At the Moon Tower - 2
"Robert will be attending this Family Head Council as well."
"Understood."
Since I had already known as much, I nodded without a flicker of surprise. There was no need to behave rashly in front of my father. As always, I had to watch every move I made—now more than ever, with the seat of Family Head within my grasp.
Cards in hand, I had plenty. Weren't there more things Yuria didn't know—things only I knew—than I could count?
What nagged at me was how much she had changed. Her hair had been fairly long the last time I saw her; now it was cropped short enough to be called a blade-cut bob. The wavering that used to touch her eyes whenever she looked at me was gone too—when our gazes met for a moment, Yuria simply turned her head away, her face a blank mask.
I had thought she wavered, if only for an instant, but perhaps that had been my imagination after all. Which suited me fine. She hadn't attempted anything yet, and I hoped her resolve would stay firm.
Come to think of it now, I could almost understand Theresia's heart. Watching Icarus plummet at the very moment he believed he had reached the highest place of all... that must have been a rather delightful game.
My father's gaze drifted to me, then quickly returned to Yuria. This Family Head Council carried a far weightier subject than any before it: the subjugation of the South, a campaign the Empire had been planning since long ago.
The South had always been a land where non-human races and barbarians mingled. Wasn't that precisely why it had been occupied but never developed? A country choked with grass and forest, strange plants, and stranger people.
Come to think of it, the children Adrian had been caring for were tied to the South as well—children rescued after fleeing before they could be offered up as sacrifices. The more I turned it over, the more I felt this council and the Saintess were deeply entwined. And if I hadn't met her until now, it was simply because I'd been hearing my news directly through the Princess.
"Robert, this will be your first time attending a Family Head Council, won't it?"
"Yes, Father. I won't make a mistake."
"There's no room for mistakes—you'll hardly get the chance to speak at all. Still, study the faces until none of them are strangers. Everyone at that council is a pillar of the Empire. It can do no harm to know them by sight."
"I'll keep that in mind."
When I bowed my head, my father gave a small nod of acknowledgment and dismissed me. I had come only to be told of my attendance, after all; checking on Yuria's condition had merely been part of the errand.
The moment I stepped out of the room, I felt Yuria's gaze settle on me. It did not waver in the slightest—straight, and cold as winter steel. I could tell with certainty that her mindset had changed.
But that was all it was. Even if her heart had shifted, even if the cold blood she carried had frozen over into hoarfrost—she was still a woman I would break, someday.
"Then, with your leave, I'll withdraw first."
In the future I was painting anew, there was no place for a woman named Yuria Taylor. Of that much, I was certain.
The Family Head Council was held in the imperial capital. The Duke's residence and the capital were, in truth, only a single boundary apart—yet the difference between them was vast. However splendid a Duke's domain might be, it could never rival the Emperor's majesty; cross one gate, and the world before your eyes changed starkly.
Past the golden checkpoint—the Gate of the Sun, bedecked in ivory and jewels—stood the Gate of the Moon. Beyond a gate trimmed in platinum, the final checkpoint into the capital at last came into view: Eclipse, wrought entirely in deepest black. Only by passing through it did the capital, Eden, reveal itself, and the coachman, beholding the landscape transform in an instant, let slip a small gasp of awe.
The capital's liveliness admitted no comparison with any other city. They called it the City of Light, but even that name fell short of the vitality this place poured forth.
The Moon Tower I had seen last time stood here as well. The Saintess's dwelling—the odd premonition that brushed past me was surely more than mere feeling. If my instincts weren't wrong... we would almost certainly cross paths at this council. Whether by my design or by another's.
But my true objective was the Princess, so I set thoughts of the Saintess aside for the moment.
The carriage traveled for some time before finally reaching the council grounds: a garden that looked like ordinary forest from without, but admitted only those whose identity had been proven. Vines writhing as though alive stirred and shifted, barring the horse's way forward, and then—from somewhere unseen—a knight appeared without warning and began verifying our identities.
The knight, his face wholly hidden beneath his helm, glanced at the crest engraved on the carriage and addressed my father.
