Three Weeks
"…"
On the morning of April 27, rain fell in a steady, soaking drizzle.
Creak.
In the corridor of a luxurious mansion near the capital, Lizzie was pushing her wheelchair along when she stopped short, gazing out the window as she sank into thought.
The marriage of House Alfred and House Claudia. By any common sense, it was a thing that could not happen. And yet the fact that it had become possible meant there was surely something unpleasant that House Claudia—more precisely, her eldest brother, Loer—would have to bear.
Lizzie was certain of it. The timing with which the seat of family head had been passed to her second brother was simply too coincidental.
The sacrifice of our happiness… will it ever be repaid?
Just as effort did not guarantee that a dream would come true, the world was packed full of absurdity and unreason. If, inside the great flame they had kindled, they alone turned to ash, there could be nothing more bitter than that. And yet, in a fire one believed would leave no survivors, someone now and then emerged with their life, as if by miracle. Had the world been an honest place that ran on equivalent exchange alone, she would not have worried. She knew far too well that it was not, and so she let out a sigh and pushed the wheelchair on.
When will I be able to rise to the rank of Euclid?
Mana could not be awakened after the fact. It was an innate blessing, something one had to be born already carrying in the body. For that reason it grew of its own accord with the passage of time, keeping pace with the flesh that housed it. The speed of that growth, and its ceiling, were talents that split joy from sorrow among those who bore mana. Ferzen and Uriel, for instance, belonged among those whose talent was exceptional.
Of course, even if one's growth was slow and one's limit no more than the rank of Kether, there was still a way to break through it. Did a child from an unhappy home not mature with unusual speed beside others of the same age? Mana, too, grew explosively once it had weathered hardship upon hardship. No—rather than endured, overcome was the better word. Lizzie, who had given up on herself and fallen to ruin, had shown a rise in mana tremendous enough that she would soon be able to reach Euclid, and it was because she had resolved on revenge against Ferzen and taken firm hold of her own will.
And so…
Lizzie had begun, faintly, to grasp it. If the day ever came when she could overcome completely the trauma Ferzen had carved into her, then without a doubt she would be able to surpass that man.
"Lizzie, if you could just smile a little…"
"No."
The fourth floor of the capital's great cathedral, a place raised in honor of the god who governed love among the Five Blessing Gods. In the Claudia entrance waiting room, alone with her brother, Lizzie shook her head at Loer's words.
"I don't want to smile while forcing myself to look away from my family's sacrifice."
"I'm not… making any sacrifice…"
"I'm not a child. The days of lying helpless in bed, letting one day after another pass, are over. So don't try to smother me with protection. I'm old enough to marry. Old enough to have a child. I'm an adult."
"…"
"There's no need, at this point, to show me only the good side of the world, only the bright side. I already know well enough that it isn't like that."
She took Loer's hands, crowded with scars and calluses, and stroked them gently, and a sorrowful smile touched her mouth.
"If we live, we live together. If we die, we die together. You don't have to try to settle everything by yourself, as my brother. There's no captain on the ship called family. So the course of the voyage we take… is something all of us agree on."
"…"
Looking down at Lizzie where she sat in the wheelchair, Loer quietly turned over the old days as they flickered past him like a lantern-reel of memory.
Lizzie, unable even to shape a proper word, babbling as she reached out those fern-small hands and beamed at him. She had been so lovely that he had understood, in part, why she monopolized their parents' love.
And when she toddled into his arms and plied him with adorable, lovable affection? Even if everyone in the world turned against this child, he had sworn that he alone would never change—that he would be her ally, and keep her safe.
When she outgrew those clumsy steps, became a little lady, and pattered along forever at his heels, he had only wished she would not leave his side. That she would stay, always.
Then he had seen her after Ferzen ruined her ankle, no longer able even to walk as she pleased, wasting away into ruin. Even if he burned to ash and crumbled, he had vowed, he would have his revenge.
