Crossroads (2)
Ten days ago.
"Rueld. You really are a hard man to look in the face, you know that?"
Geornia wore her long silver hair draped around her like a blanket, looking for all the world like a girl whose age no one would dare guess. Yet if anything betrayed the weight of her years, it was her composure—her bearing, and the imperiousness that came with it. She was half-reclined on the oversized sofa of the reception chamber, and now she fixed Rueld with a glare as he stepped inside.
"…I have no excuse."
"What, are you dying? Scared already of catching hell from me? Or what? Did the children hear some strange news, perhaps?"
"……"
Geornia and Hameln, the blonde elf standing at her back, simply stood there without giving anything away. Only the two pairs of verdant green eyes followed Rueld's every movement with meticulous care.
"I agonized over it for days… but there's no avoiding what can't be avoided, so I've decided to settle it."
"…And this decision would be?"
"Melineos. It seems that child had a precognitive dream."
"Why are you telling me this? Don't tell me it has something to do with Cariel?"
"What's with that reaction? As if you're hearing it for the first time?"
Rueld thought it through. If she was telling him of all people, there had to be a reason worthy of it. Above all—Rueld himself was still in considerable disarray after hearing the report Patina had delivered. Receiving her report first, before anyone else… was likely a courtesy of sorts. And before long, the contents would make their way up to his superiors as well.
"Judging by that expression, you've caught on to something."
"……"
"Melineos cannot remember her dream. And the one who made it so was the Golden Beast."
"…I beg your pardon?"
What was this? Why was the Golden one—the Demon King of Wisdom—being mentioned here?
"I don't know the details. Fragments, most likely. A being of that caliber could make itself felt through a speck of dust."
"Is Melineos unharmed?"
"From what I've examined… yes. She's fine."
And that was precisely what unsettled him more. What scheme, what design lay behind it—what that mad beast intended, lashing out in its insolence even from beyond death.
"Today, or tomorrow… I intend to catch a glimpse of what that entity truly is. It can no longer be overlooked."
"……"
Even what Rueld himself had encountered was shocking enough—and now something even more explosive was about to burst out here.
No.
"…It may be connected to what I have encountered."
"Again? What now? What else is there?"
Why did he keep doing this, stoking her unease out of nowhere?
"…Let us discuss it where everyone is gathered. By now… they will all have received it."
"Oh, damn it all! What is it that keeps crawling out of the woodwork? What the hell are you people hiding from me?!"
"…I have no excuse."
"…So that testimony is true?"
"It is the testimony of Lady Alesia, fourth-ranked Saintess of the Church, she who bears the name of Protection."
Imperial Princess Elhermina was engulfed by a shock that darkened the very edges of her vision. This was not a thing to be laughed off as a jest—and besides, she had never cared for jokes. Perhaps that was why. Not so much as a hair's breadth of emotional composure remained in her.
"Is there any chance of it being a lie, or an embellishment?"
"…Reports concerning the birth of the sacred relic in Cariela, seat of the Barony, will likely have reached the Church and the Empire both."
"…Yes. The name was withheld, but I received word as well that a young man continuing a knight's training under the name Ruell contributed greatly to it."
Elhermina said this as she swept back her red hair.
"That it was Cariel—that much, of course, we all know."
"……"
"Patina. What that Saintess said to you—recount it to me in full detail, from beginning to end."
Patina bowed and calmly laid out what she had heard. It was not the sort of thing that could be committed to paper, so no separate report had ever been drafted. And yet, as though such matters were routine, there was no hitch in Patina's complexion or in the flow of her words.
Cariel, who had delivered a village he was passing through from ruin. Saintess Alesia, who joined him there, along with Luke, second son of Baron Varonen, and their small band of soldiers. The party that traveled on together to Cariela, where, in celebration of Saint Cariel's Feast Day, they glimpsed Saint Cariel's memories through the memory-excavation work carried out by Filbar of the Edenlevan Coalition, dispatched long ago to chart the holy era of the past…
"The sacred relic."
Even that much of the account was wondrous enough to set the mind turning it over again and again. But that was not the whole of what mattered.
The fact that Alesia had originally meant to accompany him—and that Cariel had refused. What he revealed in refusing was the crucial part.
"Unconditional affection. Was even kindness, to him as he is now… such an impossibly precious grace?"
A sigh escaped her. It ought to have been self-evident… so then why had she—
It felt like being trapped in a merciless nightmare with one's eyes wide open.
"So that is why he said he must not entangle himself with his cursed self."
She did not know what that curse was. But he had called it a Demon King's curse, of all things. And above all—that he had colluded with the Demon King. Something in that phrasing felt deeply wrong.
"Was there truly a curse… some external influence beyond our knowing?"
This was where it became critical. The moment Cariel had been exposed to it. If he had been born that way… this became grave indeed. If it had been thrust upon him when he was taken hostage… that too was grave. But if, upon his return to the Empire, he had come to recognize such a curse lurking within it… no—she had skipped over a possibility. What if he had been exposed to it only after returning to the capital? Or within the recent term?
"……"
Or, truly—when he intruded into that treasury… had he been entangled against his will?
And in that case, "having had no choice" would be entirely plausible even if some outside force, or a faction working from within, had engineered the circumstances to make it so. Then why Cariel, of all people? Or—was it precisely because he was Cariel?
Her thoughts tangled into knots. It made no sense, and yet the air felt coldly drained of warmth. No—perhaps it was her own body temperature bleeding away along with the color from her face, quite apart from her climbing heartbeat. Nothing fit together, but if she was dizzy enough to sway, then her blood pressure had to be falling. Or was it? The opposite, maybe?
