Steel (2)
While Harad was off with Grand Duke Aratus, Ellen was at Kubel's annex.
"How was Kubel?"
"He seemed perfectly fine to me."
And in fairness, Kubel did look to be in decent shape. In truth, the fact that the question had to be asked at all might have meant Shura was the more grown-up of the two — since it was Kubel, and not his daughter, whose wellbeing stirred worry first.
"And Shura?"
"She looked even better than her father did. She says she wants to learn magic from you."
"That's a good sign."
Ellen nodded.
"Are you really going to make the North a land where magicians can live?"
That was what Harad had said while soothing Shura — likely the very reason she looked better than her father did. The little girl took his every word to heart, no doubt because, at their very first meeting, the truth of him had answered her with a nod.
"I'm doing it right this minute, you know."
Kubel and Shura — and Cassion too — had been granted annexes of their own within the Inner Castle.
"That's on an entirely different scale."
Keeping a handful of magicians inside the Inner Castle and letting magicians live in the North at all were matters of a different order entirely.
"Well. I'd think it a fine thing, if it came to pass."
"Was that just talk, then?"
"It might be. It might not."
"What kind of answer is that?"
"If the North ever truly becomes that, it will mean the Grand Duke's daughter made it so — not me."
"…Passing the buck, are we?"
"What can I say? The North belongs to Serzila."
Ellen let out a hollow laugh.
"And if she has no intention of it?"
"Then, well. Shura will be disappointed."
"…"
"So will I."
Harad looked at her, steady and unhurried.
"But I trust she isn't the sort of person who would."
If the Outer Realm had never marched south. If only Harad had grown close to Elaine sooner. Then perhaps the North of his past life might have become exactly that.
So in this life, it would.
Harad was already growing close to Elaine at speed. Through the prods he supplied, Elaine was dreaming of her past life — and in time, an Elaine with her former self restored would plant Serzila's banner over the Outer Realm…
He believed it without a sliver of doubt. He would make it so. His regression existed for precisely that.
"You've known the Grand Duke's daughter all of what — a few days?"
"I have a good eye for people."
Harad said it with a smirk, and Ellen looked thoroughly rankled by the face he wore — even though, strictly speaking, he was only praising himself.
"Do you like her that much?"
"I like you better."
"…"
"That stays a secret from the Grand Duke's daughter."
Harad said it half in a whisper, and he meant it. He preferred Ellen as she was to the Grand Duke's daughter as she was crafted to appear.
Hadn't it been the same in his past life? He had always been more at ease with the foul-mouthed brat Elaine became when the two of them were alone than with the Elaine the world hailed as the Iron-Blooded Grand Duke.
"Liar. You like her more, don't you?"
Ellen wore, for some reason, a distinctly disgruntled face as she said it.
"Me?"
"Yes. You're always more lenient with her."
"Me?"
Harad asked again.
"You let Cassion off the hook, and this time Rick too — but with me, you had no end to say."
"Kubel?"
"Yes."
At the time, Ellen had tried to kill Kubel.
"You're the one who said to kill him."
"What was that supposed to be? Anyone could see it was mockery. How did it go — kill Kubel, then go console the poor orphaned Shura?"
Hearing it laid out like that, no wonder she'd taken it wrong. With Ellen he had been all sneer; with Elaine, he had granted every word.
"It's easier to humor a 'let him live' than a 'kill him.'"
"So that's what it was?"
"It was not."
Ellen's eyes narrowed.
"I only hoped you would never make that choice."
"…"
"Not that choosing to kill Kubel would have been wrong. Everyone's right answer is their own."
In the beginning, Harad had meant to kill Kubel too.
"Then was sparing him the right answer for you?"
"Both were."
Either could lay claim to the word. Kill him, and the Heart Addict of his past life simply ceased to be; spare him, and a future powerhouse — one who might have become something every bit as wretched — stood beside him as an ally instead.
"Then why did you spare him?"
Because if you had regressed, you would have done the same.
Harad looked at Ellen. It wasn't something to say to those still-innocent eyes. Not yet.
