Song of the Forgiven, page 1
part #2 of Scrapped Princess Series
Table of Contents
Prologue
The Travelers Arrive
Beauty and the Beast
The Songstress
Return of the Tactician
An Unwavering Bond
The Weak
Those Who Break the Law
Final Chapter
Prologue
Children could be cruel.
“You’re so pathetic!”
“Get away from me!”
“No one said you could come here!”
Children were supposed to be innocent, but few recognized how innocence could still lead to cruelty. Inflicting pain on others didn’t always begin with conscious malice.
“Go home!”
“I can smell your stink from over here!”
Some forms of misery were only known to those who had been dragged through the mud—a sadness that comes with the experience of being soiled. Those who didn’t know the feeling could be vicious, as they couldn’t understand the pain of the wounded.
“No one wants to be friends with a loser like you!”
Those who were protected by the exemption of childhood had no responsibility for their words. Was it a sin to not know pain? Could one vilify a child, who knew not what he did?
“What’s wrong with her? Is she completely stupid?”
“Don’t look at me like that, ugly!”
But worthy of blame or not, young cruelty still led to pain. The girl on the ground curled up and whimpered.
“What’s wrong?”
Almost instinctively, she kept her eyes low as she glanced up.
“What’s your name?”
She stared, quivering. Her name was known throughout town and closely associated with her shame— an outcast child, born to a vagrant woman after an affair with a town youth. She didn’t want to speak it.
“Do you have any friends?”
It was too much of a bother to even shake her head.
“You don’t?” he asked, his expression a peculiar combination of a smile and a pout. It was hard to guess what he thought of the girl, who gave him neither affirmation nor denial. “To tell you the truth, I don’t have any friends, either. I just moved here and…”
The boy’s sad smile moved her. She tried to respond, but only managed to croak.
Whenever she said anything, someone snapped about the stench of her breath; and whenever she formed an opinion into a sentence, she was labeled impudent. So she’d given up using words. She said nothing more than the bare minimum of what was necessary.
“My health’s pretty bad, y’know? So I can’t run, and nobody wants to play with the kid who can’t run.”
He held out a hand to her. The girl blinked and looked at it in surprise.
“Will you play with me?” he asked timidly.
The girl didn’t move. The boy’s hand was small and frail, but the girl didn’t see that. To be offered something she had dreamed of for so long… she thought that tiny hand could cup the world.
The Travelers Arrive
“If I have to tell you one more time, you’re sleeping in the wagon until your back and butt turn wagon-seat-shaped!”
Winia, quietly setting a table in the Big Bear Inn, paused for a moment. But only for a moment; her amber eyes didn’t bother trailing to the ceiling, in the direction of the guest rooms. She’d grown accustomed to hearing screaming in the morning. Ignoring it had become part of her routine.
Although they’d haggled for a sizeable discount on the price of their room, there was no denying that they were paying guests. In the off-season, paying guests were scarce—especially for the small and conservative Big Bear Inn. The inn couldn’t afford to house only non-screaming customers.
“What?! If I have to sleep in the wagon, then you’re sleeping in the dirt! And then you can eat grass for breakfast and spend half your day sitting in the outhouse!”
Winia rubbed a spot of dirt from the plate in her hand. Taurus was a provincial town in the eastern part of the Linevan Kingdom, one of the one hundred and five holy sites of the kingdom’s official religion of Mauserism. During the pilgrimage season, one could expect a certain level of bustle and festivity, but Taurus was no more than a one-horse town the rest of the year.
But however rural Taurus was, its well-kept roads brought a decent number of merchants, minstrels, and travelers with nothing better to do in the off-season. The Big Bear Inn was one of the few Taurus inns that stayed open year-round and was subjected to whoever felt like passing through.
Like screamers, Winia thought absently.
By the time Winia had finished setting the table for breakfast, the ruckus from above had quieted. She heard a pair of footsteps patting down the stairs.
“Good morning,” came a chirp.
“Good morning,” Winia murmured. She glanced up and saw what she always saw after the screaming tapered off: a tall, lean girl with a cheerful smile on her face.
The girl’s jet-black hair reached halfway down her back, and her midnight eyes glistened. The paleness of her smooth skin and the whiteness of her casual dress contrasted sharply with the dark luster of her hair and eyes. She was not extravagant, but her features were refined, and none would deny that she was beautiful. The only thing that seemed at odds with her beauty was the slightly dazed look she often wore on her face—like a person recently woken.
The guest book listed her as Raquel Casull. Winia stared at her, wondering how to get one’s skin to look so lovely.
“Something wrong?” Raquel asked, tilting her head a bit. Her midnight hair swayed with such elegance that Winia found herself flustered for a moment.
“N-nothing,” Winia muttered, quickly averting her eyes. She noticed her own reflection in a metal serving tray. Stubborn red hair. Freckles, with a dark complexion. Eyes that were peculiarly adult, plain, and amber. She wasn’t necessarily ugly, but she knew she wasn’t beautiful. There was nothing particularly unique or noteworthy about her. In fact, during the seventeen years of her life, not once had she been told she was pretty.
