“You’ve become a Wing?”
Crash!
The bottle shattered into pieces.
Father staggered to his feet as if he couldn’t believe what he had just heard.
“Say that again. Kailas. What did you say you became? A Wing?”
“F-Father.”
“I must have misheard, right? It’s just the alcohol making me hear things. That’s it, isn’t it? It has to be.”
Kailas barely managed to open her trembling lips.
“You heard me correctly. I’ve awakened the power of healing. Soon, the temple will come to take me. They said I could bring my family with me. We can live comfortably now. You too, Father—”
“Go? Where am I supposed to go?”
Father roared.
“The priests killed my wife. Those people took your mother away!”
Unable to contain his rage, Father swept everything off the dining table. Cheap side dishes spilled onto the floor. His eyes turned bloodshot as he shouted.
“And now they want to take my daughter? Don’t make me laugh! Not her. I’ll be damned if I let them use you as one of their lackeys!”
Kailas trembled with fear but couldn’t leave the spot. She was terrified her enraged father might harm himself.
He had been known in the village as a devoted husband and a doting father.
Her friends had envied how affectionate and family-oriented he was. But after unjustly losing his wife, he had fallen apart completely.
So Kailas couldn’t bring herself to resent him. Even in his drunken, altered state, he had never laid a hand on her.
When she awakened her healing power, Kailas had been hopeful in her own way.
She thought her powers might help her father.
That becoming a Wing, with all its promised wealth and glory, would ease his burdens.
That she might see the loving father she once knew again.
She hadn’t expected her hopes to shatter so easily.
“Let’s run away, Kailas.”
Her father, who had been shouting for so long, suddenly turned to look at her. With hollow eyes, he approached and gripped her shoulders. His bony fingers dug in painfully.
“Let’s leave this cursed empire. We’ll go somewhere no one knows us. Then we’ll never have to deal with that damn goddess again.”
“That’s impossible, Father. Running away? I’m a Wing now. If we do that, divine punishment might befall us.”
“Divine punishment? Ha! If the gods truly delivered punishment, would those priests have been able to kill your mother? If the gods existed, they wouldn’t have dared to make you a Wing in the first place!”
Father’s voice grew louder. Kailas, fearing his words would carry outside, desperately pleaded with him.
“Father, please calm down. The priests who caused Mother’s death are different from Lady Josephina. I’ll set everything right. I’ll ask Lady Josephina to punish those priests who hurt Mother. I’ll make them apologize to you. So please, calm down, Father.”
“You’re clinging to a false hope, Kailas. If the saintess had any sense, would those priests have been able to run wild? They’re all in on it together. They’re accomplices! And even if you tell the saintess the truth—”
His shouting abruptly ceased, and Father collapsed into a chair. He seemed to lose all strength and crumpled in despair.
“…Your mother won’t come back to life anyway.”
A suppressed sob broke out, a sound so raw and animalistic it was agonizing to hear. Kailas stood frozen, tears streaming down her face. Her father’s despair was too overwhelming for her young heart to bear.
After crying for a long time, Father finally quieted. Kailas, afraid something might have happened to him, panicked.
“Father, are you okay? Can you hear me?”
In her desperation, Kailas called upon her healing power. Though she had awakened only hours ago, using her powers felt as natural as breathing.
Feeling a shift in his body, Father flinched. Kailas hesitated briefly, then poured more power into him.
“You don’t need to be scared. This is the power of a Wing. It’s not as bad as you think. It’s a power to save people, Father. It’s a power to help those like Mother.”
She allowed herself a sliver of hope. Perhaps, upon feeling the reality of her healing power, her father might change his mind. Perhaps it could be the catalyst to mend her father’s broken life.
…She had no idea it would lead to the worst possible outcome.
“Kailas. This is healing power? So you really are the owner of that cursed power?”
Her father’s face, as he looked up at her, was contorted in anguish. Seeing the depth of despair in his expression, Kailas felt her heart plummet.
“So it’s true. My daughter has really become a Wing. That damned saintess means to take even my daughter. In the end, I’ll lose you too.”
Having lost even the faintest glimmer of hope, Father completely broke down. Watching his torment, Kailas could do nothing. She could only helplessly pray for a miracle to happen.
* * *
Father disappeared.
It happened immediately after Kailas revealed she had become a Wing.
“Please, just a few more days. Father will be back soon.”
The young girl desperately pleaded with the priest who insisted it was time for her to leave for the temple. The response was cold and dismissive.
“I’m not sure waiting for his return is the right thing to do. It might actually be a threat to Kailas.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“It seems no one is unaware of the fact that he often spoke irreverently about the saintess. Wasn’t it said that on the very day Kailas became a Wing, wailing could be heard from him all day long?”
Kailas flinched and looked at the priest. Sensing her unease, the priest clicked his tongue disapprovingly.
“Kailas, you were chosen by the goddess, not him. His insolence toward the saintess alone is reason enough to have him executed a hundred times over.”
“…!”
“As someone destined to be a pillar of the Empire, I am willing to overlook his sins this once. However, should such behavior persist, I will have no choice but to report it to the saintess. Do you understand what I mean?”
Terrified, Kailas nodded. The priest, satisfied, continued with a stern warning.
“No matter how great the power of a Wing may be, you are ultimately a servant of the saintess. Should she ever question your loyalty, she could have you discarded as well.”
The way Josephina disposed of Wings.
She would subject them to cruel torture until their minds and bodies were utterly broken. Then, she would sever the tendons in their limbs and imprison them in a lightless underground cell.
They wouldn’t even be allowed to die until Josephina deemed her anger appeased, enduring her wrath indefinitely.
