“Elena?” Cura approached, gently touching her arm, seeing her lost in thought.
“You don’t remember, do you?” Cura asked.
“No,” Elena muttered.
“Don’t push yourself too hard to remember. Perhaps when your body and mind feel more at ease, your lost memories will naturally return,” Cura said, smiling softly in an attempt to comfort her.
However, Elena could still see the unease in Cura’s eyes. Seeing Cura’s expression made Elena feel even more confused about herself.
“Maybe…” Elena whispered, turning toward the wide-open window.
A gentle breeze caressed her cheeks and hair, softly blowing in. She closed her eyes, trying to forget Cura’s expression and the overwhelming thoughts swirling in her mind.
As the sunlight and wind brushed against her face, she began to feel calmer.
Then, she opened her eyes again and looked down at her hand resting on the windowsill. Her skin was still pale, and the scars remained, but her complexion had acquired a slight pink tint, and her skin had softened significantly.
Have I ever felt this peaceful before? she wondered.
A body scarred, immune to poison, capable of reading an ancient language, and with no clear knowledge of her origins.
Who was I, really? Elena mused, absently gazing out of the window.
Unlike the view from her bedroom, the study didn’t offer a view of the grand gardens or the castle’s greenhouse. Instead, she saw a small, unfamiliar garden and a series of tall towers rising beyond a fountain.
From the terrace of her and Kennard’s bedroom, she could see dozens of towers perched atop the castle.
The towers varied in size and height, and they all had large windows. However, one tower caught Elena’s eye. It was different from the others, with only a small window at the top, just big enough to fit a person’s face. Even that window was barred with iron.
For some reason, Elena couldn’t take her eyes off it and stared intently at that particular tower.
“What’s wrong?” Cura approached the window and peeked out, following Elena’s gaze.
“Is something there?” Cura asked.
The tower was too far away for Cura to tell what Elena was looking at.
“No, it’s just… it’s my first time seeing outside from this direction,” Elena replied.
“This area is part of the castle’s bend, so it makes sense you’ve never seen it before. Oh, that reminds me. That’s the training ground over there,” Cura said, leaning out further and pointing at a spot outside.
Elena leaned forward to follow her gaze. “Where the knights train?” she asked.
“Yes,” Cura confirmed.
Beyond the garden and the dense forest, which had hidden it from view, Elena could now see a tall wooden fence. Just then, she noticed a group of knights walking toward the direction of the training ground.
Cura’s eyes lit up, and she turned to Elena. “Elena, do you want to go there?”
“To the training ground?” Elena was surprised and looked down at Cura. She wondered how quickly Cura had forgotten her earlier admonition about walking around too much.
Cura was now looking up at Elena, her eyes full of childlike mischief. “Remember, you said you wanted to see the transformation process, didn’t you?”
Elena slowly nodded. She had seen Kennard transform into a black wolf and had watched other knights in their wolf forms as they ran through the forest. But she had never witnessed the actual transformation process or how they returned to their human forms.
Even on the day they were attacked by the White Fox Tribe in the forest, her consciousness had been fading, and she hadn’t noticed Kennard’s transformation.
“Are we even allowed to go there? What if we interrupt their training?” Elena asked.
“I used to go there sometimes to watch before you arrived. The knights don’t mind, but my brother always got really angry about it,” Cura replied.
Cura leaned toward Elena, as if sharing a secret, even though no one else was around. “And… today, neither my brother nor the Grand Duke is around,” she whispered.
She straightened up again, grinning with a look that reminded Elena of Serin. “You won’t get a chance like this again! Or do you want to ask the Grand Duke to show you himself?”
“How could I do that?” Elena waved her hands dismissively, stepping back. She had never even considered doing something like that.
“So let’s go! I’ll ask the knights to show us the transformation,” Cura said.
“But still…” Elena hesitated.
Cura grabbed Elena’s arm and began pulling her out of the study. “Just a moment,” she said, then glanced down at the book she was holding and quickly ran back into the study.
She rushed around the bookshelves and carefully placed the book back in its original spot. Elena absentmindedly watched as Cura put away the scripture she had been reading.
The two words, “Sacred Scripture,” seemed to leap off the cover and imprint themselves in Elena’s mind.
“Now, let’s go,” Cura said, returning to Elena’s side and closing the study door. Elena finally blinked her eyes.
