Karina’s Last Days

Chapter 2

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“Lia, you look like you’re feeling better today. What a relief,” Count Leopold said, leading his family in a conversation that included the youngest twins of the family and their mother.

“It’s all thanks to my parents getting good medicine for me,” said Lia, laughing.

“Yuck, whatever you’re taking was too bitter for me,” said Feldon.

“Fel, Lia isn’t healthy like you. She needs to take it even though it’s bitter,” their mother scolded.

Karina looked around at her family. Sitting right next to Count Leopold was Enphric—the firstborn and the heir to the title—smiling as he listened to the conversation. Enphric was a master of both literature and swordsmanship. Everyone thought he was already ready to become the next count. Next were the young twins, Abelia and Feldon, who were lovely and made everyone smile. The children smiled ever so brightly at Karina, and she loved them, even if she wasn’t the most affectionate sister.

Sometimes she could not hold herself back from feeling jealous of them—it was a strange feeling. Count Leopold’s family was beautiful, that’s what Karina was thinking as she looked at the bright blond hair, beautiful red hair, and blue eyes of her family members around the table. I used to wonder why only I had this dull brown colored hair. She later learned that she had inherited her hair color from one of her great-grandparents. It was something she was deeply bitter about.

Karina picked at her salad for a bit and then put her fork down. She didn’t feel well and didn’t think she could eat anymore. She cleansed her palate with a sip of water and stood up. “May I be excused? I’m done with dinner.”

“Yes, you may.”

At least she got her mother to reply. Everyone else was busy talking and didn’t pay any attention to Karina. Mother turned her attention to Abelia and Feldon. Ignored again, Karina did what she always did, she put her head down and took off.

She was walking down the hallway and rubbing her chest to soothe its tightness when she felt her stomach churn. She took a deep breath and looked around, then continued to walk with her shoulders held high as if nothing had happened.

With no one following her, she walked down the familiar hallway to head to the second floor, but that only lasted for a second. Before she could reach the top of the stairs, she felt something claw its way up her throat. Karina had to cover her mouth and run to the bathroom inside her room.

She leaned and with a retching sound, she emptied her stomach of the little food that she had managed to keep down. After rushing to flush down the remnants of the food she had forcefully vomited, she walked over to her bed with heavy steps. It felt like all her life energy had left her.

Nobody told me it would get this bad this quickly, Karina thought in frustration. A few days before, she had sneaked out of the mansion to see a well-known doctor.

“I’m sorry to say this, but I don’t even know how your organs are still functioning at this point.”

“Is it that bad?”

“Yes, honestly I’m amazed that you can even walk. If you were healthy before and the decline was abrupt, we can suspect the ‘Art disease.’”

“Art disease...?”

“There are some people who are born with artistic gifts that can make ‘miracles’ happen. And sometimes those artistic gifts use their life energy to give them this great power.”

She was living a quiet life as a supporting character in her family's lives, so how unfair was it for death to just show up on her doorstep like this? She thought the world was awfully unfair. But there wasn’t anything she could do about it.

“You make miracles happen too, don’t you?”

“Yes,” she said after a short pause.

“You would’ve felt your health decline after using your gift. Have you not had any routine health checkups? Usually, people blessed with miracle-making gifts are supposed to get health checks regularly.”

She did not reply.

“This wouldn’t have happened if you’d known about it earlier.”

“Is that so?”

The doctor had hit the nail with his words, and she could only nod blankly. Karina had never thought that the miracles she made would eat away her life force. She quietly put her hand over her forehead. It was out of sheer spite that she had never let people know about her talent.

Her pride and spitefulness made her hide it. She hated that people didn’t listen properly when she first tried to tell them about it. Later though, it was because she was consumed with worry.

She knew that the family would have paid attention to her if they knew about her talent, but then she could never have been sure if they valued her for who she was or only for her gift, so she kept it secret. She hadn’t known that it would backfire like this.

“You said you had anemia and were coughing up blood? And that your digestion is often poor and you’ve been throwing up?”

“Yes.”

“That’s quite bad. It’s not easy to say this but... with your body like this, you have a year left at best. Honestly, a year is a long shot considering how rapidly your condition will decline if you continue to be unable to eat.”

The elderly doctor—with his bright, clear eyes and white coat—looked after commoners for low prices at his humble clinic, but she didn’t doubt his diagnosis.

