3. WHIRLWIND
When thinking of Aslan, Lyla felt conflicting emotions. She wanted to escape from him, but she couldn’t turn away from him at the same time.
From the beginning, it was like that, it was the reason she left Central and came to Ellwood.
Leaving Tordell Manor after ending things with Aslan was, strictly speaking, running away.
She loved him, but he loved another woman.
She wanted to stay by his side, but he would soon bid her farewell.
Such thoughts made it easy for Lyla to give up, and despair forced her to make a choice. That choice was to run away.
Lyla was the first to leave because she didn’t want to be abandoned by him, so it was only natural that she wasn’t able to turn her back on Aslan when he came looking for her.
-If you love Aslan, why don’t you just accept him now that he’s coming to you?
A devilish whisper echoed in the corner of her mind.
Certainly, the amnesiac Aslan was different from before. He showed kindness to Lyla. It was clearly a sexual attraction.
If Lyla hadn’t pushed him away at the beach, they would have undoubtedly kissed.
Lyla pressed her trembling lips together.
“Ha”
She let out a sigh. But the regret was not great.
Lyla thought she did well by rejecting Aslan.
Getting involved with Aslan again without a plan, and having her world revolve around him, terrified her.
If Aslan, who had become everything to her, left her, she felt she wouldn’t be able to bear it.
Lyla slapped her own cheek. It was enough of a shock to snap her back to reality.
Thanks to that, Lyla, who had been lost in thought, now had the opportunity to look around her.
“Huh?”
As she made her way to the parsonage, Lyla noticed that something had changed in the village.
Most of the people she passed by had excited faces, and there were also unfamiliar outsiders seen here and there.
The small village was buzzing with energy.
“What’s going on?”
Lyla wondered, sensing the excitement in the air. But she couldn’t answer the question alone.
That’s when she heard a voice.
“Excuse me, Miss Lyla!”
Lyla turned towards the person calling her. It was a woman with chestnut hair tied into a bun and freckles on her nose.
“Miss Emily.”
“I wanted to ask you something, do you have a moment?”
Something to ask?
Lyla was puzzled.
The two were neighbors in the village, but they weren’t particularly close. Even though they were neighbors, Violet House was quite far from the rest of the village, so they didn’t interact often.
Lyla tried to recall what she knew about Emily.
She knew that Emily was a native of this place, born and raised here. She had heard that since her adolescence, she had been helping her parents at the sheep farm.
It was also said that she was still unmarried and quite enthusiastic about finding a marriage partner. Ellwood was such a small town that there were hardly any eligible men of her age, so Lyla had heard that Emily was considering working in Eres for marriage.
‘I didn’t realize it, but I know Miss Emily better than I thought.
Perhaps Emily had also heard various stories about Lyla.
‘The reason she called me might be…’
Lyla, recalling information about Emily, could guess what she wanted to ask her.
She approached Emily, who was holding a basket of eggs with half certainty.
Emily, perhaps feeling impatient with Lyla’s slow pace, quickly asked before Lyla even reached her.
“What’s the deal with the handsome blonde gentleman you were with?”
As expected.
“Why, the one you were with a few days ago!”
There was no need to inquire further about who it was.
“Are you talking about Aslan?”
“Aslan? Is that his name? Why does he have such a cool name?”
Emily exclaimed.
She didn’t think she could react so strongly to a mere name.
But from the blush that filled Emily’s face, she could quickly understand why she was acting like that.
‘Indeed, he’s quite popular.’
Aslan was Aslan, even if he didn’t have a plaque proclaiming himself as Duke of Tordell. It was a fact she knew well, and yet somehow it made her feel bad.
Until just before, while thinking about him, she might have unknowingly admitted that her feelings towards him hadn’t completely faded.
Deciding she didn’t want to engage in conversations about Aslan with the woman harboring particular intentions towards him, Lyla changed the subject.
“But the atmosphere in the village seems different from usual, doesn’t it? Is something going on?”
Emily, lost in a dreamlike state like a teenage girl dreaming of a prince on a white horse, blinked her eyes.
