No Escape from the Past
Without death. Without partiality. Without incident. Without malice.
Count Louis Bellaon.
Rooted in the Duchy of Demacia, he was the head of an ordinary count’s house and a father to one son and one daughter.
The Bellaon family was no house of renown, yet it had weathered the years without major storms and never needed to beg favors of others—nor suffered others begging of it.
On the contrary, Count Louis enjoyed an excellent reputation abroad; even the commoners of the neighboring lands occasionally spoke well of him.
His only son’s reputation, too, had not been bad.
That was thanks to how faithfully the boy had lived by the teaching that a noble’s fundamental virtue was knowing how to conceal the truth and make use of lies.
The Count had believed it was his own merit for not raising the boy wickedly.
And because of that merit, he had considered it a glory when his son became one of the final candidates in the Third Northern Grand Duchess’s marriage tournament.
He had even begun to hope that the Bellaon Count house, riding the coattails of the Winterfell Grand Ducal house, might greet a radiant future.
That is, until the son who had set out returned at a time that made no sense.
“…Father!”
Kyle Bellaon.
The son who had left carrying his father’s wish that he become the hope of the family had come home.
In a wretched state. In a ragged state.
He had returned even though the marriage tournament was not yet over.
And that son pleaded with him.
“There was already a fiancée…! S-so I just forfeited and came back. I’m sorry I couldn’t live up to your expectations…!”
“…….”
Count Louis looked at his son’s ashen face.
The look in those eyes was so much like a thunderous rebuke that Kyle could not even meet it.
And when that father wordlessly drew out a letter and flung it before him, Kyle realized the situation was flowing in the opposite direction of his hopes.
“F-Father…? What is this…?”
“Read it. Then answer me. Whether every word written there is true.”
“Pardon…?”
Kyle hastily snatched up the letter and began to read.
A moment later.
“I-it’s a lie—!! A pure red lie meant to smear me—!”
Kyle had to deny it.
The contents of the letter left him no choice.
The letter that held the ugly truth was a denial of the hardship he had endured while fleeing from that very truth.
And his father had always said it: those who conceal the truth and skillfully employ falsehoods are the ones who rise in the world.
“A lie? A smear? Is that how I taught you?”
“Y-yes?”
“I mean, do you mean to hide the truth with a lie that flimsy? And dare you try to mock your own father?”
“F-Father—! How could I ever—!”
“Shut that snout of yours—! I thought I had raised you well, yet only now do I realize how foolish that pride was—and do you have any idea how bitterly that wounds me—!”
Kyle’s entire body trembled like a terrified puppy.
His father’s enraged face terrified him.
The mansion he had believed would embrace him began, in an instant, to feel like a pit of hellfire.
“I will ask one last time. The contents of that letter. Truth, or falsehood. Answer carefully.”
Faced with a father who already seemed certain of what the letter said, Kyle could only recall the proverb: there is no sanctuary in the place to which one flees.
“I… it’s the truth….”
A short while later.
“Someone. Break that wretch’s legs and throw him into a horse-drawn prison cart. I will drive it myself to Winterfell Grand Duke’s Castle.”
With the sound of a fugitive’s knees shattering, a scream fit to make one faint rang out.
Crack!
“Aaaargh—!!”
In the mansion where shouts of joy should have resounded, in the nest to which he had desperately fled, only a wretched, discordant scream echoed.
And that scream, locked behind iron bars, began its journey back to the place where it was meant to ring.
Having realized he could not flee unscathed from the past, the fugitive was escorted back to the place he belonged.
Having realized that no peace could await him at the end of his flight.
At the hour when the fugitive’s scream rang out.
Lumiang and Gelwood stood locked in confrontation.
A stark standoff continued between one who sought to drag out a vicious past and one who sought to cover up a foolish present.
“If you stop even now, I will devise measures so that His Grace the Grand Duke never learns of it. Please, Grand Duchess, consider this old man’s plea.”
Stop what, exactly?
How am I supposed to stop something I haven’t even started?
Is “stop” the only word you know how to say?
A man who should put the Winterfell Grand Ducal house first, a man who should put me first—and that’s all you can come up with?
If you knew the truth, if you knew what happened at the Academy, you should be cheering for those thugs’ downfall instead of trying to stop me!
“What about you? Are you even willing to obey my order not to interfere?! Can you settle the grudge I still can’t resolve—!!”
Lumiang’s venomous cry erupted once more.
In her fiercely narrowed eyes, an unresolved grudge—perhaps one that could never be resolved—swelled and churned.
Her pounding heart poured bitter resentment through her veins.
That resentment boiled until it evaporated her blood, and in the hollow left behind rose yet another grudge she could never harvest.
Three full years of mockery and violence she had endured.
Three full years of pain she had swallowed.
It was enough to drive anyone mad with injustice.
The thought of having to return to that day and “endure” once more filled Lumiang with such grief and wretchedness that she could hardly bear it.
“I will seek out a legal means to settle Your Grace’s grudge.”
A legal means?
“Don’t make me laugh! If that kind of method could settle it, I never would have started in the first place—!!”
