The Rain That Would Not Stop
Outside, even though it was broad daylight, it was pitch black.
The sun, fearing it would be soaked and extinguished, had retreated far behind the clouds, and the spot it left was filled with pouring rain.
Jeanne looked out the window at the fierce drumming of the rain.
“It should stop raining.”
Even in the summer rainy season, the downpour had lasted far longer than expected.
It was harvest time for the crops, but with rain like this, an entire year’s harvest would be ruined.
Despite her own miserable situation, Jeanne worried about the people of her kingdom.
Raindrops struck the window.
Like people who, in the midst of a horrific disaster, had found the one and only way out, or like those desperate souls whose last thread of survival was blocked and they could only beat their fists against it, the sound never ceased.
The noise created by the raindrops filled the entire room. It was due not only to the heavy rain but even more so to the fact that the room where Jeanne stayed was small.
The room, surrounded on all sides by gray brick walls, was far too cramped and desolate for a princess of a nation to call home.
Squeak.
The iron door opened with a groan, as if writhing in pain with its entire frame.
A man with strikingly bright green hair entered her room, far from the bleakness.
“Why are you here?”
“I am still… at least for now, not imprisoned in the royal quarters.”
“I cannot come and go as I please, and even here, without a moment’s rest, this place is watched day and night by soldiers. What else should I call it if not a prison?”
“The dungeon, you mean. In that case, there is no better place for the princess to be.”
Even now he dares to taunt me.
Jeanne swallowed the words she had been about to speak and stared at the loyal subject who had come to find her, Divian.
He could not have come merely to pay a visit.
Divian approached her and lowered his voice.
“Tomorrow, the coronation ceremony for Prince Antoine will take place. Do you know?”
“I know.”
“Then why are you sitting here doing nothing?”
Jeanne could not answer.
“You mean you simply intend to watch an infant barely three years old become the crown prince?”
The relentless gaze of Divian, who was interrogating her with such persistence, grew harsh, and Jeanne closed her eyes.
What fault did that young child have? The situation had simply forced his hand.
“Please become our king.”
Divian knelt before Jeanne and bowed his head with utmost sincerity.
To treat her as a royal rather than as a student was an act he had performed more often with her than any other, yet one that was extremely rare for him now.
“I cannot do that. If I raise an army, the people who suffer from the long war will be the ones sacrificed.”
“If Philippe VII remains king as he is now, the people will suffer even more.”
Six years ago, across the sea in neighboring Rotinzel, a letter had arrived.
To conquer the Blesk Empire, they required passage through Bluisol.
The letter contained only a few short words.
To attack the inland empire from the island nation of Rotinzel, they had no choice but to pass through the kingdom of Bluisol.
Of course, the king and ministers of Bluisol rejected the request from Rotinzel.
That was the beginning of a terrible war that had lasted six years.
Jeanne had become a hero in that war and earned the support of countless people.
But the crown prince was still the young prince Antoine, who could not yet speak clearly.
Merely because he was the eldest son.
Those who supported the youngest prince sought to remove the thorn in their side, the one who was Jeanne.
Thus, the responsibility for the war fell entirely on her shoulders.
“Everything is ready. All the princess needs to do is give the order.”
“But I… I cannot do it. I am sorry.”
Jeanne ultimately refused Divian’s plea.
The war had grown unbearable.
To stain her hands with the blood of enemies, or to witness the deaths of her own soldiers, she no longer wished to do either.
But now she was being told to wage war against her own people. It was absurd.
“Haa…”
Divian sighed deeply.
Once her mentor, he knew her well. Jeanne was a woman who could not be swayed from her stubbornness.
“Understood. I hope you remain in good health.”
Divian left with a forced smile, hiding his disappointment.
After the iron door closed again, in the room left alone, Jeanne looked once more out the window.
The day the sun would rise again felt impossibly far away.
***
In a summer when green filled every place the wind touched, Jeanne, the third princess of Bluisol, was born along with the unusually cool blue dawn air.
Her hair, a beautiful blue with a gray undertone like the royal seal of Bluisol, eyes that held the sea within them, and long eyelashes that seemed to have lingered in the light—all these marked her as a princess and a beauty worthy of admiration.
Some might think her life was one of riding in a diamond-encrusted carriage along a path of red velvet.
But her father was the king, and her mother had been a lady of the palace. The life created by one night of royal revelry had cost the mother her life at birth.
It was a birth no one had welcomed.
The half-royal blood was not an issue. After all, Philippe VII had no direct heirs, so all the siblings were half-royals.
But even among the half-blood, there was hierarchy.
The eldest, Louis, carried on the duke’s back; the second, Marie, was called the queen of the ballroom and resembled their mother, a bloom of beauty; the fourth, Jean, was gentle but weak; and the fifth, Charles, was clever yet greedy.
At the very bottom lay Jeanne.