She wondered why God was so unfair.
“It sounds like everyone’s awake in your room,” Winia said with a hint of sarcasm.
“Ah. I’m sorry about the noise.”
Winia shrugged. “We don’t have any other guests right now, so you’re not waking anyone up. Grandma and I only care if you break something.”
Winia’s grandmother, the only other caretaker of the inn, spent most of her days bedridden in her room. Winia had lost both her parents at a young age—young enough that she didn’t remember a thing about them.
“I don’t have siblings, so I’m curious… do brothers and sisters always fight so often?”
Raquel pursed her lips. “Well,” she admitted, “I don’t know how it is in other families. Mine is… unusual.” She paused.
As if to fill the silence, another pair of footsteps thumped down the stairs. They were accompanied by the sound of something rather large being dragged.
Winia turned. Shannon Casull, very obviously not dressed for the day, yawned as he descended.
“Morning,” he mumbled, dragging his bundle down the stairs.
He usually kept his long hair tied back in a ponytail, so seeing it down was a first for Winia. With his dark hair spilling down his back, she could see more clearly that he and Raquel were related.
Winia wondered, not for the first time, why Raquel and Shannon seemed to share nothing more than basic physical qualities. His face was as refined and attractive as Raquel’s, but opposed to her soft smiles, he often wore listless expressions. His perpetual exhaustion made him seem quite a bit older than he actually was. Perhaps he had a lot to worry about.
“Good morning,” muttered Shannon’s captive, dangling from her collar like a misbehaving kitten. Her toes barely reached the hardwood floor as Shannon hauled her alongside him.
Pacifica Casull. Winia had been told she was the youngest of the Casulls, but she saw no resemblance— Pacifica’s eyes were sky blue, and her wildly tangled hair, usually tamed into pinned-up braids, gleamed like spun gold. She was in her mid-teens, and although her somewhat small stature made her seem rather cute, her delicate facial features held a hidden elegance. If dressed in a fine gown and sitting quietly in a corner, she could easily pass as the daughter of the social elite.
But being dragged by the collar, her navel peeking out from under her shirt, wasn’t exactly the picture of elegance. And with all the shrieking she did in the morning, Winia couldn’t imagine the girl ever sitting quietly.
Winia leveled her gaze at the two siblings. “So the battle’s over?” she asked dryly.
Pacifica shrugged and snorted, but her disdain was difficult to take seriously as she dangled in the air. “But not the war,” she snapped. “How am I supposed to spend day and night with a geezer who complains about everything? ‘What a hassle, what a hassle.’” She swung a kick at Shannon and missed. That only made her angrier. “Why don’t you just wear a sign on your back that says, ‘Life’s a pain’ and save us all your bellyaching?!”
“Calm down.”
“No! I go out of my way to wake you up in the morning like a kind and humble superior, so you release your morning nastiness on me? I don’t deserve that, you insubordinate jerk!”
“Raquel,” Shannon said in clear distaste. “I think it’s time we ditched the princess.”
“Oh, my.”
“You know what your problem is?!” Pacifica ranted on. “You don’t respect me, Shannon! You do n’t understand your position as my subject!”
“You’re the last one to talk about not understanding one’s position, Pacifica.”
“You… you smell like old socks!”
Winia ignored the rest of their bickering and waited until Raquel fulfilled her daily duty of stepping in to end the fight.
As Winia went off to fetch breakfast, she found herself, as usual, contemplating the Casulls. She had to admit that their family dynamic intrigued her a bit; their odd yet comfortable exchanges were new to Winia. She realized that she would often just sit and watch them for hours on end, and not just because they were her only guests.
The one thing in particular she hadn’t yet figured out was the “master and subject” nicknames. Winia had once wondered if Pacifica might be an incognito noble, traveling with two servants disguised as her siblings… but she had since scrapped that idea. If Shannon actually was Pacifica’s subject, Pacifica had no reason whatsoever to keep such a rude employee on her payroll.
“You ate it?! You actually ATE IT?! I can’t believe you, Shannon!”
Winia leaned against a nearby wall as the family ate breakfast. She didn’t really feel like doing chores anyway.
“You know that omelets are my favorite! How can you just finish it by yourself without thinking of me?!”
“Because it was on my plate.”
“Shut up! That kind of selfishness, that complete lack of compromise only… um…” She quickly pulled a piece of paper from her sleeve and skimmed it. “It… unfairly distributes the wealth, causing poverty in the lower classes and need-spurred violence! You’re the source of crime, Shannon!”
“Did you actually prepare notes for this?”
“I guess my logic’s too advanced for a knave like you! In layman’s terms, don’t you think you should share food with your adorable little sister like a decent human being?!”
“No.”
“Raquel! Shannon’s being mean to me!”
Raquel sighed. “All right, all right… you can have mine, Pacifica. Now dry those tears and stop choking your older brother.”
It had been a week since they’d arrived, but Winia still found the Casulls strangely interesting. Was it because she was an only child? Maybe the Casulls were normal, and Winia just didn’t know what an average family was like?
