The Sparring Match
The Royal Palace.
The castle where the king dwells.
And the place the current Emperor of the Empire, Siegfried Frabel, calls home.
Only those of imperial blood, or nobles of sufficiently high rank, may pass through its gates. For an ordinary person, it was a place they might never see from the inside even once in their entire life—and perhaps because of that, the common folk pictured its interior in a hundred different ways.
Some claimed it matched its magnificent exterior perfectly, its vast chambers furnished with only the finest luxuries. Others insisted it was all glitter and no substance, that the inside couldn't possibly live up to the facade—though not one of the people who said so had ever actually laid eyes on the place.
A castle even the dukes could never enter without announcing their visit well in advance.
"This way, young lord."
....
And now, I was inside that very palace.
Beautifully carved stone pillars rose to meet a high, domed roof. The stone ornaments set between them were wrought with a precision so fine they seemed almost alive, and a single golden line—as though someone had painted across the wall in pure gold—adorned the snow-white stone.
And that was not all. A garden spread out below, brimming with fresh green life. Flowers and grasses of every color and fragrance swayed in the wind, dancing a quiet, beautiful dance, while towering trees thrust themselves high into the sky as if boasting of their majesty, until green filled the whole of the view.
If anyone were to ask which building in the Empire was the most beautiful, every architect would answer without a moment's hesitation: the castle where the Emperor resided.
"...!"
"...Incredible."
Nor was the splendor confined to the exterior. The moment we passed inside, a long, wide corridor opened up before our eyes. A red carpet ran the length of the floor, and the walls on either side were hung with countless paintings—works so valuable that even I, with little interest in art, could gauge their worth at a single glance. Even the frames around them gleamed with rims of gold.
"Greetings to you."
...?
Just as the spectacle around me had stolen my gaze for a moment, a voice came from behind us. It was not the deep, weighty voice of the middle-aged knights I had heard until now, but a boy's—near my own age, and utterly at odds with the grandeur of this building.
Ella's eyes and mine turned together toward where the sound had come from.
"To meet you face to face, after knowing you only by rumor—this is truly a pleasure."
...?
A boy was standing there. His long crimson hair was tied back behind his head, and draped over his frame was what looked to be a pure-white uniform. He had quite a fine, handsome face—and yet I had no memory of him whatsoever. We had never met, I did not know his name. We were complete strangers.
"...Forgive my rudeness, but might I ask who you are?"
"Ah—no, the discourtesy is mine. I failed to introduce myself first."
He scratched the back of his head a few times, sheepish, then narrowed his eyes into a bright, practiced smile.
"I am called Roden—disciple of Sir Luindel, and one who walks the path of the knight."
A brief, concise introduction. And yet an extraordinary one—for in that short span of time, he had succeeded in seizing my full attention.
"S-Sir Luindel's... disciple, you say?"
"Yes. My skill is still a source of no small shame compared to his renown... but I train diligently under his instruction."
....
The Golden Knight, Luindel. Commander of the imperial knight order, hailed as the Guardian of the Empire. Perhaps owing to his famously stubborn, taciturn temperament, those who could claim any friendship with him were said to be countable on one hand even within the Empire. And that man had taken a disciple?
....
"Haha, if you stare at me so intently... I find myself a little embarrassed."
"...My apologies."
Perhaps he had felt my stare, for he leaned back slightly. Every time he moved, the sword at his hip swayed with a soft metallic ring.
"...By the way—might I hear it now?"
"Hear what?"
"The reason you greeted me first. You must have some business with me, no?"
Clink. The sword swayed once more.
Roden carried on the conversation in a flat, even tone, his expression unchanging.
"Not particularly. I am merely following orders."
"...Orders...?"
"If one who is not of the Empire's blood enters the palace bearing the Empire's crest, you are to see him properly escorted."
...?
"I am simply carrying out my master's instruction, faithfully and to the letter."
With that, he asked us to kindly follow him and walked slowly past; and Ella and I fell in behind him, continuing on down the seemingly endless corridor.
Tap, tap. Shuffle, shuffle.
Only two sounds echoed through that long corridor. Just how far had we walked? At some point the soft fur carpet vanished beneath our feet, replaced by firm, golden-hued flooring, and the light around us seemed to grow brighter still.
"Ah—the attendant may wait here, just ahead."
"Ah... yes, understood."
As we kept walking, the end of the corridor finally came into view. And from that end came Roden's request that only I accompany him further.
