripped from one corner and fell to the ground continuously. Larissa could hear the strong wind outside, and wondered how many futile attempts to push the house to its knees it made while she was asleep.

Her eyelids started to drop again. Larissa fought hard to remain awake, her attempt succeeding temporarily and allowing her to see what the child on the side of her bed looked like.

A young boy with brown hair and eyes. His most noticeable trait perhaps was the beauty mark below his left eye.

"Mama! She's awake!"

"Don't be so loud and let her rest, Hansel!"

A hand slowly descended on her messy hair and lightly ruffled it, almost as if their roles have reversed and Larissa was the child and the child was her. "Get some rest, lady!"

Larissa took the child's words as her cue to surrender to the arms of exhaustion and sleep.

It was night when she woke up again. The child was not on her side but a middle-aged woman who was looking at her with a mixture of mistrust and pity.

"Hello," Larissa's voice came out hoarse and almost unknown to her. Her throat was scratchy and it pained her to utter a single word but she continued anyway. "May I know where am I?"

"I believe I should ask you questions first before I answer yours," The woman responded in a serious tone. The uncertainty in her eyes remained. "What happened to you, girl?"

Oh. The woman's question surprised Larissa. She thought that the first question thrown in her way would be a question asking for her identity or maybe her place of origin.

"Did you get robbed by bandits?" The woman asked again after the girl did not respond to her first question. "If Hansel didn't see you passed out near the edge of our village your wounds would've been infected,"

Hansel. The child from earlier. Or was it yesterday?

"I fell on the river," Larissa replied. It was not necessarily a lie. "I almost drowned,"

The woman did not look convinced. "Which river?"

Larissa knew that answering the question truthfully might blow her cover. "The one near Rinas,"

"There are no rivers near Rinas," The woman quickly says. Her lips formed a thin, unimpressed line. "Why are you lying? Who are you?"

Her heart started to beat erratically. What should she say? What if they send her away?

Her legs, as if reading her mind and knowing the possibility of walking for kilometers again, stung harshly. Larissa was unable to hide the whimper that escaped her lips, which the woman hears.

"I won't bother you with questions for now," The woman stood up from the stool beside the bed that Larissa was lying on. "However, a word of advice,"

Her eyes bore no ill intentions but Larissa still felt threatened at the tone that the woman used in her next words. "If you refuse to answer my questions truthfully once all your wounds are healed then I will no choice but to send you to the knights,"

Knights?!

Larissa bit her lip to stop her from showing her true emotions to the woman who was still scrutinizing her with a stare. When the girl refused to look away, the woman sighs exasperatedly and closes the door behind her.

Silence filled the room.

Eerie silence.

The girl's eyes turned to the window on her right side. It was so unbelievably dark outside that she could not see or recognize anything.

Where is she? Who are these people? What will happen to her?

"She mentioned earlier that the child found me passed out on the edge of their village," Larissa whispered to herself. "But before I passed out I don't remember seeing any sign of a nearby village,"

Larissa couldn't help but shiver in fear. Were they lying to her just as she lied to them? If so, then how was she really found?

Inhaling sharply, Larissa lifted the white blanket that covered her body and found out that she wasn't wearing the clothes that Ciel prepared for her. Gone was the tunic that shielded her body and was replaced by a white dress that contrasted the huge wounds that covered her legs.

She cupped her face and felt the small wounds on her face. Just a few scratches but she could already imagine how livid her mother would become if she would see her daughter's face right now.

It was a vivid memory but she remembered it all the same. She remembered her younger self running in the grass fields of her mother's castle. She remembered falling face first and immediately crying loudly after due to the pain from the wound that bloomed on her forehead. Her mother appeared soon after, a hysterical expression already on the older woman's face as she looked at the wound that her daughter received.

She never allowed Larissa to visit the grass fields again.

Larissa was unable to stifle a pitiful sigh upon realizing how sad that certain memory was. Her mother caring more about her daughter's face than her daughter's wellbeing. Her mother caring more about her daughter's beauty lessening than the pain that her daughter could've felt at that moment.

How sad, she thinks. However, she knew better than to wallow in self-pity.

Perhaps she could do that when she's already inside the premises of the great Silician Academy.

Which is probably a thousand miles away but at least she has a goal in mind, right?

Slowly shifting her body to the side, Larissa bit her lip in pain as the wounds on her legs started to sting again. Nevertheless, the girl continued her attempts on raising them and descending them on the floor that was covered with the same material as the ceiling.

Larissa held on to the frame of the bed to steady herself but immediately fell to the ground before she could even try to stand without support from the bed frame. She hissed in annoyance, glaring at her legs.

Fortunately, her fall didn't make much sound.

Or at least she thought it didn't, for the sound was probably louder than she thought for not even a minute had passed and the door was already open, revealing the same child that presumably saved her life.