"You've…"
But that past was behind them, and this was the present they had reached.
"…grown so much."
She had stepped out from beneath his shadow, and was trying instead to walk beside him.
"I may still look like a girl in your eyes, Brother, but to everyone else I'm plainly a woman."
As if to clear the air, Lizzie set her hands on her hips and drew her brows together, for all the world as though she meant to scold him.
"Yes…"
Gently, smoothing a hand down Lizzie's hair, Loer smiled.
The door flew open.
And in that moment Uriel came bursting through without so much as a knock.
"What is this? This tender atmosphere—anyone who saw you would think the bride and groom were the two of you."
"That joke goes too far."
"If you know it's a joke, you might play along… Anyway, come out. It's time to receive the guests."
Half past ten. The hour had come, and Loer wheeled Lizzie up to the doors of the fourth-floor cathedral. The great doors opened, and beyond them the milling crowd came into view all at once. Every one of them had come bearing an invitation. Connections House Claudia could never have gathered on its own.
The narrowness of their circle was, above all, the conflict with Brutein. The particulars had not leaked beyond the house, but it was plain enough that House Claudia was at odds with Brutein and had been marked for it. To break even a little way through that deadlock, Loer had fought desperately to enter the imperial knight order. The only places Brutein's pressure did not reach were the dark underside of the world, and the imperial house alone.
"You are welcome. Thank you for attending."
"Welcome. Thank you for coming."
One after another, Loer and Lizzie offered their greetings. The guests who entered accepted them as a matter of form, then shifted toward the Alfred side across the way—the bride, Ellis, and her younger sister Uriel—and grew noticeably warmer there. It was a reality far too natural to resent, and so Loer and Lizzie let nothing show.
"…"
But there was one man. One man who offered House Alfred no flattery at all.
"Wel… come. Thank you… for attending…"
"Yes."
Ferzen von Schweig Ruerug. He gave off a presence that seemed able to dismiss even a house like Alfred as nothing of consequence, and with his wife at his side he received the greeting with indifference and passed within. At that, the people who had been sending Loer and Lizzie a quiet favor—Alfred's wall too high, and the two of them comparatively easy to approach—turned their backs with a coldness that bordered on heartless, drifted over to Ferzen, and began to fawn.
A cruelty that blotted out even the feeblest thread of light. As expected, Lizzie hated him. She hated him far too much.
The princes… have they still not come?
Frowning at the bustle, I sent off the people who had swarmed like ants and sat down side by side with Euphemia.
"…"
When I quietly turned my head, I found Euphemia unable to take her eyes from the Alfred bride—Ellis—resplendent in her wedding dress.
"This marriage, too, is nothing more than politics. Are you actually envious?"
"Not particularly…"
She drew her gaze away and looked at me. Come to think of it, we had never held a wedding. Given the way of it, I had felt a ceremony meaningless, and unnecessary.
"Excuse me."
"…"
A voice at my side made me set the thought aside, and I turned my head.
"Veronica Riel Reina Rosenberg offers her greetings."
"Ah…"
The surname was Rosenberg, but she lacked the Rosenberg middle name—de—which made it highly likely she was Laura's mother.
"I am the mother of Laura, the daughter who is in your debt."
"Is that so. There is no need to stand on such ceremony. Lift your head. Laura is a good student."
"As it happens, her letters are full of talk about you, Count."
"…"
There were already a fair number of nobles who approached me under the pretext of children attending my lectures. House Rosenberg, however, had no need to do so, and yet she kept making Laura the subject, trying to draw the conversation onward. Blatantly so.
"During this period, Laura has not come down to Rosenberg."
"…"
"Have you seen our daughter in the meantime, Count?"
If House Rosenberg wanted something, we had agreed that it would go through Laura first, so there was no need to apply pressure now. All the more so if the one before me was not the lord of Rosenberg, but his wife.