Still, she had difficulty believing that when she saw things like Pacifica attacking Shannon with her spoon, and Shannon effortlessly parrying her efforts while drinking his juice.
Several figures stood quietly in the dark. There were four of them… possibly, but it was difficult to tell. They were so nearly identical; it was hard to distinguish them.
Hair, height, clothing—the men’s appearances had been stripped of any trace of individuality; standing in a line, they looked like a series of reflections created by two parallel mirrors. Only a close examination of their varying facial features could prove that the figures were flesh and blood.
“Listen, Purgers.”
A white light cut across the darkness.
The men—Purgers, with no individual names to distinguish them—turned in a synchronized, precise motion. The light was terribly bright, but the men faced it head-on, their gazes unflinching. They stared expressionlessly at the person who stood inside that light.
“I give you your next mission,” the figure said quietly. In the brilliance that surrounded him, only the outline of his body was visible. He was not just beautiful; the lines that formed his shape were powerful, even elegant.
“In the name of our Lord Mauser, purify the cursed souls.”
The Purgers showed the lit figure no expressions. They stirred slightly, like pulled arrows quivering in aim of a target.
“The cursed soul is known as Pacifica. The Scrapped Princess, Pacifica Casull.”
The men’s faces remained emotionless. They had no response to the order, as they had no response to anything in their lives. They were created to have faith—they lived for faith, died for faith, and considered anything else to be impure. They had the ability to penetrate any obstacle and “purify” an assigned, unquestioned target, but in exchange for this ability, they had given up their humanity.
“Go.”
After bowing in one perfectly coordinated motion, the Purgers vanished. Nothing more than killing machines, the only thing that remained human about them was their appearance. They showed neither hesitation nor curiosity.
Even if, on the shadow behind the figure before them, lay the outline of a mammoth pair of wings.
“Winia! Hey, Winia!”
Winia looked up from the stack of towels in her hands. Pacifica bounded catlike across the room and tugged playfully at Winia’s apron.
“Let’s go out on the town!” the younger girl exclaimed. “You can show me the best tourist spots, right? And I want to see all your favorite stores!”
“What? Oh, but I have to…” Winia hesitated. Even at her small inn there were many chores to be done; before the day ended she knew she had to wash the sheets and curtains, prepare dinner, and do a few minor repair jobs. But more than that, Winia was surprised that someone she barely knew would take such an enthusiastic interest in her.
It wasn’t that she didn’t like people. It was just that during the seventeen years she’d been alive, she’d learned that things were much easier if she kept others at a distance.
Pacifica must have noticed her discomfort, because she backed off.
“I’m sorry. I’m being too pushy.” The girl smiled apologetically. “I didn’t think of your schedule.”
Winia blinked. She hadn’t expected the change in attitude—her impression of Pacifica was based entirely on the obnoxious way she treated her brother. It made Winia feel guilty for rejecting her.
“No, I’m sorry. I mean, I wish I could show you around, but the season’s changing soon and I need to pull the sheets and curtains and do all the laundry. I just don’t have the time.”
“Oh?” Pacifica asked, her smile turning sly. “Well, you can leave all that for someone else to do.”
“Someone else?”
Pacifica pointed across the room at Shannon, who had just looked up from his meal to see what she was talking about.
He choked on his tea.
“A-are you serious?” Shannon managed to splutter. “You’re actually telling me to do laundry?
“Yup.” Pacifica seemed to be enjoying herself immensely.
“You can’t… you must be… argh!” Shannon ranted. Angrily, he folded his arms and looked to the wall.
“There’s no way I’m gonna get out of this, is there?” he asked after a moment.
“Nope!”
He sighed. “Fine,” he muttered. “Just take Raquel with you so she can’t try to help me.”
“You really don’t have to—” Winia tried to protest, but Pacifica had already run gleefully past her and up the stairs.
“I guess I’ll start with the laundry. The sheets, curtains, and pillowcases need to be done, right?” Shannon turned his dark eyes to Winia. “You can show me how to make up the rooms when you get back.”
Winia paled slightly. “I-I can’t have you do that,” she murmured. “You’re a guest.”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s not worth arguing with Pacifica when she’s like this—it could take hours, and I’d still end up doing laundry.” He gave the girl a half smile. “Besides, I should probably work off that discount you gave us.”
Winia frowned. “Well… all right. And we’ll, um, take Raquel with us?”
Shannon grimaced. “Yeah. I’d rather we didn’t blow up your inn.”
Winia figured it was better not to ask.
The main street of the city of Taurus was lined with interesting shops. Pacifica, Winia, and Raquel had gravitated toward one of the biggest: a general store that advertised itself as the largest in town. The walls were lined with everything from household goods to souvenirs. Years ago it would have been strange to find such a large store outside of the capital, but the recent years of peace and prosperity had been good for trade.
“Ooh!”
Raquel’s hand shot out to grab something off the shelf—something that turned out to be a poorly made kitten doll in a mug.
“Isn’t this just the most adorable thing you’ve ever seen?” Raquel cooed as she thrust the grotesque cat at Pacifica and Winia. Before either of them could respond, she’d moved on to another shelf.
