A Promise Before Parting
"I heard it from Duke Randert. You're heading back to Hamilton, aren't you?"
"Yes. I failed to convince my father."
Bayul's original plan had been to accompany the Crown Prince back to the imperial capital alongside his father, then join the expedition directly from the palace. When he'd first floated the idea, it had seemed like a forceful enough case would win his father over — but in the end, he hadn't been able to breach the duke's ironclad defenses. Taking a boy of barely sixteen, and the sole heir of a ducal house at that, onto a battlefield was something His Grace had declared absolutely out of the question. Even when Death had graciously offered to take responsibility for Bayul's safety himself, his father had refused on the spot, saying that meddling by the demon race was out of the question.
"I suppose it's hard to make that call when you've only just been through something so enormous. You have to understand that, Bayul."
"I do. Why would I not know this is all because he's worried about me? I'm just a little disappointed, that's all."
"A battlefield is a treacherous place where nothing can be promised. Granted, I've never experienced it myself, but I've heard more than enough about the general realities to last me a lifetime."
Once Bayul became a leader capable of properly wielding 'strategy and tactics' — the subject that could never be skipped in royal statesmanship — all that hard-won knowledge would become a great asset to Crown Prince Lindemann. Since the course was studied chiefly through historical battles, he had absorbed an intimate secondhand understanding of war's grimness from a very young age.
He could fully sympathize with Bayul's wounded feelings, yet he considered Duke Randert's decision the right one.
"Still, it's a shame you can't come with me. Grandmother would be overjoyed to meet you, I'm certain. Someday, when you're presented to her, she's bound to grant a reward worthy of the one who saved my life — so when that happens, don't refuse it. Accept it."
"As I said before, I only did what needed doing. All I did was push His Highness out of the way — too small a deed to earn anything like that. Please give every ounce of the credit to the knights who died."
"Of course I will. I'm only sorry that a mere reward is the best I can offer."
"It would also be meaningful if you visited the fallen soldiers' families personally to console them. If His Highness did so, wouldn't it give the bereaved great strength? And since Professor Rotheus is traveling with you, the journey home won't be so lonely anyway."
It wasn't only the students who found themselves idle with the academy closed. The faculty, too, had barely finished their summer break before being handed an early vacation yet again. Suddenly left with nothing to do, Professor Rotheus had joined the returning entourage under the noble pretext of protecting his nephew.
"Lonely is an understatement. He's my uncle, but sometimes he talks so much it goes past excessive. There are moments I genuinely want to run away."
Crown Prince Lindemann shook his head as though the mere thought made him queasy. But his eyes were unmistakably bright with gladness — he would be spending time with the uncle he'd missed all those months in the palace, so it would have been stranger not to be happy.
If only I could be with Father too....
A helpless wistfulness clung to Bayul's ankles.
"Besides, I still can't believe they came after you, Bayul! I'd assumed the target was me — I was busy piecing together the mystery of that beast when Emperor Royan just pops out of nowhere!"
The Crown Prince had received a detailed account of the entire chain of events, with the true identities of Death and Rayegar excepted. When he'd learned that the man who had tried to kill him outright was Vandine, Emperor Royan's oldest comrade, he'd been struck speechless for a long while.
Barely days earlier, they had laughed and exchanged pleasantries with him as part of the delegation celebrating the Emperor's wedding. As with most politics, it was said that yesterday's friend becomes today's enemy — but because this enemy had been utterly unforeseen, the shock cut all the deeper.
Looking at how events were unfolding, war was already an unavoidable step. The only condition was that the academy incident be proven, beyond all denial, to be the work of the Dwyer Empire — only then would the Polska Empire have just cause. Bayul had heard that a few of Emperor Royan's spies lurking in Carrington had been apprehended, but whether that would prove sufficient was still an open question. If the opposing faction seized on insufficient evidence to oppose the war, the atmosphere in the palace would grow unimaginably vicious. He could only pray it would never come to that.
"They tried to kill me to avenge their emperor's father. That alone shows they have no remorse whatsoever."
For all the blood they had spilled across the continent, nothing had improved. That was what galled Bayul most of all.
"No one ever expected them to reflect on it, though?"
"Pardon?"
"You're too naive, Bayul. If they were capable of remorse, they'd never have started the war in the first place. Think of it as something that was always going to happen — it just arrived a little early."
"You mean, Your Highness, that they would have launched another war eventually regardless?"
"Of course. The ambition to unify the entire continent — Emperor Royan is not a man capable of abandoning that. And there are plenty of other such schemers on this continent besides him."
The only difference was whether they acted on it or not.
"Still, it must sting — meeting your father again only to part from him right away."
"I'm quite used to it."
Bayul had been born in the middle of a war. His father, the empire's supreme commander, was naturally away from home often, and even after the war ended, he had never stayed home for long, busy mending matters great and small. As a small child, Bayul had endured the longing for his father together with Bail; now he would have to endure it alone, and that was the only part that pained him.
"Well, at least those spirits of yours should keep you from getting bored?"
The Crown Prince suddenly twisted around, scanning his surroundings.
"This time they're not showing up to scold me. Last time they got absolutely furious that I called them ghosts."
