I Stand in the Wilderness (2)
Even within the Academy, a student was not entirely without private spaces for personal use.
And for a high-ranking noble — practically imperial family, at that — being granted a chamber rivaling an entire classroom in size was no difficult matter at all.
Atop an intellectual space lined lavishly with fine furniture and provisions, a red-haired boy, his face flushed crimson as though draped in the Flame Demon, spat his rage into the empty air.
Then, all at once, he turned his black eyes toward one girl and closed the distance.
"Seras. Answer me this once. Why? What have you been dawdling over all this time?"
The boy had come right up to her face, trembling like a beast of prey forcing down its fury.
Prince Alesius.
A bloodline so noble even blue blood could scarcely approach it — golden blood, so to speak.
The current Hero Emperor was Emperor of the Berk Empire and head of the Enzul house. And yet even that mighty Enzul family's foundation had been precarious to the extreme in generations past: feuds and strife between kin, the dissonance born of them, and in succession civil wars both great and small. The authority of the imperial house had been a hair's breadth from sliding off a cliff. It was the current Hero Emperor who had stabilized that balance of power.
Nevertheless, if one were to point out one of the few flaws he carried, it was this — that he accepted no concubine of any kind apart from the Magic Empress Melineos. The Church loudly extolled it as perfectly wholesome and faithful to the duties of marriage. Thanks to that, his bloodline consisted of none but Imperial Princess Elhermina and Prince Alesius.
To the uninitiated it might look like nothing at all, but it meant a power vacuum could open at any moment.
And yet the reason the imperial house was still hymned as blessed by the gods — blessed by the Church itself — was that both princess and prince had been born with talent that surfaced only once in an age.
However.
If one dug into the details, the gap in that talent, the difference in the size of their vessels, grew only more pronounced.
Seras, drinking in his bold and handsome features with both eyes, returned his fierce glare — those eyes darker than her own — with a measured reply.
"I have no way of knowing what Your Highness is asking of me."
"Playing it that way is no fun! No fun at all!"
"Prince Alesius."
Seras spoke with a grave demeanor.
"The moment Her Highness the Princess declared her desire for the betrothal and revealed her intent to keep him at her side, everything we intended turned to foam. I ask that you accept it gracefully."
"Because my sister wishes it, I must simply tolerate it?! I, of all people! I, Alesius!"
"It is a decision made through the mouth of His Majesty the Emperor himself. So long as Cariel does not die, it cannot be overturned now."
"……."
Cool as her words sounded, the prince before her knew better than anyone how uncomfortable Seras truly was. It was simply that a fire had surged up in his chest — that he could not bear it — and so he had vented his irritation.
"…Damn it all."
"Have you calmed yourself?"
He waved a hand and said, "My apologies. I took my anger out on you for nothing."
"…Has any of this lasted only a day or two?"
"Say something, at least… Hah. Never mind."
He could blaze up like fire one moment, and the next turn calm and composed again. If anything, precisely because he never let things fester, he held few grudges and was honest about them, which made it not especially unpleasant to serve as his retainer.
A temperament that was merely gentle meant, in another sense, failing to display a ruler's majesty as one rightly should. For rulers and leaders — those who guide others — must be bold, and must possess the courage to advance at the very front of the column.
In that respect, Alesius still showed rash and clumsy edges, but he could well be judged to hold ample qualities befitting his station.
…The problem was this.
He was still young — and yet the Princess, hardly separated from him in age, was already treading the steps of a finished monarch.
As a monarch, she could be perfect. But no affection could ever attach to her. Above all, she lacked humanity. She fell silent even when anger was called for, and remained unmoved when joy was due. If anything—
Better someone like the prince standing here, so rich in the expression of feeling.
…Not that carelessly flaring up at everything in sight was any virtue either.
When he let his emotions out, it was usually one of two things. Either you were an enemy, or you were an ally. If an enemy, there was nothing to be careful of anyway, so he raged at will. If an ally, since they would walk to the end together regardless, he simply showed them a fitting measure of favor.
"That you were warned directly, Seras — one could read that as a warning aimed at me as well, no?"
"One could."