What was done to me wasn’t even legal—how is a legal method supposed to resolve the grudge!
It was irrational verbal abuse and assault—how do you punish that with rational means!
Even Father said so when he was purging the demi-human tribes!
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth!
Tribes that indiscriminately slaughtered the people had to have their bloodlines wiped out indiscriminately!
“I will also arrange private measures so that you may settle the grudge. Therefore, please stop any further desecration of the family’s traditions. If His Grace the Grand Duke learns of this, severe reprimand will surely follow.”
At Gelwood’s earnest plea, Lumiang’s face took on an expression of sighing resignation.
Or perhaps of hollow emptiness.
Desecration.
That empty, absurd word drained the resentment that had filled her to the brim.
Her clenched fists loosened.
So the humiliation I was forced to witness in those days wasn’t a desecration?
Is the family’s tradition more important than the hell that made my legs go weak?
It was a truly vicious and stinging thing to say, and because of it the vicious light in Lumiang’s eyes finally faded.
“If I have wounded your heart, I apologize. Yet please also understand my feelings—I can no longer simply watch Your Grace’s footsteps. Those steps are leading you back into hell once more; how could I stand by and watch?”
Ha.
Haha.
Hahaha.
Funny. Really funny.
Even Gelwood, always so solemn, has a sense of humor?
Steps meant to escape hell are supposedly heading toward hell?
I never knew you had a talent for saying such nonsense so smoothly.
A bitter smile twisted Lumiang’s lips as she spoke.
“So what am I supposed to do now? Forgive Elden the way you arbitrarily forgave him?”
“…How could that be? I merely hope this marriage tournament reaches a conclusion befitting its renown and tradition—safely, without incident.”
“Without incident……?”
Lumiang drew out the ending of the word.
Then she smiled again—crookedly.
Musa without partiality means fair and just, free of private interest.
Musa without incident means free of any worry.
Musa without malice means free of wickedness.
Of those three meanings, not a single one suited or matched the conclusion of this marriage tournament, and the mismatch made her laugh.
If she wanted even one of those meanings to take part in the ending, there was only one way.
“Bring me Elden Raphelion.”
“Pardon…?”
“If you want that ‘safe’ conclusion you keep talking about, there’s only one method. Give Elden back. Then I’ll stop.”
“Pardon…?”
Gelwood’s face filled with consternation.
He was the one who had granted Elden release in exchange for testimony about the past, for keeping secret the blemish that had marred the fair reputation of the marriage tournament, and for handing over every piece of evidence of that blemish.
He had had no choice.
The evidence Elden brought and the wound on his cheek were enough to open not a mere blemish but a great crack in the tournament’s renown.
Moreover, Elden had offered a sincere apology to the Grand Duchess and sworn to live henceforth with that resolve always in mind.
Gelwood could no longer detain him after his forfeit, and so he had offered release as the price.
With a face full of bitter grief, he lowered his head.
“…I am sorry, but the agreement cannot be undone. Please regard it as His Grace the Grand Duke’s command.”
Then he raised his head again.
And saw Lumiang smiling crookedly.
That smile gradually widened until it became laughter.
Soon Lumiang was clutching her belly and laughing, and Gelwood had to add bewilderment to the consternation and grief already on his face.
“Hahaha—!”
“W-why are you….”
He was afraid.
Even a man who had weathered every storm and grown numb to fear found Lumiang’s laughter terrifying, for it held something that could not be put into words.
A moment later, Lumiang wiped the droplets from the corners of her eyes and stopped laughing.
“Gelwood.”
“Yes.”
Lumiang Winterfell.
Gelwood had witnessed her past and present from close at hand, yet today it felt as if an entirely different person stood before him.
He had thought the Lumiang who had roughly torn Elden’s note in the Ever-Snow Garden and screamed aloud was merely a momentary rioter.
A momentary impulse.
But it seemed his worries had not been unfounded after all.
And so he was afraid, and the words that followed forced him to realize just how foolish his hope for a safe end to the marriage tournament had been.
“You arbitrarily sent away Elden Raphelion, who should have been the winner, and still hope this marriage tournament ends safely? I didn’t know you could make jokes.”
That night, at the hour when Elden set out for the party hall with Rachel.
Two letters departed—for the Kellid Ducal house and the Rospell Marquisate.
For Deron’s Kellid Ducal house.
For Blund’s Rospell Marquisate.
Letters carrying the same despair that had arrived at the Bellaon Count house were on their way.
And Lumiang, who had sent those letters, once again had no choice but to feel a deep regret.
For there was no one at the Raphelion Count house who could receive such a letter and thereby nullify Elden’s forfeit.
His parents were dead, and his mother had been a commoner orphan without a family of her own.
It almost felt absurdly as if the world itself were conspiring to aid his escape.
Moreover.
To Lumiang, who could not bear to face the empty place where Elden Raphelion should have stood, the marriage tournament no longer held any meaning at all.
Neither revenge nor liberation.
None of it.
And that same night, one more letter left the Grand Duke’s castle.
It was Gelwood’s urgent missive begging for the return of Logan, head of the Winterfell Grand Ducal house.