"She is a girl with a strong will to learn, so even during this period she sought me out privately to ask about things that puzzled her. A teacher ought not to play favorites among his students, but her zeal was remarkable, and I gave her private instruction several times."
It was the Full-Moon Quirk that kept her from going down, but she could hardly say so outright, and Laura would need a pretext of her own. Lending that pretext a little support was no difficult thing.
"Oh my…"
At my answer, the lady of Rosenberg spread the fan in her hand, hid her mouth behind it, and slid a glance toward Euphemia seated beside me, smiling with her eyes in a strange way.
"…"
I could not tell what conclusion she had reached, but I thought it worth drawing out of her, and I was about to speak when the surroundings began to murmur. The seated guests rose as one and turned toward the cathedral's main doors to offer a formal courtesy.
Even for Alfred… both imperial princes, attending the mere wedding of an eldest daughter.
It all but announced, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, that the banquet on the seventh of May would be the stage on which the struggle for the throne raised its curtain. Close behind the imperial princes, the princes of the two kingdoms—the empire's chessboard—showed themselves in turn. Officials and ministers attended them, along with nobles from houses of some weight within their kingdoms, and a handful of knights stood guard over their persons.
Naturally, I watched those few knights with care.
Not here…
I did not see him. Ciel Midford.
Nearly three months had passed. If he were the protagonist, he would surely have distinguished himself by now, and might even attend the banquet on the seventh of May. I had believed I would catch sight of him at this earlier affair, the wedding of House Alfred and House Claudia. Had I miscalculated?
He made for the royal capital, but was it Obern where he settled?
Not a stage for the two empires' indirect trial of strength, but Obern, a pro-Elmark kingdom whose throne was not due to change for a long while yet. I had judged that, to raise his own worth, he would have joined one of the two kingdoms where an age of upheaval was about to unfold. Or had he still failed to distinguish himself? If not that, then he might truly have lost his life somewhere in the snow mountains of Ruerug. The caravan master's testimony—that he had seen Ciel Midford heading for the royal capital—might have been a man who merely looked similar. From the first, even he had been unable to give a definite answer after seeing the portrait.
In any case, if Ciel Midford was not here, I had no reason to take an interest, and so I drew that interest neatly back.
"Ah…"
No. I tried to.
If only Euphemia, standing beside me, had not trembled, and turned a distant gaze on the crowd with startled eyes.
"…"
Was he here? Was he truly here? I examined the knights escorting the kingdom's dignitaries once more, closely, and still I could not tell. I could not tell—but this woman was clumsy at lies and at acting, and the reaction she had shown could not be false.
"Ah—"
I set a hand at Euphemia's waist and wound it around her. Then I drew her tight against my side, stroked her hair, and lowered my head as though to whisper something tender.
"Do not be nervous. Even if they are princes of the imperial house, even if they are princes of kingdoms, there is no need to feel awkward. From their side, you will be the more difficult one."
"Y-yes…"
Stammering, Euphemia laid both hands over mine where it circled her waist, and smiled awkwardly. There was no strength in those hands. For her, with her self-regard scraping the bottom, it was the best resistance she could manage—the best small rebellion.
A flinch.
Carefully, but with oppression in it, I caught both of Euphemia's hands and lowered them. In that instant, I felt it. A pair of eyes, thick and intense, clinging, razor-sharp.
"…"
When I turned my head, the gaze was gone. But I knew. Among the kingdom's knights, ranked in neat discipline, one man whose bearing had come conspicuously undone stood out.
Yes. That man. Yes. That man, standing at the opposite pole of the fate called me, leveling a sword at my heart. The protagonist of this novel, of this world—Ciel Midford.
His hair had changed color. His features, too, had been transformed almost past recognition. But when I took him apart with certainty, it was a face in which his traces clearly remained.
Come, then.
Ciel Midford. You would not know.
The seventh of May…
At the banquet the imperial house would hold, there—I would kill him. Without fail.