Fire and Water (1)
The North loved the new year — for the simple reason that it had not died over the past one.
Of late that meaning had worn somewhat thin, but for one man it still applied in full. For Harad, newly returned to the past, it was a saying he had no defense against. Only half a year had passed since his regression; it was far too soon to be celebrating his own survival. He did feel satisfaction, though. Quite a lot of it, at that.
He tasted the rewards of his return every single day, but last night had been rewarding beyond all of them.
Elaine has noticed that something about me is wrong.
That mattered as much as the dreams did.
The dreams alone were not all she ought to find suspicious. A man returned from the future was, unmistakably, an anomaly. Why did he differ from every report? How did he handle magic so well? How did he know the North and the Boundary so intimately...? Elaine ought to have suspicions gnawing at her without end.
Finally.
Last night she had understood that unspooling that strangeness — and the secret beneath it — was her task, be she Ellen or Elaine.
Do the dreams the Grand Duke's heir dreams work the same way?
Ellen had even gone a step beyond. Even while turning over Harad's secret, she had found herself thinking of dreams. She had intuited that dreams and magic were connected. In time she would realize that Harad's secret and her dreams were linked as well — and that day was not far off.
Harad intended to make certain of it.
So his task remained unchanged. He had to provoke her. He had to make her dream. And for that, first of all, he needed to see Elaine — or Ellen.
"You're actually twenty, aren't you?"
Ellen, sitting across from him at Kubel's house, asked out of nowhere.
"...?"
Harad only blinked.
"Sir Cassion said it before, remember? Every once in a while there's a 5th-circle who's old enough to know better but struts around pretending to be young. That's you, isn't it?"
Ellen had gone and played the fool again — perhaps on a par with Cassion himself. But that she was angling to unearth his secrets even amid all that deserved some credit.
"...That is a remarkable take, I'll grant."
Harad chose his words with care. Ellen promptly puffed up.
"I knew it!"
"Wrong."
"..."
"If I were a 5th-circle, House Iagar would never have fallen."
"Ah."
Ellen wilted.
"Sorry."
"It's fine. It was a good approach."
"Really?"
"Mm. Just bring me something more original next time."
Harad held out his own plate to Ellen, who was squirming with guilt. It held the charcoal-grilled meat Kubel had bought yesterday and that no one had touched.
"Why aren't you eating?"
"I figure it's worth more going into your stomach."
Truth be told, the meat had worn on him a little. He ate anything put in front of him, but even he couldn't stomach the same dish every day. Ellen, on the other hand, required meat at every meal. A great deal of it, too.
It had been the same in her past life. Elaine had been a celebrated glutton.
Kubel had sharp ears — or rather, he was simply paying very close attention to Harad and Ellen. From the kitchen he somehow caught wind of the matter and brought out bread and soup for Harad.
"Thank you. Ah — and about yesterday, my apologies."
Last night, Harad and Ellen had gone and forgotten Kubel existed. The man had ended up waiting quite a while out on the street with a sleeping Shura in his arms.
Remembered from the outside, it was mortifying. Standing Kubel up... no — all of it.
"It was actually a good thing."
"...?"
"Truly. We didn't wait long before turning home."
"Then I'm glad."
"And what time did the two of you come back?"
"We came home after the sun was—"
"Heh heh."
"...?"
Kubel laughed, drool and all. His face was sly enough to summon the image of the Heart Addict Kubel of the old timeline.
"Anything on your schedule today?" Ellen asked then.
"Nothing much. Business as usual, for me."
Short of an order from Grand Duke Aratus, Harad was by default a man of leisure. Work had piled up, granted, but none of it was timed to the second. He had toyed with crossing into the Boundary through a tunnel, but... well. Alone, it would mean little. It had to be Elaine or Ellen at his side.
And Ellen had plans today.
"You're meant to be playing with Shura, no?"
"Yes! All day long. We couldn't yesterday."
Today was the first day of the new year. It was also the festival's final day. Ellen was supposed to see the grand finale through with Shura.
"...Would you come with us?"
Ellen asked it quietly, eyes down on her plate, poking at the meat with her fork.
"Shura likes you too. The festival's last day is special, and it's your first one. Also... if it's a bother, you don't have to."
"Well, 'bother' hardly enters into it. I'll come."
What Ellen asked of him, Harad did.
"Really?"
"Any reason I shouldn't? We mustn't leave regrets behind."
Only then did Ellen lift her head, the smile on her face bright and unmistakable.
