The King's Return (3)
By the time Violet arrived at the manor with Tifa and Francis, nearly every figure of consequence had already gathered.
"You're late, Brother."
It was the second daughter, Charlotte — the first to arrive and the one who had been waiting — who spoke. Francis ducked his head with an awkward little smile.
"What's going on?"
"Lady Luna says she has something important to tell us."
"Lady Luna?"
Charlotte nodded. The air in the room was heavy enough that Francis decided not to press further and simply waited for Luna to appear.
And then, a short while later—
"Thank you all for waiting."
A woman's soft, measured voice drifted in, accompanied by the sound of footsteps.
Hair the color of pure custard cream — a yellow so bright it seemed to glow. Ruby-red eyes that caught the light like strawberries set atop a cake, impossible to look away from.
Once she had been a nameless, powerless little lord who had set out to save the continent. Now she was the castellan of Teppelo Castle, one of the Karelia Army's most critical strongholds in the south, and she had proven herself more than equal to the post.
Lunarien Iniang stepped into view before them all.
"I'm sorry to keep you waiting. There was something I needed to confirm first…"
"Don't worry about that. What's so urgent you had to call everyone here?"
Everyone who could reasonably be called the "Lunarien faction" was in that room.
First, Tifa and Kyle, who had stood with her since her days as an independent lord. Then the three gifted siblings Kyle had asked her to take in — Francis, Charlotte, and Violet. And finally, several generals of the Karelia Army who, during her tenure as castellan of Teppelo Castle, had been so moved by Luna's character that they had come to follow her with genuine devotion.
These were people who harbored deep resentment toward Vanessa's high-handed rule — and so they gravitated toward Luna, the one person who had ever truly stood up to her, more readily than they did toward their own sovereign, Karelia.
Considering that Luna had never once gathered them all in a single place before, today's assembly was anything but ordinary.
"The matter is this. An extremely important order has come down from our sovereign, Lord Karelia."
"An order…"
"War, then."
Kyle, who had been listening quietly from the side, twitched an eyebrow as he spoke. Luna met his eyes and gave a slow nod.
"In preparation for battle against the Ohana Army, approximately ninety-three thousand troops are to be stationed at Teppelo Castle. General Eston, General Gail, and General Medeia will be transferring here. As for the supreme commander… that will be me, as castellan."
"Which means…?"
One of the generals who followed her spoke up, and Luna nodded again.
"Yes. I need all of you to begin preparing for battle. For the Karelia Army, this will be our first real engagement in a very long time, so I thought some mental preparation might be in order… and I also felt it would be best to discuss the coming campaign thoroughly with everyone here. That's why I asked you all to gather."
As she spoke, Luna unfurled a map — a detailed chart of the southern continent surrounding Teppelo Castle.
"To start, I'd like to discuss which of the three neighboring castles we should strike first. If anyone has a good idea, please raise your hand and speak freely at any time."
And so she began what looked, for all the world, like an ordinary pre-battle war council.
Until—
"Just a moment."
The hand that went up belonged to Violet — the youngest person in the room, and by far the sharpest mind among them, a budding strategist still in the making.
It would have been easy enough to scold a girl still learning her craft for interrupting. Instead, Luna addressed her with the same grave seriousness she would afford any general.
"Violet. Do you have a suggestion?"
"I'm not sure I'd call it a good suggestion."
Violet let out a short breath, then lifted her head and looked Luna straight in the face — and said something Luna had never once considered.
"Do you… truly intend to prepare for battle?"
"…What?"
"I mean exactly what I said. I am asking whether Lady Luna truly intends to prepare for this battle."
Luna tilted her head at Violet's cryptic words.
"Of course I do. That's what our sovereign ordered—"
"Is Lord Karelia your sovereign, Lady Luna?"
"…What?"
The question left her speechless for a beat. Violet's gaze did not waver as she pressed on.
"Is Lord Karelia the sovereign of us all — and is it truly Lady Luna's will that we help Lord Karelia unify the continent?"
Once the conversation had gone that far, even Luna could not fail to grasp what Violet was driving at.
"…What exactly are you saying, Violet?"
"I'm asking whether helping Lord Karelia is truly the right answer."
Luna pressed a hand to her forehead, exhaled, and said,
"I'll hear whatever you have to say. Speak your mind clearly."
"Betray Karelia."
"!!!"
"Ninety thousand troops are rolling straight into our hands. If the ambition you've always carried in your heart is anything more than a small thing, I can say with certainty that there will never be a better opportunity than this."
