Before the Snow Falls 4
The eyes that looked up at the overcast sky trembled.
Was the unease that had seeped so deeply into her chest what made the clouded heavens seem so ominous?
The sun had long since vanished behind a mass of leaden clouds. The weather was utterly unlike the bright sky she had seen earlier, and the cry of birds drifting from afar sounded more annoying than ever, so she closed the window without thinking.
Once the cold wind could no longer touch her cheeks, the room’s lingering warmth began to wrap around her body.
Her lips moved as if to speak, then fell shut again.
Worry. Was she worrying now?
What if, when Evan returned, he was no longer her bodyguard knight?
And what if, by keeping him here, she was simply binding him in place?
His talent far surpassed that of any knight she had ever seen.
She had seen the Crown Prince himself, the Empire’s prodigy, and even so, compared to Evan, there would surely be a vast gulf between them.
No matter how hard she tried for the rest of her life, she probably would never even reach his heels.
If the Empire were ever to produce a Master, it would surely be Evan’s place.
His talent was the kind that could make such impossible things come true.
Thinking about whether it was right to want someone like that to remain merely her bodyguard knight made her chest feel strangely tight.
The fact that he had caught a black mage was no small matter.
If he had been an ordinary knight, it would not have been strange for him to be promoted to captain of the knight order on the spot.
But he was her bodyguard knight, and if he chose to remain by her side forever, then perhaps he would be giving up on his own potential.
I am your bodyguard knight.
She knew exactly what Evan had meant when he said that to her.
Seeing the shadow that had fallen over her face, he had guessed what she was thinking and told her not to worry. That must have been it.
And that was why it bothered her. If he was staying on as her bodyguard knight simply for her sake, even when he didn’t truly want to, what was she supposed to say to him?
“Looks like it’ll snow.”
The voice by her ear scattered her thoughts.
She looked up before she could stop herself, drawn by that bright, cheerful tone, and found her maid standing there.
“Ropena.”
“Weren’t you just staring out the window? I heard earlier that we’re supposed to get the first snow today.”
Snow.
Was the weather so dreary today only because snow was about to fall?
When she looked outside again, the world no longer seemed quite so bleak.
There were flowers that bloomed even in winter, and not every color in the world had yet vanished.
White and gray were colors too, weren’t they?
It had only felt so desolate because she had chosen to see it that way.
As Ropena opened the window, damp air that had nothing to do with winter drifted in.
If snow truly was coming, the clouds swollen with moisture looked heavier than ever.
“The first snow is early this year. Last year, I think it didn’t come until after the Hunting Festival.”
“...Yeah.”
Maybe she had been taking things far too seriously.
Before the snow fell, a gray sky was only natural, and yet she had mistaken it for something bleak and ill-omened.
There was a saying that snow was a window reflecting the heart.
Perhaps because she was so unsettled, she had looked upon everything she saw with such negativity.
Once the snow came, the sky would clear as if nothing had ever been wrong.
The clouds that now refused to let a single ray of sunlight through would, after the snowfall, reveal that same blue sky again.
She thought it was far too early to be jumping to conclusions about Evan, too.
Slowly. She should give herself a little room to breathe.
Just as the sky was cloudy before the snow, her own heart was bound to be clouded now for the same reason.
These were worries that would vanish once the snow fell.
She looked at Ropena, who was staring out the window with sparkling eyes like a child, and then turned away, thinking of the birch trees growing thickly behind the mansion, and of her father and Evan who were likely there.
#
It took quite a while before my reason returned to me in full.
First, I had to understand the situation itself. Second, I had to make sense of the duke’s attitude, which was wildly different from the one I knew.
“Are you ready to talk now? You seem to have been rather shocked.”
“...It wasn’t just rather. I was very shocked.”
When I absentmindedly ran a hand over my chest, the duke gave a low chuckle and handed me a teacup.
It wasn’t the familiar Darjeeling Irene usually liked, but something black.
The scent I knew well pricked my nose, and I flinched before taking the cup.
