And Nothing Happened
"Yes. Well done."
Beyond the door came the rustle of hurried movement, and from far away the bells of the sanctuary drifted in, faint and thin. It was a once-in-a-lifetime stage, blessing braided together with expectation. Odelli ran through the order of the rite in her mind, testing every variable that might arise.
I won't let anyone interfere with this wedding.
The reasons it had to be carried off safely, and perfectly, were plain. The imperial envoys were present, and only once Cardel was brought down could everything that followed proceed without a hitch. Which meant it could not possibly be for a reason so purely private as this: that she did not want to ruin her last wedding with Ludville.
Haah...
Odelli sighed, clenched her fist tight, and let it go. Through the dress, her heartbeat came through so sharply it hurt. In this life, she would protect him. She would—just as he had done for her. If it meant keeping him alive, she could do anything. Even if, when it was over, nothing of her remained.
The bells of the grand cathedral rang out in solemn splendor. Spires rose as if to pierce the sky, the golden belfry a dark silhouette against them, and dazzling sunlight poured through the windows to spill across a pure-white gown.
The doors opened. Between arches dressed in light, Odelli appeared, and in that instant the guests caught their breath.
"Cardel, indeed..."
Someone let the admiration slip without thinking. Odelli was the most ideal figure Cardel could have offered as its symbol, as if the Saintess of Holy Blood—she who had purified the emperor's curse—had been born again. So completely was she sacred beauty itself that the Archduke of Exepsion's choice of the grand cathedral felt neither extravagant nor arrogant, but simply excellent.
Why has Cardel hidden a woman like this until now?
Frail or not, isn't she exactly the sort of daughter a house would step forward to boast of?
Everyone was thinking the same thing.
Beyond the veil, luminous and sheer, silver hair caught the light. The silk gown flowed down her like water, answering every step in a smooth, unbroken line. Sky-blue eyes held the way ahead in perfect stillness, and on that snow-white face there was not the slightest tremor. The farther Odelli walked, the more naturally the grand cathedral sank into silence. The choir had begun to sing, but every gaze was fixed on her alone.
She climbed the steps and made for the altar. Before it stood Ludville, in black ceremonial dress. For a moment she nearly faltered without meaning to—then, without letting it show, she went on at the same even pace.
Most days his blond hair was soaked in blood. Today it shone as brilliantly as the sun. Beneath the neatly swept gold, features as precise as sculpture stood revealed. It was, without question, a face that belonged among the beautiful, and yet the look on it gave off the air of a soldier who had only just walked back alive from a battlefield: a countenance keen as a blade, an overwhelming presence built of a massive frame and hard muscle. Amid the black of his formal dress, the only things that gleamed—the gold buttons and the epaulettes—shone with a weight that seemed to flaunt an archduke's dignity. From him came a majesty like the war god of myth made flesh.
Until that moment, the guests had been doubtful. There was no way love had brought him to stand in a wedding hall. He must have had some purpose.
But the face that had been set in cold indifference changed, strangely, the instant it met Odelli coming toward him. The gaze fixed on her was that of a man caught on the afterimage of some distant memory. In eyes dark as an abyss—eyes that seemed to permit no feeling at all—a faint light stirred.
The people felt it by instinct. He was mad. And if that was not the face of a man in love, then what was it?
In that moment the many-colored light of the stained glass poured down over the two of them. They looked like a scene from an old myth brought back to life: light and darkness facing each other in a sanctuary. A saintess of light, and a cursed king standing in shadow. Poles apart. And yet, though they were woven of such utterly different stuff, the two of them suited each other with an eerie rightness, as if they had been born for one another. As if they were a single fate, impossible to tear apart.
Any moment now.
From the front row, in the seats reserved for dignitaries, Gawin quietly watched the two of them meet. The marriage vows would begin soon. Odelli stood side by side with Ludville, before the altar, at the exact center of the magic circle—the place where every ward of the grand cathedral, and the Sacred Relics they had planted in advance, converged.
Gawin turned his gaze aside. Beloa wore a soft smile at the corner of her mouth. Each time Odelli took another step toward the center of the circle, her eyes brightened. She was waiting for the chaos about to break. For the moment her plan fit together, perfectly.
Now.
Odelli stood precisely on the mark.
Done.
It was perfect. The magic circle that House Cardel had slipped into the grand cathedral beforehand and altered with their own hands was set to respond only to purification power, the energy unique to a Purification Ability User. They had tuned it, in particular, to trigger when such a user grew tense.
Throughout the ceremony, Odelli would of course have no choice but to be tense. The Archduke of Exepsion stood right beside her, and every guest's attention was gathered upon her. However confident a person might be in her own composure, this was her wedding. Some fine tremor was bound to be there. That would be enough.
And then—
She'll rampage.
The circle on the floor would shudder, and pillars of light would shoot all the way to the ceiling. That some of the imperial envoys would go into shock was part of the scenario as well; the more distinguished the guest, the closer they sat to the wards. Gawin and Beloa, however, had put on protective gear of their own, and would take no harm.
For the sake of this plan, even at the banquet the day before, they had let fall words suggesting that Odelli's new ability was unstable. That had been a kind of foundation stone for today. In the end he had suffered humiliation and withdrawn, but that was fine. Public opinion was going to be overturned today regardless. Everyone who had attended the banquet had heard Gawin speak, and that was enough.
Once the rampage starts, I'll use the chaos to take back the savior's place.
That was why he had not killed Odelli yet. Kill her now, and there would be no path back to his honor. This wedding, with even the imperial envoys in attendance, he meant to make the stage of his return.
Come on. Activate.
Gawin sat in his chair and quietly curled his hand into a fist, waiting for the moment everything would burst into being before his eyes—the pillars of light, the shudder of the wards, the rampage. Waiting for the stage to open and announce that Cardel's messenger of God still stood unbroken. He stared at Odelli and slowly counted in his head.
One. Two. Three.
And then—
Nothing happened at all.