Such was Ellen — a woman honest about her own feelings. The opposite of Elaine in her past life. No doubt that, too, numbered among Elaine's regrets.
This life's Elaine had to live as she damn well pleased. That is, like Ellen. Ellen was Elaine's "damn well pleased" given human form.
"Shall we head out?"
"Once we finish eating... hm. You've finished. All of it."
At some point Ellen's plate had been scoured clean.
"Shura's near the main house with Arika, so—"
Ellen, halfway out of her chair, froze mid-motion. A breath later she turned her head toward the annex entrance.
"We have a visitor."
Harad felt the same presence Ellen had.
"It's open."
At his word the door swung open, and in stepped their guest — a servant.
"We meet again."
The face was familiar: the manservant of the ducal residence who had once delivered the Grand Duke's command to stay clear of the delegation's eyes. Unlike that time, when he had handed over a note without so much as a glance, the old man now looked faintly startled — for there, at the end of his gaze, stood Ellen.
The old man is the Grand Duke's confidant.
Which meant, in all likelihood, that he knew exactly who Ellen was.
The old man gave Ellen a shallow bow, then passed Harad a single slip of paper.
Crawl into the tunnel with the waterway at once. Fire will descend.
The second line was cryptic. The first command was crystal clear.
A waterway — the deep-sea path, then.
The tunnel where water-craving trees ran riot — the one where he had cut down the deep-sea 5th-circle mage. Harad had discovered it by the giant's footprint and made his return to Serzila through it. Grand Duke Aratus wanted him to cross into the Boundary by way of that very tunnel.
"What is it?"
"An order from His Grace. It seems I'm to enter the Boundary at once."
"...The festival isn't even over?"
"Duty is duty. The way knights on the active roster turn out to search."
Harad said it as though it were nothing. The note contained no instruction to leave Ellen behind. Whatever "fire will descend" meant, it presumably posed no great danger.
"Stay and play with Shura. I should manage fine on my own."
"..."
Instead of answering, Ellen fixed a glare on the old man who had delivered the order.
"Oh, for— shit..."
Looking every inch ready to kill him.
"..."
The old man backed out of the annex as though fleeing for his life.
His master.
Harad felt nothing whatsoever for that woman whose identity she could not place. Why she of all people was his master, Ellen couldn't fathom... but regardless, the woman was his master in words alone.
Even so, questions about her still lingered in Ellen's head.
Who is she? Never mind that — when? When did they meet?
There were strange things about Harad. Things only Harad knew. And Harad did not share them. Perhaps he couldn't. No — that was far more likely.
He can't speak of it. Which means I have to find out myself.
That vagueness — magic was the only interpretation Ellen could put to it. And dreams were every bit as vague.
Dreams are tied to magic. That much is certain.
Perhaps Harad's secret was tied to dreams as well.
There Ellen's reasoning stalled. She had chewed on it until her skull ached, and all it produced was the same conclusion: she needed to dream more.
I have to keep dreaming.
The dreams had begun the day she met Harad. Which meant the dreams were connected to Harad. They were also bound close to reality, ranging freely across past and future. Perhaps, someday, she would dream Harad's secret outright.
But how do you make yourself dream?
She had tried sleeping longer. Useless. Ellen knew none of the conditions that summoned dreams. Dreams arrived without warning, and out of nowhere.
...Every thread of thought frayed into vagueness. She was riddled with unknowns. And reality was no different.
You like Harad, don't you?
That was what Ceria had asked her. If the question came again, Ellen would answer that she didn't know. Maybe she liked him; maybe she would come to; maybe she never would. Maybe she had simply wanted to hold his hand.
She didn't know what the future held, either. Ellen was someone meant to disappear — and if that happened, what would become of her and Harad... Ellen didn't know. She would answer that she didn't know. She hadn't let herself think that far.
She simply intended to do as she pleased, the Serzila way, and seize everything she wanted. To stay true to the present, the way a Northerner does.
So nothing would change. She would eat with Harad as she always had, ride the tunnels, explore the Boundary, hold his hand now and then, and then—
"Whoa. Whoa."
The sudden rush of heat made Ellen shake her head furiously, hair whipping at her cheeks again and again.
What flooded in next was an odd hollowness. Her left hand was holding Shura's; her right hung bare. That spot might have been filled by Harad's hand, under any other circumstances.
Another order...
Why was His Grace so desperate to swallow Harad whole, as if he couldn't quite get his teeth into him? The man had already proven himself past overflowing.
If he had to send him, he could have sent him tomorrow. It's the festival.
Then they could have gone together. Why today of all days?
