The True Saint (2)
After the campaign to bring down McHart concluded, we regrouped for another meeting — though its membership had shifted somewhat since the first time the McHart subjugation party was assembled.
Obviously, myself, Ethan, and Serista were included, having all been present at the moment of McHart's punishment. Joining us now was Seraphin, who had newly learned that I was the Saint. She hadn't received any official explanation yet, but I could tell from the way she carried herself that she'd already figured it out on her own.
'She called this meeting in the first place specifically to hear it from my own mouth, after all.'
Of course, she had plenty of other things she was dying to ask me about, but the Saint question was clearly the big one. Beyond that, the meeting existed to piece together the whole affair — when the McHart incident had first been set in motion, how many people were entangled in it, and so on.
And I had just as many questions I needed to put to Seraphin, so I had no choice but to accept the invitation. I also rather wanted to hear what exactly had gone down at the banquet hall while I was otherwise occupied.
As for the additional members: wherever Seraphin went, Luke came attached as a matter of course. I did hesitate a little over whether we should reveal my sainthood — or the plot against the imperial family — to her, but Luke could surely be trusted. If anything too dangerous came up, Seraphin would simply send her out mid-meeting.
Fortunately, the detached palace was as empty as if to ask what all the commotion just now had even been about, which made finding a quiet room to use as a meeting space no trouble at all. Though honestly, after an incident of that scale, the fact that any noble students were still lingering there at all was laughable.
We found our room, settled into our seats, and the very moment I was about to open with the first word, in came two more people.
“There you all are. You weren't in the back courtyard, so I've been searching everywhere.”
“I anticipated that you would arrive shortly, Sir Gehmajoshigi-gwat, the Hero.”
“...Just so there's no misunderstanding on Lilith's part — I wasn't slacking off. I want that on the record.”
“Of course, Lady Agnes.”
...No, correction. It was three people.
“Lady Agnes, I sincerely apologize for what occurred a short while ago. I truly believed my fiancée was being drawn into something terrible, and I thought that as your future husband, it was my duty to stop you...”
“I told you to get lost. Who in the world said you were my fiancée? Go away alrea— I can't stand the sight of you, so just go somewhere else.”
“Lady Agnes, I really...”
“Stop grabbing my hand already!”
There stood the Hero and Agnes, looking as though they'd just returned from tending to some important business (presumably), along with one imperial prince clinging to Agnes like a burr.
I hadn't witnessed it with my own two eyes, and yet the picture more or less assembled itself in my head. McHart had engineered a meeting between Antonio and Agnes earlier, so no doubt Antonio had obstructed Agnes when she tried to join us in time, and that was what had soured her mood.
“Antonio doesn't appear to be directly involved in this matter, but I suppose you may as well take a seat as well.”
“...Yes, big sister Seraphin.”
Screeeech.
“Don't sit next to me. I can't stand looking at your face, so sit far away. And don't sit across from me either. I can't stand looking at your face.”
“But, Lady Agnes...”
“Antonio, stop being stubborn and come sit beside me, won't you? Your sister has rather a lot to say to you today as well.”
“...Yes, big sister Seraphin.”
Pressed between Agnes's look of utter disgust and Seraphin's summons, Antonio finally, gingerly lowered himself into a seat two places away from the one he'd originally been about to take.
The round table had eight seats, so there was no shortage of places — but Luke, as if it were simply the most natural thing in the world now, was already moving about serving tea and pastries like a proper maid. And so, with one seat left empty, the seven of us — everyone but her — began the debriefing on everything that had happened that day.
“Well then. Where shall we begin?”
“......”
“For the sake of getting our bearings, I think it would be best to start with the facts everyone here already knows.”
With those words, Seraphin took the reins of the meeting, and thanks to her, the events of a few hours prior were swiftly squared away.
That I had faced a de facto threat to my life from the dark magic McHart wielded, and had called for Ethan's help because of it.
That the situation was naturally beyond what Ethan and I alone could handle, so we'd reached out to people we trusted — which meant the Hero, Serista, and Agnes.
That it wasn't that we distrusted Seraphin, but that the matter touched on the imperial family, which made it delicate to share.
That McHart had fed Antonio the news of Agnes's participation in this exchange event, and that his untimely intrusion had nearly derailed the whole operation midstream.
That with the Hero and Agnes thus tied up, Ethan had somehow managed to rescue me in the nick of time and bring McHart down.
And that Serista's Mirror of Truth — in truth, cast by me — had exposed McHart's dark magic, right up through his summary execution.
It was a long, winding epic assembled from everyone's cross-checked accounts. And in the course of it, we also learned exactly why Agnes was so violently repulsed by Antonio.