“Lady Josephina is one of the strongest emissaries of the goddess in history. To maintain order in the temple, it’s only natural that she would crush even her cherished Wings if necessary. So, abandon any lingering attachment to that foolish father. He is better off gone for your sake.”
Kailas couldn’t bring herself to argue. The vivid fear of death paralyzed her. Seeing her terror, the priest spoke with satisfaction.
“You’ve made the right choice. Though parting from your father may be painful now, once you meet the saintess, all your suffering will disappear. The goddess’s emissary is an absolute source of happiness and salvation for Wings.”
—
The priest was wrong.
Kailas felt no affection for Josephina. She only felt uncomfortable and afraid. Yet, escape was not an option.
The one relief was Josephina’s apparent lack of interest in healing power. Under her indifference, Kailas secluded herself in the building assigned to her and buried herself in work.
“Kailas seems different from the others, don’t you think?”
“Yeah. She doesn’t seem particularly happy about becoming a Wing.”
“The saintess barely even calls for her. Doesn’t that say something?”
“Could it be that she’s fallen out of favor with the saintess? That’d be bad, right?”
Suspicion snowballed rapidly. Though Kailas was aware of the malicious whispers directed at her, she ignored them. Half of them were true, and she lacked the will to respond.
As Kailas remained silent, the priests began openly disregarding her.
“If I were the saintess, I wouldn’t want a Wing like her either. She’s so hard to read, so gloomy. Maybe she’ll be discarded soon?”
“Ugh, it’s awful. Having to work alongside a Wing like her. What if we end up on the saintess’s bad side because of her?”
Kailas became increasingly isolated. She had no allies anywhere. She felt so lonely it seemed she might die, but she didn’t want to get involved with anyone.
Then, one day, she received news that her father had passed away.
Someone found his body in the middle of winter, dressed only in thin autumn clothes.
It was strange.
Even upon hearing of her father’s wretched end, she couldn’t cry aloud. She clutched the paper bearing the notice of his death and silently wept.
Where was she going?
The end of the tunnel was nowhere in sight.
Though she forced herself to take one step at a time, she knew she would eventually collapse. Slowly, she sank into the depths of despair.
* * *
After meeting Leticia, Kailas’s life changed completely. She found things she wanted to do and began to dream of a future. The swamp that had held her back disappeared.
However, having spent so much time alone, she still found it difficult to interact with others. Many said she was cold and unapproachable, but it was a misunderstanding.
Her seemingly frosty expression was often just the result of her awkwardness and not knowing what to do.
At first, she regretted how others found her intimidating and tried to change. She even practiced smiling in front of a mirror at night. But it felt so unnatural, like wearing a mask, that she eventually gave up.
Still, Kailas didn’t mind. After all, one couldn’t have everything in life. Simply having a second chance at life was enough.
“Julios.”
And yet, despite it all, there was one thing she couldn’t control—her feelings.
A one-sided love that had no clear beginning and no foreseeable end.
She never dared to dream that her love might be returned. Julios was a shining star, and she was nothing more than a nameless wildflower in the shadows, admiring his brilliance.
“I was worried, so I came. You were supposed to enter the palace today, but I heard something came up at the hospital. I thought you might need help, so I came to check…”
Julios, looking concerned, scanned the dust-filled hospital interior.
“I didn’t expect things to be this serious.”
Julios looked at Kailas with worry.
“Kailas. Are you okay? Are you hurt? What happened here?”
“…Just a minor accident, but it’s fine now.”
Kailas averted her gaze, her expression stiff. Her mind went blank, and her heart pounded so wildly it felt out of control.
“This is blood, isn’t it? You’re hurt?”
At that moment, Julios grabbed her wrist. Kailas froze, stiff from head to toe, as if she might topple over like a pillar if someone gave her a nudge.
“Just a little. But you don’t need to worry; it’s already been treated.”
She quickly pulled her hand away and summoned her healing power. The scabbed wound vanished without a trace.
She stared at her now-unblemished hand and thought to herself.
‘Tonight, I won’t wash this hand before bed.’
As she fretted over how to avoid washing her hand without leaving the bloodstain, she noticed Julios’s hand still lingering in the air.
Kailas flinched.
“Oh, I didn’t mean to startle you. I’m sorry.”
Julios withdrew his hand with a smile.
The guilt of worrying Julios and the self-reproach for acting foolishly in front of someone she liked weighed heavily on Kailas. Yet, his smile, directed at her, made her heart race uncontrollably, as it always did.
‘Please stop pounding, heart.’
When would she ever get used to this unrequited love? Even as she found it painful, she knew she didn’t want to let go of these feelings. It was a hopeless case.
“It’s fine. But where’s your escort…?”
“Who would dare touch me in Genos? I’ve got this.”
Julios chuckled playfully and held out his wrist. A bracelet of small black gemstones adorned it—a protective charm crafted by Sigmund specifically for the Genos royal family. It had enough power to obliterate an entire city.
“Oh, that’s true.”
“By the way, how are we going to clean all this up?”
“I think we’ll have to close the hospital for a few days…”
Kailas trailed off, her eyes falling on the mountain of gemstones piled in the middle of the hospital. A cold sweat broke out as she wondered how to explain it.
It would have been simple to casually recount what had happened today, but doing so with Julios made it infinitely harder.
…No, in truth, she always froze up in front of Julios, no matter what she tried to say.
She’d lost count of how many times she’d babbled nonsense in his presence, only to be left alone afterward, clutching her head in regret.
Meanwhile, unknown to Kailas, Julios was already aware of the gemstones.
He had rushed over in surprise after hearing that Heinz had dumped an enormous pile of gems on her.
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