Before the Snow Falls 3
Enjoying that brief moment of peace lasted only an instant.
It was a shame I never even got to see Irene fully relax, but the words Ropena brought after knocking on the door made it impossible for me to stay there any longer.
“Sir, His Grace has requested an audience.”
“...Then I suppose I should go.”
I lowered my head slightly and looked at Irene. She stared back at me for a moment before giving a small nod.
So, the Duke. Honestly, I was a little nervous too.
If he was calling for me now, I doubted I’d have time to change the bandages, but there was no helping it. If I delayed any longer, I had no idea what kind of look I’d get.
“Go on. Ropena, go fetch Sir Chris.”
“Yes, my lady.”
Unexpectedly, Irene didn’t seem to have anything else to say. She merely gave me a small nod and turned away.
Was it too much to say I felt a little disappointed? Still, meeting the Duke came first, so once I stepped out of the room, a familiar face was waiting for me.
I gave a slight bow to Sir Chris, whose expression was darker than usual, and he looked at me before speaking.
“Evan, His Grace called for you.”
“I know. Ropena just told me.”
“...Well, don’t get too tense. He’s a little hard to get used to, but he’s not a bad man.”
“Is that so?”
But Sir Chris clearly wasn’t satisfied with that answer. He clicked his tongue once, then tapped my unbandaged shoulder as he went on.
“Just don’t get rattled. Whatever happens, it’s best to let it slide.”
“...Understood.”
Don’t get rattled, he said. What kind of man was this Duke, anyway, that he’d tell me that?
I’d fought assassins and even black mages. And yet...
Since I didn’t have time to ask what he meant, I just said I understood. Sir Chris gave me one more worried look, sighed heavily, and passed me by.
“Yeah. Hang in there.”
At this point, I was actually starting to wonder what kind of person the Duke was. Irene was acting strange, Sir Chris was acting strange—everyone got so worked up just because I was meeting the Duke?
Caw—
The ominous cry of a crow made me frown. The sky, so blue not long ago, had once again turned a pale gray as clouds rolled in, just like when I’d first seen it.
Why did the bare, shadowed trees beneath it feel so unsettling? It was almost as if meeting the Duke itself was some kind of ill omen for me.
After staring blankly out the window for a while, I finally turned away and started down the hall.
It had to be my imagination.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
The Duke’s quarters were on the top floor of the mansion.
Among the three stories of the estate, it was tucked away in the farthest corner, and unlike the rest of the house, the largest room belonged to the Duke in a place where sunlight hardly ever reached.
The trees planted thickly behind the mansion must have been meant to block the light from his rooms. Though it was still daytime outside, the corridor gave off a gloom that hid nothing at all.
The candles flickering in the dark lent the place a strange sort of atmosphere. Why would anyone deliberately keep a place this dark? A dozen thoughts drifted through my mind.
Maybe he was avoiding sunlight for some reason. It was childish, but I briefly wondered whether the Duke might actually be some sort of vampire.
But there was no creature in this world that feared the sun.
So maybe he really just disliked sunlight? I’d asked the butler who led me here, but he’d only shaken his head and given no answer.
Even the floor was made of plain, shabby wood, completely unworthy of such a luxurious mansion, and every step creaked loudly enough to get on my nerves.
Every other part of the estate was built from materials so expensive they could make your jaw drop, so why was the Duke’s own wing arranged like this? Perhaps he was simply the sort of man who lived with unbecoming modesty.
But that thought soon scattered, because in the dim mixture of gray and black, a door appeared at the end of the hall.
Unlike the shabby corridor, the old-fashioned door bearing the Yuris crest stood out distinctly. The butler beside me gave a small bow, then quietly withdrew on his own.
“...Uh.”
I reached out a hand, but the butler had already walked too far away to hear me. I gave a bitter smile. What was I supposed to do after being left here like this? My raised hand dropped miserably back to my side.
I closed my eyes for a moment, took a deep breath, and looked at the door again. Beneath the Yuris crest, the thorned shield, there was a single handle. A dragon’s maw—the maw of one of the imperial guardian beasts—was fitted there like a grip.
Click.
I only touched it lightly, but the sound was louder than I expected, making me flinch. A voice came from beyond the door.
Deep and low enough to make the listener’s chest sink.
It was the sort of voice that seemed made for this dark corridor, and I answered at once.
“I am Evan Fried. I was told you called for me.”
“Come in.”
And the door opened. Why did the simple act of taking the knob and pushing the door inward feel so long?
As the atmosphere leaking through the gap washed over me, my expression began to stiffen.
I had thought the corridor was dark, but beyond the door lay a deeper, stickier abyss, far more oppressive than anything outside.
It was like stepping into the maw of a beast.
