Their eyes stayed under moonlit like arrows striking each other, or a car crash.
Henry Savoy thought that she looked beautiful, and although she didn't know, she probably had changed. It was all subtle in a way. She didn't wear anything that reminded him of holiness or the Vorhan Empire. She wore black and darker, strong colors instead of white. She wore a robe, yes, but not that of an aristocrat or befitting of her Holiness. It was tattered. And that was smart on her part. Regality was easily tracked in a world full of grimness and poverty.
They waited for each other to speak. Henry couldn't break. He had nothing to say after all.
Shame was all he had yet he had the guts to look the lady in the eyes.
The wind teased at her hair, pulling it free of the makeshift braid that crowned her head. It struck Henry that her hair no longer gleamed like polished gold but carried the dull shine of someone who no longer cared for such trivialities. Or was it the moon that ended its sunshine?
She had changed. But then, hadn't they all?
"You're staring," she said finally, her voice low and even. It wasn't cold, but it carried no warmth either. Her tone had the bite of someone long used to disappointment, someone who had stopped hoping for anything else.
Henry flinched, his gaze darting away.
He glanced down at his boots, scuffed and caked with the dirt of a thousand meaningless miles. "I didn't mean to," he murmured. His voice cracked slightly, betraying the thin thread of composure he clung to. "It's just—" He stopped himself, swallowing back the flood of words threatening to spill out.
Apologies. Explanations. Excuses. None of them mattered now.
"You didn't mean to," she echoed, almost to herself. She shifted her weight, her hands hidden in the folds of her robe. "That's what you always said, Henry."
The weight of her words settled over him like ash after a fire. "I know," he whispered.
She tilted her head, studying him. There was no malice in her gaze, only a deep, unfathomable weariness. "Do you?"
The question pierced him more than any accusation might have. He forced himself to meet her eyes again. The moonlight turned them into twin shards of steel, unyielding and unbroken.
"I never meant to hurt you," he said, each word like a stone he had to drag out of his throat.
She laughed softly, a sound devoid of humor. "Hurt me? Henry, you left me."
The words sliced through the night, sharp and undeniable. He opened his mouth to protest, but nothing came out. What defense could he offer? He had left her. He had abandoned everything they had built in a night; forsaking then everything she had believed in. And now here she stood, a shadow of the woman she had been, forged anew in the crucible of whatever turmoil poisons the heart and mind.
"I thought I was protecting you," he said at last, the words falling flat between them. He winced at how hollow they sounded.
"Protecting me," she repeated. Her lips curved into a bitter smile, and for a moment, he saw the ghost of the woman she used to be. The woman who had laughed with the sun in her hair, who had believed in the righteousness of their cause. "Protecting me from what, Henry? From yourself?"
"Yes," Henry looked down, looking for a Hail Mary on the ground. That was accurate. In another world, everything was left behind in the former. Except his stalking shadow. "From myself."
"I thought you were a brave man, Henry Savoy, to fight against the odds; but now, that has died. You are, although from another world, a human. You are only that," Lady Keirin shook her head slowly as she spoke. "Whatever it is you fear, you have taken something from me that you will never bring back. Do not leave me again or I will hunt you down. Even if it takes the last drop of my blood. Do you understand?" And then her gaze fell upon Henry Savoy's eyes.
"Is that why you followed? Because I took your chastity?" Henry Savoy snickered, although not really the usual bursting out his lips. It was not a cocky or teasing one. It was more of a curse to himself, in a way.
"No," said Lady Keirin.
"Then why?" Henry said.
"Your words against yours," she said simply, her tone unreadable. "I just wanted to."