Chapter 28

It was true that Kosha had been suffering from severe insomnia lately.

Despite what a certain someone seemed to believe, he had not spent his nights clinging to Eydric’s sleeve and whining, nor had the two of them huddled together until dawn in idle conversation. On the contrary, Kosha remained firmly convinced that he had concealed his sleeplessness rather well.

Despite what someone else appeared to think, the geese were not entirely to blame, either. Naturally, he worried about them, but he had long since lost count of how many days he had spent detained at Osterbrache Castle. Their well-being was no longer a problem he could solve by fretting himself sick. Desperately pushing the miserable thoughts aside, Kosha tried to console himself with the fleeting hope that his flock had broken into the neighboring pig farmer’s house and scavenged enough food to survive.

The true cause of his sleeplessness lay elsewhere, rooted deep within his malfunctioning mana. It reminded him of the incident in the bath, when his magic had begun leaking from his body. No, overflowing was probably the more accurate word. Then again, perhaps it was merely returning to him at last.

More than ten years had passed since Kosha had experienced anything remotely similar, leaving the entire sensation utterly foreign.

A mage’s condition was difficult to explain in ordinary terms, but if he had to make a comparison, it felt as though he had suddenly sprouted eight additional arms without the faintest idea how to control any of them. The mana circulating through his veins obeyed a chaotic rhythm of its own, becoming especially turbulent beneath the cover of night. Even when Kosha managed to soothe his profoundly unfamiliar body long enough to drift into an exhausted sleep, erratic surges of raw power inevitably thrashed through his limbs and jolted him violently awake.

The relentless lack of sleep left him dazed and sluggish throughout the day, yet whenever he treated Lucien, he forced himself to gather his scattered wits and concentrate with every scrap of discipline he possessed. Lately, however, he had been unable to shake the gnawing suspicion that his very presence was beginning to grate on the man.

Today had been a perfect example. Kosha had gone to administer the treatment shortly after lunch to accommodate Lucien’s schedule, but while he focused on drawing out the lingering traces of the magical potion concealed within the prince’s body, those piercing blue-gray eyes had fixed upon him with an unusual and deeply unnerving persistence.

Lucien had always watched him rather intently, but today’s scrutiny felt entirely different. After briefly questioning his own sanity, Kosha realized he was not imagining it. Trapped beneath that blatantly unwavering gaze, he could do little more than hunch his shoulders and bow his head even lower.

Even when fully in command of his faculties, Kosha had little confidence in his ability to remain composed while studying Lucien from such an intimate distance. Botching an important treatment simply because he had become flustered would be disastrous.

Do I look ill? Is my face too haggard?

Anxious thoughts had spun endlessly through his mind until Lucien finally broke the silence.

“You…”

He drew out the single word so slowly that Kosha froze at once, his entire body turning rigid as he forgot how to breathe.

Conversing with Lucien remained both a distinct pleasure and an excruciating ordeal, contradictory feelings that were nonetheless equally true. Kosha had once dreamed of merely being on speaking terms with the man, a desire so distant it had seemed no more attainable than a fantasy.

Fortunately or otherwise, Lucien did not pursue whatever declaration had been poised on his tongue. He soon turned his head away, allowing Kosha to escape the agonizing crisis by the narrowest of margins.

Regardless of the awkwardness between them, Kosha had to face him at exactly the same time every day. He had grown desperate to secure at least one proper night of sleep before his accumulating exhaustion became painfully obvious to everyone.

He had already forced himself into bed and was tossing restlessly beneath the heavy covers when the disturbance began.

Tap, tap, tap.

Something knocked lightly against the windowpane.

At first, Kosha dismissed the noise as a trick of his exhausted mind and attempted to ignore it. His room in the West Wing overlooked the tall cypress trees lining the castle’s outer wall, and on particularly blustery nights, stray branches often scraped against the glass. It was an ordinary occurrence, certainly nothing worth frightening himself over.

Then the sound came again.

Tap, tap, tap.

The measured rhythm was far too deliberate to be a coincidence. The knocking returned a third time, then a fourth, and finally a fifth, prompting Kosha to bolt upright in bed.

“W-Who’s there?” he stammered, his voice trembling in the dark.

He struck a flint, hastily lit the oil lamp, and raised it toward the window with a shaking hand. Nothing but pitch-black night waited beyond the glass, the weak amber glow unable to penetrate the hazy pane.