“Always quiet and inconspicuous. You understand, don’t you?”
The wet nurse who raised her had often spoken thus, pretending it was advice.
But unfortunately, Jeanne was far too clever. Once she had seen something, she remembered it forever; if taught one thing, she learned ten.
In the palace, where what was seen or heard had to be forgotten and there were far more things one should not know than those one should, there was no place for a girl like her.
Jeanne preferred riding a horse and wielding a sword over embroidery.
Her friends were not the aristocratic youths of her age, but soldiers with whom she trained in the sword arena.
People thought it strange that she wore armor instead of dresses and held a sword rather than a teacup.
Only her mentor Divian and Fabian understood her.
“I shall become your Highness’s loyal subject. Therefore, you must become king.”
Divian had claimed the title of subject who wished for her to become king, changing from the one who had taught her to read.
Jeanne had thought it a jest, as he always made, and had smiled and nodded accordingly.
She only learned later, after a long time had passed, that it was no joke.
The war between Rotinzel and Bluisol erupted days before her eighteenth birthday.
The general sent to defend the nation from the enemy lost all his troops and was defeated. When King Philippe VII heard the news, he abandoned the capital and fled.
Left behind, Jeanne was cornered.
Yet she could not die, nor could she abandon the people, so she fought.
After countless battles, she became the commander of the Second Knight Order, the nation’s strongest military force, and eventually became like family with the knights who had once rejected her.
In war, death was an everyday occurrence.
The friend who had shared bread with her the night before often became a cold corpse by the next day.
Jeanne had endured years of war, and the loss of precious ones piled up in proportion to that time.
Yet why did she never grow accustomed to it?
The surviving Jeanne could neither smile when she thought of the dead comrades nor cry for fear of leaving the remaining ones alone.
***
The war ended.
It had been a defeat disguised as surrender.
The two demands of the victorious nation Rotinzel were…
Half of Bluisol’s territory. And…
The life of the princess who had tormented Rotinzel throughout the war.
Jeanne remembered the face of the man who had delivered this news to her father. It was a day she would never forget.
The day Jeanne returned to the kingdom having lost all her comrades in the war and then lost the one final person remaining with her.
The day Divian, who had fervently begged her to become king, was arrested for treason and hanged before the city gates.
The day she could only watch his corpse swaying helplessly in the wind from beyond the window, with her father ordering her to Rotinzel.
The cold gaze that had looked down upon her, kneeling and prostrated on the pale face.
“With just one life, you can save the nation. Is that not an honor?”
The faint smile on his lips when he spoke. It was too cruel an honor to bestow upon a daughter who had lost everything in the war.
With unsteady steps, Jeanne followed the escort’s guidance.
Thud.
A pebble struck her body, and no one stopped it.
As she moved toward the pyre, jeers rained down.
The soldiers bound Jeanne to a stake.
The executioner, masked, set fire to the pile of wood.
The flickering flames soared into the sky.
“Burn the witch!”
The voices of the people struck Jeanne’s ears.
This place was enemy territory, and everyone surrounding her bore resentment toward her.
“I wanted to meet death in my homeland.”
She wanted to mock herself for thinking that.
Did a homeland even exist for her?
Though she had claimed a sense of justice for the people, what she truly craved was a place to stand.
A place where she could remain, a place that felt like only the battlefield.
But the sanctuary found on the battlefield was like a dream that vanished in an instant.
Watching the dying before her eyes, she felt her helplessness. As the merciless assault of the enemy closed in, Jeanne sensed her limits.
More painful than the enemy’s sword was the sight of those she had caused to die in her place.
Now that she had lost everyone, perhaps this place was the only one prepared for her life.
Her clothes caught fire.
The faces of those who had died for her flashed before her eyes.
“Fabian, Diego, Nael, Ines… and Mathias.”
How many names she longed to call, yet only one remained that she could still speak.
The end of every life that had survived the war, returning from the mud, converged into one.
Despite fighting with their lives, they had failed to protect more. All their merits became sins in return.
Now it was her turn.
Jeanne wished that the end of all this catastrophe would be her own.
Her skin burned.
She had thought herself familiar with pain, yet being burned alive was different.
It was a horrific punishment to feel the agony fully and die slowly.
Jeanne’s tears fell.
She was furious. She was furious beyond measure.
More than the king’s betrayal was the weakness that had only ever received such blows.
The lost anger whispered to blame herself.
She had failed to protect the honor of all those who died in her place to save her. She had returned with someone else’s life, yet she had not even survived to the end.
“God… if I have a next life, then… when that time comes…”
Amid the raging flames, Jeanne raised her head.
The drifting ash fell on her cheeks like tears.
“Even if I become ashes myself, grant me the chance to protect everyone.”
The last sky she saw was stained black with smoke.
The flames enveloped her body.
Amid resentment and regret, Jeanne felt the end of her life.