What Cannot Be Undone - 2
There was a time when I believed the ruin of everything I had lay within myself. That I had erred, that I had made some mistake—and that if only I set it right, I could at last return to the beginning. There was a time I believed that.
But looking back, something had been twisted from the very start, hadn't it? Treason was a charge far too heavy to simply pin upon a man. And how difficult must it have been to frame me—the heir of the empire's sole ducal house—with that crime?
The remarkable thing was that no matter the circumstances, the Crown Prince brought that attempt to brilliant success. The count of lives I had ended without ever once shaking free of the accusation ran to several, and so, if I learned anything, it was this: none of it had ever been mere improvisation. A meticulous piece of craftsmanship that no preparation of mine could withstand—only then did I understand that the Crown Prince had meant to kill me from the very beginning.
Yet the question that surfaced was why it had to be me. Killing Adele I could understand. As ruler of the North, her faction was immense; if he intended to concentrate all power within the imperial family, cutting out that bud early was at least a defensible move. But I was a nobody—nothing more than a pitiful pushover with no faction to my name. So why had the Crown Prince made me his target? And that was exactly what I meant to find out.
I would give my every loyalty to a man who could not live under the same sky as I. For one purpose only: to drive a dagger into his heart from the closest place of all.
I could feel myself growing a little tense. I always strove for composure, but faced with actually meeting the Crown Prince, I couldn't help a slight tremor. In one light I was walking toward my mortal enemy; from another, toward the very man I would soon be bound to serve.
The princess flashed a grin, shoved my back, and patted my shoulder, telling me not to be so nervous. It wasn't Mirajane who unnerved me—apparently, the name Keitel alone carried a considerable weight of pressure. But what could I do? Having come this far, all that remained was to crash straight through. His interest in me was genuine; even if he did wish me dead, he would have no choice but to keep me at his side. The Evil Dragon's malice was a wildcard, granted, but I was hardly weak enough to die so easily. At the very least, I could take him down with me.
"There's no need to be so nervous. Treat him the way you treat me... well, he'd hate that, but if you keep your manners in order, there'll be nothing for him to dislike. Besides, you're the one who answered his summons."
"I'm not nervous."
"Sure, let's say that's so. Anyway, are you heading straight off once the talk is done? If you like, you could spare a little time with me."
"I'll give it some thought."
At that, Mirajane scrunched up her face, lips jutting out in a pout as she called me unfair. I couldn't laugh at the reaction; my head was too full. Where to begin the conversation, whether I could keep my expression properly managed in front of the Crown Prince—after a moment spent wrestling with those worries, I at last set my feet moving. Strangely enough, the moment I crossed the threshold, my mind grew calmer, and my expression had already eased considerably.
Keitel—that name was stitched to no end of bitter history for me. I didn't know how I would come to remember these footsteps later, but by the time I walked back out through that door, I had to become one of the Crown Prince's own. The odds of achieving that in a single meeting were near nil, of course, but one should always plant seeds early. So that I might become someone of consequence to him—so that Robert Taylor could never be an expendable piece in Keitel's hands. I breathed out quietly and pressed on.
His chamber was strikingly unlike anywhere else. A cold, grave stillness had settled over it—not suffocating the way my father's office was, yet threaded with a peculiar tension. It was the sort of air in which having my head taken off on the spot would have seemed unremarkable. So I closed my eyes for a breath, and when they opened, a man seated before me caught my gaze. He swept back his raven hair—the same shade as the princess's—and those impassive golden eyes turned my way. I stopped short as our gazes brushed, if only for an instant, and Keitel promptly rose from his seat wearing a smile.
"Ah, Young Lord Robert, was it? A pleasure to meet you. My apologies, too, if this is rather late an hour for a summons."
"Not at all, Your Highness. When you call, one ought to come at once, ought one not?"
"I like that attitude. There's much to like about the Taylors, but they can be a trying lot to deal with. I'm sincerely relieved you're not one of them."
