Become the Medium
Gawin would raise the stakes again. Odelli was certain of it, which was precisely why she had set her sights on this reception from the very beginning.
A gathering that would ordinarily have called only vassals and household retainers had, for a reason, also summoned the imperial delegation and the highest nobles of the realm. Every excess in the banquet's lavish display had been engineered to draw him in.
This time, I will crush him utterly. So completely that he never dares to rise again.
Inside the carriage of House Cardel.
The moment Gawin sat down opposite Belloa, he drew a small box from the pocket of his coat.
"We use the Chaos-Tuning Stone again."
Time was short, and he wasted none of it on preamble.
"…You mean to use that again?" Belloa asked, careful.
"It's the Archducal Castle." As if the point were tiresomely obvious, Gawin shook the box before her eyes. "The first reception after the archduchess's formal investiture. Every noble gathered in one place. If the Purifier runs wild there, what will they all think? That she is something they cannot control. It will explain why we kept her hidden, and it is our chance to restore our standing."
The corner of his mouth lifted. Crude hypocrisy, transparent enough to see straight through, showed itself unaltered behind that thin smile.
"Besides, the northern vassals have resented the adopted archduke from the start. I've even heard talk of restoring the previous archduke. Those men would rather Ludville Exepsion were impotent, or mad until the day he dies."
Belloa said nothing.
"And now an archduchess on top of that? Let an heir be born, and it is as good as a declaration that Ludville means to hold Exepsion for good. Do you imagine they will swallow that quietly?"
She watched him in silence for a moment, then asked, perfectly calm, "You mean to move them yourself?"
Gawin nodded, smiling with perfect confidence.
"I'll win the vassals over in person. Go to them with 'my beloved sister entered a reckless marriage, and I must protect her,' and half of them will come over in an instant."
Certainty filled his eyes. He had the ease of a hunter already savoring a hunt he considered won.
But Belloa shook her head.
"…No. We can't."
His smile hardened at once.
"Playing the same hand twice is dangerous."
He gave no answer.
"All we have planted on the Exepsion side are a few low-ranking servants, and we haven't the people to keep the Chaos-Tuning Stone running reliably. To use it again like this is… extremely dangerous."
The light in Gawin's eyes, and his smile with it, slowly went cold.
"Then why not let this one pass, Brother, and aim for the next? Next time we kill her for certain, leave no trouble behind us, and let a new Purifier be born."
Gawin looked at her without a word.
Then only silence. A stillness so thick it seemed fit to suffocate them stretched on and on.
When he spoke again, the words came at an entirely different temperature.
"So you mean to stand there and watch a mere Purifier sit in the archduchess's place?"
"That isn't what I—"
"Don't tell me it isn't."
Without warning, Gawin slammed his fist into the wall of the carriage.
"My honor is face-down in the mud. The title of God's messenger, the image of a savior—all of it is about to be stolen by that woman. And you want me to kill the Purifier in the middle of that?"
He leaned sharply in toward Belloa and shouted, driving her back with the force of it.
"Suspicious eyes will already be fixed on our house, noisy as it is. And the one who has to clear that suspicion first is me."
She could not answer.
"Do you want so badly to watch your brother reviled?"
This was no longer persuasion. It was one-sided condemnation, and pressure—and, as it always did, it turned in a single instant into blame aimed squarely at her.
"The reason the plan failed at the wedding… one formula was missing from the circuit."
At those words, Belloa's face went rigid. She knew exactly what he meant to say.
"It was you."
She said nothing.
"Because you couldn't even check one wretched circuit properly… If you alone hadn't blundered, it would all have ended at the cathedral. Had it unfolded as planned then, I wouldn't be sitting here like this."
Quietly, Gawin lifted the box once more and set it upon Belloa's knees.
The box that held the Chaos-Tuning Stone.
"A way to drive the Purifier into a rampage with nothing prepared, as we are now… is there anything besides using this stone? If there is, say it. Right now."
Belloa pressed her lips tightly shut. At that silence, the corner of Gawin's mouth bent in scorn.
"Get it right this time."
He said it as though it were not a request, but an order. Then, as if turning his face from her, he looked out the window and delivered the rest in a voice gone cold.
"I do not care to be disappointed in you any further."
Belloa bit her lip and looked down at the box. Small and light as the thing was, it felt as heavy as a lump of lead.
Once Gawin had come this far, she could raise no further objection. To her, the will of the house was truth itself, and the command of the brother who bore the house's future was law.
He means for me to become the medium myself.
To activate the Chaos-Tuning Stone, a fixed point was required—something that could anchor the mana circuit. At the Grand Cathedral it had been possible only because they had worked steadily for days upon a magic circle already in place.
Inside the Archducal Castle, there was no such margin. No time to learn the foundations, no time to install anything in secret, and no hands to install it.
Gawin could not possibly be unaware of that. Even when Belloa had pointed it out in a roundabout way, he had deliberately pretended not to hear. He ignored, he evaded, he compelled, as if the answer had been settled from the very beginning.
In the end, there was only one conclusion. Belloa would have to carve the imprint into her own body and become the medium of the Chaos-Tuning Stone.
"…But if you use me as the medium, the moment we are discovered it will be immediately plain that Cardel is behind it."
She ventured the objection with care. Only then did Gawin slip back into the part of the gentle brother, his voice gone soft.
"Oh, Belloa. When did I ever tell you to sacrifice yourself?"
And he added, perfectly at ease, "We have a spy planted inside Exepsion Castle, don't we? Only a low-ranking servant, but… quite enough for a use like this."
She was silent.
In other words, Belloa would serve as the medium, and if anything went wrong, the blame was to be pinned on that spy. On its face it seemed to promise her safety. In truth, it was no different from setting her up as his shield.
There was, in any case, no alternative but her. For the existence of the Chaos-Tuning Stone to become known outside would be fatal, and without a separate formula, the only people here who could set it in motion were Gawin and Belloa.
Becoming the medium would not put her life in danger. It was not, however, a light charge. Fail to control the Chaos-Tuning Stone, and the consequences followed at once: an overload of mana, a temporary loss of consciousness, the deadening of the senses.
Even so, Belloa bowed her head. This was her brother's command, and the only chance she had to make good her mistake. More frightening than any side effect was the look in her brother's eyes if the operation failed.
"…I understand."
She drew a small breath. The Chaos-Tuning Stone in her hand bore slowly down upon her heart, like an anxiety that would not go out.