Festival (2)
The Empire’s Foundation Day was, within imperial borders, a day that stood above every other celebration.
A week-long festival to bless the Empire’s birth was always bound to draw attention.
The trouble this year was that the festival was being held in both the Yuris Duchy and the capital, and because the duke had gone to the capital, Irene had been left to handle everything herself.
When I saw how gaunt she had become, so visibly worn that you could feel her body wasting away by the day, Ropena and I—who were closest to her and saw it first—could do nothing but ache for her.
“At this rate, won’t she collapse from overwork?”
“How long has she been at it?”
“Who knows? She’s been like that since sunrise. If you don’t count mealtimes, it’s been at least ten hours.”
Damn it. I swallowed a low groan and looked at Irene.
What had I even done when I was fifteen? The thought brought a bitter pang, and I let out a small sigh before nudging Ropena’s shoulder.
“What?”
“Go get her something sweet. Melted chocolate, if you can. Sweet things help when you’re tired.”
“Got it.”
After Ropena slipped out, I kept staring at Irene as she sat before a mountain of papers that seemed to grow no smaller no matter how long she worked.
In truth, I’d been standing just as long as she had, but my body had been strengthened beyond the ordinary, so I wasn’t arrogant enough to compare my fatigue to hers.
If there was any consolation, it was that the opening ceremony of the festival would begin in a little while. At least for a moment, she’d be able to take her eyes off those detestable papers.
“Hoo.”
She stared at the documents for a moment longer, then let out a breath and tipped her head back, closing her eyes.
Rubbing at her eyelids, she looked thoroughly exhausted.
“Are you all right?”
At that, Irene flinched slightly and blinked before slowly turning her gaze to me.
“...No. I’m really, not all right at all. If it were up to me, I’d sleep like this, but I can’t, can I?”
“You have to give the opening speech in thirty minutes.”
“I should’ve learned magic. Then I could’ve sent a clone in my place.”
She really was tired. Normally, she never complained, no matter how grueling the schedule, but she’d said that much, so it was clear how worn down she’d become.
After massaging the skin beneath her eyes for a while, she let out a long breath and closed the stack of papers.
“Where did Ropena go?”
“She went to warm up some chocolate. Sweet things are supposed to help when you’re exhausted.”
“...Thank you for looking out for me.”
“I wasn’t trying to look out for you.”
As I said that, I gave a small shrug and let a grin spread over my face.
“I just didn’t want you to be uncomfortable.”
Irene stared at me blankly for a moment, then lowered her head and murmured so softly I almost missed it entirely.
“...Thank you.”
She really was embarrassingly shy sometimes. I could feel the corners of my mouth twitching upward for no reason at all.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
A burst of fireworks boomed across the ducal estate, announcing the start of the Empire’s Foundation Day festival.
For an instant, the thunderous crack sounded like a bomb going off. Ropena jerked, and Irene, still expressionless, muttered her complaint toward the noise.
“It’s an annoying sound, no matter how many times I hear it.”
Since the festival came around once every five years, she must have heard it a few more times than I had.
Shaking her head as if she were truly sick of it, Irene caught up the skirt of her dress and gave a wry smile.
“Let’s go. There are thousands of people waiting for us.”
Once she spoke, dressed in a magnificent gown of gold, the people behind her began to move.
Of course I was there as her bodyguard knight, along with her exclusive maids to manage her dress and the knight order in case anything unexpected happened.
Until the duke returned near the end of the festival, she was the one who ruled Yuris, so this was probably only natural.
And yet, even surrounded by so many people, Irene herself remained utterly unreadable, so I could only laugh in faint disappointment at the possibility that I might see her nervous even once.
Clack, clack.
At the entrance to the ducal estate, rows upon rows of knights stood waiting for Irene. The steady strike of spear shafts against the ground rang out noisily, and then, as she stepped over the threshold and onto the red carpet, someone shouted,
“Salute the Master of Yuris—!”
“Ha—!”
Whoooosh—
A trumpet blast that seemed to shake the air itself thundered overhead.
Then came the overlapping footfalls, the clatter of spear shafts, the roar that burst in unison from the knights’ mouths—and for one brief moment, a shiver ran through my entire body.
There were hundreds of knights. The absurdity of two hundred thousand knights was not being realized here, but the presence radiating from these so-called elite knights was overwhelming all the same.
My body, standing at the center of that sound, reacted with a sudden jolt.
“Enough.”
And then, all at once, the deafening noise vanished.
When the ring signifying the head of the Yuris family appeared in the air, everything that had been swallowing this place up until then came to a halt as though it had all been an illusion.
Tap, tap.
She took a step forward.
At that graceful pace, as though she were walking on clouds, everyone looked at Irene as if they had forgotten how to breathe.
The five founding noble families who protected the Empire: Roman of the sword, Medib of magic, Kilrog of snow, Hatan of shadows, and Yuris of the shield.
When the master of Yuris, the house that symbolized the shield, revealed herself like this, someone let out an admiring sigh.
“Hah...”
It was understandable. Even I, who had been by her side all this time, felt my heart pounding at the sight of her.
If I had to grant the name of nobility to just one person, it would have to be Irene. She looked so elegant it was almost painful.
At last, her steps came to a stop, and the vast crowd before her fell silent.
There were so many people gathered that I wondered if every last soul in this territory had come.
Each and every gaze came flying in like arrows and buried themselves in her. Some were cool and hostile, others brimming with goodwill.
But most of those eyes were on Irene, and most of them carried a trace of expectation.
