The Stage Begins
And then, at last, the day of the council arrived.
The doors of the Imperial Palace Grand Conference Room—a chamber opened only once or twice a year—swung wide open.
Not a single one of the luxurious seats that filled the room sat empty. The noble officials who managed the empire's judiciary and treasury had arrived with their retinues in tow, along with the knights charged with keeping the peace—and even mages and priests, who rarely showed their faces in public, had made an appearance.
With such a dazzling variety of figures gathered in one place, the sight was nothing short of magnificent. For so many dignitaries to attend a single meeting was itself a rare occurrence, and even the most seasoned attendants wore their tension plainly on their faces.
While the stiffened attendants laid out the tea service, the councilors rolled their eyes about the room, searching for someone.
That someone was Arendt von Eckhart, tucked in among the 3rd Knight Order.
Finding him, in truth, was not difficult. A young man with hair white as fresh snow existed nowhere else in the imperial palace.
He must have felt every gaze on him, yet Arendt simply stared straight ahead with indifferent eyes. The onlookers tensed involuntarily when he suddenly, faintly, scrunched up his face.
But then, the very next moment.
"...Yawwwn."
"Don't yawn."
"I went to bed late, all right?"
"Doesn't matter. You mind your posture in a setting like this, you brat."
Arendt covered his mouth with a hand and yawned languidly, and Arthur beside him growled out the warning.
...So he's just not thinking about anything at all.
The onlookers who had been studying Arendt with curious eyes quietly turned away.
Just then, a stir rose at the entrance, and another party strode into the chamber: Marquis Lanford and the nobles who shared his sympathies. Count Eckhart and Arcus were, of course, among them.
They paused for a moment as if to look toward Arendt, but Arendt merely averted his gaze and put on a show of feigned indifference.
Unable to watch any longer, Arthur jabbed him in the ribs.
"Aren't you even going to say hello?"
"Why would I?"
"Why? Because he's your father. I heard you two even had a meal together recently."
"Ah, that time? The guest treatment was terrible, so I went back to the barracks and ate there instead."
"What is that even supposed to—"
Whatever else Arthur meant to bark was cut short by the cry that erupted from outside the doors.
"His Highness the Crown Prince enters!"
As if they had all been waiting for exactly that moment, the seated attendees shot to their feet.
It was a grand sight indeed.
Through the great open doors strode Cantares, attended by Zereon and no one else.
It was customary for any royal appearing at an official function to trail a long line of attendants behind them—for the size of one's retinue was itself a display of power.
But Cantares, as though such conventions meant nothing to him, had brought only the aide he trusted most to stand at his side.
Spartan, if one wanted to call it that—and yet more commanding than anyone else in the room.
Naturally, the sight did not please every eye. Someone in the crowd was surely seething with displeasure, but no one present was so green as to let that irritation show.
"We bow before His Highness the Crown Prince."
The attendees offered their formal courtesies to the empire's next sovereign. The robed mages pressed a hand to their chests and bowed; the priests in white clasped both hands together and dipped their heads deep in reverence.
Cantares, seated at the head of the table, spoke.
"That so many of you have gathered despite this sudden summons deserves my gratitude first and foremost."
Though the chamber was packed with more people than one could count, the moment the Crown Prince opened his mouth, silence fell like the air had died. A grave voice—graver still than it had been at the banquet some days before—filled the room.
"I have called you all here because there is a matter that demands urgent discussion. I imagine most of you are already aware."
Murmurs rippled through the quiet chamber.
"Everything began with a single carrier pigeon that reached me some time ago. We have yet to identify the sender."
Cantares's vivid blue eyes swept across the assembly.
"While the investigation had stalled, Sir Arendt uncovered a lead on our enemies. Everything that followed was chaotic enough that you all know the story—so I will spare you the recap."
The reason for rehearsing past events was simple enough.
"Had we not acted swiftly, any one of those incidents would have ended in outright catastrophe."
When that first pigeon had arrived, it was Marquis Lanford and his faction who had opposed an active investigation, scoffing that no one should be riled up by a child's prank.
Into their silence, the Duke of Lancelot, who had sat quietly through it all, finally spoke.
"It was Your Highness's keen insight that averted great disaster."
"It was the knights' hard work that did it."
Cantares answered with perfect composure, then continued in a heavier tone.
"I will not keep you long, as you are all busy men. During the course of the investigation, it came to light that the former Marquis Grig had been in league with them."
"...?!"
"Dear heavens..."
The chamber erupted at once.
Arendt, too, allowed the corner of his mouth to curl upward, just slightly.
You've done your homework, haven't you.
Talk of spies hiding in plain sight was the perfect topic for hurling a room full of complacency into taut, coiled tension. It also made an excellent opening act for the one-act play about to unfold.
This heavy atmosphere, too, was staging that Cantares had crafted himself. That brief lecture at Lawrence's restaurant, it seemed, had paid off.
Cantares stole a glance at Arendt—unnoticed by anyone else—and spoke again.
"This is not a crisis we can afford to sit out. It means their webs may have spread deep within the palace itself. For all we know, one of them could be sitting in this very room."
