The Knighthood Ceremony (2)
The Crown Prince. The moment I heard the name, my brows drew together.
And yet the thought came to me that perhaps I could make use of this opportunity after all. If I handled him well now, before the heroine even appeared, and made him favorable toward Irene...
Then maybe, no matter how cleverly the heroine won him over in the future, I could still keep the damage from ever reaching Irene.
Of course, it was a little hard to act graciously toward a man who would one day turn against her and, in the end, cut her down with his own sword. But there was no helping it. If something could be used, I had to use it to the fullest; if something could be tried, then I had to try it.
In the end, wasn’t the imperial family a power even the Yuris could do nothing about? We couldn’t afford open hostility. If that was the case, it would be better to make them favor us instead.
Yet Irene’s expression remained far from pleasant. Whatever was bothering her, it was clear enough in the faint crease between her brows and the displeasure beneath her gaze as she stared at me.
Had things already gone badly between her and the Crown Prince? If not, then perhaps the problem was the Crown Prince himself.
I turned over a dozen possibilities in my head, but it wasn’t until Irene finally spoke that I understood what had her worried.
“...The Crown Prince has taken an interest in you. You’ve handled two incidents tied to dark mages all by yourself, after all. The dark mage you caught personally has already been sent to the imperial palace, and the court mages confirmed that black magic was involved in this troll as well.”
After holding my gaze for a moment, Irene went on.
“From the imperial family’s perspective, you may well look like a hero. A knight capable of defeating a dark mage alone is not something you find often in this world.”
“You flatter me.”
A hero? That was nonsense.
From the start, I had never wanted some grand, world-saving purpose. I had only wanted to... protect Irene.
Embarrassed to say that aloud to her face, I merely gave one shoulder a small shrug, but Irene shook her head and spoke again.
“It’s not flattery. Dark mages are enemies of the empire. The reason your knighthood ceremony is being held on such a grand scale is because of what you’ve accomplished. So many people are watching you. Perhaps... some even expect the balance among the five noble families to break.”
“Surely not. The name of the five families isn’t something so light that it could be broken so easily.”
“...Unless the Roman family is connected to dark mages. Then it might be possible.”
At the mention of dark mages, Irene’s expression darkened. The idea that Roman might be involved with them... to be honest, for now it was still nothing more than a possibility.
And yet even a possibility was a heavy blow for Roman. If they truly were involved with dark mages... then perhaps they would have tried to avoid a situation like this altogether. Still, as things stood, it was impossible to judge too hastily.
With Adel still unable to open his eyes, a full investigation into Roman would only be possible after he woke. But even now, it seemed she still couldn’t let go of her suspicions.
As she murmured the name Roman under her breath, a faint trace of disgust surfaced on her face.
“Do you suspect Roman?”
“Strictly speaking, I suspect every one of the five noble families except Yuris.”
She really did seem to resemble her father in that regard.
What I couldn’t understand was why the duke and she suspected all the other families.
To be honest, in this situation, aside from Roman, none of the other families had shown much movement at all.
A thought flashed through my mind, and I let out a dry laugh.
They aren’t moving. Perhaps that is the blind spot.
“Don’t tell me it’s because they haven’t shown any movement?”
“...Yes. Strange, isn’t it? The empire’s public enemy, a dark mage, openly appeared at an event hosted by the five noble families. And even after a dark mage turned up within Yuris territory, neither Kilrog, Medib, Roman, nor Hatan showed any real response.”
“Certainly. Aside from the imperial family sending in the knight order, things have been unusually quiet.”
My eyes narrowed.
As the thoughts in my head tangled together, they eventually settled on the words five noble families.
I couldn’t say for certain what Hatan was doing. The shadow of the empire—when it came to intelligence gathering and espionage, no one could know exactly what that family was up to except the head of Hatan himself.
But Roman, Medib, and Kilrog were different, weren’t they? Especially Kilrog. They should have moved already.
Kilrog was the empire’s eyes; they were the ones who should have sensed and responded first to every threat approaching the empire.
So why had they not moved yet?
Perhaps sensing the direction of my thoughts, Irene, who had been watching me quietly, opened her mouth at last.
“I heard that Kilrog will move soon, but even taking that into account, this whole situation feels off. And in times like this, the one you have to be most careful of is...”
When that slender finger pointed at me, I looked back at her and gave a faint smile.
“Me.”
“...Yes. You’re the one who needs to be most careful right now. If the five families are connected to the dark mages, they might decide to deal with the biggest eyesore among us first.”
“......”
Eyesore. Maybe I did look like one to them.
If I were a dark mage, would I like someone like me? Honestly, I wouldn’t.
And yet they wouldn’t target me immediately. More likely than not, they’d try to coax me over instead.
I thought that perhaps, sometime soon, there would be a day when we met for reasons other than fighting.
If that day came, then maybe my position would finally be decided.
I looked at Irene. Her white hair flowed down in soft lengths, and her blue eyes sparkled against the languid calm of her face.
When I first saw her, it had only seemed as though she were wearing a mask.
But now, emotions lived and breathed one by one across that pale face. She smiled, sometimes she cried, and sometimes she got angry too.