“I understand.”

“Wait, you’re not going to ask me to find a way to save you. I thought you would ask.”

“Is there a way to save me?”

“No, not that I’ve heard of yet.”

Karina just nodded at his words, left her payment of two gold coins, and turned away. The doctor looked at the gold coins she left and sighed. His words were puzzling as he spoke to her retreating form.

“Perhaps we can buy you more time, so do come back if you have a change of heart.”

Karina didn’t pay too much attention to his words and left the small clinic. The conversation with the doctor had struck her like a bolt out of the blue. She had only come to this doctor, who didn’t work for the Leopold estate, because she had recently felt her health worsening at an alarming pace.

Well, the reason why I couldn’t see the estate doctor was that... It wasn’t because she was afraid that her family would find out and worry about her. She just didn’t trust the estate doctor.

Although the count’s doctor was young, he was competent and professional. However, from what she has seen of him, he did not hesitate to lie when necessary now and again. Also, he cherished Abelia like she was his own little sister.

Maybe this is a stretch, but if he thinks that my sickness will shock Abelia... Karina thought he would lie about her condition if he considered that the news would upset her little sister.

She rubbed her chest and sat by the window, feeling a little better after vomiting. Her skin looked even paler under the sun. A bird, flying high in the sky, caught her eyes. It flew over to a tree and sat down on a branch.

I wish I had wings too. She wanted to fly as she pleased before her last day came. She had things she wanted to do before she died. Seething desire coursed through her, making her shiver.

In reality, it wasn’t that Karina was unloved. Her parents always tried to be fair. But one child was sick and another one was young and needy. There were times when it was hard for their parents to be fair and Karina was stuck in the middle of everything.

One of the Leopold twins was a sickly child. The other twin was a wild thing that came home injured often. On top of that, Karina wasn’t even Count Leopold’s heir—that was her older brother—so when she behaved well, the attention she got was more short-lived than a grain of sand hitting the ground. After everything, Karina started to think of it as “attention not worth having.”

The world seemed to revolve around the Leopolds; they often found fortune along their path, while Karina only found hurdles in hers. She loved the twins but she was jealous of them—they were born from the same mother into the same household but had drastically different lives. Her jealously and hatred made her feel ugly, and that they were her siblings made it even harder for her.

“This is the end of me.” She had sort of seen this coming when she’d started to cough up blood. “Should I just take off?”

Karina had to force herself to smile whenever she was at home. She had to be the mature and calm one who takes care of herself, the sister with a heart of gold who would do anything for anyone. Now that her days were numbered, she didn’t want to keep up those pretenses.

She couldn’t even imagine how her family would react. If she found out her family considered her a hassle, she would never be able to recover from the pain. Karina did not feel one bit like telling her family about it.

She didn’t even have the strength to scream that she wanted to live. Nobody came to her room and it had been a long time since anyone had. She had said she could take care of herself, so nobody thought to look after her.

If I leave, where can I go? What should I do...? Karina pondered as she leaned her head onto the window, sitting on the windowsill.

I have one year at most. It will go by quickly, unlike the twenty years she’d lived so far. Stuck in the middle between her older brother who was always good at everything and the lovely twins who were always doted on, Karina had never received recognition. She needed someone to see her for who she was. It didn’t matter if that person liked or disliked her. She needed someone who would see her as a person.

“Is the lady a spineless jellyfish? If you don’t have the will, you should not have come here at all. This engagement wouldn’t have happened if you had declined the offer.”

Suddenly, she remembered her first encounter with her fiancé, a man that looked like God had spent too much time making him look perfect. His face was too beautiful for words and he spoke cutting words to her from beneath his furrowed brow.

Come to think of it, he didn’t decline the engagement offer either. At the time, she couldn't utter a single word in response to his repeated attacks, but now that she thought back about it, hadn’t she been right?

The window reflected her narrowing blue eyes. Even to herself, her skin looked paler than before—the anemia was getting worse. She was lucky that she didn’t need to move too much in her daily life, or somebody would have discovered her illness.

“Maybe I should travel to the north.” All on her own, with no one’s help. Her hard-pressed lips opened up. “Time to go.”

She didn’t put too much thought or time into the matter. She decided to go to the north alone.