The treatment is wrong.
Serzila did not judge by birth. It asked only for strength and loyalty, and anyone capable was owed treatment to match. Harad was a talent who had proven his ability to overflowing. The plot within the 1st Knight Order, Cassion, the tunnels... Over the past half year, the deeds Harad had racked up outshone any knight's. Lately he had slain a 5th-circle mage, and even forged Kalinos, commander of the 3rd Knight Order, into a Sword Master.
And still Harad remained a hostage. Serzila didn't even pay him a wage — and yet worked him half to death, him alone.
This is not right.
As Serzila — and as the one who would become the next Grand Duke. Ellen had a duty to set right the unjust treatment of Harad—
"Big sis."
"Hm? Yes, Shura. Want some of that?"
"You said you were full."
"...Ah."
Ellen shook her head hard all over again. Today was Shura's day.
"Sorry, Shura. I was just..."
"You can go with Harad."
"Huh?"
"I can play with Arika."
"..."
"We'll play at next year's festival, big sis."
So grown-up, the words. And yet the smile hanging on Shura's face was purely a child's.
"Bix says that even if your wooden sword breaks, you have to finish the fight with it first. You go looking for the new sword after. Northerners say the present matters most, right?"
Bix was a friend from Shura's alley days, a boy Ellen knew as well — one who dreamed of becoming a knight.
Because no one ever knew when they might die. That was why Northerners held fast to the present. And the only reason they could was that the North stood behind them as their home.
"But for me, later matters most."
The North was a merciless land — and at the same time, it was the Northerners' home ground. Shura had no home ground. She was a mage, drifting across the continent at the heels of Kubel, another mage, so busy fearing tomorrow that she had no room to live for today.
"I want us to all be together next year, too."
Shura said it carefully. Next year. Such a modest little phrase — and one that laid bare, plain as day, how deeply this small child feared the future.
"Harad goes to dangerous places, doesn't he? So big sis, you go with him and keep him safe. Because you're, um, that..."
Shura glanced around and let the end of the sentence trail away.
"Because I'm the Grand Duke's heir?"
Ellen answered with a smile. She knew full well that Shura's eyes were fixed straight on her.
"Yes. Is that bad?"
"...How could that possibly be bad?"
Ellen scrubbed a hand through Shura's hair. How had such a darling child come out of that bear of a Kubel?
"And not just next year — forever. We're talking a lifetime together."
"Really?"
"Of course. I am the Grand Duke's heir, after all."
"...So that's why you came?"
"Yes. Shura told me to protect you."
Ellen said it, beaming. She was clearly in a good mood — because she was headed for the Boundary, no doubt.
"That good, is it?"
"Not especially."
Prim as you please.
"Well, I'm the one who's glad."
"Really?"
"With you at my side, I've nothing to fear."
For Harad there was no reason to refuse. He had no vanguard more dependable than Ellen. He had resolved to go alone only because Ellen had wanted to spend the day with Shura; had that not been so, he would have brought her regardless.
A faint flush had risen on Ellen's face.
"It's been a while since just the two of us went anywhere."
"Now that you mention it, so it has."
He thought back: the last time had been the tempering of the steel ring. Ellen had been bored stiff that day — which was probably why her face was flushed now. This would be a proper expedition, her first in ages.
Going in, Harad first; coming out, Ellen first. He ducked his head and stepped through the tunnel mouth—
And there it was. Zzzt. A strange noise. And threaded through the noise, Harad felt the wavelength of mana.
"...?"
And it was coming from Ellen. Harad turned. Her face was pure bewilderment.
"What is that sound?"
"You're carrying something."
Zzzt.
The sound was coming from inside Ellen's coat.
"Oh."
Ellen dug something out: a communication orb, glimmering faintly silver. The Moon Tower orb Cassion had given her once.
"Why on earth do you have that?"
"I meant to return it earlier and forgot."
When Ceria had come calling, Ellen had moved the orb and quill out of Harad's annex and into her own house — then forgotten all about it until now, the festival's last day.
"Well done."
The forgetting had turned out to be a blessing. Had she handed it over earlier, Harad would have left the orb sitting in the annex.
Zzzt.
The orb was raising an ugly, grating clamor. Mana. Lay his own mana over that signal, and the orb would connect.
"What do we do?"
"We answer, of course."
Harad took the orb from Ellen and poured his mana into it at once. The crackling stopped.
What the orb gave forth was a voice. A remarkably fine one — high, clear, and honey-sweet — that said:
"Ah."
"Aquins has descended."