Malice prickled from every direction, as if it might spear my body at any moment, and my hand moved toward the sword at my hip without thinking. I let out a heavy breath.
Armor that looked ready to move against me at any second lined the walls of the room. The silver shine of the knights’ armor flickered in the darkness, and my brows drew together at the sight.
Then, from within that darkness, I met a pair of blue eyes.
They were like the eyes of some deep-sea predator glinting in the black water. A darkness that wanted to swallow me whole, and inside it, a single hunter who alone seemed entirely at ease.
Looking into those two eyes fixed so intensely on me, my reason returned.
Only then did I understand what Sir Chris had meant when he’d told me not to get rattled.
The master of this ducal estate, the head of one of the Empire’s Five Great Houses, the Shield of the Empire—
The presence of Garot Yuris was not something I could simply take in stride.
I swallowed against the murderous pressure that made it feel as if he might cut my throat at any second, then forced out a rough breath and met that blue gaze head-on.
If Irene’s eyes held a chill that could freeze even summer, then what lay in Garot Yuris’s gaze was emptiness.
Nothing at all rested there. He only looked at the person before him, and I couldn’t find the slightest meaning in those eyes.
Was that why the atmosphere in this room had felt so strange the moment I stepped inside? Because I was meeting emptiness for the first time in my life, and instinctively feared what I couldn’t understand.
Even so, I held on.
If I couldn’t withstand that stare, I had a feeling he would simply draw a line and decide that was as far as I could go.
If this atmosphere was a test, if the Duke was testing me...
I drew my mana upward. The mana rising through my veins soon began to consume my body, burning away the darkness that had sunk deep inside me until white flames began to rise from my skin.
And when I finally shook off the pressure that had wrapped around me, I heard his voice again by my ear.
“Excellent.”
At those words, the darkness covering the room seemed to lift all at once. I only stared blankly as the blackness that had hidden everything from view vanished in an instant.
And then I looked at the Duke’s face, now fully revealed, and frowned faintly.
If one were to personify a hawk, would it look like this?
Compared to the nickname of the Shield of the Empire, his features were sharp and severe, and the neatly trimmed beard beneath his chin made his personality immediately easier to guess.
He was dressed in a black uniform that seemed to have absorbed the surrounding darkness itself. Straightening the collar with a practiced motion, the Duke continued to speak.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you. My daughter’s bodyguard knight. I hear you were injured—are you all right?”
“...Yes. The wounds have all healed.”
As candlelight flickered over my bandages, he watched me closely, then gave a slow nod.
“You may sit. I have quite a bit to discuss with you today. I also had something I wanted to say to you.”
Something he wanted to say. It sounded like praise at first, but somehow I felt that wasn’t it at all.
Not praise, but something fundamentally different.
Still, standing before me was the Duke, so I simply gave a slight bow and sat on the sofa he indicated.
“You looked a little taken aback. You’ve already guessed that I was testing you, haven’t you?”
“Yes.”
At his words, I nodded. I didn’t know why he’d done it, but it was obvious he had been trying to test something about me.
That darkness from before—only now did I understand that it hadn’t been mana like mine. There had been his oppressive presence too, but the darkness filling the room was clearly akin to the force I’d felt from the black mage yesterday.
It was the same kind of darkness that had hidden the moon and stars, wasn’t it?
“The energy black mages emit, isn’t it?”
“...Yes. You certainly did face a black mage. What I just emitted was a portion of mana extracted from one. It’s stored in a potion vial like this, so once the stopper is opened, it can be released as it is.”
He briefly held out a flask filled with black mist, then set it on the table and looked at me intently.
“Thirty years ago, when black mages swept over the Empire, we called the mana they used darkness. So what do you think is the way to drive that darkness away?”
“...Use mana—”
“No, wrong. The way to dispel this darkness is not by using mana. Only a priest, or someone who possesses a special kind of mana, can do that.”
He drew a breath, then met my gaze again and opened his mouth once more.
What I felt in his voice was a full, overflowing intensity.
Not rage aimed at something, but the excitement of one who had discovered some astonishing mystery.
Was the special mana he spoke of perhaps my own white mana?
As if confirming my guess, his finger pointed straight at me.
“The mana you possess drives away darkness. It’s much like the divinity borne by holy knights. I don’t know how you came to have mana like that, but your power is certainly of use to Yuris. Perhaps one day you may even stand at the forefront of the shield that protects this Empire.”
“Is that so.”
“I’m not the sort of man who circles around the point. When I discover talent, I always think it should become part of Yuris. You know better than anyone that your abilities are not meant to rot away as nothing more than a bodyguard knight.”
An uneasy feeling stirred in my chest. How could I not understand what his words implied?
That I wasn’t meant to waste away as a bodyguard knight—what that meant was obvious.