There was simply no better name for them, so that was what he'd used — the Crown Prince knew perfectly well they weren't truly ghosts.
"Ah, they're not around right now. They're still resting from the injuries they took that day."
"Oh? Really? It's nothing serious, is it?"
"No, Your Highness. Nothing of the sort."
"Then again, Sir Hayes is nearly healed too — isn't their recovery awfully slow? Couldn't they use divine power or something, being spirits?"
"They can't receive treatment at the temple, you see."
"Can't receive treatment? Why not?"
"Because they're spirits. They carry within themselves the power to heal their own wounds. They're still unrefined, so the pace is slow — but they'll overcome it completely before long."
He had gone to check on them before coming to the palace, in any case. Thankfully they could now manage conversation to some degree and even show themselves. If he kept working at it until the day he left for Hamilton, it wouldn't be long before they were as hale and hearty as Innocent.
"Ah, right — they did call them spirits back then too. But what exactly is a spirit? Something different from humans?"
"They look like humans, but they are not. I'll explain in detail when I come to see you after my father returns from the war."
Since the Crown Prince had already glimpsed them, Bayul had given the barest of explanations — but his father had ordered him to hold his tongue on the matter of spirits for the time being. It was a drastic precaution: if word spread that Bayul could command nature itself, there was no telling who might try to exploit his abilities while the duke was away at war.
"Another secret, is it?"
"I apologize."
"That was the teapot and the tree branch at the palace, then — those were spirits too?"
The Crown Prince was as sharp as ever. When Bayul nodded in confirmation, he gave a small laugh and accepted it.
"I knew it. This is the last secret, though. Next time, you tell me everything, as promised. Understood?"
"Thank you."
"Bayul."
When the Crown Prince called his name, the look in his eyes turned abruptly earnest.
"I've said this before, but you are the very first friend I've ever shared my heart with. I can't tell you how grateful I am that you exist here, alive. I'm thankful to Quinn, who saved you — and to the Eye of the Ocean that saved Quinn. I'm grateful for all of it."
If not for every one of those things, Carrington would already be a hellscape. That Bayul stood before him, living and breathing, filled the Crown Prince anew with gratitude and emotion.
"I hope we see each other again soon."
"As do I."
"You're not just saying that?"
"On the day my father returns with the news of victory, I'll be there to meet him at the gates. Won't that be a chance to see you as well, Your Highness?"
"That's a long way off."
This campaign would unfold differently from any before it, but a war was still a war. And the Dwyer Empire would clearly never surrender gracefully. No matter how fast and decisive the advance, it would not end easily — unless, of course, Duke Randert had some revolutionary strategy up his sleeve that no one knew of.
"Until then, take care of yourself. I pray for your safe return to the palace."
This time it was Bayul who extended his hand first — a handshake offered between friends.
"Thank you."
The Crown Prince's grip tightened as he clasped Bayul's hand.
"Oh! Before I forget — when you come to the palace next, how about a game of chess with me?"
"...Chess, Your Highness?"
"Yeah, you were amazing at it during the festival, weren't you? I have a bit of a competitive streak, you see. A wager — the winner gets a wish granted. What do you say?"
"What's so funny?"
"Nothing. Very well. As you wish."
"My wish won't be something so easily granted, you know. Are you sure about this?"
"Whether it's safe or not, I'll worry about when I lose."
Having beaten the senior who had been champion two years running, Bayul's confidence had swelled considerably. He knew nothing whatsoever about Crown Prince Lindemann's chess ability, but somehow, he didn't feel he would lose.
"Hm. You really have changed a lot since I first met you."
"Have I?"
"You have. But I like how you are now better."
They were still teenagers. They would keep growing, onward and upward. How they would change, and into what, no one could yet say.
"Farewell, then, Your Highness."
"And may only good things fill your days back home."
The Crown Prince's visit to Carrington, which had begun amid such high expectations, had been derailed by an unprecedented incident, and now every tongue in the empire wagged about it without pause. Since the whole affair had come about at the Crown Prince's own strong urging, he had arrived at the imperial palace only to find no rest awaiting him — nothing but the grueling work of defending himself, hour after hour. Exhaustion and toil would surely stretch on endlessly. As his friend, and as a future subject, Bayul fervently hoped he would weather it all.
Another day slipped by, and at last the departure for the capital began. The imperial guard and soldiers dispatched from the palace, Duke Randert and the Full Moon Knight Order, and even the servants attending them — it was a massive movement of nearly a thousand souls.
Bayul and his friends, barely holding back the longing to go along, saw the procession off only as far as the academy's front gates.
When would he see his father again?
The unease was not entirely absent, but Bayul trusted his father. If anyone could carry out what he had decided — and carry it out splendidly — it was him. Until then, Bayul had been entrusted with returning to Hamilton and putting the territory in order. With the spirits at his side, he would stop the rain that had been tormenting his homeland, and restore the farmland ruined by the long rainy season, along with the livelihoods of the people who lived there.
When his father returned, he would be astonished by the Hamilton that awaited him.
Duke Randert would spend the coming days busy with his own affairs, and Bayul with his own.