Three Weeks
A footfall.
"..."
Loer took a step, then lifted his head.
Just as Perzen had said, what he had wrung out of himself by running so desperately all this while was no small thing. He had become a knight of the imperial order, and his marriage to the eldest daughter of House Alfred lay just ahead. Set against the past, he could fairly say he had taken hold of a glory bright enough to be called splendid. And yet it was precisely because of that glory that his breath caught hard in his throat, though he had never once let it show.
Climbing the mountain called Brutein, he felt a majesty and a pressure he had never known while he still stood at its foot. They crushed the whole of him. He had to endure this altitude sickness and climb higher still. Faintly, the ridgeline of the summit was already in sight, and the distance that remained felt unbearably heavy.
Was today not proof enough? The imperial house of the present age had bowed its head. Even if political interest had a hand in the result, that was simply what Brutein's standing meant within the Ernes Empire.
"...Here it is."
He walked on, submitted the papers that held his detailed statement, and sat on a bench with his head lowered.
Martial merit. I need martial merit.
If crawling upward was too much, then he had only to fly. House Claudia, as it stood now, needed wings that could carry it. And the stage on which that chance would come was not far off.
The students in the dormitories were no exception to that clamorous morning. Laura, called because Perzen had come looking to see her for a moment, was climbing toward the dormitory roof.
My corpse wasn't damaged, was it...
Last night the students of Dormitory A had watched the whole of it: how the anomaly of the Netherworld that descended had run wild, and how it had been put down. Laura had been one of them, and she had let a little admiration escape her at the sight of Perzen enslaving her past-life self and bringing the matter to a clean end.
Within the rank of Euclid, converting mana into current and unleashing a blast equal to natural lightning was, in practice, impossible. So Perzen must have induced the lightning itself. Against another mage, or against an Aura Knight, the time required to prepare would have been too long to matter. But shifting one's method to suit the moment was an essential sense for an Elemental Magician.
The rooftop door creaked. Before she quite knew it she had reached it, and Laura stepped through.
"Ah..."
Wind met her. A man in a crisp suit stood smoking. The difference from usual was plain enough: both his arms were ruined, and he was taking help from her past-life self, enslaved to his will.
"Ah, h-hello..."
"Yes."
Perzen put out the cigarette, turned, and looked down at her.
"Laura."
"Yes..."
"The cycle of the full moon is roughly twenty-nine days. Which means that peculiar affliction of yours will seize you again around the sixth or seventh of April."
"..."
"Last time there was no leisure to spare, so I took you into a room at an inn. That will not do from now on. I mean to purchase a small house, so when the time comes we will meet there."
"Ah, th-that..."
She knew it was not that. Even so, Perzen was a married man, and the words reached her, of their own accord, as a whisper to commit adultery.
"Why flush for no reason. Do you imagine I mean to keep you as a mistress?"
"N-no..."
"I told you then as well. I have no interest in your body."
"..."
"I said I mean to purchase it, but there is no chance the purchase will fail, so I will give you the address now."
Her past-life self, Isabel's corpse, held out a neatly folded paper. Laura took it, hesitated a long moment, bowed deeply to Perzen, and turned to go.
"Laura."
"Yes?"
"I had no time to spare last week, so I never checked."
"Wh-what... are you t-talking a-about..."
"Have you already forgotten the music room?"
"Ah..."
"Then recite it."
"..."
What a vicious man. All she had done was ask him, once, to play the piano. Still, she could not deny that she had accepted the condition he set that day, and after a long, squirming pause she opened her mouth.
"The... the... puppy..."
"Speak that slowly, and it hardly means you are not stammering."
"..."
"Laura."
"Th-th-the p-puppy..."
"Enough. You still have a long way to go."
"..."
Standing before her eyes was her past-life self, once an Elemental Magician of Apollyon rank, and the contrast of the present moment laid a shame and a humiliation on her several times thicker than usual.
"D-do I... r-really have to d-do this?"
"..."
"I d-don't... th-think something l-like this is g-going to f-fix it..."
"That is something one learns by trying. And I am only requiring the condition of that day, as is fair. Do not wheedle like a coward."
Laura bit her lip. Her cheeks puffed of their own accord. She glared at Perzen a little, then sighed and lowered her head.
"I-I'll... s-see you n-next time."
"Yes."
Laura turned her back and went down from the roof. A short while later Perzen, too, left the dormitory, took a carriage, and returned to the mansion where Euphemia was waiting.
"Your arms..."
"Cracked. Even at the soonest, a clean recovery will take two weeks."
"What happened?"
"You do not need to know."
"..."
"Go up to the room. Today we will take breakfast together in the bedroom."
His words could not have been colder, and Euphemia could not manage even a small protest. She trudged back to the bedroom.
She was his wife in name, at least. Surely she might be told how her husband had come to be hurt. Or was he drawing a line, that even that was above the station of a broodmare, good for nothing but bearing a child?
It was hardly new, now that she thought of it. That was how she had always been treated.
Ah. And now that I think of it...
His arms were like that. He would not try to lie with her, would he? He had said two weeks at the soonest, which meant three, on average. Then perhaps she could slip safely past the next fertile days. Of course, that depended on whether her courses came this month or not...
"Haa..."
She sighed and laid a hand on her lower belly.
If a child who looked exactly like that man were born and came toddling toward her, calling her mother, she honestly did not think she could love it. But what sin would the child have? And if she carried it close to a year, might a mother's feeling grow even if she did not want it? The thought tangled her. Worse, if it were a girl and not a boy, that man would never love her properly. He would only turn his face away...
