That Day, in the Audience Chamber
Let us turn the clock back a little—
To Valharat Castle, capital of the Asius Army, standing in the central-eastern reaches of the continent.
"……."
Yuuri gazed out the audience chamber window with empty eyes.
How much time had passed, she could not say.
Then the sound of footsteps approached.
"Yuuri."
"……."
The voice belonged to Anima Ingram—the woman Yuuri had been willing to shoulder every scrap of infamy to save.
"Anima. You're here. How is Ern doing?"
"He seems fully recovered. Thank goodness. That boy never had much going for him besides being tough."
Yuuri smiled at Anima's words.
"I'm so relieved…… I was really worried."
"……."
Watching her, Anima could not quite manage a smile of her own. She let out a short sigh.
"Yuuri."
"Yeah."
"You know what kind of situation we're in, right?"
"……Yeah."
As of yesterday, a ninth officer had resigned.
Including Zinor, nine officers in total had left the Asius Army.
For a minor power like Asius, where every single officer was precious, the departure of so many—no matter how much the faction had grown—was a blow that could not be shrugged off.
Trading away one of their own generals, sent as an envoy, in exchange for the return of a prisoner.
It was an unprecedented crisis no sovereign could have imagined. Epinel had stepped in as a firefighter and somehow managed to quiet the uproar—but there was only so much one person could do. You cannot cover the sky with the palm of your hand.
"Epinel's been working so hard in my place. Honestly, maybe she should have been the one sitting on the throne instead of me. All I was ever given was the Asius blood running through my veins……."
"I didn't come here to listen to that kind of self-pity, Yuuri."
Looking at Yuuri's awkward smile, Anima felt a sharp ache in her chest.
When all was said and done…… this woman had done what she did for Anima alone.
She had no intention of dodging it now with something like I never asked you to.
From the day of the oath onward, the only sun she would serve was Yuuri.
"What are you going to do from here?"
"I don't know. For now it's a relief that Serpina's forces haven't moved, but…… the south is looking restless too. Things are probably going to get chaotic again. Either way, shouldn't we spend some time consolidating our interior? We've gained three territories, after all."
Valharat Castle. Lacline Castle. Gelstrom Castle. And Zeta Castle.
Having seized the domains of the Charam and Allepel armies, along with one of the Brans castles, the Asius Army had grown considerably in size.
"I have a plan, Yuuri."
"A plan?"
Yuuri looked straight into Anima's eyes.
"What do you think our army needs most right now?"
"……Well. Weathering the storm comes first, doesn't it?"
"Exactly. The wave has to pass. ……This whole sequence of events needs to be forgotten as quickly as possible. In other words, internal cohesion matters more now than at any other time."
"Internal cohesion……."
The upheaval had begun with the unheard-of act of selling off one of their own officers.
To calm that torrent, they needed something larger—something vast enough for everyone to be swept up in it.
"Yes. And for that…… we need to be the ones who start a war."
At the word war, Yuuri's expression flickered with surprise.
"War? You mean…… we strike first?"
"Yes."
"But the only force we can attack right now is Serpina's, isn't it? Are you saying we go back into Hisphil Castle?"
Yuuri looked reluctant.
"That's impossible. With three territories already sitting on the border, launching another invasion would be too much. ……Anima, you know that as well as I do."
"True. It's difficult right now—especially Hisphil. Because of my bad call, it's become even more impossible than it already was."
"No, I wasn't—I mean, I wasn't blaming you—"
"It doesn't matter, Yuuri. I'm not going to get needlessly hurt over something like that. ……Come over here for a moment?"
Anima spread a map across a nearby desk.
"Look. If you study the map…… the only force we can realistically invade is Serpina's, to the west. Given enough time we could push down into the southern continent, but if we got ambushed along the way it would be a disaster in more ways than one."
"……Right."
"Of course—we are going to attack Serpina's army."
Yuuri watched her in silence.
Anima recognized it at once as Yuuri's wordless way of waiting for her to continue.
"But. Invading Serpina's army does not mean attacking a castle near the border. The western route isn't the only path that reaches her territory."
"What are you talking about? ……I don't follow."
"You don't? We don't only have three castles."
As she spoke, Anima pointed to a fortress at the far eastern edge of the continent.
Zeta Castle.
"But everything around Zeta Castle is already our territory, isn't it?"
"No, Yuuri. Shift your perspective. ……You'll see it."
Yuuri stared at the map for a long time.
If Anima was the one saying it, there had to be something there…… She thought that, and then, all at once, she understood.
"Don't tell me…… the river?"
"Exactly."
A great river ran near Zeta Castle.
Follow that river upstream—against the current that emptied into the eastern sea—and you would arrive at Amir Castle, tucked into a corner of the northern continent.
"We invade Amir Castle. From their side, it isn't even a border fortress, so the garrison will be thin. If we take every soldier we can spare, we can win. We plant the crimson banner of Asius on the northern continent! They'll never see it coming—not in a thousand years."
She was right.
Grasping a plan this outlandish in advance would be extraordinarily difficult.
After all—the gains for the Asius Army were not especially large.
"But…… even if we take the territory, it would only be temporary. We couldn't hold it. Doesn't that make the whole thing meaningless?"
"I already told you, Yuuri. What we need isn't one or two extra territories. We need something that can quiet this situation. We need a wave large enough to meet the one crashing over us."
Yuuri understood the meaning beneath Anima's words without difficulty.
Cover the sacrifice of their subordinate general, Swen, by planting a flag on the northern continent through a method no one could have imagined.
That was Anima's true intent.