"Have you come from House Taylor?"
"We have. Will you open the way?"
"...Identity confirmed. May peace be with you."
Everything that manifested in this garden changed from year to year. This year it had always been that knight; next year it might be a ragged barbarian, and the year after, an archer with bow drawn. For this was the Garden of Mystery, which had existed alongside the Empire since its very founding—and every being that appeared within was bound in servitude to the spirits. That was why even my father observed the proper courtesies. Save the Emperor himself, no one stood equal to them.
The moment I stepped down from the carriage, a sensation unlike ordinary grass rose through my soles—soft and yielding, like treading on cloud. Droplets drifting through the air touched my skin and burst with tiny pops.
Yuria watched the scene with an expressionless face, then turned to my father and spoke.
"Shall I infuse it with mana?"
"No need, this year. It will appear of its own accord shortly."
As he finished speaking, another quarter of the garden began to stir. Trees, grass, and flowers slowly drew up their roots, and the forest parted like a gate swinging open. Since it opened literally, the nobles on the far side started visibly at the sight of one another, appearing as if from nowhere. Only our side kept its composure through it all, and my father shot the other nobles a look of open contempt.
Among all these nobles, Taylor was the sole Ducal house. That was why, though it was called a council of Family Heads, House Taylor had always presided over it. This time, however, the chair was not my father's—for the imperial family itself was joining today's session.
"Her Highness the Princess approaches!"
At the cry of the knights drawn up in ranks across the open ground, every gaze turned as one. At the end of that line came a woman, and the nobles who beheld her sank to their knees and pressed their heads to the earth. It was only natural. That woman—raven hair streaming, hair only imperial blood could carry, eyes like the moon itself—was the most supreme presence in this place.
"I thank you all for gathering. I know your duties leave you little spare time, but the subject of this council is a weighty one, and so I have come to attend it myself."
The moment the Princess finished speaking, silence swept over the garden.
Hers was a familiar voice. I had heard it dozens of times over—had I not even heard that woman whisper that she loved me?
Mirazen de Artein. The woman who bore that name opened her mouth once more.
"Then let us begin—the council on how the South is to be handled."
When the Princess raised her arm, a brilliant light shot up above the garden. One might call it the signal announcing this imperial assembly. But my attention lay elsewhere—on how I would approach the Princess.
Slipping close to her unseen, as I had in the past, remained an option, but this time it looked to be rather difficult.
...She's been staring this way for a while now.
Yuria was taking a conspicuous interest in me. I couldn't fathom why she kept looking over, but her attention was fixed on me—that much seemed certain. Not that I lacked a way out. I knew exactly how this garden moved; slipping away partway through the session would be simple enough.
The Princess had convened the meeting, but it was the ministers in her retinue who would steer it. They borrowed her name to claim the floor, and she need only carry the conclusions back to the Emperor—her role ended there. She always vanished midway through and went wandering these grounds.
Our eyes met briefly; when her gaze slid away, I smirked. What could she possibly be thinking? No matter—it was none of my concern. What Yuria wanted was for me to divine her true intent, and I had no obligation to play along.
"My position on the South has never changed. Short of subjugation, is there any clear measure at all?"
"I think the same. The barbarians and the non-humans must be dealt with regardless. Why not use this chance to cull what must be culled, then develop the Great Forest and settle the non-humans there? That seems the right course."
"Settle the barbarians as well?"
"No—those we subjugate. They are sun-worshippers to the last man, sorcery and all. Need I remind you of the children the Saintess rescued only recently?"
The debate over the South's fate, opened by my father's words, was marching toward subjugation exactly as I remembered it. The subjugation of the South was a settled matter; it would merely stall later on.
The sorcerers dwelling in the South were no trifling enemies. They wielded magic even more devoted to slaughter than your average mage, and unless they were struck down in a single decisive blow, no meaningful subjugation would be achieved. Of course, I had no standing to voice any of that here—I would only be rebuked for overstepping. So I watched the debate unfold in silence.
The session's fervor climbed higher and higher, until at last the palace ministers and several nobles began raising their voices.
