A Plea for Salvation - 1
"So that's how it came about. I'll be serving alongside her as the Grand Duke's adjutant for the time being."
"Aha."
"...Are you angry with me, by any chance?"
"No. Why would I be angry?"
Even as she shaped the smile, a small part of her wondered whether it was a genuine one. Even she could tell her tone a moment ago hadn't been gentle — and all because another woman had spoken his name. Their bond was hardly close enough for the word jealousy to fit. Then what, she wondered, was she to call this feeling?
"Well then, I'll reach out again when our schedules allow. Forgive me if I've been a bother today."
"Not at all. I have plenty of time."
Adrian hesitated, then parted her lips with a faint laugh — but her thoughts had tangled somewhere along the way, and carrying the conversation any further felt like more than she could manage.
No sooner had the artifact gone quiet than Mirajen's voice drifted from the crystal orb.
"You said you had something to tell me, and then you just hung up?"
"...Yeah. It's a little hard to believe, that's all. I'm finding it difficult to say outright."
"Is it that prophecy thing you mentioned before? Don't let it gnaw at you — it's never come to anything."
Could what she had seen truly be called a prophecy? It felt less like a foretelling and more like something from the long-distant past. And yet its moment in time lay close to the present. She had no idea how to judge such a tangle of hours and years — only that, without question, it concerned Robert Taylor.
"Right. Would it be all right if I rested for a while?"
"Of course. I was busy anyway. I'll call you again later."
Click—
The crystal orb's link severed, and silence settled over the room. What surfaced soon after was the name Robert had spoken a little while ago — her own. Adrian. How gently his voice had carried it. She couldn't begin to fathom why she could never manage to say his name in return.
Why was she like this, alone? In the quiet that followed, her lips parted, barely.
Rob— Adrian bit the name back and closed her mouth with a bitter smile. Who knew it could be so difficult simply to speak a person's name? Sir Taylor said hers with such effortless ease, and here she was, working herself into a state over it all by herself.
Her fingers drifted to the hollows where her eyes should have been, and she released a faint sigh. These eyes would never see light again. The resplendent moonlight of her earliest childhood was the last thing they had ever beheld. And yet eyes stripped of color and radiance could meet an entirely different world. They looked not upon the surface, but the soul within. Whether that was a blessing or a curse, even Adrian herself could not say.
It ached when a person's heart and their words diverged; it warmed her when she met someone who truly thought of her. Of course, it was never simply a good thing. Seeing into another's heart was, always, a bone-chilling affair. If the one gazing at you so warmly nurtured a different heart beneath, how could you ever bring yourself to trust them?
And when she looked within, something like that person's fate would rise into view as well — the future they would live, their fortune, their road. So she had chosen not to look. The only person close to her was Mirajen, and even with her, Adrian had lived deliberately blind. She no longer used the eyes her god had granted her.
...If she had never looked into the soul of the man called Robert, could she have treated him like anyone else? Adrian gave a small laugh and drew her hand down her cheek.
A chance encounter, and then a bond continued by chance again. Every time he stood beside her, a chill ran through her and made her flinch — and yet, all the while, she glimpsed the softness carried in his voice. He was not a wicked man. Then why were the rumors about him so very vile? They only deepened as time went on, and that was what had driven her to look within him. No truly evil man would treat her with such courtesy.
Yes — at the Moon Tower. The inside of the man she had met there was like a vessel emptied of everything. She could feel nothing at all: not one thread of light, not one ember of warmth. She knew this condition well; she had seen such souls before. Even so, an interior like a living corpse left her no choice but to recoil. Only when her outstretched hand met his chest and a shallow pulse stirred at her fingertips could she finally breathe easy.
This man is alive — but his heart is dead.
Why? When he spoke to her, the gentleness in his voice remained unchanged. Warm. Kind. That such a man's inside should be a hollow shell — she couldn't even begin to guess what kind of past could hollow a person out like that. And on top of it, there was the other thing these eyes had shown her.
