Walking the Same Path
"Not trembling?"
「 Not at all. 」
"Be sure to remember this, dear. Married life is very different from courtship."
On the morning of the wedding day, my mother came to find me and began to share the philosophy of life she herself had lived by.
"When you are courting, it is enough to stop where you stand and face one another. But once you are married, the two of you must walk forward together, toward the same direction. A romance can survive even if one side keeps sacrificing for the other out of obligation — a marriage cannot."
「 To someone like me, who hasn't even finished her first day of marriage, that's rather hard to understand. 」
"I don't ask for much."
With a small hand, my mother gently stroked my cheek.
"Only…… never become the sort of person who cannot recognize a crisis even as it stares her in the face."
At those words, I nodded and answered my mother's smile with one of my own.
In truth, there existed countless famous sayings about marriage — in my previous life and in this world alike. But the people who gave birth to those sayings had, without exception, been the victims of tragic marriages. So if I managed to live a happy married life, they would be of no use to me. And if I failed, I supposed I might end up a philosopher myself, just like them.
When my thoughts finally settled, I decided it was about time, and taking my mother's hand in mine, I walked toward the grand banquet hall of the Imperial Palace, transformed for this day into a beautiful ceremony venue.
When I glanced up along the way, the sky above was a perfectly clear early-summer blue — weather fit to grace the occasion, and nothing less.
"How dignified you look today. It suits you."
"From now on, you'll be living under the care of the man you love, not of us."
The Duchess and Duke of Asis spoke to Lapis as she stood waiting.
"House Asis has no eldest son to carry on the line, so you must give me exactly two grandsons. A father asks for nothing more. Though, come to think of it, twins in one go would be the ideal outcome…!"
"What kind of demands are you making of a daughter who hasn't even spent her wedding night yet?"
"I-It's quite all right, Mother. Please don't scold Father too much."
"You needn't listen to such useless advice. If anything, being pushed like that only makes pregnancy harder to come by. A child arrives when no one expects it, so wipe it from your mind entirely. If a baby came simply because you willed it, life would be so much easier, wouldn't it?"
"B-But the Demonic Tree will revive before long, so the sooner the better—!"
"Husband!"
In the end, Duke Asis clamped his mouth shut before the glare of his wife, whose eyes had gone wide with indignation.
"My beloved daughter. They say moderation is the virtue in all things, but nothing is harder to keep moderate than a woman's love. Why else would they say a woman's heart knows only love or hatred? Even if the Prince is busy and cannot attend to you, be a wife who can understand. The moment you upset the balance between heart and reason, all that remains is regret."
Leaving her father sulking behind her, Lapis nodded reassuringly at her mother's gentle counsel, as if to say there was nothing to worry about.
"I don't intend to remain a wife who merely understands from a distance — I have worked hard all this time so that I could share in his struggles and worries beside him. Most people believe blindly that the one they love must be a perfect being, but I am not like that. It isn't that I think the rose-tinted glasses love lends us are a bad thing…… but it can't be called good, either, to idealize the one you love beyond all reason."
Those idealizing lenses of love sometimes cause a misfortune of their own — the sin of demanding certainty from the beloved.
For all the praise Rohen received from the world, he was, unmistakably, human.
There were surely things he lacked, and in some ways he was a man with his own failings.
It had been years now since she resolved to become the wife who would fill in those gaps.
When she spread her white hands, calluses showed here and there where one wouldn't expect them, and because she had so often worn flat shoes, even now, in heeled ones, she felt a faint awkwardness.
It was because she had frequently trained under her father, Duke Asis, in swordsmanship, so that at the very least she could look after her own body.
"And besides…… I have never once regretted being born the daughter of House Asis. So I don't imagine I ever will."
The time had come.
"So — the road I am about to walk. Will you walk it with me?"
Rising from her seat, Lapis extended her hand toward her father, who stood there glum and silent.
At that, Duke Asis, his face brimming with tears, nodded, took his daughter's outstretched hand, and stepped forward.
Toward the day his daughter would become the next Empress and receive the name of Bertian.
The serenade Rohen had badgered composers into writing for Lapis swelled gently through the hall, brought to life by the palace's orchestras.
The gathered guests lent their ears slowly to the mellifluous melody, then turned their heads toward the bride and groom who would appear before long.