"Come now! Does that not mean the nobles' own soldiers would bear all the sacrifice?"
"Did the palace not promise to dispatch mages? I should think that sufficient."
"A mage's purpose is support from the rear! Is this not a scheme to shrink the nobility's authority under cover of this campaign?"
"What reckless nonsense is that!"
A pitiful spectacle, as ever—but no better chance than this would come for me to slip away from the assembly. Yuria was busy championing the nobles' cause, so I cast a quick glance around and drew up my mana.
What the garden's mystic denizens responded to was the mana of those who had been granted leave. What had been verified when the carriage entered was my father's mana—which meant that, applied properly, I could bend this garden to my will as I pleased.
Soundlessly, the vines steeped in my mana began to veil my body, little by little. To any onlooker, it would seem the trees were swallowing me whole. But there was a place I could reach only by hiding myself thus: the far side of the Garden of Mystery, where the Princess would no doubt be wandering.
As it happened, a paved path lay close at hand, and I followed it, keeping watch on my surroundings. I had long since prepared an answer for should we cross paths: I had merely been testing my mana, and happened—truly happened—to wander here.
That I could decipher the Garden of Mystery at all was thanks to Arwen's help. Which meant that, at this point, no one but me could make free use of the garden.
Arwen's reply should arrive soon.
Which meant my contact with the Crown Prince had to come before then. I knew well enough what stories would whet his appetite; once I met the Princess and exchanged a few words, a meeting with him would follow naturally. All that remained was to find her.
Then something caught my eye: a butterfly drifting through the garden. Out of place amid all that green, that lone butterfly in elegant, pristine white stole my gaze for an instant. Each time it wheeled through the air, a thread of gold traced after it like a dancer's ribbon.
One thing became clear as I watched: that butterfly did not belong here.
"Divine power...?"
No living creature could exist within this place. The knight I had seen—even these very trees—were all, in the end, things the spirits had conjured. And yet the butterfly moved of its own will.
I watched the light wreathing the air a moment longer, then loosed a thread of mana at the butterfly. With a soft crack, it struck and staggered—and then the aimlessly drifting butterfly began circling me round and round, as though trying to make out what I was. A thought surfaced unbidden, and I murmured, half-dazed:
"It couldn't be Adrian... no. Surely not."
At that, the butterfly's motion ceased, and its fluttering body slowly came apart. From something with shape into pure light, and at last into a radiance of condensed divine power—that light whispered to me. Quite literally: a voice I knew well sounded at my ear.
"Could you be... Lord Taylor?"
A familiar voice. Of course it was. It was so calm, so gentle, that the moment I heard it, there was no mistaking its owner. It was only that hearing it here, of all places, was so utterly unexpected. I gathered my wits quickly and addressed the light hovering in the air.
"Saintess? No one told me you would be attending the council."
"Actually, I was looking for Mirazen. I thought she would be somewhere nearby."
"I see. I was searching for Her Highness as well."
I asked where she might be, thinking I had a fair idea—but Adrian, far from answering, declared that this worked out nicely, her voice quickened with something like excitement.
"Oh, was that so? Then I'll pass word to Mirazen myself. Could you come to the Moon Tower a little later?"
"Would I be permitted to enter the Moon Tower?"
"If I'm the one vouching for you, it should be fine. Besides—about the South, there is something I must say to you as well, Lord Taylor."
I nodded at the note of gravity in her voice. The South was a delicate subject for Adrian. No doubt she would speak of it with me alone, or with the Princess present. Which suited me fine—I would have plenty of chances to speak with Her Highness.
I turned my head, and beyond the garden loomed the great tower—far nearer now than it had appeared during the Full Moon Festival. Getting there was no trouble in itself, but wasn't this all rather abrupt? Still, I could not refuse to go. I could not throw away a chance to meet the Saintess and the Princess both at once.
I had weighed every possibility, yet here I was, meeting the Saintess all over again. Given how things had turned out, it seemed wise to revise my thinking somewhat. One thing looked certain: some bond tied Saintess Adrian and me together. At the very least, in this life.