Even if we take the castle, we'll lose it again soon enough. But it will settle this unsettled moment…… is that it?
"I've thought about this so much. This whole mess started because of me, so I figured I had to be the one to fix it. I thought until my head felt like it would split—thought and thought and thought again. It's reckless, and we gain nothing from it, but…… that's exactly why no one will ever predict it. This is how we hit them from behind. Yuuri. Trust me one more time."
The weight on her heart was not Yuuri's alone. Anima carried it just as heavily.
This entire farce had unfolded in the first place to save Anima Ingram.
So she had poured everything she had into thinking. She wanted, somehow, to help Yuuri, who had been driven into danger for her sake.
A visible achievement. If they produced one, they could surely settle the restless mood inside the nation—her eyes shone with that conviction.
Yuuri looked into those glittering eyes.
Even after losing her arm, without a single complaint, saying they could do it, saying she would be Yuuri's wing…… her eyes had shone just like this.
And yet.
Because of that, Yuuri slowly shook her head.
"No, Anima. We are not going to carry out this plan."
"Why not?! The enemy will never catch on. This way we can take territory, even if only for a moment. Planting our flag on the northern continent—excluding Serpina's army—is a golden opportunity for Asius!"
Yuuri agreed with that much.
She agreed…… but something more important stood in the way.
"My lady Yuuri. Spilled water cannot be gathered again. Whether that decision was right or wrong…… no one can know with certainty."
"What has already happened—accept the consequences of your own choice. Only by accepting the result can you move forward. This is the last counsel I can offer you as a man who once served as a strategist."
Eyes closed, Yuuri recalled the final advice of the great tree who had stood by her side in this age of chaos.
In the end she had let him go…… but the words he left behind still propped up a corner of her heart.
"Anima. I cannot sacrifice the present—and the future—just to cover over the past."
"……!"
"It's already done. Building up achievements might create enough of an impact to quiet things down, yes. But that would only mean throwing away the future to clean up the present. So I can't. I'm sorry."
The truth was, Anima had known it dimly herself.
The reason she had been so sure the enemy would never detect the plan was precisely because it offered so little benefit to the Asius Army.
What strategist would ever expect their opponent to launch an operation that cost them more than it gained?
Plant the Asius banner in the north for a brief moment—
Beyond that, they would lose everything.
The soldiers sent to take the castle. The funds and provisions consumed along the way. All of it would vanish for the sake of a single impact.
And still she had had no choice but to push it.
For Yuuri, who had shouldered everything for her sake and lost far too much.
She had wanted Yuuri to cast off that burden, even one day sooner, and rise again.
"But still—if we leave things like this, you'll…… you'll suffer too much. Because of me. Because you tried to…… save me—"
"Anima."
Yuuri stroked the shoulder of Anima, who stood with her head bowed in despair.
"It's all right. I was prepared for this. ……We're family, aren't we?"
"……."
Anima swallowed the tears rising in her throat.
And she swore once more.
Even if the day came when Yuuri made a wrong decision and everyone turned their backs on her……
She, at least, would remain to the end—and take every scrap of filth upon herself alongside her.
And—
That Yuuri had recalled Zinor's counsel at the decisive moment was an enormous stroke of fortune for Anima herself. There was no way for her to know that.
"You've worked hard, Lady Irene."
"Mm. Well done. Take care on your way."
Irene dismissed the soldiers who had patrolled with her, changed out of her gear, and headed toward her lodgings.
The duty she had been assigned was security reinforcement for the capital, Aingart Castle.
Nothing particularly special—simply patrolling the interior of Aingart and the territories beyond its walls.
Public order was already quite good, but that was only because a certain number of watch units kept rotating through continuous patrols.
Let up for even a single day, and even a capital city's security could collapse in an instant. These were chaotic times, after all.
Moreover, ever since the Amir Castle patrol had brought in an extraordinary number of cases not long ago, orders from above had doubled the workload—demanding even tighter patrols.
Of course, from Irene's perspective, having work at all was something she found fulfilling.
When she thought of times when no one sought her out, she was the sort of person who could draw strength from the mere fact that someone needed her.
"……."
Walking home like this, she found herself suddenly remembering her days at Valharat Castle.
Back then, whenever she finished a mission and returned home, Swen had always been there to welcome her.
The reason her footsteps home had been so light was surely because a white-haired man who always watched over her—whom she wanted to protect in turn—had greeted her with a smile.
……I miss him.
She wanted to see Swen.
But she could not simply show up unannounced wherever he was staying.
Having only recently taken up her post, drawing attention with conspicuous behavior would not have been a wise judgment.
If it were only her own problem, that would be one thing—but Swen could end up taking the fall as well. She could never act so selfishly.
If only there were some natural reason to see him……
Then she could have asked for a meeting without it seeming forced. But nothing suitable came to mind.
Irene briefly imagined herself saying, Swen. I came because I missed you—
and immediately felt her face burn. She ducked her head.
……Even if it killed her, she did not think she could ever spit out words that embarrassing so freely.
How on earth did Swen manage to say such mortifying things so easily?
If only I could convey my feelings as effortlessly as he does……
She was lightly reproaching herself when—
……Hm?
A lively commotion somewhere nearby drew her gaze without thinking.
At the end of her line of sight stood a shop selling desserts.
They seemed to be holding something like a product demonstration.
Irene lifted her head and checked the banner hanging above.
Only 3 Days Until the Festival of Saint Valentino! Get Ready Early!
The Festival of Saint Valentino?
As Irene puzzled over a holiday she had never heard of, a woman in an apron approached with a warm smile.
"Hello, knight! This is our shop's new chocolate—would you like to try some?"