The Empty Chair
The door creaked softly on its hinges.
That evening, after the inauguration ceremony had ended and the last of the day's meetings had been adjourned, Sien stepped into the family head's office.
The head lady-in-waiting had meant to tidy the room until it shone, but Sien had given strict orders that nothing was to be touched. If anything needed putting away, she would see to it herself. She had asked — pleaded, almost — that not a single object be moved.
She settled into the family head's chair and let her gaze drift, unfocused, across the room.
The day had been a blur of motion and noise, so relentlessly busy that she had scarcely had time to worry about what lay ahead. All she had felt was the taut, single-minded dread of not making a mistake — not today, of all days. And now that every last obligation had finally run its course, the tension drained out of her, and in the hollow it left behind there was only emptiness.
A long breath slipped from her lips.
Could she truly do this? Could someone as unprepared as she was possibly live up to what they expected of her? Could she carry the name and honor of Lichtenauer without staining them — and be remembered, at the very least, as a family head who had been worthy of the seat?
Sien reached across the desk and took hold of the picture frame that stood there. Her father, her mother, and her older brother smiled out from the portrait, bright and whole. That warm little family was gone now. Of all of them, she alone remained in the world. Until the day she died, there would be no one left who would stand at her side simply because they were family.
"…There are still people who look at me with uneasy eyes."
It was a hollow cry, spoken to no one. Even so, Sien went on as if she hoped someone — anyone — might be listening.
"I suppose they would. Of course they would. I would, if I were them. In a place where demonic beasts are always spilling blood, a woman with demon blood in her veins — the same blood that dragged those beasts here in the first place — sitting as family head. Of course they would look at me that way."
As a child, those stares had been unbearable. Her father had fought himself raw, pouring out sweat and blood for these people. Her mother had strained every nerve to be of even the smallest help. And she, born of the two of them, had committed no crime at all. She had resented them for it. She had not been able to understand. She had wanted only to escape those eyes — never to endure them again. And so she had fled Lichtenauer, as if running for her life.
And now she had come back.
"I didn't understand it then. But I do now. Their stares. What they think when they look at me."
She traced the smiling faces in the portrait with her fingertips and forced her own mouth into a smile to match theirs.
"I'll do well. I swear I will. Father. Mother. Brother. I'll manage it, so… please watch over me. And sometimes — just sometimes — cheer for me a little. When this crybaby is having too hard a time… please. Just sometimes."
Her vision threatened to blur again. Sien shook her head hard, as if she could fling the wetness from her eyes. She was no longer merely a daughter of Lichtenauer. She was the master of this vast and solemn house. And the master of such a house could not afford to let her tears fall so easily.
She drew a long breath, then slapped her own cheek.
"Get a hold of yourself," she muttered, barely above a whisper.
She began, carefully, with the desk. She gathered the documents and reports she would need to her own side, taking care not to erase her father's traces too hastily. The work waiting for her from tomorrow onward was a mountain. Foremost among it: compensation and consolation for the bereaved families. After that, plugging the gaping holes in their military strength. And, last of all, the question of how on earth they were going to pay for any of it.
My head is throbbing.
Comforting the bereaved and seeing to their compensation was only right. Reinforcing a force that had been torn wide open was a duty she could not put off. The trouble was that every last one of those duties demanded an enormous amount of money. And unfortunately, Lichtenauer had no specialty product worth speaking of. There were no mines nearby, no convenient vein of wealth waiting to be tapped.
Now I understand why Father always groaned the moment money came up.
Sien let out another sigh and pressed her hands over her face. There was, in truth, only one place the money might come from: the byproducts harvested from the corpses of demonic beasts.
The war against the beasts had left the continent's economy in ruins. Agriculture and commerce alike had taken staggering blows. And yet, with a bitter sort of irony, it was the demonic beasts themselves that had lifted the economy back onto its feet.
The discovery had been entirely accidental. In the thick of the war, there had been shortages of everything — people, and weapons too. Soldiers had taken to reclaiming even contaminated arms from the beasts they killed, and those weapons had displayed a power no one had expected. They could not match a knight wielding Chakra, but they had been enough to let ordinary soldiers stand on even footing with the beasts. Research had followed, and the findings had come quickly. The corpses of certain demonic beasts could be used as resources — not merely to strengthen weapons, but for any number of other purposes besides.
The problem is, there still aren't many kinds of demonic beasts that are actually worth anything.
Gutting a beast at random would not make anyone rich. Most demonic beasts were still useless. Worse than useless: their corpses drew still more beasts and poisoned the earth they lay on. According to the research that had been published, only about a dozen species were known to have any real value.
Sien exhaled slowly. All at once she wanted nothing more than to clear her head. Perhaps the cold night air would settle the tightness in her chest. She rose from the chair, took hold of the doorknob, and had just opened the door and stepped across the threshold when a voice spoke from the dark.
