The Wrong Questions
That question kept Sylvia awake. In the end, she found herself at the Knight Order’s desk in broad daylight, muttering Owen’s name and related thoughts to herself as if she were talking in her sleep.
“Wasn’t there a rumor that Owen was a flirt?”
The instant the words were out, Sylvia half cursed herself. It felt as though that idiotic question had slipped from her mouth and, the moment it did, coiled around the back of her neck like a long snake.
“Why? Why the sudden interest in Summers?”
It had been a mistake. The whole reason was that Kali happened to be sitting in front of her—the very same Kali who, five years ago when she first met Owen, had delivered the immortal line, “A handsome man won’t confuse you.” Of course, Kali had been so drunk that day she didn’t remember meeting Owen at all.
How was she supposed to smooth over that question naturally when she was so hopeless at acting? Sylvia drew on some bright, desperate inspiration, as though she were one of those sages who became stronger under pressure, and answered.
“You know I came all the way here because we heard my father had been stranded with Owen. I thought that if Owen had some terrible reputation, maybe I could steer clear of him somehow.”
How brilliant could she be? Sylvia wanted to kiss herself.
As expected, Kali seemed to fall completely for her smooth explanation.
“Really? Your father’s such a stick in the mud. It’s not like anything happened, right? You insisted hard enough that the two of you spent the night by yourselves in those weird pillars.”
“Exactly.”
Of course, that wasn’t what happened. At the time, she had long since abandoned any shred of reason needed to insist on anything, and Owen wasn’t irresponsible enough to leave a completely out-of-her-mind woman stuffed against some stone pillar ten feet away.
And the most surprising part was that the bit about her having “insisted hard enough that they each spent the night alone” hadn’t even been said by Sylvia. It must have been Owen covering for her.
“Let me think. Owen Summers, huh.”
Kali set aside the mountain of reports and rested her chin in her hand, curling a finger idly. Sylvia could almost hear the rustle of papers in Kali’s head as Owen’s file opened there and pages began to turn.
“As far as I know, he’s never dated anyone among the Knights or the Supporters.”
“Never?”
“Nope. Probably not. He even politely turned down Janet.”
Janet. Right, she was there too.
Janet, who had said Owen was dangerous in a way that made him interesting. Back then, Sylvia couldn’t understand why anyone would be so fiercely drawn to a man who looked like trouble wrapped in skin. Then again, Sylvia herself had been in love with a man who resembled a hundred-year-old tree—steady, immovable, impossible to shake with anything at all. She hadn’t understood then that people could be pulled in precisely by instability.
So you understand it now?
She fought the thought with violent resistance, and asked herself the question. But before long it dissolved without meaning. Wasn’t she secretly digging into Owen’s romantic history right now?
Please tell me Owen can’t somehow tell I’m doing this.
Sylvia hurriedly focused on the feeling in her fingertips. Then she pressed her thumb hard against each finger, checking whether any strange numbness had set in.
This had been something she and Owen had decided to look into deliberately the day after they kissed in the study, because it seemed necessary to understand how this mana sharing business worked.
The book said strange signs would show up in the body. It said you’d feel hollow as mana slipped out against your will. Look carefully, all right?
Sylvia had warned Owen over and over, and soon enough Owen had, surprisingly fast, discovered that his fingertips felt slightly numb whenever they shared.
If I press hard enough to leave a dent in my fingertip, I don’t feel a thing.
It hurt now. Reassured by the fact that this obscene situation wasn’t reaching Owen, Sylvia let out a thin breath. It was an involuntary reaction she hadn’t bothered to hide, despite Kali sitting right in front of her. But Kali, apparently thinking Sylvia was horrified by Owen himself, shrugged and said,
“Why, Summers isn’t bad, is he? First of all, he’s handsome. And I’m sure you wouldn’t care about his background anyway.”
“Are you serious?”
“Of course I’m serious. Do you think your father, who only cares about family status, is going to bring you a better groom than that? And considering you liked Heston, you seem to be the sort who goes for faces too.”
Normally, Sylvia would have shouted that no matter what Heston looked like, she would have loved him anyway. But Heston was engaged now, and she couldn’t deny that Owen had stirred something in her.
And she certainly couldn’t deny that the basis of that feeling was, in part, his face. Of course, there was something singular about him, but even if he hadn’t looked that way, it was hard to say whether that atmosphere would have formed around him at all.
“Yeah. You’re right.”
When she answered in a deflated voice, Kali suddenly seemed to take pity on her and reached out to take Sylvia’s hand.