“Let me say it once more — I have ten mouths' worth of words and not one excuse for what I did today. But I was genuinely thinking of Lady Agnes's future...”
“Shut up. I don't want to hear it. If anything had happened to Lilith because of you, I swear I would have—”
“Agnes, calm down. I'm standing here safe and sound, aren't I?”
“......Yeah.”
That was the level we were at — even now, she was teetering right on the edge of outright threats and slander against a member of the imperial family, and I was the only thing keeping her reined in. If what she said was true and I really had come to harm, she probably wouldn't have been able to speak so civilly to Antonio at all.
Even now I could see it plainly: Agnes visibly grinding her teeth, forcing down the curses because the man happened to be a prince.
“On another note — Sir Gehmajoshigi-gwat, Lady Agnes, where did the two of you disappear to instead of regrouping? My mana signal should have reached everyone simultaneously.”
“There was an accomplice of McHart's still hanging around. Something told me we couldn't let them slip away, so Agnes and I split off to hunt them down.”
“...And no, you didn't fail to regroup. He kept watch properly until the Mirror of Truth came out. Then he dragged me away by force, saying he had business of his own to attend to.”
“Prince McHart's... no, if it's an accomplice of McHart's... could it possibly be the person I'm thinking of?”
“...It might be a little dangerous to discuss openly, so I'd prefer to trim the audience down to only those involved.”
Seraphin, catching the general thrust of the Hero's remark, cast a glance toward Luke — and with nothing more than that flicker of the eyes, Luke understood. She refilled everyone's cup one last time, then quietly moved toward the door.
“I shall wait outside the meeting room, ten meters beyond the door.”
Only a few years ago, she'd been the type to grow anxious at being left out of a conversation — but it seemed that after so long in Seraphin's service, even her personality had been remade wholesale into that of a maid.
“I see. Lady Agnes, then — this accomplice you mentioned. Might I ask who...”
“You leave too, Antonio.”
“...Big sister Seraphin?”
“This concerns you no more than it did before, Antonio. Your role ended the moment you explained why you swung your sword at the Hero. So go out and stand by with Luke, or else return to the imperial palace. Whichever you prefer.”
“No, big sister Seraphin. If it concerns Lady Agnes, then I have every right to hear—”
“Seraphin said get out. So get out.”
“Forgive me, but might I ask you to vacate the room, Prince Antonio?”
“...My apologies, but this is a somewhat confidential matter — not one to be shared even with a prince.”
“......”
“...Very well. I shall go and wait outside, Lady Agnes.”
“Don't wait. Just go.”
It was a bleak sort of exit, one that somehow brought old Luke to mind. To be fair, Antonio hadn't been counted among the main threads of this incident anyway, so the treatment was only what it had to be.
And considering what was about to unfold from here on out, the fewer eyes present, the better. The conversation this room was about to hold — and the work that would follow it — was state business that simply could not be shown to Antonio.
With the sound of the meeting room door opening and closing, Antonio departed, and only six people remained. The original McHart subjugation roster, plus exactly one addition: Seraphin.
Judging that this much was probably safe ground to continue on, Seraphin was the first to speak again.
“Before I hear Sir Gehmajoshigi-gwat's account, I would like to put a single question to Miss Lilith first, if I may?”
“...Yes, Princess Seraphin.”
“In truth, it is less a question than a simple confirmation of something I have come to know. I suspect you already have a fair idea of what I am about to ask, Miss Lilith.”
“......”
“The authority you unleashed in the back courtyard a short while ago settled it beyond doubt for me. ...Miss Lilith — you are, in fact, the Saint of this generation, are you not?”
“......Huh?”
Only Agnes, seated beside me, turned her head toward me with the wide-eyed shock of someone hearing it for the very first time, while the rest of us who knew the truth merely kept our silence, wearing carefully neutral expressions.
“Seraphin? What are you talking about? Wasn't there only one Saint? And isn't that Saint Serista...”
“That is correct, Princess Seraphin.”
“Just as I thought. The one who wielded the Mirror of Truth from behind Serista that time — it really was you, Miss Lilith.”
“Well, it wasn't something I could hide forever anyway.”
“......”
“Please don't tell anyone else, Princess Seraphin. We'd rather the fact that Lilith is the Saint not spread too widely.”
The Hero, reacting with the calm of someone who'd expected this all along. Serista, her eyes darting busily as she processed the fact that Seraphin had seen through me. And Ethan, who even in the middle of all this was asking Seraphin to keep my secret.
From those reactions, Agnes drew exactly one conclusion. Naturally.
“...So I'm the only one who didn't know. Again.”
...It's not like we deliberately hid it from you specifically, Agnes. But, yeah.