Let the pointless games end there. Now that I have decided to take you in, I will neither overlook nor tolerate such petty scheming again.
"I cannot deny it was a political masterstroke."
"I know. I know!"
Before handing down the throne, it would be for the sake of faithfully securing the imperial bloodline. Perhaps His Majesty would reign long, and the order of succession would circle around very late indeed to the current Princess — or to himself. And more than that, the bond between Rueld and the Hero Emperor, even the bond with the Church joined and sanctioned through the Saintess — all of it would be forged into a tie that could never be severed.
"Careless, and one day you and I might well end up joined, you know."
"I suggest you wake from that dream."
"Of course, I do not break my promises."
Seras answered with a sigh woven into her voice.
"…Eras is still striving, as ever, to become a child worthy of you."
"……."
This, too, was the reason that however their two houses' ties tangled and frayed, they could never, not once, be cut clean through.
"I should go pay her a visit."
That was where he stood, doing his best to soothe emotions that rose and fell like a tide.
Bang!
"Your Highness."
"What is it?"
A boy drew near and whispered into his ear.
"Right now— what kind of absurd nonsense is that?!"
"What's happened?"
The boy glanced at the prince as though begging leave.
"You've watched this for a day, hasn't it been?! It's nothing that needed hiding, so why are you checking my mood?!"
"Well, then…."
Attending the prince had always meant facing his temper head-on, time and again. The boy calmly turned to Seras and relayed what he had just heard.
"A rumor is spreading among the students that Swordsmanship Instructor Lambert was toyed with by Cariel."
"…Is that even possible?"
Seras crossed her arms, her expression every bit as incredulous as the prince's.
"And what did the witnesses say?"
"…That it wasn't swordsmanship at all — more like some kind of trickery? A sleight of hand, almost?"
"Trickery?"
The prince cut in.
"A man who serves as the Empire's sword instructor — played for a fool by some cheap conjurer's trick? By that pathetic wretch who's probably been beaten black and blue in some gutter or other his whole life?"
"…'Wretch' may be going rather far."
At Seras's words, the prince burst out, "It's the look of him I mean! The look!"
Clicking his tongue — tch — the prince jerked his chin at the boy to continue.
"He did subdue him with the sword, it's true. But with bizarre postures and movements — he simply closed the distance, and then he was caught up in it, toppled over, lost his grip on his blade. So it's said."
"What on earth is that supposed to be? Where would he even learn such a thing… no, don't tell me Sir Rueld…?"
"Even now, quite a few find themselves wondering whether he learned something from Lord Rueld to become what he is."
"Hard to say for certain without examining it myself."
After all, the prince himself stood in the position of having Rueld as a teacher. Among the prince's many instructors, if any one of them could be called his dedicated tutor, it was the Hero Rueld. Not that Rueld played favorites, or poured special devotion into instructing him alone. Just a few moves observed here and there — refine this, practice that — and nothing more. But to a prince sharp enough to read between the lines, having the frustrating gaps filled in and the itch scratched was more than enough. He had fully intended to honor the man as a teacher.
"……."
Though, come to think of it, hounding that man's son the way he did might well look like somewhat crooked thuggery…
In the beginning, he had never intended to spurn the fellow to this extent.
And yet.
The longer he watched, the more he found something in him that stoked irritation past its boiling point into cold fury.
'That sheer carelessness — that's what makes my blood boil.'
Having everything a person could have, why did he go about pretending he had nothing at all?
At the very least, Rueld was neither as unyielding nor as severe as his own father, His Majesty the Emperor. Punishments where the skin split open and even muscle tore away, blood streaming down in ribbons — where even a scream was forbidden. Had that fellow ever endured such discipline so much as once?
Hadn't even his revered sister, time and again, been made to suffer every manner of corporal punishment for failing His Majesty's trials?
And himself needed no mention at all.
And then what?
'That damned whelp means to take my sister from me?'
How could he possibly tolerate that?
Even if that boy became a man worthy of his sister, it would still gall him beyond bearing. A pathetic, washed-up reject of all people — dares… he dares!
"Shall I go on ahead and look into it? Or… will you confirm it yourself?"
"……."
There, the prince's seething emotions settled once more.