“It’s okay, Syl. Heston’s definitely going to regret it.”
“That sounds like a pretty dangerous thing to say.”
Sylvia quietly reminded her, fully aware that Heston’s fiancée was the princess. But Kali, undeterred by Sylvia’s worry, only went further.
“Honestly, I still don’t understand Heston. I was sure he liked you. Then out of nowhere, he gets engaged to Her Highness? At first I thought he’d been caught by some leverage or something.”
“Kali!”
“What? That’s what everyone would think.”
“Let’s not talk about this.”
“Fine. Well, whether I understand it or not, he’s already engaged. He’ll be married soon enough, so you should go ahead and fall for Owen at least once. It’s incredibly rare for a relationship with a handsome man to turn out badly.”
“Who said anything about a relationship…”
Sylvia tried to backpedal too late, but Kali only gave her a wink as if she saw right through everything. Completely exposed, Sylvia let out a sigh and turned her eyes back to the reports. They were documents requested by the ducal house. Since all this had happened within their territory, they must have decided they needed a better grasp of the situation too.
By now, Duke Araspe has probably realized things are turning strange.
It was already famous among everyone stationed here that during one of the meetings, Duke Araspe had been angered by the princess’s ambiguous attitude and raised his voice, demanding that she stop ignoring him. In any case, the matter was being handled by only a small group of people assembled from Princess Catherine’s faction and Heston’s close allies, so even if the ducal house demanded documents like this, it probably wouldn’t do much.
The reason the princess was keeping this so thoroughly secret was probably to delay, even a little, the inevitable resistance from the prince and Duke Araspe once the matter was formally revealed.
They would lash out as hard as they could, deny everything, or try to dig up a far bigger flaw in the princess so they could find a way to neutralize the whole thing. In fact, whether this was connected or not, wasn’t there talk that the prince, who had been in the Holy Empire, had sent word back to the Imperial Palace that he was returning?
When Princess Catherine relayed that news, she had said flatly, “I’ll get to see my brother’s face after so long,” with no trace of mockery in her voice. That, perversely, made the whole situation feel even more unsettling. No one there was unaware that the princess was holding a massive weapon capable of cutting the prince’s right arm clean off.
What exactly was the princess doing now?
Was she trying to throw herself into the fight for the throne? If so, why was she engaged to Heston? If she truly had her sights on the throne, then surely it would have made more sense to be engaged to Erhart.
In fact, up until a month before rumors of her affair with Heston began, the princess had apparently been fairly amenable to her father’s plan to arrange a marriage with Erhart. Sylvia still remembered her father’s unusual liveliness then, the bright energy that came over him when things were going well.
“Anyway, even if it was because of you that he came, I’m glad Duke Appleton showed up. Thanks to him, the tower was rebuilt quickly, and we got out faster too. When I first came here that day, and then heard the tower had collapsed, I thought I’d be stuck here for more than two years.”
Two years in a place that wasn’t even fun.
Kali shuddered dramatically. Sylvia, belatedly resting her chin in her hand at the thought, remembered the father she had almost forgotten.
As for Duke Appleton, one might say he had become lively again. That was because Princess Catherine had checked Duke Araspe’s influence and asked for cooperation.
When the duke heard that Ecovich was involved in all of this, he burst out laughing, then turned to Sylvia with his eyes bright and asked whether it was really true. Sylvia could feel her face burning at the naked ambition in that laugh.
The duke wasn’t the kind of man to pass up an opportunity to press down on Duke Araspe, so he gladly lent his support to rebuilding the tower. As a person, he might have been a disappointment, but as a mage, Duke Appleton’s abilities were nothing to dismiss, and the tower was being rebuilt smoothly so far.
Maybe the princess will even call off the engagement.
Thanks to all this, Sylvia’s marriage issue had been pushed entirely to the back burner. Duke Appleton, speculating about what this affair might lead to, had even dragged the princess’s already-ruined marriage matters back into the discussion. Sylvia felt as though she’d been shoved right back into the same place she had been a few months ago. Duke Appleton had even ordered Erhart, after so long, to return to the capital.
What was he supposed to do once he got there? Was he going to order Erhart to seduce the princess?
Because of that, the thought of returning to the capital in a week had become downright dreadful.
Of course, that didn’t apply to Duke Appleton. He was bustling about like a boy in his first love, directing everything from one place to another. To anyone who didn’t know the circumstances, he would look like a duke who had rushed over in concern for his daughter and was gladly sacrificing himself for the empire’s sake.
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