Regret and Questions in a Small Room (Revised)
Late afternoon. An hour at which even lunch would not have been out of place. Down the corridor echoed the unvarnished thunder of military boots.
Stomp... stomp—
The servants, who might well have resented bootprints being stamped across floors they had only just scrubbed clean, said not a word, discreetly averting their eyes and slipping out of the way. But of all people, it was him. A being they dared not so much as face.
Duke Kyle Reinhardt was walking the corridor.
"...In any case, brats who carry on like this are the most useless of the lot," he muttered, half to himself, words whose meaning no one around him could guess at.
Well — in truth, even had he not been the Duke, the servants would never have dreamed of addressing him. The expression he wore at present read, to anyone who happened to glance his way, as a loud I am not to be bothered. A man already forbidding of aspect, now wearing that face besides — naturally, no one was about to approach.
"Tch. Things were going so well — why now, of all times..."
Stomp... stomp—
The footsteps rang a shade heavier than before. He was on his way to Jenison's room. The room of the "delinquent" son upon whom he himself had pressed his covert orders — the boy who, after the singular spectacle of joining breakfast unbidden that very morning, had promptly declared his intention to leave the family. A bombshell, in every sense of the word.
"Leaving the family, just like that. What disgrace does he imagine he's smearing onto our name?"
Let it be said plainly: the Duke had no intention of talking Jenison out of leaving. He had never prized his son enough to bother with gestures of that kind to begin with.
"I seem to recall telling you, time and again, not to run wild as you please."
And yet, that said, neither did he mean to simply let the boy walk out. Who did the brat think he was — forgetting his place and acting on a whim? A boy who couldn't even grasp how his conduct bore upon the family's honor. All he had to do was keep himself shut up in his room and stay quiet, and yet here he was, insolently chattering about leaving, as if the family were some place a man could stroll out of whenever the mood took him.
If that is how it looks to you... then as of today, I shall correct that notion as well.
The truth that you will never escape this family.
It was a thought that would have set anyone who overheard it writhing in dread — and yet not the corner of the Duke's mouth nor the line of his cheekbone so much as twitched. He wore the look of a man who considered this the most natural course of action in the world.
Stomp... stomp—
So he walked on, until at last he came to a stop directly before Jenison's door — and there he saw her. A black-haired girl, arrived ahead of him and waiting.
"Dad."
"Aria. What are you doing here?"
"...To see my brother."
That was the whole of her answer, and no more was to be had, however much he might have pressed. Aria, beaten by her own embarrassment, turned her head away first. Outwardly she would deny it, but inwardly the boy was plainly weighing on her. Small wonder — the two of them had been as close as two could be when they were little.
"Now then. Why don't you head back for today."
"What? Why—"
"Your purpose and mine would seem to be one and the same. I hardly think the two of us need attend to it together."
"N—no, wait a moment."
"Go home and prepare for your next lessons at your leisure."
Aria looked as though she could not fathom why she ought to do any such thing, but the Duke paid her no heed and sent her on her way. There was no particular reason for it. He merely wished to eliminate an uncertainty.
The boy will not be filling Aria's head with any of his nonsense...
Such was the Duke — a man to whom everything was calculation, down to the letter. Even a pebble rolling at the roadside went into his sums as a variable, which is to say that the very concept of the unforeseen had never once applied to him.
First, I shall have this morning's declaration rescinded on the spot... and then — it will be time to educate him again.
Still hidden behind his stolid mask, the Duke rapped twice on Jenison's door — knock, knock —
"Who is— Your Grace the Duke?!"
"...And who might you be?"
What met him was none other than a maid with silver hair.
"Gone? And you, girl — you have no idea where he went?"
"N-no, Your Grace..."
"...You do understand what will happen to you if this is a lie?"
"I-I swear it's the truth!!"
Jenison had left the estate. That fact did not change, no matter how the Duke pressed, and the moment he moved to step back outside and summon his men—
Crrrack—
"...?!"
With an ominous sound, the boards directly beneath the Duke's feet gave way. Fortunately, his innate sense of balance and his honed body spared him the undignified mishap of pitching face-first down — but that such a thing had happened at all was enough to stir his displeasure. To his ear, it rang like an accusation: that a manor belonging to his own family, of all places, had been left to rot to this degree.
"...What in the world—"
"F-forgive me, Your Grace...!!"
"...Is this room never repaired?"
"Th-the young master kept insisting that no one enter his room uninvited, so..."
So that was it — those sounds of something being smashed and shattered that always drifted out on the nights. They had been coming from this room all along.
...Tch. The boy played the delinquent so convincingly. Why issue a request like that today, of all days?
"Then what of the cleaning? How has the room been kept all this while?"
"The young master permitted me alone to enter, so I have done it all myself..."