"Seras. What would you have me do?"
"The moment you lay eyes on Cariel, you will lose your composure. Would it not be better for me to examine matters first?"
"…There is sense in that."
And yet.
"That opinion of yours gives me no grounds to accept it."
Had the fellow truly grown so mighty — or had he merely been concealing his strength all along?
"I will verify it with my own eyes."
If an Incompetent had become capable, then as an imperial whose duty was to guide his subjects, ought he not welcome it gladly?
"……."
But if it was all a fraud — if he had forced a deception upon the world itself.
…If he had spread his cheap little rumors at his sister's betrothal ceremony, straining to scrub away his own disgrace—
"Heh."
Then stripping that false veil away with his own two hands, preemptively cutting off any disgraceful affair yet to come — that kindness, surely, was the very magnanimity and compassion an imperial could display.
"There is such a thing as the sword of the mind."
Without even the awareness of having been struck. It cleaves the soul and shreds the very skin of the heart into ribbons — a most vicious creature, that.
"Because no proper defense can be mounted against it, the one who suffers must feel gravely wronged. But ignorance and frailty are sins too, if sins they be. So what can one do? You must bear it with your own flesh."
Patience.
That, too, had, in the end, a limit.
"Even what can be borne has a limit. Grant that thinking, that processing, drains the strength of the mind — then why do you imagine that other side drains nothing at all?"
Enduring physical pain was the same.
So was enduring pain of the spirit.
"That you sickened from the mind outward, and that those sicknesses of the soul spread into the body's anomalies and afflictions — it is because you were beaten senseless, again and again, by just such unseen swords and unseen bludgeons."
"……."
And yet, because in the end he had endured — because he had held on to the very last—
"Absurd as it may sound, the very fact that you survived without dying means the limit of your mind's strength has grown as well."
"Is that a good thing?"
"It cuts both ways."
Let it be granted that the limit of his mind's strength had widened.
But.
"And the patience you could summon shrank in equal measure, did it not? Why? The warehouse of your mind has grown larger, filled to the rafters. So why is it harder to endure, harder to hold out, than it was before?"
Cariel, who had kept his silence, answered with a measure of conviction.
"Is it… because the pain has only grown greater?"
"The nuance holds true."
The wounds that had been given him had not yet healed.
They had never once healed.
Because fingers had been shoved deep into those wounds. Because a blade had probed them, torn them open, gouged them wide. And then, upon that — filth, and rotten water, and scalding water, and handfuls of salt heaped on top.
Healing was out of the question. Recovery itself was impossible.
"You were struck, and stabbed, and struck again, without so much as a breath to rest. That is why today aches more than yesterday, why you labor over tomorrow's wounds and agonize besides — and beyond even that, why you have come to dread a future that has not yet arrived."
"……."
The reason you could not sleep at night.
The reason you welcomed the moon, and came to loathe the sun.
"Every time the sun melted the shadows away, you must have anguished, day upon day. Gratitude, to the falling sun. Resentment, to the rising one."
"……."
In the library, I am left in silence.
My gaze fixed out the window.
As if wary.
As if hunting someone.
My eyes flit between the lower entrance below and the library entrance far across the way.
But with a state of mind that has changed utterly from before.
When I lower my eyelids.
From very, very far away.
Footsteps come flooding in.
It could be an auditory hallucination. A phantom spun from the fear and the anxiety that live inside me. Yet these are noises that sometimes prove true — noises I find myself wishing would not.
For a brief while I am seized by such phantoms, without root or reason.
Step. Step. Step.
The things that drifted between illusion and reality at last take on substance.
And with that, the phantom ringing in my skull is severed. The sound of feet striking the floor is dragged out into the open air of the real.
"……."
I turn my gaze.
There they stand — the prince, and several who follow at his heels.
As though they had only this instant caught sight of me, they stand frozen, staring at me with open ferocity.
The hunted quarry was always like this.
Its hind legs wounded, its face buried in a burrow too small for its body.
Barely enduring — that was all it had ever managed.
A fragile little rabbit.
And today, of all days, it had at last come face to face with its predator.
Half by its own will.
And half by another's.