The door burst open just as the thought threatened to sink deeper, and Perzen stepped in. At his side followed the corpse he enslaved. It was a body of beautiful features, though already dead.
"Euphemia. From next week, you will come to the Academy with me. I will give you your tasks on the spot, as they arise. The schedule may yet change. Bear that in mind."
Euphemia answered with a silent nod.
Perzen looked at her a moment, sat on the edge of the bed beside her, and spoke in a flat voice.
"If you do not wish it to show that your feelings are hurt, then act properly. Do not sulk like a child who failed to receive the gift she wanted on her birthday. Are you hoping I will soothe you?"
"Did you look inside my heart? Don't decide that what you guessed is the right answer. It's very unpleasant."
"..."
Uriel had been the same. Had the ego that shrank to nothing at the sight of him unable to use his arms swollen large again? She answered him back, clear and precise.
No. Answering back itself was not the trouble, but...
"I-I'm sorry... I m-misspoke."
"..."
Perhaps she had faintly felt the air change after she spoke. Euphemia watched his face and offered the apology.
"It was something you might have told me, and for a moment I was hurt that you didn't. And it struck me all over again that I'm nothing but a broodmare, so long as I bear a child for the succession... Anyway. That's all."
"There is a great fault in what you say, Euphemia."
"..."
"You must not feel displeasure at that. No. Even if you feel it, you must not show me any act that carries the feeling."
"I'm a person, too..."
"Do you truly believe that every person stands equal? Even bound as husband and wife, you must not forget the order between us. However unreasonable it feels, consider how much you gain by it."
"..."
"You are a truly tiresome woman. Cast off useless pride, and you would be comfortable. Seek your happiness quietly inside the lot you have been given. I have not been gentle with you of late because I wanted a result like this."
The thought flickered that he might be driving her too hard, but there was no need for the collar at her throat to loosen, was there? The bond had been twisted from the start, and it was far too late for anything like a tender romance to grow. She had to be broken in, thoroughly.
"If you resent being raised and handled like livestock, if what you want is the sense that you are accomplishing something, very well. I will withdraw everything I have invested in Ruerug."
"Th-that..."
"And I will return it little by little, according to what you do. Yes. How is this for a condition: succeed in seducing me when you are not in your fertile days, and take my seed. Then you will feel on your own skin what it is to sacrifice yourself for Ruerug. Was it not a saint you wanted to play at?"
"..."
"Why not strip bare this instant, lie face-down on the floor, lift your hips, and beg like a whore."
Euphemia shook her head weakly and opened her mouth.
"I was wrong..."
"I do not believe I ever taught you an apology made of words alone."
The bed creaked. Euphemia rose, faced Perzen, and drew up the hem of her own skirt, baring the pale white of her belly.
The posture of absolute submission the two of them had agreed upon.
At the sight of it, Perzen enslaved Isabel's corpse, brought it forward, and made it press firmly down upon Euphemia's lower abdomen.
"Ngh...!"
It had simply not rotted. Rigor had already set in, and Isabel's knuckles were terribly cold and hard, so that the feeling was like having a stone laid upon her and rubbed.
And then, from outside, came the sound of a knock.
"Ah..."
A thin moan escaped her. Euphemia looked at Perzen, but—
"Enter."
As if he had neither heard nor seen, Perzen gave the maids leave at once.
The door flew open.
"Ah—"
The maids who had brought breakfast could not hide their shock at Euphemia as she was, and ducked their heads in a hurry.
"Th-then please call us when you have finished..."
The door shut. The maids had not stayed long, but to Euphemia that instant was an eon.
"Hhk—!"
The feeling surged before she knew it, and for a moment the sob nearly broke from her. She held it back by a thread.
"Come here."
Judging it enough, Perzen set the enslaved corpse of Isabel well aside and called Euphemia over with a tilt of his chin.
She lowered the hand that had gripped her hem, came slowly to his side, and carefully settled onto the knee his eyes indicated.
A kiss.
"Ngh..."
Perzen bent his head and pressed a gentle kiss to the corner of her eye, a breath away from tears, and along the straight bridge of her nose.
The contrast with the moment before was so sharp that relief struck her all at once, and the crying she had barely held broke free.
"Hwaaaah...!"
As if no sorrow in the world could match this one, Euphemia wailed in his arms.
Each time she did, Perzen licked the tears running down her cheeks and gave her kiss after kiss, kind and soft, as if to soothe her.
It was the shape of giving the illness and then the cure. Even so, it took hold of Euphemia more easily than one would have thought.
"Hk! Hic..."
"If you are done crying, let us eat breakfast before it goes cold."
Enslaving Isabel's corpse, Perzen had the flesh pared from the meat and placed it into Euphemia's mouth.
"N-ngh!"
She hiccuped from the aftermath of having cried herself raw, and still she took it well, mumbling like a baby bird.
Looking down at her, Perzen went on, now and then, pressing soft kisses to her cheek and brow.
"Hh, mm..."
The effort was not wasted. Before long even the hiccups stopped, and Euphemia only received the food he brought to her lips.
"I, I..."
"What is it."
"...room."
"I cannot hear you."
"The powder... room..."
"..."
"I have to... go..."
Words as blunt as piss were too much to say, so she softened them as far as she could.
"You need not ask leave for every such thing. Go and come back."
The discipline seemed to have taken better than he expected. At the sight of Euphemia seeking permission even to answer a bodily need, Perzen let out a short breath of laughter and sent her off.
"Mm..."
Euphemia rose, wiped at the corners of her eyes, sniffled now and again, and left the room.
And Perzen found the sight of her considerably cute.