“This is...”
“They call it coffee. A tea that only recently entered the Empire. Do you know it?”
How could I not know coffee? In this novel’s world, I was probably the person who knew this drink best of all.
Just smelling that familiar aroma seemed to smooth something inside me.
A fragment of my old world, drifting through this strange one.
After I took a moment to calm myself with the coffee, the duke looked at me and spoke again.
“...Is Irene well?”
“She seems to be doing well for now.”
“For now,” he repeated. “So she wasn’t before.”
Was this concern for Irene something that truly came from the heart?
The information I already knew overlapped with what I was hearing now, leaving me confused, but one thing was certain: he looked bitter, deeply and unmistakably bitter.
The father who withheld affection from his child, the man who tried to raise Irene into a perfect heir by demanding nothing but Iron Blood. That was the story from the novel.
And then there were the gloomy, hollow versions of Irene I had seen.
What on earth had really happened?
The duke let out a dry smile, then closed his eyes for a moment before opening them again and looking at me.
When his eyes, so much like Irene’s blue ones, met mine, he nodded slowly and continued.
“The reason I tested you was partly to see whether you were worthy of hearing what I had to say, but also to find out whether you were truly fit to serve as Irene’s bodyguard knight.”
“...Yes, sir.”
“I know what kind of life Irene has lived. I know what I demanded of my daughter, and how that reached her. I know what the servants of this mansion expect from her. I know all of it.”
The words I wanted to say surged up to my throat.
Why had he never changed his behavior even knowing all that? Did he have any idea what kind of person his actions had created later on?
But because I wanted to know why he had done it anyway, I stayed silent. I wanted a reason I could understand. And perhaps sensing why I wasn’t speaking, the duke went on.
“You look full of questions. You want to know why I acted that way?”
“Yes.”
“Would it satisfy you if I said I had no choice? If I said Irene was the Yuris family’s only eldest daughter, and that she had to become the shield of the Empire someday? If I said I had no choice but to pretend not to see the weight of that burden? Would that make sense to you?”
No choice. At those words, I frowned slightly, and the duke gave a hearty laugh as if he understood.
“When people think of the dukes of the Five Great Families, they imagine something else entirely. Nobles who stand just below the emperor, always wielding unlimited power, free to live however they please. But the truth is the exact opposite. The higher your position, the greater the responsibilities that come with it.”
“Responsibility...?”
“Yes, responsibility. Eyes are always on you. When you stand in a place like this, even the smallest mistake can seem like a massive failure. So we must always be perfect. Even the mistakes other people are forgiven for are not tolerated here. That’s what it means to be the shield. If I make a mistake, the heart of the Empire is pierced.”
The blue eyes in the dim, gloomy room flickered.
Regret over this absurd situation, remorse for the life he had led, sorrow and rage twisted those eyes, shaking fiercely in the darkness.
“So Irene has to be perfect. Because she is the only one with the right to stand here. Even if it’s hard now, even if she becomes someone who has lost her heart and stares only into emptiness. That is why I had no choice. Do you understand now? Why I treated my daughter that way.”
“......”
Only now did I think I understood why I had been able to read emptiness in his eyes.
He had already lived through a life like Irene’s once before. He had survived a life like hers and, in doing so, discarded his emotions long ago, leaving only emptiness behind.
Nobles who truly carried out their responsibilities were rare.
There were plenty who threw responsibility aside and wielded their status only for personal gain.
Maybe the passage in the novel describing Garot Yuris had only ever recorded his surface.
Because what lay in his eyes was unmistakably self-reproach.
If he had had somewhere to lean, someone who understood him and simply stood beside him, watching over him—
Perhaps his life would have been very different from what it was now.
Hidden beneath the name Iron Blood, he was a man carrying a passion hotter than anyone else’s.
The place he stood was one where perfection was required, a place where even the slightest mistake could not be forgiven.
That was why he had no choice but to tell Irene to follow the same path he had once walked.