This was the sort of man the Crown Prince was. To the eye, gentle and kind-hearted; beneath, coiled like a serpent around some hidden thing. What, exactly, lay behind that mild expression? Anyone who didn't know better would never guess he had issued orders approaching massacre more than once. Keitel smiled amicably, tilted his head a moment at my silence, then gestured to a chair with a chuckle.
"Come to think of it, I never even asked you to sit. Forgive me—let's speak seated, shall we?"
The moment I sat, I felt his gaze settle steadily upon me. As though taking the measure of something, what lay within that look was plainly observation—of me. What he was curious about, I couldn't say. He had surely resolved to kill me by now; was he trying to sound out my true thoughts? But from Keitel's vantage, I was merely a young lord whose conduct had changed of late. Search as he might for something extraordinary, he'd find nothing of note—so for now, all he could do was probe. Which was precisely why my bearing was composed. The nervousness I'd carried earlier had evaporated without a trace, leaving me to meet Keitel's stare head-on.
A short silence flowed past, and it was Keitel who broke it.
"...To tell the truth, I called you here to speak of the matter at hand. There is much I would like to ask of you, but what I'm most curious about is the map's origin. You understand what this map signifies, I trust—so where, exactly, did you come by it?"
"I uncovered it by my own means."
"By your own means, hm. Did you make use of some informant of yours, then? Though I rather think that wasn't possible. You know your own standing well enough, don't you?"
The tone remained soft as ever, but the meaning laced through it was not soft at all. Smiling all the while as he needled me with thorns—that was Keitel's signature art. He seemed to set real store by where I had gotten the map. Naturally, I had no reason to hand him an honest answer. And no way existed for him to find out regardless. This was information Arwen had given me in a past life—information that, try as the Crown Prince might to wring it out of the world, only I in all this world could ever assemble.
"Merely what I pieced together in my private time. As you know, I have hours to spare in abundance—and lately, my acquaintance with the Saintess has grown into a friendly footing."
"...Well, if you put it that way, I can hardly press you. I only asked because I wished to repay you in some personal way—this information has been an immense help. Mirajane takes it for mere intelligence on the non-human races, but I suspect you understand better."
"I couldn't say. Beyond the locations of the non-human races, I know little. Is there something I ought to know that I don't?"
"No, merely a question in passing."
The Crown Prince gave a soft laugh and shook his head. His words had flowed so smoothly that I had nearly slipped—that had been a probe into whether I knew of the relics. Had I simply answered that I did, I doubt I would have walked out of this room. I let my gaze slide sideways and caught sight of a sword resting in one corner. Keitel mulled briefly, then laid a hand on the map and went on.
"The South was once, in the Empire's golden age, among its most flourishing cities—a place fit to be called the second capital. If the City of the Moon is today's Eden, then this was the City of Stars. That is a story from very long ago."
"Does the Temple of the Moon not remain even now? It will be reclaimed someday, I trust. His Majesty the reigning Emperor is a discerning man, after all."
"Just so. When I become Emperor, I intend to restore this South to the Empire. The ambition is already widely known, though people believe it something of an absurd, weightless dream..."
Keitel, who had been pacing with his hands clasped behind his back, stopped abruptly and stared into empty space. An odd glimmer stirred in his gentle eyes, and a faintly chilling smile took shape. Then his gaze alighted on me, and Keitel spoke again.
"Do you think so too?"
"...I can't rightly say. I've much to occupy my mind of late; my thoughts haven't reached that far."
"Ha. If you truly believe that, then it's a lie, isn't it?"
Tap, tap. Keitel came straight toward me, and his eyes thinned. Gazing into those eyes, which seemed to shout at me to speak my heart, I thought: he was unquestionably sounding me out. But what answer did he want from me? What Keitel meant to say seemed plain—that he would become Emperor and reclaim the South, and that he intended to bind the reason to the relics. If he raised the relics, then perhaps he meant, after that, to disclose something of his own designs. And then, what stance should I show? Was I to yield and submit?
A sudden thought knotted my brow. No—there was no need for that. If anything, were I the first to lower my tail in this situation, it would be far too obedient for the heir of the empire's only ducal house.
"And what, precisely, is a lie?"
So I struck back with a bolder front. To make Keitel take a deeper interest in me—to show that I was not some fortune that had tumbled into his lap. A move to make him believe he held no card superior to me.