"Where are you going?"
"Eek—!"
Sien let out a piercing shriek and flailed, then caught her own foot and toppled backward. Before she could hit the floor, Adel — who had been standing just outside — caught her cleanly out of the air.
"A-Adel?"
"Yes. It's me."
"Y-you startled me!"
"…I apologize. However, I was told to conceal my presence as much as possible while on escort duty."
He might disturb the family head, Brender had said. Unless she gave him leave, he was not to let her sense him at all. Adel had taken the instruction to heart. After watching her enter the office, he had taken up his post before the door, drawn his presence down to nothing, and waited for her to come out. This was an office, after all — not a bedchamber. His duty as her escort would continue until she retired for the night.
"…C-could you put me down first?"
She was half-gathered in Adel's arms, and color flooded her face. Under any other circumstances she would have shoved him away without a second thought. But with his eyes on hers, she found she could not.
"I apologize, Lady Sien."
Adel stepped back and bowed his head. Sien, her startled heart only just beginning to slow, looked up at him.
"…How long have you been standing there?"
"For some time."
"I mean when."
"From the moment I confirmed that you had gone inside, Lady Sien."
"…You didn't happen to overhear anything strange, did you?"
She remembered the things she had said to herself, certain there was no one to hear them. The memory sent a fresh wash of heat across her face.
"I did not."
"Truly? You really didn't hear anything?"
"No. I heard nothing at all."
There was not the faintest shift in Adel's expression. His face was perfectly still. Sien narrowed her eyes at him, but in the end she had no choice but to take him at his word.
"…Fine. That's fine, then."
"Was there something I ought to have heard?"
"No! There wasn't. And even if you did hear something, forget it. Understood?"
"Understood."
Reassured by the firmness of his answer, Sien gave a satisfied little nod.
"Then where are you going?"
"I wanted some air. My chest felt tight."
With that she started down the stairs, and Adel followed the sound of her footsteps. Before long the two of them stepped out into the garden and stood beneath a night sky thick with quiet.
Sien let out a long breath.
"Do you feel any better?"
"Yes. It was so tight I could hardly breathe, but it's easing now."
She sat down on a bench and tipped her face toward the sky. Beneath the bright moon, the castle of Lichtenauer stood in elegant silhouette — a place she had missed with her whole heart, and a place she had wanted just as badly to avoid. There had been a time when she had hated it enough to go mad, when all she had wanted was to run. Now she was its master, and she would have to live here for the rest of her life. She had told herself a hundred times that she could do it, that she would do it. And still, sitting here like this, the doubt kept lifting its head.
Could she really? Could she truly…
Fabric whispered as it settled over her shoulders.
"…?"
"It may be fine at first, but if you sit still you will grow cold before long."
Adel had taken off his outer coat and draped it over her. Sien looked at him without speaking, and he went on.
"Cold stiffens the body, and a body gone stiff and cold will freeze the mind along with it. Whatever a person means to do, it is always best done somewhere warm."
"…That sounds like advice born of experience."
"It is. We cannot light a campfire here, so the coat will have to keep the cold off."
His voice was utterly serious — the tone of a veteran briefing a raw recruit. Sien felt a smile tug at her mouth before she could stop it.
"Why are you smiling?"
"It's a little strange, that's all."
"Strange."
"Yes. Sometimes you seem like someone who doesn't care about anything at all. And then, looking at you like this, I can see you paying attention in the oddest places."
Adel blinked.
"Do I?"
Cold stiffened the body and the mind, and once both had gone rigid it told on you in a fight. That was all. Because it affected a fight, Adel had never once tolerated the cold — and the habit had simply followed him here, all the way to this garden.
"…In any case. Cold is not a good thing."
"All right. I understand, Adel. Thank you."
She drew the coat he had given her a little more closely around her shoulders. This was the north, but it was not the bitter season. And perhaps it was her mother's demon blood, but Sien had never been one to feel the cold. That she could feel warmth seeping through her anyway… was it simply because the kindness had been so unexpected?
"I hear you start your formal attendant training tomorrow."
"So I am told."
"…Are you truly all right with that?"
"I don't follow."
"Living as an attendant, I mean. Not as an escort knight."
When she had first persuaded him to stay, she had spoken of knighthood. And now he was to live as an attendant, sit for an examination, and only then be permitted to become a knight. She would not have blamed him if he had found the arrangement distasteful.
"Is there a problem?"
Just as he had when Brender had asked him, Adel showed not the slightest sign that any of it troubled him.
"Even so… it may be harder than you think."
"I am well accustomed to hardship of the body."
Of course he was. This was a man who had dealt with third-rank demonic beasts alone. But that was not the reason Sien was worried.
"It's just… you won't only be learning how to fight and then sitting for an exam."