Even if his true feelings were different, he had forced them down and hidden them forever, compelling her all the same.
Only now did I understand.
“...Still, part of me hoped Irene wouldn’t become like me.”
The duke closed his eyes after saying that. As if thinking of something, he exhaled quietly before speaking again.
“When Irene brought that girl home, I allowed her to keep the child as her personal maid. If that girl had been placed as a personal maid in the first place, when only someone of the same noble rank should have been allowed, Irene might have been able to lean on her heart a little.”
He was talking about Ropena.
“I stopped an old knight who had been preparing to retire and made him Irene’s bodyguard knight. A knight whose heart was warm enough to pray at the cathedral for those he had killed might have been someone Irene could be at ease with.”
That was Sir Chris.
“But because he was old, she needed one more bodyguard knight. So I searched. And yet Irene drove those bodyguard knights away. I thought it might take a long time after all. Irene never opened her heart easily to either Sir Chris or Ropena, after all. I was prepared for the possibility that the girl might become like me.”
He took a breath, then looked at me again.
“And then you came.”
“......”
“You were a bodyguard knight who couldn’t get through even a day or two, and yet even after several days I heard no change. The seasons turned, and winter came again. You must know that your knighting ceremony is right around the corner.”
“...Yes.”
“When I heard that Irene had taken you as her partner for the ball, I found myself laughing. It felt like she had finally found someone. Like that tightly shut heart might finally be opening, even a little. Just the thought that she might not follow in my footsteps filled my chest so completely I could hardly breathe. I only realized then how hope—that she might not walk the same road I did—could make a person’s heart tremble like this.”
He was not Iron Blood.
Maybe everyone in this world had been seeing him wrong all along.
If he truly held Iron Blood within him, then iron itself had to be softer than anything else.
He was a father. More than anyone else, he suited that name—a father I had never been able to have.
Meeting those chillingly bright blue eyes, I let out a heavy breath.
Ropena, and Sir Chris too. Everyone who had stood beside Irene had, in the end, been a connection he had arranged for her.
And yet Irene had still met a tragedy, hadn’t she? The owner of Iron Blood, the woman who had not lost her head on that ice-cold guillotine?
“...I’ve told you all this, but my attitude toward Irene won’t change.”
The duke smiled bitterly. So bitterly that it seemed it would leave a sour taste in the mouth of anyone watching him.
“I am Iron Blood. I can’t show anyone a soft side. Even if that someone is my own child, I must serve only the Empire as the Empire’s shield. So I won’t change. Even if Irene resents me, even if she nurses that grudge and curses me until the day I die. I have to remain Garot Yuris.”
“...Your Grace.”
“In truth, when I asked if you would become captain of the knight order earlier, I was hoping for an answer from someone else, not you. How could I not know that your talent surpasses the Crown Prince’s? I am a knight too, after all. I don’t want to waste your talent, though this may sound terribly selfish to you right now. But the only person I can ask is you.”
The reason this room felt so dark, I thought, was perhaps because he had locked himself inside the darkness of his own making.
So that he would not have to imitate light.
The windows had been removed, and the few that remained were hidden behind densely packed trees, cutting off the sun. The whole place felt like a portrait of Garot Yuris himself.
He hid his feelings beneath the names Iron Blood and the shield of the Empire.
A place where even a father could not treat his child gently, a man wearing a steel mask thicker than the one Irene herself had worn. I stared at him wordlessly.
Until his mouth opened, and a calm voice finally reached me.
“I’m asking you to make sure Irene doesn’t become like me.”
The corners of his mouth curved gently as he made that request, asking me to keep her from becoming like him.
But his eyes were not smiling. The look in them was so weighed down by his tangled feelings that, if anything, it seemed as though he might be crying.
“...Understood.”
I lowered my head.
It was something I had already resolved to do, a decision that would not change from the moment I drew my sword for her.
Even now, and in the future too. I would be her bodyguard knight.
The duke’s expression as he looked at me was surprisingly relieved.
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