The Crown Prince's blue eyes gleamed with pointed meaning as they turned slowly over the assembly. Not one person dared to meet his gaze; heads turned away, and eyes dropped to the floor.
"The raid on the East Vault, the former Marquis Grig's hidden mine, and now the attack on the auction house. Every one of these incidents traces back to the same mastermind. And thanks to the testimony of Count Stadler—whom the former Marquis Grig nearly abducted—we have confirmed what they call themselves."
Now the real performance would begin.
Every strained gaze in the room converged on the Crown Prince.
"The Broken Heart's Sword. Followers of the evil god eradicated in the age of the Hero Cahn, long ago."
"...!"
A fresh wave of uproar burst from every corner of the room.
Arendt watched the proceedings in silence. Cantares, for his part, paused and simply let the murmuring crowd settle on its own.
The high nobles, with their quick access to information, might have at least suspected as much—but to the rest, it must have felt like a bolt from a clear sky. A story they had only ever read in history books had abruptly been summoned into reality.
After a moment, the elderly priestess spoke.
"Your Highness, we do not presume to doubt your word... but given the gravity of this matter, we must ask for a fuller account."
"That is no difficult thing to grant, Priestess Lumiel. Though doing so will require us to hear Sir Arendt's side of things as well."
With that seamless pivot, every eye in the room swung to the young man standing among the knights.
Arendt deliberated for a moment, then chose his next line.
The posture: slightly slouched. The head: tilted a touch to one side. The expression: not quite blank, but wearing an endless air of petulance. Delivered flat and deadpan, it would be perfect.
"...I regret to say I have nothing to offer. I merely followed His Highness the Crown Prince's orders."
The image was complete: a delinquent apprentice knight who obeyed commands because he had no choice, and whose relationship with the Crown Prince was as strained as strained could be.
"You—how dare you utter such insolence—!"
Someone cried out in shock, but Arendt paid it no mind, only staring straight at the Crown Prince.
Cantares's brow narrowed, just a little.
"That is modesty taken rather too far, Sir Arendt."
"Not modesty, Your Highness—simply the truth. I am nothing but an apprentice knight. I hardly think my standing up in a chamber like this is proper in the first place."
The cold voice was an entirely different creature from the Arendt who ordinarily took such liberties with Cantares.
Arthur, realizing what was happening, glanced back and forth between the two of them in alarm.
Cantares's face twisted with displeasure. But instead of rebuking him further, he merely let out a short sigh and pressed on.
"The enemies who approached Count Stadler to win him over first made their approach by invoking that very name."
"Then the claim that they are the evil god's followers..."
"We found the basis for it in the old documents handed down through the imperial family. There is no mistake."
At Cantares's firm reply, Priestess Lumiel's expression darkened.
Someone else spoke up.
"The man who approached Count Stadler—is he the same shadowy figure who appeared with that unidentified golem this time? The one said to have died at Sir Arendt's hand?"
"That's right. He was also on close terms with the former Marquis Grig. In light of all this, I, your Crown Prince, have no choice but to make a declaration before this assembly."
Cantares's voice, calm until now, turned several degrees colder.
"Those who threaten the people of the empire and the imperial throne will not be forgiven. Whether they are the evil god's followers or mere rebels does not matter. Every last one of them. That is my will."
He drove the final words home as though commanding every soul present to hear them.
"And so I have judged it right to begin by rooting out the enemy within."
"The enemy... within?"
A dazed murmur threaded through the chamber.
No one could tell who had spoken, but one thing was certain: that single phrase sank the entire room into a hellish silence.
The first to snap out of it, Marquis Lanford, hurried to speak.
"W-wait, just a moment, Your Highness. Do you mean to say there is a traitor among us?"
"I apologize if my words sound like an accusation. But now that the former Marquis Grig and his accomplices have been confirmed, we cannot dismiss the possibility."
It was a statement far too extreme—and Cantares's tone was slipping, quite naturally, into the speech of a superior addressing inferiors.
But no one in this room could openly refute it. Everyone knew full well what had become of Marquis Grig.
The Crown Prince's face as he quietly surveyed the men surrounding him was nothing but frost. As though he might seize the suspicious ones at any moment and purge them on the spot.
"If that is Your Highness's will, then it is surely ours as well. But..."
Marquis Lanford's lips fluttered a few times before he forced his composure back and tried again.
"But, Your Highness. I ask that you lend your ear, just this once, to this old man's foolish words."
"Speak freely. I will listen."
"I understand well what Your Highness is saying. But I must venture to ask—do you intend to maintain the current approach going forward?"
"Approach?"
"Yes. The first button was sewn on crooked, so perhaps there was no help for what has been done until now. But from here on, things must change. You have declared, after all, that you will root out the internal enemy first."
The Marquis paused, then resumed in a voice sunk even deeper.
"This is a dangerous affair—one misstep could tear us apart into factions. Therefore, from this point on, you must proceed according to principle and observe due process."
"Due process, is it...? That sounds remarkably like an admission that no such process has been observed until now. No—forget the euphemisms. Let us speak plainly."
At those words, the chamber turned as frigid as if someone had hurled a basin of ice water over the assembly.
Cantares smiled—coldly.
"It seems you wish to have a discussion about me and Sir Arendt, Lord Lanford."