"You appear from nowhere with a map no one has seen or heard of, tossing it out offhand as your support for the throne. Of late, you declare you will become head of your house. You know Adele of the North personally, and you keep company with the Saintess. Can you truly claim to hold no interest whatsoever in my affairs?"
"......"
"You didn't cast your line to the palace with Mirajane in mind. Young lord—wasn't it my line you actually needed? I am the one who wields real authority; if you meant to secure Taylor, my power would serve you best."
Keitel pointed a finger at himself and smiled. Certainty was folded into that smile—certainty that what he believed was right. And that was a mercy. At the very least, it meant he had not caught on to what I was truly thinking.
"...Hah."
There was no need to dispute it, not in this situation. I exhaled a single sigh and shaped a helpless, troubled look. As though he had seen straight through every secret I owned, Keitel gave a small laugh at my wry smile.
"Since you put it that way, I can hardly go on hiding it. Yes—the truth is, I did believe I needed Your Highness's strength. My own faction is still frail. Until now I've kept myself coiled low, but to leap, one needs a reliable line."
"So you chose me, then. And had I shown no interest, what was your plan?"
"I'd have accepted that it couldn't be helped. But I never accounted for that possibility."
My gaze returned to the map. I had answered that I knew nothing of the relics, yet to admit I couldn't even hazard a guess would be to parade my own foolishness. That was no slight on Mirajane—but at the very least, it was information that I, heir of a ducal house, could infer. Set the South beside the Crown Prince, and expecting him to show interest in this map was only the natural progression, no?
"After all, the locations of the relics and those of the non-human races may well be entwined."
"...You even accounted for a mere legend. And here I'd thought you clever, if only for a moment. Seems I was quite wrong."
"Do you not yourself refuse to dismiss it as legend?"
I didn't miss the instant his eyes wavered. Everything I had said was speculation, nothing more. Of course, I spoke knowing every piece of it—but to the Crown Prince, my words had to remain speculation. For me to know the relics down to their exact locations was beyond all reason. I met those glaring eyes, feigned anger and all, with a faint smile. In a moment steeped in such emotion, the advantage was mine; soon enough the Crown Prince chuckled, shaking his head.
"And your reason for believing the relics exist?"
"The South is the City of Stars, as you said. Then the reason you would reclaim such a place, the clustering of the non-human races around a single stronghold, and the Temple of the Moon still standing there—anyone could have guessed as much. But just now, it became certainty."
"I see. So you're not the man the rumors made you out to be."
Shing— The Crown Prince drew his sword, swept it through empty air a few times, then quietly closed in on me. What that silence carried was unambiguous killing intent. Naturally, I didn't tremble. I knew this malice was hollow, and so I merely waited for his mouth to open.
"Tell me—what would you do if I cut you down here and now?"
"I would be cut down."
"...Then tell me this—if I let you pass without cutting you down, what do you imagine I will command of you afterward?"
"You would command me to secure the relics of the South."
The smile carved at his mouth deepened by degrees, and before I knew it, the sword in his hand lay flung carelessly across the floor. In the same breath, I knelt. A vow of loyalty to him—I laid a hand over my heart and, eyes closed, bowed my head. It was not humiliation. The day would come when I knelt before him no more, and that day would be the day everything ended.
Keitel spoke. As he had at the first, in a very gentle voice.
"Then can you secure the relics?"
"If that is your wish—so I shall."
The gears that had begun to turn the instant I spoke of going to the South were, at last, beginning to mesh. The South I would travel to with the Saintess, the Temple of the Moon entwined with the Evil Dragon, and the relics strewn across it all. Keitel smiled to himself for a long while; then he took my hand, drew me to my feet, and answered.
"A fine answer, Young Lord Robert. No... I shall have to call you something else."
With a smile kinder even than the one he'd worn at our first meeting, he looked upon me.
"Sir Taylor—isn't that right?"
It was a most agreeable thing to hear, and so I, too, smiled and nodded. Only now did it begin. The first step of the treason that would end him had, at long last, taken its very first stride.