"Because I thought you'd regret it, if he died."
"What?"
"Am I wrong?"
"…"
Ellen couldn't answer. She thought Kubel a decent sort, and she liked Shura — and because that choice had been made, Cassion was alive as well, with Rick an extension of the same.
"I don't want you carrying regrets."
"…"
Her face was burning. Because of Harad's Sun, Ellen decided.
"Let's go have breakfast. They say it's meat."
The moment the sun broke the horizon, the visitor was Ellen. Which meant she hadn't dreamed — had she dreamed, she would have come as Elaine, as promised, to tell him of the night's dream.
The stimulation has run dry.
He would have to give her another push.
"Has there ever been a morning when it wasn't?"
"And what do you want me to do about it?"
"…"
When Ellen had nothing to say, that was how she answered. An old habit, one she'd carried over from her past life as well.
A delicious smell hung thick around Kubel's annex, and inside, the table was already crowded with food.
"At it since first light, I see."
"Please, eat well."
The food bore the mark of particular care. It was always good — but this morning it looked better still, gratitude plain enough for anyone to read.
"You're looking like yourself again."
"Thanks to you, Harad."
Kubel smiled sheepishly, as if remembering his sorry state the day before.
"I ought not to have fallen apart like that…"
"Shortcomings are meant to be covered by one another. Just as you found the path through the deep sea in my place."
"…"
"So don't flog yourself over it."
Tears welled in Kubel's eyes, and Ellen — midway through feeding Shura a piece of meat — pulled a face of pure disgust.
"If you cry right now, I'm not eating."
A lie, to anyone's ears. Drool was already running down Ellen's chin — though she did succeed in stopping Kubel's tears.
"You should eat too, big sis."
"You want to keep feeding her a while longer?"
Even as she drooled, Ellen held off on the meat. Which must have meant she was still sorry for the time she'd bowed her head to Shura.
"No Cassion at the table today, I see."
At some point, Cassion had become a fixture at their meals.
"Sir Cassion is busy."
"Why?"
"Because of you, obviously."
Harad pointed at his own face.
"I hear it's been decided the tunnel will serve as a guillotine."
He had called for the 6th Knight Order to be put to use, but Grand Duke Aratus had judged that insufficient on its own.
"For the time being, the 2nd Knight Order will manage it alongside. It's the slow season, after all."
Until the 6th found its footing, the 2nd would be lending it a hand — for unlike its fellows, the 6th Knight Order had not one battle-tested knight beyond its commander.
"All to the good, then."
"Sir Cassion was delighted too, I hear."
The dawn the order came down, Cassion had wept, or so the story went — an order, for a sinner like me! — that was how moved he'd been, apparently.
"So. This outer relic you received yesterday — what is it?"
Over drinks the day before, Harad had given her a rough sketch of his conversation with Grand Duke Aratus.
"There shouldn't be anything worth using in there."
Ellen, it seemed, had set foot in that storeroom before. Only natural — she was the Grand Duke's daughter.
"The ring, you mean?"
She had already noticed the new ring on Harad's finger.
"An outer relic that makes the body hard as steel."
"Then isn't it rather useless?"
Ellen's brow drew tight. She could rip steel apart like paper — without even an aura.
"Most people are weaker than steel."
"Even so."
Steel, hm. Not as sturdy as a knight wreathed in aura.
"I intend to refine it."
"You said you can't make outer relics."
"I said I have no gift for making them."
They had traded those very words at the Watchtower of Fire. The Sun was hardly an Origin on friendly terms with craftsmanship.
"Isn't that the same thing?"
"Barely different. Not making one — just laying a light touch on it."
Harad buried his fork in the meat.
"Something like grinding pepper over this finished cut, I'd say."
Ellen's eyes gleamed at that. Her signature curiosity.
"Care to watch?"
"May I?"
"Of course. I meant to drag you along regardless."
"Where to?"
Meal finished, Harad strode straight out of the Inner Castle, Ellen trailing quietly behind — and the way there felt familiar underfoot.
"I'll be needing the tunnel for a bit."
