How to Strangle a Tiger - 3
"Something feels a little off."
Premonitions had a way of making a person uneasy. They surfaced without warning in the emptiest of moments, stirring up emotions for no reason at all.
There was no reason for it. At the very least, as far as she knew, there should have been nothing to feel anxious about.
Adele smoothed the space between her brows and frowned. A full month had already passed since her return to the North, and the cold settling over everything was growing fiercer by the day.
It meant winter was coming again — and unlike usual, the news sat a little pleasantly with her. Any other winter, perhaps not. But this winter, she had a guest coming.
He had said he was coming to her, so come he would. And if he didn't? She was prepared to employ somewhat rougher methods. Plunder was a proud northern tradition — as if making off with a single man from House Taylor would be any great crime.
Lately rumors had drifted her way, talk of him claiming the family headship or some such, but to Adele it meant nothing at all. Her only thought was whether Robert would keep his promise; the head of House Taylor was hardly someone she'd ever had much to do with anyway.
Still, there was no denying that this strange feeling, born only recently, was disturbing her peace.
Watching her, Lotos remarked offhandedly, "Are you jealous, by any chance?"
"...I see you've lost your mind. Jealous? Over what, exactly?"
"No, it's only that — to anyone with eyes, you look like a woman pacing because the man she fancies might meet another. That Robert fellow didn't strike me as a man blessed with much luck where women are concerned, mind you."
"I know that. And I've never once worried about it." Adele answered with a scowl.
Why on earth would she be jealous? They weren't in any relationship that carried such feelings to begin with — and what she felt now was something subtly different from that anyway. As though something she had claimed first were being sullied... What name was she supposed to give this strange sensation?
Adele clicked her tongue softly and shot Lotos a glare; he bowed his head and held his tongue.
Truthfully, the whole thing irritated her for no good reason. He'd called it a secret, so she hadn't pressed further, and she hadn't pried into the hidden realm of skill he kept to himself, either. She was the Grand Duke of the North, for pity's sake — anyone else would have trembled at the mere sound of the name Adele Egret. And here she was, ceding the initiative to a single man. She didn't like it one bit.
It wasn't that she disliked Robert himself, of course — but the situation did chafe, didn't it? And yet there was nothing to be said about it, all the same. What could she possibly say to a man who must be lingering somewhere near the capital by now? Reaching out first felt like admitting defeat — but neither could she simply sit and wait for winter to arrive.
"...Come to think of it, you said he knows the Saintess, didn't you?"
Adrian. To think he was on such good terms with that pure-hearted woman. Judging by the way he'd spoken, it was more than a glance exchanged in passing — a personal friendship, most likely.
She was a woman standing at the exact opposite end from Adele. Herself, leading a mercenary band from girlhood — and Adrian, leading a religious order. The difference in their natures could hardly be starker.
That uneasy feeling grew sharpest of all whenever the Saintess came to mind, which was precisely why Adele found the woman so suspicious. Her personality didn't seem the sort to scheme, but then, Adele's instincts had rarely been wrong.
While she was lost in such thoughts, Lotos suddenly spoke up. "There is one thing I've heard, though I can't vouch for whether it's true. It concerns... the young lord Robert Taylor."
"Stop stalling and spit it out. What is it I don't know this time?"
"There's a rumor that he's traveling to the South with the Saintess. This winter, that is."
Adele's body went rigid in an instant, and Lotos swallowed hard as he watched her. How long had it been since he'd seen her so flustered? But knowing full well that the reaction to come would be anything but gentle, he cleared his throat and quietly stepped back. Maintaining a safe distance was important in any situation — especially beside an Adele who was about to explode.
"...Haha. The South, he says."
Adele chuckled low in her throat, slowly dragging a hand down her face. Going to the South with the Saintess — fine, that was no concern of hers. It was the timing that was the problem. Hadn't he said he was coming to the North this winter? He'd said it to her face, and then turned around and made another promise — to go South again.
"Th-the timing probably won't overlap. He said after the new year, so the young lord will likely only arrive and settle in around year's end."
"That's not the point."
"Then what is the point?"
"My mood has turned foul. Quite, extremely, thoroughly."
Her plan had been to keep him in the North until winter's end, at the very least. His skill with magic aside, with him at her side the sluggish Barbarian Subjugation could be brought to a far quicker end. She had meant to talk him round into staying on — and the Saintess had moved first.
So that was what this ominous feeling had been. Ha. Adele let out a hollow laugh and turned to Lotos. "Find out exactly when they leave for the South and report it back to me."
"Canceling the schedule will be difficult. It's an undertaking run by the Church, isn't it?"
"I have no intention of canceling anything. Even I have things I cannot do."
Watching Adele grin, Lotos felt a prickle of tension bloom in his skull. Whenever she smiled like that, didn't something absurd always come out of her mouth? While he fretted over what might follow, Adele went on.
"Still, there's no problem with me going along, is there."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Just get me the schedule. The judgment is mine to make. My calendar's empty after the new year anyway."
If she went and happened to run into him, who could say a word against it? Adele mused. Even if she did cross paths with the Saintess and Robert in the South by sheer chance, it would be no situation of her own making.
As she stroked the wolf lying at her side, a faint smile soon bloomed on Adele's lips.
The barrier that had guarded Arwen's house was gone before I knew it. The general store's sign hung out front again, and now and then I could see customers drifting in and out.
Had she made up her mind to return to ordinary life? Not that she could hide away as she once had — and in any case, she had business with me.
I nearly slipped in the way I had when I used to infiltrate the place, then thought better of it and headed for the front door. I had no wish to watch her faint dead away from shock a second time — and if she screamed, it could only invite an ugly misunderstanding.