“Come to the Yuris knight order. Don’t remain as Irene’s bodyguard knight. Become part of Iron Blood.”
“...My lady’s bodyguard knight is also part of Iron Blood.”
When I answered that way, the Duke immediately shook his head and went on.
“No. Irene is just Irene. She isn’t yet Iron Blood, nor the master of Yuris. She’s still young, inexperienced, and has not accomplished a single thing perfectly. Rather than becoming the bodyguard knight of a girl like that—”
“Your Grace.”
My eyes turned cold.
Was it because I’d heard him disparage Irene? Or because it was absurd to hear her own father treat his daughter so lightly?
Perhaps it was both. The moment my brief goodwill toward him vanished, a chill began to seep into those eyes of his as well.
He was not a man fit to be a father, nor one fit to stand as the master of Yuris.
If he had cared even a little about how Irene had lived, he would never have spoken like that.
If he knew what she had been forced to do in this ducal estate, he would never call her young and inexperienced.
How many people in this world would devote loyalty to a man who was so blinded by one knight standing before him that he would even belittle his own blood?
His figure seemed to overlap with my parents’. The same sort of people who did not see their child as a child, but as merely one tool among many for achieving an end.
Did I understand his concern for Yuris? Yes, I thought I did, at least in part. But that was all.
I’d already prepared myself for this, and I already knew what I wanted to say, but the words I gave him were colder than even I had imagined.
“I’ll have to decline.”
“...Decline what?”
“I am my lady’s bodyguard knight.”
Blue eyes flickered. But my feelings did not change at all.
I’d let my heart quake whenever Irene’s eyes trembled, and yet I found it ridiculous that his expression could change without stirring me in the slightest.
I simply met those two eyes staring at me head-on.
“So you’re refusing my offer?”
“Yes.”
“Do you not know what sort of man I am? Or do you think being Irene’s bodyguard knight is more glorious than becoming a knight of Yuris?”
“I think highly of the position of bodyguard knight.”
“...If you become a knight, you’ll gain honors you can’t even imagine. With your talent, you might even rise to knight commander. The youngest ever, knight commander at fifteen.”
He spread his arms wide in a grand, exaggerated gesture, but I only returned his gaze with an expressionless face.
My mind wasn’t going to change. No matter what he said next, no matter if he knelt before me and begged.
Did he realize that?
The goodwill vanished from those eyes fixed on me.
The intensity that had risen out of emptiness disappeared, and for a moment it felt as though he had become an entirely different person, those blue eyes hardening into ice.
The pressure closed around me again. I gritted my teeth against a force that seemed ready to crush my shoulders and pin my body to the floor.
“Have you not changed your mind?”
“...No.”
Even the answer that squeezed through my clenched teeth remained the same, and the coldness in his stare deepened.
It was cold. Colder than when Irene looked at me.
It felt like pain so severe it was as if winter itself had cut into my flesh and driven down to the bone, and my eyes widened as I sensed the veins in them beginning to stand out.
Maybe he really would try to kill me.
At the thought that he might kill me simply for refusing his offer—even if I was Irene’s bodyguard knight—my heart began to pound.
Should I draw my mana? But if I drew my sword here, then I, no, Irene—
For a brief moment, my thoughts tangled themselves into knots. Then, just as suddenly, the pressure that had been strangling me vanished like a lie.
Why?
Maybe I was already dead.
My focus returned, and when I looked ahead, the Duke’s face was still there, still watching me.
Those hawk-sharp eyes were still on me, but they were no longer cold.
There was more goodwill in them than in any expression I’d seen from him since entering this room. Very satisfied indeed, the Duke even wore a faint smile as he slowly opened his mouth.
“Pass.”
What had I just heard?
I stared at him blankly. Pass? Then all those questions he’d asked me—every single one of those offers—
“Irene has found herself a good bodyguard knight at last. If she’s to be the next family head, she’ll need a sharp eye for talent like this.”
“...You’re kidding.”
“No. I was testing you. To see whether you truly suited the role of Irene’s bodyguard knight. To see whether you were someone qualified to hear what I had to say next. To see whether the knight Sir Chris praised so highly was really as he claimed.”
Wearing a contented smile, he let his blue eyes gleam with amusement.
“I think it’s time we started talking for real now, Sir Evan. Wouldn’t you agree?”
My eyes widened at him.
This man, who seemed to embody the name Iron Blood perfectly, who looked every inch the Shield of Yuris—he was nothing like what I’d expected.
The way he wore that rather playful smile was so unlike the man I thought I knew that I could only stare.
Maybe this was what Sir Chris had meant when he told me not to be surprised no matter what happened.
I looked at the Duke, who was still watching me, and after a moment I let out a sigh and lowered my head.
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