The Grand Duchess of the North — 2
The Crown Prince would be absent from tonight's banquet.
That fact alone had drained most of my interest, true—but it didn't mean the evening held no meaning at all. Not attending at Theresia's side was meaningful enough in itself. Besides, Yuria wouldn't so much as consider me her partner, so she'd hardly complain if I mingled just enough and then slipped away. If anything, she would likely welcome my disappearance as a convenience.
And that opened up a possibility: meeting someone I had never encountered across all my lives, someone I could never have crossed paths with at this point in time. Perhaps a chance meeting with Mirajen. Or, failing that, an accidental encounter with Adele. Either way, nothing about it would be bad for me. And the mere fact that the possibility existed was quite amusing in itself, wasn't it?
Something I had never once experienced in a hundred lives. For me, sick to death of this eternal existence, a new experience was more fascinating than anything else.
"Is that truly the extent of the preparations you intend to make?"
Renald's eyes narrowed for an instant, but I nodded and affirmed it. My reflection in the mirror differed little from usual. If anything, the only change was the outer coat I'd thrown on. The modest, unadorned dark-green fabric suited my circumstances rather well. Since it was better that I not draw the eye tonight, letting Yuria—who would surely dress to dazzle—command the spotlight was the right call.
"Even so, you are attending as her partner, are you not? A little more care might be—"
"Enough. It's not as if I'm the star of the evening."
Besides, dressing up would invite problems of its own. I could name at least one person, right off the top of my head, who would sneer that I didn't know my place. There was no reason to subject myself to such remarks, and erasing my presence altogether was the wiser choice. Anyone who had heard of Theresia breaking off the engagement was bound to make a nuisance of themselves.
Dressed just enough, groomed just enough to pass for a noble, I cut a reasonably fine figure, in my own way. I tried a slight smile to soften my rather sharp expression, but it came out awkward, so I let my face fall back into its usual lines. It hadn't been like this before, I thought—or rather, with every regression, my smiling face only grew more stilted. Perhaps because there had been so little worth smiling about. Not that it was anything to blame on anyone. In the end, wasn't it the fruit of my own foolish choices?
Leaving Renald to his long, silent stare, I made for the main gate—and there stood Yuria before the carriage. In her splendid finery, befitting the Young Matriarch of House Taylor, she looked every inch the picture of elegance and dignity, however many times I saw her. A blue dress, with accessories each tailored separately to match it. Proud as a peacock, flaunting her beauty, Yuria studied me with the faintest of sneers.
"You're not as late as I expected. Get in the carriage. We leave at once."
Then she glanced at my attire, narrowed her eyes, and added, "So you've finally come to your senses? You used to dress until it turned the stomach. Quite the modest choice today."
"The one who must shine tonight is not me, is it?"
At her barbed tone I answered with a small laugh—which, if anything, seemed to displease her, as though my politeness itself grated. The problem, of course, was that I was nothing like the younger brother Robert she remembered. In situations like these, the old me would have scrounged up the most dashing clothes I could find on the chance of meeting Theresia. That, of course, would never happen again. Theresia was no longer my fiancée. She no longer existed to me as 'anything' at all.
As if to announce that tonight's protagonist was Yuria, I walked straight past the lead carriage and made for the one trailing a distance behind.
"What are you—"
"Did you intend to ride together? I assumed you would hate that."
Yuria, caught off guard by the move, stuck her head out of the carriage and fixed me with a coldly frozen stare. I had deliberately given her the space—perhaps such consideration was the last thing she'd expected. I shrugged as though it were nothing, and she withdrew her head and said no more.
"So it's starting to bother her, is it."
I murmured it as Yuria's carriage pulled away first, watching it dwindle slowly out of sight. Proof enough that my changed manner had begun to prick at her. I hadn't expected a reaction to come this quickly, though. Was it because I had called her 'Young Matriarch' last time?
However long we had grown up side by side as blood siblings, Yuria had lived with the consciousness of the Young Matriarch above all else. And so, to her, I had been closer to a retainer than a brother; I had always performed the role of the one propping her up. In most situations, I showed Yuria only weakness—for I always met her with the affection of kin, and all that ever came back was an unending coldness.
What Yuria prized above everything was one thing alone: carrying the House of Taylor forward. Standing in for Father as its head. I don't know what weight that placed upon her shoulders, but I consider it plain enough that it was the cause of her warped heart. To such a Yuria, my existence must have been a considerable thorn in her eye.
It wasn't that I couldn't understand. Had I inherited such a role, the crushing burden would have blurred my own vision too. But Yuria had put her talent to use and discharged the duties of the Young Matriarch superbly, living without a single misstep to this very day.
And so I treat her as the Young Matriarch. My heart is not so generous as to regard the woman who killed me again and again as my own blood sister. To me, Yuria Taylor was simply the Young Matriarch—nothing more, nothing less. Not kin. Not family.