I thought they must have been people from other territories.
They were probably trying to see how long the face she was showing them now would last.
As if to satisfy that expectation, she swept her gaze across everyone looking at her and spoke.
“Today is the day the sun first revealed itself to the world. The day light rose over Evangelium, and the day the shield was lifted high.”
Her clear voice spread through the crowd. Even without magic, it carried straight to our ears, and countless people nodded as they listened, their attention fixed on her words.
So many people stood there together, yet it was as though they were one body, not one of them moving an inch.
The only thing filling this vast plaza was silence—but that silence was governed by a single person.
When Irene Yuris opened her mouth, it was her voice that filled the square, and when she closed it, what remained was a stillness so deep you could not even hear breathing.
Was this what it meant to have the talent of a leader?
Though she had said only a few words, the way she dominated the entire crowd made me let out a quiet breath of admiration.
It was not something one could imitate easily. No—more accurately, it was something too far beyond reach to even dare to covet.
Watching her, Sir Chris parted his lips slightly and gave a low murmur of admiration.
“Amazing.”
Indeed, it was not the kind of presence a young lady who had not even yet come of age ought to possess.
She was the king who ruled this place, and she looked exactly like someone made to sit in the seat of the Yuris family head.
After looking into Sir Chris’s eyes, still full of admiration, I turned my gaze back to Irene.
Then Irene spoke once more.
“You have labored for Yuris and for the Empire, and you have fulfilled that duty. Though I am only the young lady of this house, I stand here as the Empire’s shield and the rightful head of Yuris. I offer you my gratitude, and I would grant you rest so that you may newly lead the Empire’s glory.”
She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them again and continued slowly.
“For one week, I ask that you enjoy this Foundation Day festival. Until you are thoroughly sick of it.”
At that, a cheer erupted. It was so enormous I almost mistook it for an earthquake.
Ropena watched the crowd with an exhausted look and shook her head, while Irene looked on expressionlessly.
But the emotion hidden beneath that expression was joy, and so I watched her with a contented smile.
“Glory to Yuris!”
“Glory to Evangelium!”
Whooo!
With whistles mixed into the roar, the square grew hot with excitement.
The trumpets, which had fallen silent, sounded once more, and flower petals scattered into the air, tinting the surroundings with the colors of autumn.
The Foundation Day festival had begun.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
But unlike the festival’s beginning, nothing at all changed about my own position.
If anything had changed, it was only that the shadows beneath Irene’s eyes had grown steadily darker.
By now, I was honestly starting to worry whether it was really okay to leave her like that.
Even now, with the moon full and dawn already beginning to rise somewhere below, she still had not gone to sleep.
Since the festival had begun and night had turned to dawn, the outside remained bright with torches and streetlamps.
Honestly, if it was bright enough to stay lit like this, I could understand why she had pressured Count Glasskan for his magic stone mine.
Scritch, scritch—
Unlike the brilliantly lit world outside, Irene stared at her documents by the light of a single candle.
Apparently her eyes were growing tired, because she took off the glasses she’d been wearing and let out a sigh before turning her gaze to me.
“...I can’t see the end of this. By the way, where did Ropena go?”
“You told her to go to bed earlier.”
“Did I? I’m so out of it right now.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to sleep soon? You can deal with the rest tomorrow.”
“...You saw this pile and still said that?”
As I spoke, she pointed to her desk with her chin.
Seeing the mountain of paperwork stacked there, I clicked my tongue, and Irene shook her head before putting her glasses back on and speaking again.
“If I stay up for another two nights, I can probably finish it all. And once I do, there’ll probably be another mountain of documents waiting for me.”
With a bitter smile, she took a sip of tea that had long since gone cold and tapped her pen lightly against the desk as she spoke to me.
“If you’re tired, you can go in first. I can still protect myself well enough.”
At that, I gave a shrug, and Irene, showing no reaction at all, turned her focus back to the documents.
Standing for so long wasn’t exactly hard, but it was terribly boring, so I counted the tiles beneath my feet one by one and barely managed to shake off the dullness.
Twenty-two, twenty-three...
Thud—
The sound broke my concentration.
When I looked up at the soft thump of something falling onto paper, I found Irene slumped over her desk.
“...Did she fall asleep?”
She must have been exhausted. She’d given a short speech in front of countless people, and on top of that she’d been handling the burden of the duke’s work in his place.
The truth was, she had probably already reached her limit. It would have been difficult enough just to endure that punishing daily schedule, and yet she had taken on all this as well without a word of complaint.
After looking at her with quiet pity for a moment, I carefully removed the glasses from beside her face, set them aside, and draped a thin blanket over her.
It might be autumn, but even so, there was still a chance she’d catch a cold.
Then I turned my gaze back to her sleeping face.
She looked so worn out that even her breathing, soft and steady through slightly parted lips, sounded like sleep itself.
How tired did she have to be to fall asleep like this, as though she had simply collapsed?
The cool aura that always surrounded her, the pressure that weighed upon her shoulders—everything had disappeared, and her face looked so peaceful.
I watched her for a moment longer before quietly stepping back.
Hoo—
I blew out the candle and drew the curtains over the window, and darkness quickly filled the room.
Though a faint glow still leaked through the thin fabric, it was dim enough that it would not wake her.
Creak—
Opening the door slowly, careful in case she stirred, I looked back one last time at Irene and whispered,
“...Sleep well.”
If only in dreams, I hoped she could rest in peace.
Click.
And the door closed. What remained in the place I left behind was only the small sound of Irene’s breathing as she slept.