I still wasn’t sure whether that had changed because she met me, but if I were honest, I did want to watch those expressions a little longer.
For now, it was nothing more than my own selfishness.
But would it still be selfishness later on? There had to be a limit to how long I could keep suppressing a heart that kept growing without my permission.
If affection and pity turned into love, then...
I gave a bitter smile.
For now, all I could do was hide it. I smoothed the corners of my mouth into the gentle smile I always wore.
“I’m fine.”
It was enough that someone cared whether I was all right.
I had long since become numb enough that I’d erased concern for myself on my own.
It would be fine if I were hurt. Fine if I crumbled. Even if I ended up broken beyond repair, unable to so much as make a sound and reduced to crawling on the ground...
All I wanted was for the people I cherished to remain safe.
And so I worried. Reflected in my green eyes was only Irene.
The fact that the dark mages considered me important meant that, in the end, it would affect Irene too.
If I refused their attempt to win me over, and they turned their attention to Irene instead...
A cold wind swept in and wrapped itself around us.
The damp wind was mixed with snow, as always, and I frowned beneath the breath of that lonely season.
Perhaps sensing the worry in me, Irene looked at me and spoke softly.
“I’m fine too.”
“...I’m not fine with it.”
A dark mage was not an opponent even a Master like the Crown Prince could challenge easily.
Hadn’t even the imperial knight commander, also a Master, died? I was only an Expert.
It felt absurd to attach the word only to the Expert realm, but that was reality.
I closed my eyes for a moment, then opened them again and let out a heavy breath.
Regret. That word always tormented me. My hand stung all of a sudden.
That same hand had once abused itself after losing someone. It was fine now, but the burn scar I had earned then seemed to flash before my eyes.
It’ll be okay. This time will be different.
I kept muttering it to myself in an effort to steady my heart, but nothing changed.
My vision blurred. In the haze, only one blue light remained clear.
Always that light I found myself chasing with my eyes. A voice slipped into my ear, and I lifted my dazed gaze toward the front again.
“Evan.”
Yes, my lady. I answered inwardly. Yet somehow no voice came from my lips, which had parted only slightly.
I pressed my mouth shut against the breath rising to my throat and searched for Irene in the slightly clearer sight before me.
As always, warmth flowed in the eyes that looked back at me.
“I trust you.”
“......”
“You’re my knight, after all.”
I lowered my head. Then I laughed.
The laughter slipped out before I could stop it, and with my head still bowed I laughed down at the floor.
There was a saying that no one could ever truly define the human heart.
Only a moment ago I’d felt so suffocated, and now a single sentence had loosened everything. It was ridiculous.
Trust.
That one word made a person feel so strangely ticklish.
When I lifted my head again, Irene was no longer looking at me.
She had simply turned her face toward the window.
But the tips of her ears had turned a little red, and that made me snort with laughter again.
“It seems you’re rather shy.”
“...About what?”
“No reason. I just felt like saying it.”
Breathing no longer felt difficult, and the world before me was no longer blurred.
The wind didn’t feel cold anymore, and the snow falling from the sky no longer looked dull.
It was clear. White light poured down from a sky free of even a single cloud and struck the snow, sparkling.
I watched it for a while before opening my mouth again.
“Soon, it’ll probably be spring.”
“...That’s right.”
“And then summer again, autumn, winter. Snow will fall once more. And spring will come again.”
Irene, who had been looking out the window, turned her gaze to me.
But I kept looking outside as I continued.
“I’ll protect you. Until time passes and the day comes when you no longer like me and cast me out. So that when the seasons turn again, you can keep watching this snow.”
Thinking about it, Irene had always been there for my firsts.
Being wished a happy birthday, being worried over.
And the person who trusted me, the person who smiled at me.
Even the moment when I looked at my first snowfall in a way I never had before, and this moment now.
Wasn’t it said that when someone trusted you, you should repay that trust? It was a world I would someday return to.
I might go back to the world where I had once lived and one day forget her, but at least for now...
“I am your knight.”
I was Irene’s bodyguard knight.
At that, Irene’s pupils wavered.
Whether she was surprised, or whether my words had simply caught her off guard, I couldn’t tell.
Her lips parted as though she had something to say, then pressed shut again, and those blue eyes turned to me.
No longer wavering. No longer hesitating.
Even if both hands gripping my sword were shaking, my heart would not waver.
There was no longer any unease in my smiling face. Wasn’t that enough?
The dark mages hadn’t come for me yet, and there was still plenty of time before Jeol-myeol properly revealed itself.
It felt as though my heart had become much lighter. Now I thought that perhaps I really could stop hesitating, at least a little.
So I laughed. Softly, so softly that no one would notice unless they looked closely.
The corners of my mouth, lifted just slightly, no longer trembled.
#
After that, most of the things Irene and I talked about concerned the knighthood ceremony.
Since the most important part was that the Crown Prince would be attending, she explained the basic formalities, the order of proceedings, and what I was supposed to do.
Before I knew it, time had slipped by, and the scenery outside the window had begun to darken into red.
“I think that’s enough about the knighthood ceremony. You won’t make a mistake, will you?”