Ella seemed, for some reason, a touch deflated—but there was no disobeying. And small wonder; even I could roughly guess by now who might be waiting up ahead.
"Well then, shall we?"
....
Leaving her behind us, I stepped into the bright wash of light ahead—brilliant radiance pouring down from magnificent chandeliers.
"...I see."
Waiting for us beneath that light was a knight clad in dazzling golden armor—
"Hmm...? Ah, there he is now."
....
—and the most noble bloodline in all the Empire.
The main hall of the royal palace. Two voices drifted from within it. Both were deep, low, and heavy with years—but the air that followed each of them was worlds apart.
"Hmm... when do you suppose he'll arrive?"
"The boy Roden has gone to fetch him, so it should not be long."
"Ah, Roden? That one's eager enough. No worries there."
"Now, let's see—is the reward we promised the boy being handled properly?"
"Yes, everything proceeds exactly as you have ordered."
"Good, good. Still, he went all the way to the Great Forest and back for the Empire's sake, and suffered for it... We ought to give him something, oughtn't we?"
"...He is here."
"Hmm...? Ah, there he is now."
Two pairs of eyes converged on a single point, and from that point emerged two figures. One was the crimson-haired boy in the white uniform whom both of them already knew. The other was a boy of black on black, as though he had been steeped in shadow.
"So he's come."
....
"Yes, Your Majesty. I have brought him as ordered."
The black-haired boy stood somehow stiff, as if frozen. The first word the Emperor's mind conjured at the sight of him was small. So small, in fact, that he might have doubted this was truly the boy the Great Forest had spoken of.
The boy's arms were thinner than the forearms of the knights they saw every day. His frame was slight—not merely next to knights, but smaller even than the bigger boys of his own age. His hands looked far too small to wield a one-handed sword, a longsword, a greatsword, or any manner of weapon at all, and his vacant, hollow eyes held no light in them—staring into them was like staring into a fathomless dark.
"Hmm... So you are Jenison."
"...It is an honor to look upon the Sun of the Empire."
The boy's black eyes wavered slightly, as though he were a little nonplussed to be looked at—eyes that seemed, against the bright glow of the ceiling, darker still.
"First, then, I owe you my thanks."
...?
"Had you not resolved that affair for us, we would have found ourselves in a very awkward position indeed."
There was real sincerity in the words. The Empire's ties with the Great Forest stretched back generations; for them to rupture now would have cost them dearly—the various goods imported from the Forest, the trade routes that ran through it. Worse still, the affair might have become the very pretext for a war with the Great Forest. In a sense, had the boy not prevented that as well? And only recently, thanks to this same boy, the Emperor had been treated to the rare sight of a certain Duke's face changing expression.
"...Such a small matter, and Your Majesty would go out of his way to—"
"'Small,' you say?"
The boy's reaction was strange. A small matter? Could this affair truly be dismissed as something so slight?
The documents he had pored over not long ago. The intelligence on the "Church" that had appeared even within them. An organization whose ranks held a strongman capable of standing nearly alone against one on the Pope's own level, who thought nothing of pitting himself against many at once—and whose cohesion could have reduced the Church itself to ruin within a single day. A mere cadet had stood against that Church, even if only against a sliver of it. And this was a "small matter"?
There was other intelligence that had reached him recently as well. Elves armed to the teeth with bows and magic, reduced to nothing but lumps of meat; a monster wearing a boy's shape that had overwhelmed even the princess of the elves when she drew the spirits' power to its very limit. Even the Commander of the 8th Knight Order, dispatched to the Great Forest, had reportedly managed little more than to hold his ground against him. Then this boy had appeared from nowhere, locked that monster in a desperate struggle, vanished mid-battle along with it—and some time later, returned clutching the creature's head, soaked head to toe in blood.
This, from a child who was nothing more than an Academy cadet—one who had been called the stain upon his ducal house. What in the world had happened to this boy? Just how far did his strength truly reach? Was it strength worth playing his own hand this carefully—worth outright scheming—to draw into his faction?
He found himself curious. Suddenly, intensely so.
"...I know full well it is unbecoming to ask a favor in the very act of giving thanks... but there is something I would ask of you."
"...Command me, Your Majesty."
"Would you... be willing to cross blades with that boy? In a sparring match?"
At the Emperor's terse gesture, the boy stood waiting with both eyes shining wide—the boy whose crimson hair caught and gleamed in the light of the chandelier.
Every gaze in the hall, save the Emperor's own, turned toward him.
