Born at the Wrong Time (2)
—Ring! Ring! Riiiing!
“…….”
I tear at the lute strings.
With the sun fallen and darkness swallowing the heart of the Empire, silence reigned absolute. The population here was dense — dense enough that the tightly packed residential districts seemed to prove it just by existing. Within those districts, even the smallest cry could carry clear across to the farthest block. Which meant that if a man sat around recklessly plucking at an instrument's strings like this, it was obvious as day that it would draw attention — some complaint filed by a neighbor, or the idle curiosity of any number of strangers.
Even the heart of the city, however, had its refuges. Its parks. Nestled in the back of one such park, using the trees as a wall to hide his body, it really wasn't so difficult to stay unseen.
“Is this quiet enough?”
He asked the empty air, and an answer came back. A voice no ordinary ear could hear — a signal, more likely, than any sound. Vaguely, he could tell.
“Whew.”
A deep breath. Keeping one's composure was important. Lose your grip on your own mind, and before you knew it your chest would tighten and your throat would choke shut. The body would sag under sudden fatigue, the mind would cloud over at once. It wasn't merely that focus slipped and the heart grew tangled — that in itself was nothing much. The truly dangerous thing was when consciousness took a running leap straight into the bottomless pit of despair. Negative thoughts, once conjured and once they caught hold of you, spread without beginning and without end.
“Whew!”
He plucked at the strings. He had no particular intention of playing anything. Not yet. He simply dragged one string over and over, at the same steady strength — plucking, plucking, plucking again — until even the awareness that he had sunk into something, that he had been absorbed at all, grew faint, and the moment came when he forgot himself entirely.
Only then did he play the piece his hands knew by heart.
The sound did not carry. He had already taken measures to see that the music didn't spread. It wasn't magic. He had no talent for that sort of thing.
“…….”
He kept playing, mind emptied of everything, and before long the pitch-black sky began slowly to pale. The stars that had crowded it thick as embroidery faded away one by one, and even the radiant full moon began quietly to withdraw its presence.
“…There'll be no sleeping now.”
He knew he'd regret it, yet sleep would not come. No — sleep could not come. Because if he slept, tomorrow would arrive. The terror of tomorrow drawing near. A new day beginning. All of it wound around his body like a curse, like a noose.
And tomorrow was the day of the celebration party at the Imperial Palace. For the child of the Hero and the Saintess, it was not a place one could so easily excuse oneself from — not without a reason that would hold up.
“A justification,” he murmured to himself. “Of course. It always comes down to justification.”
A life entangled in politics since childhood. In that sense, Cariel considered his life finished, politically speaking. A creature like an insect pressed dead between the pages of a gilded book — taxidermied for display. Or a page scorched by flame, its letters and pictures burned past all recognition. That was his past, and that was his present.
“…….”
His fingertips ached numbly. But worse than this pain was the reality waiting for him tomorrow — no, today, now that dawn had crept up on him.
“Why do I even live like this.”
The absurdity of it pulled a hollow laugh out of him. He couldn't even let it out fully — he smothered it, muffled it…. Wasn't this, in the end, exactly what a rat looked like, cowering in its hole in the wall?
“That's enough for now. Thank you.”
The silence that had held even the insects' song broke, and soon a scatter of quiet noises began needling his ears from all directions. Masking his presence entirely, he slipped out of the park, crossed from rooftop to rooftop, and quietly returned to the family estate.
“Young master.”
“…….”
The moment he set foot back over the wall, a man carrying a torch approached, as if he'd been waiting for precisely this.
“I would ask that you keep your nightly wanderings within reason. You are well aware, are you not? It does nothing good for your reputation.”
“…Noted.”
He answered carelessly, climbed the wall, and let himself into his room through the window. The familiar, stifling space squeezed his chest at once, and his heart began to sting.
“A prison,” he thought. What was it a prison for?
He lay there, eyes open, awaiting the dawn. And so another hellish day began.
“Entering now — First Seat of the Nine Heroes! The Final Hero! Commander of the Empire's First Knight Order, the Golden Dragon Knights, wielder of the title Golden Sword Saint — Lueld Brendiar! And following him, the pillar of the Nine Heroes! The Saintess who walks ahead of all! The Rite of Radiance! The Holy Mother of Salvation — Ermina Brendiar!”
