The girl had already become a woman.
It was a future perhaps several years away. Moreover, a world without me must still have been tormented by the enemy who could never be defeated, no matter what anyone did.
Just as adolescence did, the pain of years turned humans into adults. Even the imperial palace’s noble flower was no exception. The person greeting me from beyond the fracture carried the bearing of a full-fledged leader.
Enough that even I faltered for an instant.
What should I say? Could we communicate in the first place? My gaze could not penetrate the woman’s closed eyelids, nor even the gentle curve upon her lips.
And so she was again the one to break the silence.
“No, perhaps ‘it has been a long time’ sounds a little strange. You have only just arrived here, Brother, have you not? Though from my perspective, quite a few years have passed.”
What in the world had happened?
What had become of her eyes? How many years had passed since I left? How much had she suffered all that time?
Questions and comfort mingled in my throat for so…