So I knocked and waited a good long while, until at last Arwen peeked her head out. She stood, to look at her, hardly taller than a child just growing into her years — and at that gulf, where I had to crane down for a long moment before our eyes could finally meet, Arwen heaved a sigh.
"So you came after all."
"You're the one who told me to come. I had no reason to refuse."
"Come in. Let's... talk a little first."
The inside had changed somewhat since my last visit. This, too, was one of the barriers born of her abilities, I supposed — and beyond that, she had likely been reshaping the interior every day since. Always keeping a place to hide ready was a good habit, doubly so for a woman living under constant threat of assassination.
Arwen conjured a teacup out of thin air; at a wave of her hand, a teapot came drifting over and began pouring the tea entirely on its own. It was a wondrous sight, no matter how many times I saw it. Ordinary mages could not wield their mana with such fluidity.
So when I eyed the tea, Arwen watched me placidly and added, "I haven't put any poison in it, so it's safe to drink. Besides, someone of your caliber could tell whether there was poison or not anyway, couldn't you?"
"I'm not yet at so lofty a realm, so I do have to check more than once. I wasn't suspecting you. I just find it a little fascinating, that's all."
"The person I knew was certainly... no, never mind. You've come because of what you said last time, haven't you? About killing the Crown Prince."
Arwen's voice trembled, though it didn't seem to be from fear. If anything, it would be more accurate to say she wanted to confirm whether that truly was my purpose. I gave a firm nod, and Arwen set down her teacup and regarded me in silence.
"You probably already know this, but I was originally a member of Icarus — the organization that handled intelligence gathering for the imperial family."
A kind of espionage outfit devoted to gathering information. Every power kept such organizations, but the one she had belonged to operated deeper in the shadows than most. If the state commanded it, they would plunge into enemy territory without hesitation. For a woman whose magic specialized in illusions and barriers, there was no better stage to make her mark — and so Arwen had given herself over to that intelligence organization for years.
What followed matched what I already knew. And her reason for leaving Icarus and ending up hunted by the Crown Prince was the same as I remembered, too.
"During my time in Icarus, I carried out all manner of missions. Simple reconnaissance, information gathering — but among them were assassinations of civilians."
Her face always darkened when she brought this up. As for Arwen's character, she was never anyone you could call evil. If anything, she was so upright that I'd wondered how she'd ended up in an organization like Icarus at all — in a past life, I had even doubted she was truly one of them.
Arwen stared at her own clean hands for a moment, then rubbed her cheek and went on. "Killing people who had families was never a pleasant business. Once, I even killed a mother right in front of her daughter. At some point, a sense of wrongness crept into the work I did."
"Was what I was doing truly right?"
"They called it work for the sake of the nation, but I had a line of my own. Part of why I kept working for Icarus in the beginning was that, for the most part, I never crossed that line. And then... Keitel finally began to cross it."
The story she told was of a village that had vanished, entire. An incident in which they had moved to erase a whole settlement on the grounds that dangerous elements were hiding there. It had been carried out in the strictest secrecy, so the world never learned of it — but that was the very reason Arwen had abandoned her work and fled.
"If I hadn't warned them beforehand, hundreds of people would have died then and there. Does that make any sense? Hundreds of people, dead. And watching him give such an order as if it were nothing, I understood. The Crown Prince... is no longer the brilliant man he once was."
"You're saying the Crown Prince has changed."
It was a story Arwen had often brought up in previous loops as well — that his brilliance had dimmed, that unlike before, there was madness in his eyes now. Of course, the Crown Prince I had met face to face seemed as sharp as ever, so I hadn't sensed anything amiss. But seeing the same account repeat again and again, I couldn't shake the feeling that there was something to it.
"First of all, there is something I wish to ask you. Why do you want to kill the Crown Prince?"
"My reason."
I studied Arwen for a moment. I couldn't explain the regression. I had raised it once before, and even then she had failed to grasp it. My reason for wanting to kill the Crown Prince was a simple one: everything in my life had come undone from the moment I died, branded a traitor. Before I could put an end to this regression, I intended to shatter the point where it had all begun.
Come to think of it, this was the first time I had told her outright that I would kill the Crown Prince. I had no idea what answer would come back. But the one that surfaced, unbidden, was a rather vague one.
"...Too many people have died."
Even leaving myself out of it, quite a few of the people I had come to hold dear had died as well. Adele herself had died at the Crown Prince's hand, hadn't she? A bitter laugh rose in my throat. The emotion that flared up in that instant left my lips trembling — until at last I pressed them firmly shut. There were things that could not be forgotten, no matter how much I longed to forget. I might forget my own deaths — but watching someone else die before my eyes was something I could never forget.
So I turned my gaze to Arwen, and she rose, small frame and all, and traced characters into the empty air. Characters I knew well — magic for recording, for capturing and storing. To my fixed stare, Arwen gave her answer.
"This is magic that records and stores my words. What I am about to tell you, I have never told anyone. It is a fact that I alone have been investigating, entirely on my own."
I had no memory of ever hearing her say anything like this. This made exactly the tenth time I had met her, and Arwen had rarely handed me information of any kind. She had only ever shared what I specifically requested — and only in return for a price to match.
"On your own?"
"The reason the Crown Prince wants me dead is simple. Part of it is that I fled Icarus — but more than that, it's because I know something I was never meant to know."
At yet another story I was hearing for the first time, my eyes narrowed — and Arwen went on, her expression utterly grave.
"Tell me — have you ever heard of the Evil Dragon?"