Splendid. Utterly splendid.
Black and white. Less a dress than a full ceremonial robe that wrapped her from head to toe — white cloth trimmed in gold thread. At a glance it seemed modest, but in truth it was the product of an astronomical budget and a matching eye for design, a garment that managed, somehow, to sacrifice nothing in the way of function. And against it, that jet-black hair. Braided and swept up, her beauty was such that even her own son could recognize its excellence. Even with pregnancy swelling her belly unmistakably, there was something about her that seemed, if anything, nobler still.
In the resplendent ballroom, in that vast hall where not a single shadow found purchase, her beauty alone blazed. Every gesture was dignified, elevated, sublime. She was exactly what one meant by the words Saintess — no, Holy Mother.
And then, beside her — the man escorting her. A face worn smooth by every storm imaginable, yet with fine, elegant lines to it. He was well past thirty, and yet at a glance he looked barely into his twenties. His attire was formal as well, but in every respect the two of them were extremes. White-haired man, black-haired beauty — the contrast. Yet only in the colors of their clothing were they the exact opposite.
Insisting on knightly dress all the way out here could not have been his own idea. The insufferable mother must have delivered a long sermon — that his usual easy, familiar manner lacked dignity, that restraint and decorum demanded it, or words to that effect. Even so, if he dressed himself properly, kept his mouth shut, and moderated his expressions, he was a striking figure of a man indeed.
…Seen from this far away, they looked like people from another world entirely.
“What a picture-perfect couple.”
“I see them at every occasion, and yet somehow they only grow more youthful with each passing day.”
“Truly. What I wouldn't give.”
“Well, though, their success with children—”
“Ahem! Mind yourself — there are too many ears about.”
“Oh dear, oh dear! What a vulgar slip of the tongue!”
That was the pattern. Unable to claw at the two of them, they bared their claws at the nearest available target instead. If his father and mother cared to listen, they could have heard every word of it — and more. The two of them had presence enough for that.
But Cariel paid it no mind. If he began answering every slight one by one, he would have to sweep away half the nobility in the room. Responding to trash like that individually? It was absurd on its face. …Beneath the authority and dignity of a Great Hero.
“Still, a blessed announcement will reach us before long, I'm sure.”
“One can only hope a rightful heir will finally be born to them.”
“No doubt the child due this time will be one worthy of the couple's renown — a noble, magnificent child, yes?”
And gods, but these conversations lodged themselves in the ear with an almost unnatural ease.
“…….”
From a shadowed corner of the hall, doing his best to stay out of the couple's line of sight, Cariel drifted toward the terrace. His plan was to while away a reasonable stretch of time, make his appearance before the Emperor, and slip out. If he simply vanished without a word, he could be dismissed as a fool who couldn't even manage a proper greeting — and given that he had come at all, the basics had to be observed.
“So you were here after all.”
After all?
He turned his head only slightly, and a striking red-haired girl stepped into view. A scarlet dress, lavish ornaments, a brilliance that outshone every light in the room. The age at which a woman — at which a girl — gave off her brightest radiance.
But. …To Cariel, that glaring, garish redness symbolized another curse entirely.
“…….”
He swallowed the sigh rising in his throat and offered a measured bow. “It has been a while, Your Highness the Princess.”
“We crossed paths at the Academy only yesterday, if I recall. 'A while' is, I think, a stretch.”
“…….”
They had crossed once by the exam results board, true. He hadn't so much as acknowledged her then. Why feel the need to point it out now? Her blue eyes passed through him without ceremony. And yet they felt savage — like a hawk's, closing in on a weakness. No — she bore no hostility, no malice. It was simply that her very existence radiated an overwhelming pressure. And buffeted by it, eaten hollow by inferiority, Cariel had long since passed the point where he could even manage envy. All that was left was to gnaw on his own helplessness.
“Tenth in the whole school. I would call that commendable, for you.”
“…You flatter me, Your Highness.”
“But it will tarnish the glory of Hero Lueld and Saintess Ermina. You were, after all, the sole child of the two of them.”
“…….”
You were. Soon, no longer. He was waiting for that moment, feverishly, with all his heart.