“As if.”
Hadn’t I heard it enough times for my ears to go raw? If I messed up now, I’d be an idiot.
Still, maybe I should practice once or twice.
If I made a mistake in front of so many people, it wouldn’t just make me look bad; it would embarrass others too.
Once I put the knighthood ceremony out of my mind, the next thought that rose up was, as expected, Adel Roman.
“By the way, is Sir Roman all right?”
At the mention of Adel, her expression darkened again, but after clicking her tongue once, she nodded.
“He should wake up soon. He’ll probably come to by the time your knighthood ceremony is over. After that, an investigation into the Roman family will begin, so things are likely to get very busy.”
As she said that things would get busy, Irene let out a sigh and took another sip of tea.
Surely this whole situation was only making her feel uneasy.
Not only did she have to touch one of the five noble families, Roman, but there was also the matter of dark mages being involved. If even the smallest mistake was made, it could spiral into a major disaster.
Would she be staying up all night again? Watching the shadows gathering beneath Irene’s eyes, I finally spoke.
“Then you’d better rest early tonight. You’re going to be busy soon enough, and I’d really rather not see you collapse again like last time.”
“...I think so too. It’d be better to rest while we still have the time. You should go in early as well. You didn’t look well earlier, so don’t come out at dawn to train again for no reason.”
Her words stabbed me straight through, and I gave one shoulder a small shrug before rising to my feet.
“Then I’ll be going.”
Perhaps because I’d been thinking so much, I felt more tired than usual.
Maybe I would actually sleep a little tonight.
As the thought that the bed might feel especially soft now that some of my worries had eased made my body grow languid, I dipped my head toward Irene once more, and she looked back at me before speaking quietly.
“Good night.”
At that, I paused for a moment, then smiled faintly and answered.
“...Good dreams to you too, my lady.”
Then the door closed. I leaned against it for a moment in the settling silence, before finally pushing myself onward with a long breath.
Once the knighthood ceremony was over, things would probably get rather busy. For tonight, it seemed best to rest a little.
#
Darkness fell. Roman—the family born of swords, the family said to die with sword in hand—was cloaked in shadow.
Within the thorny vines that rose like blades, a silhouette began to emerge.
Purple, an darkness that called death to mind, tapped against the window, and then, as if by magic, the glass began to open.
“...You’ve come.”
As a voice rose from the pitch-black darkness, the shadow that had slipped in through the window slowly began to take shape.
Sharp claws. Skin so white it might have belonged to a corpse.
On its crushed nose and hollow eyes, purple flames burned fiercely.
At a glance it looked human, but in truth it was the furthest thing from one.
When that mouth finally opened, the shadows spread around them began to tremble slowly.
“Gikhalisa du Ainiho Rehu Aveom.”
“When Jeol-myeol descends, darkness shall guard us.”
“Dubesa ni Ainiho Def Calbenta.”
“At the beginning of the end, darkness shall punish them.”
As the corpse-still figure spoke, the young man standing before it answered, and only then did the pale one give a satisfied nod. The trembling shadow settled into silence.
The night shadow touched the darkness, only to be swallowed by an even deeper blackness as the moonlight slowly began to fade.
Purple flashed.
It was not the flame pouring from the pale figure’s hand.
It was the young man standing stiffly in the darkness whose eyes were purple.
That name belonged to the Roman heir, successor to the sword.
Adel Roman, who should have been nothing but a shattered body unable to move, was moving more lightly than ever before.
Reflected in those hollow eyes was a purple deeper than anything else. At last, those rippling purple eyes turned downward.
He bent one knee. The tip of his sword touched the ground, and the pose Adel Roman took looked almost like the posture of a knight being dubbed.
And when he bowed his head...
Whoosh—
Purple hellfire blazed through the air and flowed from the pale figure’s hand, then plunged toward Adel’s head.
His body split and cracked, as though he were a tree burning from within, and violet light spilled out from the fissures.
Then, at last, delight rose in those empty eyes.
A purple gaze gleamed alone in the darkness. Satisfaction at the power now coursing through him...
No longer was the emperor the one to whom he pledged loyalty.
The glory he would offer would not be directed toward Evangelium.
Only the darkness lurking all around him was what now made him feel at ease.
Adel Roman lowered his head in silence. The power rising in his heart made his whole body tremble.
But he endured it. He had to endure it now. At least until the moon turned red, he had to keep his head bowed.
When the image of one knight who had captured the troll flashed through his mind, Adel twisted the corner of his mouth.
If there was anyone who would become the greatest threat, wasn’t it that man?
Soon, his blade would point at him.
No.
Perhaps every blade of Roman would point at him.
Crawling into bed, Adel quietly closed his eyes. For now, it was time to play the role of a frail invalid.
There wasn’t much time left before the name Jeol-myeol spread across the world, so there was no need to move first.
When Adel was finally left alone in the empty room, the moon that had been hidden by darkness began to illuminate everything around it.
Yet why did the shadows of reeds swaying in the wind look so ominous?
The frigid winter wind, with no more snow falling to soften it, howled more ferociously than ever.
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