No Secret Can Stay Hidden (2)

"……The Black King?"

"Hm?"

"Why you do that, Arno?"

"Ah, it's nothing. Nothing at all…."

"…?"

"…."

Arno had been dealing with the troublesome watchdogs who guarded the illegal gambling den, and even at Kunta's question he only blinked, the look in his eyes gone blank. For an instant, he could have sworn he had seen a black lion looming behind the black-haired boy.

The Black King of the North? …If Grandmother had it right, the Black King cannot be inherited so long as the Successor lives…. Was I seeing things?

His grandmother. There had been a time when Sword Duke Felicia sat the child he had been upon her knee and told him story after story of the old days. Of all those tales, the one that stayed with him was none other than Lionel's mystery, the Black King.

One of the highest of mysteries, said to belong to Lionel alone, and a power rumored to stand equal even with an Aura User. But Arno knew that inheriting it required the current Successor's death, or else that it be stolen outright, and so he took what he had seen for an illusion. Or else—he ventured, carefully—it was some gift peculiar to young Lord Roen, akin to the Sword-Qi That Wounds the boy had shown the day before. He did his best to shove the idle fancy back down where it belonged.

How could the Black King, a mystery that ought to be unique, exist as two beasts at once…?

……Roen had not reached the answer by weighing what a parent owes, the way a knight might whose instincts ran sharper than his face.

The road that brought him there was closer to information placed in his hands by a capable subordinate, and to the retracing of memory—what he knew because he had already lived this life once before.

The Marquis of Tristan. When every other noble took the temple's side and ground the people underfoot, he was the great noble who stood with them instead. Few would ever grasp how much strength the revolutionary army had gained simply because that man joined it. And it was only natural that Roen, an officer of that army and something like its voice, should come to share a friendship with the marquis. He was Lionel, after all, and the marquis was Tristan. A bond that reached back a long way made their talk run easily, and there was nothing strange in how often they spoke.

What he came to know was this.

An elder worthy of respect, and at the same time not worthy of it at all.

Maddeningly, it was just as Marquis Jenimia said. He never seduced a woman first. The women simply went to him. Past fifty, he still looked to be in his early or mid-thirties, and that androgynous beauty was enough, all by itself, to set ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a heart fluttering. So it happened, far more often than one would expect, that women sought the marquis out and did the tempting themselves, and Roen's head ached for it. What business did a revolutionary army have with lovers' quarrels…?

The name had not been one Marquis Jenimia claimed for himself. It had stuck because of the temperament he described—never refusing a woman who came, never restraining a woman who left. Of course, to anyone watching from outside, that was precisely what a flirt and a rake would do.

Roen knew it was rude. He asked anyway. Was the reason this man never settled deeply with a single woman, and lived in such dissipation, truly the rumor that a child would leave him impotent?

But—

Listening, Roen could accept it, and still he could not quite accept it. Pitiable, and at the same time not pitiable at all. Was that the way to put it?

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

…And so, when Roen first heard of the tie between Levi Fault and the marquis, he doubted his own ears. The moment he understood that Levi Fault was his old comrade, the Mercenary Queen, he almost felt the shattered pieces of a puzzle slide into place.

The link. He realized that all of it was connected.

Then Jack brought him what he had learned, and the instant Roen knew that even five years ago House Fault had possessed only one daughter, his mind composed a story the way a playwright might.

A girl who, bound by the Brand of Obedience, hid everything she was and was sold into the marquis's house. But a marquis's house would not have been incompetent. In the end they would have uncovered who the girl truly was, and the viciousness of Reynol Folt with her. Killing Reynol Folt would have been no trouble at all, yet to kill him in the open did not suit the ways of a great noble. Most likely it had been slow. He would have been rotted from within, as if the blood were being dried out of him, and only then put to death.

But the girl. What had become of her? A pitiful child who never even knew her identity had been laid bare, who only obeyed, docile, whatever she was commanded.

……It must have been hell.

The anxiety and the fear of never knowing when she would be found out, and against that, the reality that she could not defy a command.

He ground his teeth.

And yet, knowing nothing of that fury—

"D-don't make me laugh! Wh-what did I do that was so wrong! E-even if I broke the law, I'm a noble! A noble, I tell you! What's the crime in selling off one lousy slave bitch!!!"

The loathsome man shrieked it, as if he truly could not see what he had done that was so very wrong. He did not even know that the words themselves were stoking Roen's rage.

And so.

"You asked to have your crimes named, did you?"

Roen decided he would name them himself.

"…You committed four. The first: you broke the law of the realm, dared to buy a slave, and made a toy of a human life!"

CRACK!!

"Gyaaaah!!"

The arm was crushed. Bone ground to powder beneath the heel, past even Holy Power to restore.

"The second: you dared to toy with a girl's life and felt not a shred of guilt, and even now you gamble with that girl as your stake!"

Slice!

"…!!!?"

His tongue was cut away. From this moment, Reynol would never again give voice through that filthy mouth.

"The third: you dared to deceive a marquis's house—no. Worse. You deceived a noble of stainless loyalty to this country!"

Shhk!

…Reynol could no longer even scream. Both ankles were gone. Never again would he rise by his own will. Pain crashed over his whole body, and he was a breath from fainting—

"And the fourth…. The crime of walking about and telling lies! You said you would become a knight? You said you dreamed of raising a knightly house again! Then how can a man like that have hands this clean—!!"

Reynol's hands were pale and fine. Hands that had never cleaned a thing in all his life—clean hands, fit for nothing but cards. A man who claimed he would become a knight could not look like that. How could hands without so much as a callus be called the hands of someone who strives?

In the end—

He deceived. He toyed with people. A leech, a parasite, a man who thought of nothing but living at his ease. If he knew what he was, he ought at least to have done no harm to anyone else. Instead he lived craving more than he possessed.

"…I want to kill you. I won't. That would be too merciful a sentence, and I have no right to sit in judgment over you."

And so.

"I'll end it here."

Fwoosh!

"Mmph—!!"

Whoosh—the flames roared up!

Reynol, a heartbeat from fainting, thrashed like a mad thing, writhing in the pain. He had been thrown into the fire, and the blaze took his whole body. Agony that would not even permit him to pass out!

"!!?…!!!"

Wide awake, in a body not allowed even to flee, Reynol struggled. Roen meant to leave him in the fire only until the moment just short of death, and no further. There was a reason.

"Because of you, my comrade thrashed in the flames. Feel that pain exactly as she did."

The fire roared.

Retribution. The man was only now being paid for the sins he had earned.

"Jan… at last, I can send you on…."

He wondered if he had come much too far around to reach this moment. Even so, Roen lifted his eyes to the sky, understanding that he was finally offering a mourning for his old comrade—for the sister-in-arms he would never see again. And with that mourning came the guilt of having been too late.

Fwoosh!