"...And even so, you claim not to know where he has gone?"
A killing intent leaked out — fleeting, but unmistakable. Slight as it was, to an ordinary person it would have been lethal, and as if to prove the point, Ella's body began to quake. Her legs, rattling like aspen leaves, buckled beneath her until she sank to her knees, and, as though a chill had swept over her whole body, she wrapped her arms around herself. All because of a single word from the Duke.
"Y-yes!! I-I re... really, I—I...!!"
Still she insisted, over and over, that she truly did not know. And faced with the pitiable sight of her — small and fragile as some tiny woodland creature — even the Duke, a man so cold it seemed a needle could prick him without drawing a single drop of blood, let the killing intent fade and heaved a long sigh. Though in fairness, the more accurate reason was that he had no wish to have a corpse cleared out of his own manor.
"...Then where are the servants who used to attend him?"
No teeth? Then gums would do. The Duke pivoted to a different line of questioning. If the girl knew nothing, he would simply ask those who did. Granted, the person closest to the boy stood right before his eyes, but with a little digging he might turn up one more — a servant who had been close to that boy, the one who raised every conceivable hell at the slightest touch.
"...The servants who waited on the young master, Your Grace... They have already been dismissed. They left the estate..."
"...What?!"
At this wholly unforeseen answer, killing intent flared up once more. This time it was not the murderous irritation of a man perpetually aggravated, but displeasure pure and simple — that something had happened inside his own house without his knowledge.
"Th-the-the-the-the young master said he would handle everything himself, and d-dismissed them...!"
"...Ha. Thorough to the last. I know not since when, but."
In all likelihood, the boy had guessed his father would send servants after him, and had dismissed every one of them in advance. He had no doubt sent them off with severance in hand, too — generous severance. However great a delinquent the boy played to the world, he was still of their house, and the monthly stipend for keeping up appearances had always been paid in full.
He had been utterly outplayed. By the very boy he'd believed he had held on a tight rein all this time.
...Fine. Do as you please. But the moment your actions leave so much as a scratch upon this family's honor—
I will tear you limb from limb and hang the pieces on the city walls.
After all, from this moment on, you are no longer of our family anyway.
"...Should word from him reach you at any point, however late, you will report it to me directly."
"Yes, Your Grace. I shall."
"...Not a single thing goes my way today!!"
Slam—
The old door crashed shut, and in the same instant a sigh rang out, loud and unguarded. A sigh from the lips of the silver-haired woman, beautiful as ever.
"Whew... He didn't catch on, did he?"
At last, Ella let the tension drain from every muscle and sank back onto the old bed. The truth was, she had known exactly where Jenison had gone. He had told her himself, before he left this family behind.
Hmph. After all the orders you gave the young master, just what do you imagine you'll accomplish coming here now?
But she had seen no need to say so. She despised the Duke every bit as much as Jenison did.
"Right then! I'd best hurry and find myself work somewhere other than here, hadn't I?"
Only then could she follow the young master — her other family.
"...Jenison... left?"
Only after the Duke had slammed the door and gone on his way did the black hair that had been hiding within the room sway into view — along with eyes as beautiful as rubies.
"...First things first. I have to find him."
Tap-tap-tap-tap— And so another set of footsteps departed down the corridor.
Having walked out on the family, I headed straight for the Academy. For my future's sake, if nothing else, I needed somewhere to live.
Back at the Academy, the things I need to do first are...
I must have been too wrapped up in thought; I arrived at the Chairwoman's office before I knew it. A silver handle set into a door of heavy brown hardwood. I pressed it down, opened the door, and stepped through — the piles of paperwork inside were the first thing to catch my eye. Then the desk, backed against an enormous window; the sofas and low table at the center of the room, arranged for receiving guests; and a woman, hard at work sorting through the documents.
Every woman I had laid eyes on so far had been a staggering beauty. Aria, Lianna, Ella — by the measure of any life I had lived, across all of them put together, those three were beauties. And I could not deny that the woman before me now was every bit their equal. Where Aria's hair fell black, hers was platinum blonde shot through with a faint golden sheen. A tall, gracefully stretched frame — its proof, were proof needed, in the swell of her chest and the curve of her hips. A black suit set off her beauty all the more. And finally, her ability: she was one of only five 9th-Circle mages in all the Empire. A beauty accomplished in both pen and blade — no phrase in the language fit her more perfectly.
Perhaps she had noticed me; she rose from her seat, left the stacks of paper behind her, and crossed the room at an unhurried pace to settle onto one of the sofas.
"Please, have a seat. It would seem you've come because you have something to say to me."
Without a word, I crossed to the sofa facing hers and sat. Presently she took a sip of tea — brewed at some point I couldn't account for — and began to speak.
"What is your business, Cadet Jenison?"