"…Violet. Even in an age of chaos, Lord Karelia has shown me enormous kindness. I haven't told any of you this, but inside Madlen Castle there were a great many people who opposed giving overall command to an outsider like me. Lord Karelia believed in me anyway. Isn't it only right that I repay that trust?"
"It's precisely because of that that this is your only chance. If more than half the capital still wants to keep you in check, the supreme commander's seat could be handed to someone else at any moment. And you don't seem to get along particularly well with Lady Vanessa either — and Lady Vanessa is this nation's de facto power, is she not?"
Violet was the only person who had personally witnessed the verbal sparring between Vanessa and Luna. For all her youth, she was precocious and sharp. There was no chance she had failed to read the open hostility Vanessa had directed at Luna in that room.
Luna herself had already sensed, without much difficulty, that Vanessa was watching her with fierce suspicion.
"So if you truly mean to step forward as a lord once more, Lady Luna — right now is the perfect opportunity. Betray Karelia. That is all I wish to say."
When they had first met, she had been nothing more than a shy little girl. And now, with the years behind her, she was spinning words this seductive — the kind of sentences only a thoroughly seasoned strategist would dare put to her tongue.
Did I buy her too many books on military strategy?
Violet said nothing more, but Luna could feel it — the air in the room had turned strange.
When she glanced around, not a single person looked shocked by Violet's outrageous proposal.
No.
If anything, the situation was beginning to tilt in a very particular direction.
"Lady Luna!"
Mets — one of the Karelia Army officers who had come to follow Luna at Teppelo Castle — dropped to one knee without warning.
"I know full well that Lady Luna was originally a lord who carried a grand ambition. Under Vanessa's tyranny, backed by our sovereign's authority, the people of the Karelia Army's territories are suffering. So long as the premise is that it is for the people's sake — does it truly matter so much who is the one to achieve it?"
"Lord Mets, what on earth are you—!"
"Lord Mets is right, Lady Luna."
Charlotte, standing beside him, lowered her head as she spoke.
"I, too, heard from my uncle that Lady Luna carries a great purpose. I'm not as sharp as Violet when it comes to reasoning these things out, but even I can feel it — so long as we remain under the Karelia Army, there will never be a better chance than this."
Several others added their voices in support of Violet.
In other words, every single person gathered in that room—
—sincerely wanted Lunarien to drive a knife into Karelia's back.
"…But…"
How could a vassal do such a thing?
It was true that she was only temporarily under another's roof, and true that she was watching for her moment. But she had never intended to seize what she wanted by a method this base.
Moreover, in the letter that had arrived from Cecil along with the news of her appointment as supreme commander, Luna had learned exactly how she had come to hold this post.
Lord Karelia had believed in her so completely that he had even overridden Vanessa's objections. And she was supposed to shatter that trust with her own hands?
No matter the circumstances — that was not something a person should do.
Her ruby eyes trembled harder than they ever had.
Until that very moment, Luna had not entertained so much as a single fragment of the idea of betrayal. She had only been trying to figure out how to cool the strangely fevered atmosphere in the room.
She had worked alongside these people for a long time. She knew full well what Vanessa had done, how unjust those actions had been, and how deeply her comrades resented her for them.
But Karelia himself was blameless. She could not bring herself to betray the man who had placed his faith in her — so she needed to find some way to talk them down.
But then—
"Hey, Luna."
Of everyone in that room, the one who had known her longest — Tifa — cut straight through to the thoughts Luna had not yet spoken aloud.
"Uh…?"
"I get what you're thinking."
Tifa let out a short sigh, scratched at her hair, and said,
"We can't keep playing house under someone else's roof forever, can we?"
"B-but…"
"I know. I know. You're right, honestly. Chaos or no chaos, betrayal isn't a pleasant thing. There's such a thing as human decency. Your sovereign really does care about you — I've been right there watching, so I know that too. And both you and Lord Karelia are the kind of people who try to live by that decency. I get it. But."
In that moment, Tifa's voice shed every trace of its usual playful lilt. She spoke with a gravity she had never shown before—
"We made a promise, didn't we? With him."
"!!!!!!"
Carefully, deliberately, she touched the one reverse scale of the human being called Lunarien.
"He's waiting for us. We can't just keep dragging our feet forever, can we?"
Yes.
Just as Tifa said… he was.
That man was.
Lord Swen…!!!
The first — and forever rightful — national strategist of the Lunarien Army, who had been sold off to the Brans Army in their place, was waiting for them.