Lapis, beautiful enough that a single word sufficed without any need for elaborate embellishment, and Rohen — a pairing that suited one another remarkably well.
At length, the two of them, having walked the aisle arm in arm with their mothers and fathers, left their parents' sides and approached the Emperor of the Empire, who stood waiting to officiate the vows, their hands joined.
And so countless gazes naturally trailed after the couple's every step.
Lapis, drenched in overflowing happiness, felt it suddenly — among the flood of eyes upon her, one gaze stood out with unmistakable clarity: Aria's. She turned her head, just slightly.
……Honestly speaking, she had no intention of tearing the two of them apart.
No — to put it precisely, she was afraid that in the process of driving their relationship toward ruin, her own bond with Rohen would fracture as well.
Aria knew that too.
Which was why she stayed demurely on her side of the line, watching Lapis's moods and accepting the circumstances — a thief of a cat who was, for all intents and purposes, her lover's second woman.
But rather ironically, that was precisely what settled a not-insignificant irritation in the corner of her heart.
Because Aria knew all of that — and still chose to wield it as a weapon of sorts, charging in as the one who came after.
……To put it bluntly, Lapis wanted to call her a shameless woman.
Half-siblings or not, they shared blood all the same.
She disliked the way Aria coveted her own younger brother as a man.
No — what did any of that matter, really?
The only question was why, of all people, it had to be Rohen.
That was the whole source of her annoyance, surely.
Because now, anyway……
It was a matter that required no deliberation at all.
She had no wish to be the first to untangle this triangle, and she wanted — even a little longer — to savor her time as Rohen's one and only wife, holding him entirely to herself.
If Rohen someday opened his mouth first, that would be one thing.
But if not, she intended to disregard the situation and leave it exactly as it was.
And Aria, who had noticed perfectly well that their eyes had met, however briefly, let out a wry smile and toyed with her signature platinum hair.
It had been nothing more than a meeting of glances.
But women share a certain understanding between them, something wordless.
All the more so when the two women in question are rivals in love, rivals in name and in fact.
You're human after all, just like anyone else.
From the start, she had never intended to be greedy.
She knew exactly what she was — the one who came second.
She was fully aware she was the thief of a cat, so she had planned, naturally, to yield every first: the firsts, the beginnings, all of it.
This wasn't about concession, even.
Simply a matter of keeping one's place in line.
But Lapis, it seemed, was no happier with this docile posture of hers — bending herself this far, this gracefully — than Aria was.
Well, of course. Put in Lapis's shoes, Aria would want to monopolize everything of the man she loved, too. She wouldn't want to share him with anyone.
It was a feeling so simple, so easy to understand, that instead of displeasure, Aria accepted it with indifference and let her ears drift toward the quiet music washing over the hall.
The melody…… it's actually rather lovely.
"……And so, with all my heart, I offer my blessing upon this union."
With the Emperor's address, the grand ceremony surged toward its conclusion, and the closing strains of the final piece rang out mingled with the applause and cheers of the guests.
On the fourth finger of each of their left hands gleamed rings wrought from lapis lazuli — Lapis's birthstone — the emblem that they were now, in name and in truth, husband and wife.
"Lady Lapis! My warmest congratulations!"
"Your dress is absolutely stunning today!"
"Did Rohen choose it himself? Now I find myself looking forward to my own wedding!"
"The music the palace orchestra performed today was so entrancing. There will be a recital afterward, won't there?"
When the banquet for the aftermath followed, Lapis — thanks to the deep friendships she had cultivated over the years — found herself surrounded by so many well-wishers that she vanished entirely from Rohen's sight.
Plenty of people sought Rohen out as well, but knowing that he could only answer each of them in writing, they kept their distance, offering no more than words of congratulations from afar.
Only after the banquet drew to a close and the sun had begun its slow descent did the newly freed pair retire, Rohen and Lapis making their way toward the wedding night that awaited them.
The maids attended their bath with more devoted care than usual, and even the knights who normally stood guard around the chamber vacated their posts entirely, so that the two of them might feel no eyes upon them.
……The Imperial Palace was, without question, more bustling and alive with energy tonight than it had ever been.
And yet, for this moment alone, a stillness had settled over it — as if no one else in the world existed but the two of them.