“Yeah, it’s because the festival is happening.”
“A festival?”
“It’s not happening in our village, but in the neighboring city of Eres. The festival will run for three days starting tomorrow. People coming to enjoy the festival there might also come here to take a look around. Since we might also go there for fun, the atmosphere is different from usual.”
“Ah…”
A festival.
Just then, they noticed a stranger passing by their side. With an exotic appearance unseen in the village, it seemed like they had briefly stopped by here on their way to see the festival in Eres.
“But, um, what about Aslan-”
“I, I have something to do so I’ll go first. Thank you for letting me know.”
Lyla quickly excused herself before Emily could stop her, feeling sorry for avoiding the conversation, but she couldn’t continue chatting pleasantly with Emily, who was clearly probing about Aslan.
She would continue to hear news of Aslan later on.
The new news could be heard continuously afterwards.
Everywhere she went in the village, there was talk of the festival. Even the children were talking about the festival.
Even her family was talking about the festival when \she got home.
“Why don’t we take tomorrow off from work and go see the festival?”
Luke nodded enthusiastically at Sophia’s suggestion.
“There’s nothing urgent, so it’ll be nice to have some family fun before things get busy in the summer.”
Aiden was the most excited.
“Wow! So tomorrow we get to take off work and go to the festival?”
“Does that sound good?”
“Of course!”
As he was still not yet of legal age, just hearing the word “festival” made him excited.
It was nice to see him so excited about a special event that suddenly appeared in his otherwise mundane daily life.
Lyla smiled as she watched her younger sibling’s adorable excitement, and just then, Aiden turned his head.
“Tomorrow seems like it’s going to be really fun, right?”
“Yeah. It’s my first time experiencing a festival like this, so I’m looking forward to it.”
“Is it your first time too, sis? I thought you’d be tired of festivals since you were in Central.”
It was the most innocent thing Aiden could say, not knowing Lyla’s past or how she’d spent her time at Central.
Lyla swallowed her bitterness and replied.
“Yeah. I’ve never been to a festival like this.”
She had been to parties hosted by the royal family or festivals held around important national events before.
But those were usually divided between nobles and commoners. The nobles’ festival Lyla had attended were not much different than a social event.
She didn’t elaborate, but Aiden seemed to understand.
Taking his gaze off Lyla, Aiden then asked Aslan, who had been quietly standing apart and not participating in the conversation this time.
“What about Aslan?”
Aslan, who didn’t expect to be questioned, slowly opened his mouth.
“…I haven’t particularly attended this kind of festival before.”
“Wow, so I’m not the only newbie? That’s a relief!”
Aiden, relieved that he wouldn’t be embarrassed, grinned happily.
“Then let’s have fun tomorrow, the three of us. Since it’s our first time, let’s try everything at the festival.”
At that, Aslan raised an eyebrow. He didn’t hide his surprise and asked without hesitation.
“……I’m going with you?”
“Were you not planning to?” Sophia retorted, her tone implying she had naturally expected him to join.
“I thought you were going with your family, so I didn’t think I’d be accompanying you.”
Luke replied casually to Aslan’s question.
“Then you should come with us. We’re all under the same roof now, aren’t we?”
Aslan pursed his lips. Living under the same roof as family. It was a somewhat unexpected statement.
It was an odd feeling. He knew the Violet people had always been friendly with him. But he hadn’t realized they were so close to him that they would casually mention it.
Even his own blood family didn’t care about him like this. Rather…….
[It’s terrible that you have half his blood in you.]
The voice, shrill and echoing in his head, made him think.
Aslan dismissed the memories of his family that only brought hollow laughter the more he pondered on them.
Breaking free from his reverie, Aslan glanced at Lyla seated diagonally across from him.
The crucial thing was Lyla’s consent. No matter how favorably others treated Aslan, it wouldn’t matter if she didn’t approve.
“Really, may I come with you?”
“….”
Lyla remained silent for a moment.
But the silence didn’t last long. She soon spoke up.
“It would be more fun with more company.”
It was a simple approval.
But it left a tingling sensation in his chest.