Clutching her throbbing head, Adrian slowly recalled what she had seen. She hadn't seen much; what she had glimpsed was surely no more than fragments. Memories far too vast for any single person to hold — and memories far too cruel.
"A person can't die more than once... it's impossible."
Slain by his own sister. Beheaded. Hanged. Even cast aside by the one he loved and locked in an empty room to starve. She had taken them for hallucinations, but she knew all too well they were nothing of the sort. And yet — could they truly be called reality? What was she to make of these memories of a man who remembered his own deaths, over and over?
It was neither past nor future. The Saintess's gift was not to read prophecy or memory; it was only to look upon a soul and its fate. And yet this man, Robert, had come through death after death, utterly alone.
A rustle of fabric — cold sweat beaded on Adrian's brow as her fingers knotted in the bedsheet. If the memories she had seen were true, then how many deaths had that hollowness been carved from? The dread that had welled up without warning that day had, ever since, been one of the feelings that preyed upon her.
If that man Robert were to vanish without warning. If, at some turn, his existence were simply forgotten. She knew perfectly well that neither would come to pass, and still the fear would not die — it circled her, patient and ceaseless.
When she turned her head at last, Adrian's blind gaze found the direction of the North. Through the window left slightly ajar, a cold north wind tapped at her cheek.
"...Robert."
Those deaths she had witnessed — what were they? She had meant to ask, and could not. If she did ask, what answer would Robert give her? Her clouded gaze drifted toward empty air. She saw nothing there, but at the memory of the sensation in her fingertips, her hand slowly curled into a fist. The fingers that had touched his chest that day. The pulse that had trembled at their tips. This strange, nameless unease — perhaps it would only lift if she saw the man himself.
But she had to bear it. She was the Saintess — the Church's Saintess, who could not abandon her post on a whim.
"Ha."
Adrian laughed, and it was bitter. For the first time in her life, she found herself resenting the simple fact that she was the Saintess.
"Calmer than I expected."
"I'm not particularly worried. I believe they're all good people."
"And what exactly are you basing that on?"
Adele, striding ahead of me, came to a halt. She had probably assumed I would be nervous at the thought of meeting the adjutants, because my composure seemed to strike her as something of a marvel. It was only natural. I already knew them all. Lotos, Toby, Bunta... and Adele herself. More than once, I remembered being on genuinely friendly terms with them and plenty of others besides.
Not one of them had a bad character. These were, after all, men who had made their living serving a woman several years their junior as captain. If a man had skill, they welcomed him — they weren't the sort to hate him for it.
But I couldn't exactly say we were already acquainted, so after a moment's hesitation, I answered carefully. "...A hunch?"
Adele clicked her tongue as though the answer were absurd, yet her face said she'd accepted it. Difficult to argue with — she of all people lived by her gut. She studied me for a moment longer, then started walking again. Then, as if something else had occurred to her, she spoke without turning her head.
"By the way — who were you talking to earlier? No one went into your room, as far as I know."
"Some time ago, I received an artifact from Her Highness the Princess. It allows conversation even across a great distance."
"Hm. So such things exist."
"Would you care to try it?"
At my question, Adele's eyes settled on the artifact in my hand. There ought to have been a second one to pair with it, but with a trickle of mana, a brief conversation was well within reach. It was a slender rod, about the length of a fountain pen. The moment she took it, her eyes narrowed.
"How does it work?"
"You simply hold one end to your ear."
I demonstrated with a vague wave of my hand, and Adele, moving with visible awkwardness, raised the artifact to her ear. When her suspicious expression pulled a quiet laugh out of me, she waved me on impatiently — hurry up. The mana blooming from my palm touched the artifact, and a soft hum began to resonate. Once Adele had adjusted it the way I'd shown her, I leaned toward the glow at my hand and murmured.
"Can you hear me?"