Where they arrived was, of course, the tunnel.
The tunnel that ran beneath the Flowerbed's Flesh. One knight of the 2nd Order and two of the 6th stood watch at its mouth, and they promptly cleared the entrance.
"When will you be back?"
"Toward evening, most like."
"Then I'll keep my blade sheathed around that hour."
"Much obliged."
The men of the 2nd Order were on quite friendly terms with Harad. Like the 1st, the 2nd had acknowledged him — as far as they knew, he had brought down the savage beast that had hunted the Grand Duke's daughter, and somewhere in the process, their own commander Cassion had come to acknowledge him as well.
Even if the true culprit had been Sir Cassion.
Ellen smiled bitterly. They were deceiving the 2nd Knight Order — no, every knight in Serzila.
Not that Harad's deed was a lie. That was why even the 6th Order men's gazes were so meek — not because Ellen, a daughter of Serzila's collateral line, happened to be at his side. Those two genuinely held Harad in high esteem.
The instant they stepped into the tunnel, Ellen whispered.
"Smooth sailing, then."
"I hear the 6th Order is the easy lot."
The 6th was scarcely past apprenticeship. Excellent knights, measured against the continent at large, but they had never yet fought a true battle — and that, oddly, worked in his favor. The 6th Order weighed the fact that Harad had earned his merits far more heavily than the fact that he was a magician.
"Even so. A good thing is a good thing, isn't it?"
"It is that. But there's a long road yet."
Harad spoke like a man entirely unmoved.
"I suppose. The other orders will have to feel it for themselves before they accept you."
The 6th was simply the exception. As the 1st and 2nd once had, the remaining three orders would scorn or loathe Harad in their turn. The merits he had banked would keep them from showing it outright, but in the end he would stand in the same place as ever — obliged to prove himself all over again.
"You're quite certain I'll be accepted in the end."
"Am I wrong?"
In Ellen's eyes it was merely a matter of time. Even she had acknowledged him — what knight could refute that?
"True."
Harad knew no humility, and Ellen liked that about him. She was no different, after all. For some people, humility was simply never a requirement.
The tunnel felt longer than ever. Her body felt confined; her heart did not.
Shff. The soles of Harad's feet carried him through the dark at a single, unchanging pace.
The everyday Harad was like that sound — composed, even, and it set Ellen, walking beside him, at ease. She thought she could almost understand, now, why the Elaine of her dreams fussed at him so, always telling Harad to tone it down.
"Quite the trek, that."
The tunnel ended before she knew it. Harad, up first, reached down a hand to Ellen as she lifted her head, and she took it and stepped up into the open air. This was the Boundary, and yet warmth was all she could feel. That was why she stayed at Harad's side.
"So — what happens now?"
All this way, Ellen had never once asked why they were bound for the Boundary. He was bound to have his reasons. He was Harad, after all — that had been her thinking. And besides, arriving in ignorance might simply be more fun.
"Hm."
Instead of an answer, Harad raised his mana, and Ellen felt it gather into the little ring before flooding out through his entire body.
The feel of it changed. At first it had still been Harad's mana — but the mana suffusing his frame carried none of its peculiar heat.
"Is your body steel right now?"
"It is."
"From the outside, nothing's changed at all."
Harad looked precisely as before. Visually, at least.
"No one can truly become steel."
It did not make him steel; it made him as sturdy as steel. However vague magic might be, limits existed all the same.
"Give it a try, then. A punch."
Harad extended his right palm. He meant for her to strike it with her fist.
"…"
Ellen's fist met Harad's palm.
Tap.
"…What was that?"
Harad gave her a look of pure disbelief. She hadn't struck it so much as set her knuckles against it.
"…What if something breaks?"
It was a fist he'd asked for, not a sword — proof that even Harad didn't wholly trust the relic's protection. But even a fist frightened Ellen.
"If it breaks, that's a pity. It's hardly a priceless relic."
"No. Not the relic. You."
"…"
To Ellen, born with Heavenly Might, steel was, in truth, nothing at all.