“I would wish for you to achieve at least second place, if not the top. You are more than capable. Why do you refuse to show your talent?”
Is this… woman insane? Forty different curses detonated inside him at once — but then, what enemy was new? He ground down on the sound of steel scraping steel that only he could hear, and answered calmly. “You mean to say that so long as I rank below you, it is no trouble at all?”
“…….”
The person before him was the genius who had monopolized every blessing the world had to offer, alone and unchallenged. A singular being in the truest sense. In every field she had distinguished herself, proclaiming to the whole wide world that she was the Heir of the Hero Emperor. And she too — …was the descendant of the same two Heroes as Cariel himself.
“It does not matter if you surpass me. So long as the ability is proven.”
Arrogance so naked it bordered on farce.
“…Isn't that a speech better saved for the ones trailing at your heels, Your Highness?”
And. Besides himself and her. There were, in fact, quite a few descendants of the Hero. Among them, Cariel was the defective one. If his only yardstick had been the person standing before him now… …he would never have been treated as such vermin.
That one, he could not beat. Once, just once, he had briefly entertained the thought of wanting to become like her. But their birth was different. Their status, their innate gifts. The expectations that came flooding toward her. Even the smallest scraps of attention.
“…Haah.”
For a moment he almost mistook it — the small sigh. Was it his own, escaping his lips? Such carelessness, such an unguarded lapse, was something she would never allow herself. Only then did Cariel look at her face a little more closely.
“Cariel. You look utterly worn through.”
“…….”
“The tales of your impure wanderings at night reach these ears through one channel or another.”
How did that even reach a person like her? Which means everyone worth the name already knows?
“Keep your body clean and chaste. A man must not abuse his flesh, any more than any other.”
“…….”
What in the world is this nonsense now? Ah — so that was how she chose to read it. Meaning: that Cariel, like any common wastrel, had become addicted to nights of pleasure. That was her interpretation.
“What concern is any of that of yours, Your Highness?”
“Cariel. You will one day become a pillar of this Empire. You seem to be wandering a little at present, but time will resolve even that.”
…….
Who decided that? On whose authority? What, exactly, is time supposed to resolve?
“The recklessness of youth is a passing thing in the end. Like petals carried off by the flowing river, it is merely a fond, faint memory.”
“…….”
“To tend one's memories beautifully — is that not a fine gift the young may send ahead to their future selves?”
“…If anyone were listening, they might take Your Highness and myself for some ten years apart in age.”
And this creature is my age. This creature is a child of the Hero and the Hero Emperor's blood, same as me. Is this what being the Emperor's bloodline does? Or did I simply inherit nothing but inferior seed and blood?
“Cariel. You are, truly—”
Just then, the ballroom began to stir with commotion.
“…Ha. Let us end our little chat here.”
A chat.This counted as pleasant conversation? He was going to lose his mind.
“Come along. I sympathize completely with your wish to leave this place. But surely at least His Majesty deserves your greeting, does he not?”
“…And I would have any choice in the matter?”
She was, if anything, hastening his exit for him. What reason could there possibly be to refuse? He followed quietly behind her.
And then he was shoved forward — into the stares of people he had wanted, more than anything, never to meet.
Of course. Of course it would be this bad. He wanted to tear this complacent brain of his — the one that had assumed he could escape quickly — to shreds. Because there, waiting, were those beings. Just as with the Princess. The descendants of the same Hero as Cariel. The heirs of a great Hero and a great Saintess, whose extraordinary gifts rang out across the entire world.
“There you are, Cariel! Come here, quickly. It's been far too long since I've laid eyes on you!”
And — beauty that eclipsed even the most opulent gold-embroidered garments. A man like a carved statue, red-haired and golden-eyed, and beside him a woman with pale blue hair and black eyes.
“Truly, I told you to come visit far more often than this.”
The Hero Emperor and Empress Melineos. The man who had gone from Hero to Emperor. The woman who had risen from archmage to Empress. And beyond them, the other Nine Heroes of the Empire, his own parents included.
They planned this.
His stomach churned. And in his skull — screech, shriiiek! — the sound of steel on steel, the one he hated most, raked long and loud across his mind.