She flinched—
Adele tore the artifact from her ear and blinked, again and again. If my eyes hadn't deceived me a moment ago, had she really shuddered in surprise? At length she leveled a long, hard stare at the artifact — and then, cautiously, brought it back to her ear.
"It seems to come through clearly."
She flinched.
This time the jolt was smaller than before, but the startle was still plain as day. A faint flush crept up her snow-white cheeks. Perhaps embarrassed at having been startled, she pressed the artifact back into my hands and muttered.
"...Useless little toy, isn't it."
"It's more useful than it looks. Faster than sending letters, after all."
"I'll stick with carrier pigeons. Things like this don't suit me."
"You weren't simply startled, by any chance?"
"Hah? As if."
She was grumbling in a way most unlike her, and when a small smile escaped me at the sight, Adele shot me a glare and snapped her head away. Sulking, it seemed — she ignored the several times I called her name afterward, which told me she was piqued. Even so, we would soon reach the office where the adjutants were gathered — adjutants being a loose word for the heads of the companies bound to her by years of camaraderie. All the same, their influence in the North was never to be dismissed.
Every one of them had ridden with the mercenary band Adele once led, and each was formidable enough to pacify a region single-handedly. Even Bunta, who had fallen to me, had once captained a band that crossed blades with Adele herself. And their strength did not end at the edge of a sword — so the moment the doors opened, every gaze in the room swung to me.
"You've arrived, I see. And together, no less."
Lotos caught sight of Adele and flashed me a knowing smile; Bunta wore a black scowl. Toby merely stared at me, blank and unreadable — and beyond them, Argos, Imanda, and the rest, every one positioned at the very summit of the legion she commanded.
Adele left me standing where I was and crossed the room alone, dropping into her chair and sweeping her gaze over the assembled men. The Grand Duke's seat, wrought from a wolf's head and bearskin — it was a little while before Adele, who had held her silence, finally spoke. Gone was the sulking tone from before; what flowed from her now was grave and measured.
"As you all know, I have appointed a temporary adjutant. As for why... well, I offered my excuses, but I imagine every one of you has already seen through them."
"No doubt it concerns the subjugation that's coming. Though — with respect, is that wise? He is a noble, is he not?"
Lotos answered with a sidelong glance at me. He seemed to be hoping I would startle at the word subjugation, but I had known as much before I ever set foot in the North. By the time I arrived here, the plans for the campaign would already have been taking shape. The reason she'd made me an adjutant was simple enough: she must have judged that my skill would serve her subjugation. And so I'd had no reason to refuse. When my expression remained serene, Adele studied me for a long moment and spoke.
"I expect it won't be a problem. And from the look of him, he'd already worked most of it out. Am I wrong?"
"I anticipated it. Why else would I have come in winter?"
"...Sharp. Good. If you'd already guessed, there's no sense hiding it."
Shing— Adele drew her sword and drove it down into the map spread before the throne. What the map depicted were the lands beyond the Grand Duke's conquests — the territories of the barbarian tribes, where her influence had yet to reach.
"The reason I've taken on a new adjutant is simple. First: Robert Taylor's skill is exceptional. Second—"
At her words, the adjutants waited in grave silence for what would follow. Even back in the days when she'd led a mercenary band, Adele's speeches had been short and blunt. Nothing had changed since she became Grand Duke; when she gave an order, it was almost always bare substance and nothing more. Fingers curled around the sword that split the map, Adele finished quietly.
"To subjugate the barbarians."
Winter always came dragging a wind that bit to the quick, and the North's winter was no different. A harder, crueler cold than any other year was closing in — a brutal season in which men tore at one another's throats to survive. And that was why I had come in winter. Taking part in this subjugation was, beyond any doubt, the surest way to secure Adele's support.
A cold wind slid through the window, left barely ajar. A north wind whose chill found bone at the lightest touch. In that cold, I gazed, empty-headed, at the wan and colorless sky.
Soon now, it would be time for the hunt.