Summoning what little courage he possessed, Kosha crept closer just as a dark shadow shifted ominously outside. Terror swept his legs out from beneath him, and he crumpled to the floor without so much as managing a scream.

Something strange had definitely moved beyond the window. The shape had looked remarkably like a pair of jet-black wings.

Wings?

Fumbling his way upright, Kosha approached the sill once more. People terrified him, but animals never had. He cautiously lifted the lamp toward the glass and watched the winglike shape flutter in the suffocating darkness, his green eyes widening in bewilderment.

“A crow…?”

A single black bird with sleek, glossy feathers perched quietly upon the exterior frame. It made no attempt to flee when Kosha unlatched the heavy window and eased it open. Instead, it remained perfectly still, as though it had been waiting patiently for him to arrive.

Why would a crow come here, of all places?

The scavengers were common throughout central Izeland and often circled the skies above Osterbrache, yet recently, it had become impossible to hear so much as a single caw within the castle grounds.

Kosha alone bore the blame for their sudden absence.

The trouble had begun shortly after he supposedly smashed the first prince’s head with a falling rock, a disastrous accident Kosha had never intended and still struggled to accept responsibility for. Following the bloody incident, the injured prince had flown into a violent rage and demanded that every last bird on the premises be eradicated. Since then, the castle’s nervous inhabitants had busied themselves chasing away every winged creature they spotted.

Yet now, inexplicably, a crow sat calmly on his windowsill.

As Kosha studied the creature, a sudden and thoroughly wild realization struck him.

“Were you the one who dropped that rock back then?” he whispered.

Naturally, the crow offered no vocal response. As though it understood the human perfectly, however, it puffed out its chest feathers with unmistakable pride, a gesture that looked suspiciously like a smug affirmation.

“Really?” Kosha gasped, leaning closer. “Are you all right? The guards didn’t hurt you, did they?”

During the attendants’ ruthless campaign against the local wildlife, Kosha had secretly agonized over the possibility that the crow might meet a gruesome end. Yet the magnificent creature before him appeared sleek, large, and perfectly healthy.

“W-Why did you do it?” he pressed softly. “Did you really drop that rock just because I was thinking about it?”

Silence answered him.

For one brief, hopeful moment, Kosha wondered whether his uncontrollable mana overflow had somehow granted him the mythical ability to communicate with beasts, but the crow’s mind remained entirely impenetrable. Such rare talents usually manifested during infancy, and even when Kosha had still been considered a “normal” mage, he had never spoken to an animal.

“I can’t understand you.” His shoulders drooped in defeat before he shot the bird a curious glance. “Can you understand me?”

The crow tilted its head, appearing neither surprised nor disappointed by the mage’s linguistic failure. Kosha optimistically chose to interpret the subtle motion as a definite yes.

“Then why did you come here? It’s dangerous.”

It was a pointless question the bird had no means of answering. Deciding the creature must be hungry, Kosha scanned his dim quarters and remembered the half loaf of bread left over from his meager dinner. He retrieved the crust, broke off a bite-sized piece, and extended his open palm toward the window frame.

The crow merely stared at the offering.

Is bread not good enough?

Unfortunately, it was the only ration he possessed. The bird tilted its head and examined the food with a sharp, disconcertingly intelligent gaze, as though calculating whether such a pathetic reward was truly worth the strenuous effort of flying all the way to the West Wing.

Just as Kosha began flushing with embarrassment over his cheap hospitality, the crow leaned forward and plucked the crumb from his fingers, looking entirely resigned to accepting the disappointing meal.

“Hey, do you think birds can understand one another?” Kosha tore off another soft piece of bread. “Do you know how to speak goose?”

Instead of taking the second morsel, the crow fixed him with a deeply judgmental stare.

Undeterred by its silence, Kosha eagerly began describing the location of the Osterbeek residence, clutching at the absurd interaction like a drowning man grasping a lifeline. Worried that a formal street address would mean absolutely nothing to a wild bird, he babbled out as many geographical landmarks as his memory could supply.

“Could you please tell the geese there to scavenge for themselves and stay healthy? My neighbor, the gentleman next door, will probably keep throwing them scraps. I’ll repay him later, I swear.” His fingers tightened around the piece of bread. “Just… please tell them I’ll come home to them as soon as I can.”

“Who said you could?”