"…Could you repeat what you have just told me, once more, for His Majesty's benefit?"
"If you so command."
"……"
Elhermina had heard directly from Geornia that an ominous omen had been read within her mother Melineos's precognitive dream. That alone was headache enough, and now an unimagined problem had burst forth on top of it. And in a form beyond imagining—the worst.
"Alesia, was it? The fourth-ranked Saintess? The one of Protection?"
"Yes, Your Highness."
"…So she took such an interest in the sword, did she. Is it plausible, to harbor that much affection from so brief a meeting? Ah… right. The sword is strikingly handsome beside his peers, so I suppose it can be done."
For reasons she could not name, Elhermina felt a stab of self-loathing. Regret had come too late, and longing later still. Her lingering attachment had never faded—and at times it only swelled.
"If she aids him, then I could gladly give the match my blessing. So long as her presence at his side can grant him comfort."
"…Your Highness."
"Though this, too, must be watched before it can be known."
It might be an affection like childhood measles. A love closer to impulse. Or perhaps a passion of appetite and lust—a desire rooted in bare instinct.
It mattered not at all. However improper the beginning, so long as she could love him with sincerity and truth to the very end—so long as she could truly cherish him.
…Was love not, at times, born of hatred and resentment to begin with?
She had no intention of denying love's countless forms, its endless shapes. Pure and innocent love was not the only kind that was beautiful and without blemish.
Let it roll through the mud, let it be battered this way and that—if it could bloom in the midst of all that, she stood ready to accept it gladly.
"Merely watching from the sidelines, it seems, ends here."
But if matters had already tangled themselves into the worst possible shape, then how her imperial father would respond—and what stance Rueld would take—were painfully, clearly visible to her.
"The knots had best come undone cleanly."
She had a foreboding that it would not be easy. Even she, as sharp as she was, could not summon a clear answer to this situation.
"They say a trace was found near the Kingdom of Metran."
Late by a hair's breadth. They had caught word that he had boarded a ship bound for Dabas—but that was where it ended. There was no way to learn anything of what came after. And so all Rueld could do was slip into Dabas and hunt for further traces himself.
As the pre-dawn mist drifted softly through the forest, Patina fed her hawk and sent it winging into the sky, then spoke while examining a small dried slip of paper. A simple signal or alarm could be managed with signal fires, but those were at the mercy of the weather. Above all, complex messages were impossible by fire—at that point one had no choice but to spend people to carry them. Yet people, however swift, had their limits. Hence the use of trained birds or particular beasts was a venerable, time-honored method of carrying word. And swifter and more systematic still was the use of special rites or magic. The methods and means varied, but what the Empire could formally employ was largely confined to magical means. This raised the problem of requiring mages in one's retinue, but the Empire had never once been stingy with support on that front.
The ancient great empire of Vera, which had possessed no such means at all, was said to have run a state courier-station system—and even that had shown its limits plainly enough. From there, the Berg Empire had struck a compromise: fusing the courier stations with magical communication, it scattered relay posts doubling as stations across the whole of the realm. But even so, fixed in place as they were, they were of little use to anyone not situated along or near their routes. And so, once more, the usefulness of communication birds trained through magic or special taming had come to the fore. Especially in a situation like this one—infiltrating a foreign land.
"I see."
In the forest, damp from the night's rain until it resembled a wetland, Rueld rose to his feet, scattering the firewood that gave off only a thin smoke without flame. Beneath the outer layer he wore the Knights' signature uniform, draped over once more like a coat. The brown coat, hood and all, looked like any ordinary traveler's—but it, too, was a proper magic tool.
From here, he would have to cross one foreign nation—and that not being enough, trespass unlawfully into yet another. His personal danger was no concern. But the diplomatic friction and conflict his mere existence could provoke could not be overlooked, and so he intended to be cautious upon cautious.
"They will relay further locations as they are identified."
"Metran. Why there, of all places?"
For Rueld, the continent—wherever he went—was full of corners that stirred up old memories. There had been battle and battlefield everywhere. And all the ties bound there, and all the grudges too. But none of that mattered now.
"……"
He turned over again what had happened ten days ago. The Emperor—his brother, his sovereign—had pressed upon him that this above all must come first. …He wondered, even now, whether this was right for him to be doing. Princess Elhermina had repeated, over and over, that no one but him could do it. Given that she had gone so far as to say she wished to go herself, she must truly have been desperate.
"I depart now."
The party amounted to no more than Rueld himself, with Patina following in the nominal capacity of his attendant. Had a foreign nation learned of it, they would long since have been thrown into an uproar, unable to sit still. That he would never commit such insolence was known to every soul on the continent.
…And yet. With a blade pressed to the throat, no one—no one—could stay calm. That Rueld had set foot upon their territory, even alone, meant precisely that.
Ermina.
How much longer could he hide it? Geornia, mindful of her condition, had not pressed the matter. But by the time her lying-in was over, she too might sense that something was wrong. No—by now, she may already have begun to piece together what had happened.
Even as he traveled on horseback, Rueld kept turning over what he had heard that day. Geornia, who had gone back to examine Melineos's dream a second time, had delivered a shocking truth to them all. No—perhaps it had not been the truth at all. Having laid the situation bare, and reconciled the opinions of everyone present, Geornia had then given Rueld her orders:
Perhaps things had already deteriorated beyond any power to turn them back. But…
"……"
That did not mean giving up.
How had things come to worsen this far? Most likely, until he heard it from the child's own lips, he would go on throwing at himself that question—like a question of original sin, like an accusation without end.