Recalling the eyes that had stared at me in silence, I lean my head back against the seat. I had a feeling I would be seeing that strange, puzzled gaze often from now on. But what of it? Our bond was already twisted past mending. From the moment she chose the life of the Young Matriarch, this outcome was sealed. My folly had once tried to turn it all back—hadn't I sworn not to nurse such regrets ever again? Never again would I treat Yuria as a sister. Probably.
Forever.
It was some time later that the rattling, swaying carriage finally came to a halt. Darkness had settled over the capital, yet the only thing blazing with brilliant light was, as ever, the glow of the Imperial Palace. The stars that should have embroidered the sky were nowhere to be seen. Only the lonely full moon shed a pitiful light—proof, in its own way, that the Palace outshone the very stars.
When the Taylor carriage rolled in, the gazes of the surrounding nobles snapped toward us at once. Some tittered at Yuria as she descended; others watched me offer her my hand and murmured under their breath.
"They say the engagement was broken off—so it's true after all. And isn't that the young lord who carried on so about love?"
Just as expected, the rumor had already spread; one noble after another tossed such remarks my way. None of them, at least, spoke ill of me. I did catch talk of Theresia having done something outrageous, of her having gone mad—I must have managed that affair rather deftly on my own.
"Make a scene out of nothing, and strange rumors start to fly."
Yuria, having taken my hand and stepped down, spoke in a frost-bitten tone. It wasn't displeasure at my being gossiped about—it was discomfort at Taylor family business passing through other people's mouths. I nodded, thinking, well, of course it is—and a cold voice drove straight into my ear.
"You had best use good judgment. Step out of line as you did before, and..."
Not the face of a sister looking at her brother, but the blank mask of a mistress regarding an insubordinate retainer.
"...this time, I will see you confined to the estate."
"Of course. I'll be careful."
She and I would be together only as far as the entrance, in any case. Having come under the pretense of partnership, escorting Yuria by the hand to the doors was the full extent of my role tonight. If I drifted too far from her, the nobles would swarm over and make nuisances of themselves—so I intended to idle about in the garden. Yuria, watching how readily I agreed, held out her hand once more. Only when our fingers barely hooked together—her hand never quite closing over mine—could I finally take that step.
The glittering tumult of the palace party fell into a hush. It slipped my mind more often than not, but Taylor was, at its core, a house that stood at the very apex of power. Leaning neutral in its politics, it was a house no noble could afford to scorn. A house forever walking a razor's edge, yet never once having slipped. Even the Crown Prince could not touch House Taylor lightly—such was its standing.
Which was precisely what made me all the more curious. Just what about me had the Crown Prince found so offensive that he had pinned a false charge on my back? Not that the Crown Prince was present tonight. By now, he would be off quelling some minor rebellion that had sprung up in the frontier. He would not return for at least a year—so before then, I had to see to the bare minimum of preparations.
Past the entrance, the sensation in my hand vanished. Yuria had released her grip and was already striding off alone, leaving me standing there, suddenly the awkward one. Nothing wrong with that. The crowd's eyes were all fixed on Yuria, the Young Matriarch of Taylor. The Princess would doubtless appear before long and say her piece—that was all. There wasn't much profit for me in tonight's gathering. And even that hinged on whether I could manage a conversation with the Princess. That could wait until she arrived and I found my opening.
The crush of bodies was stifling, so I barely wedged my way through and made for the garden. It was a garden of grasses diligently tended by the groundskeepers, tangled like a maze—and catching sight of the roses blooming in the gaps between them, I turned my steps toward them. Tangled like a maze, yes; but in truth, it was merely elaborate. Laid out on palace grounds larger than most grand plantations, how could it possibly be ordinary? A place where every flower that ought to bloom in summer could be found in flower. The breeze, laden with a hundred mingled scents, carried a perfume finer than any vial of it.
I strolled with the full moon at my back. An empty garden, silent but for myself—and that very silence was what set my mind most at ease. A reprieve I could savor only in the days right after a regression; I doubted I would feel it at any other time. The old me would have spent an evening like this darting about, forging connections in my own way. I used to believe that one more ally now would pay dividends later.
If I must sum up how that turned out—utterly, catastrophically. Not a single soul left to trust. The moment the tide turned against me, every last one of them turned their back. The friend who had called himself my closest; the one who had sworn she truly loved me. All of them, in the end, had simply approached to make use of the name Taylor standing behind me.
"What a pathetic fool."
Spitting out the self-mocking words loosened something in my chest, just a little. To never again commit the follies of my past lives—that was this life's vow. If I killed the Crown Prince and died in the process... well. I could close my eyes then without a single regret, couldn't I?
Rooted to the spot, I gazed blankly up at the sky. The palace's glow had dimmed just enough, and now the heavens brimmed with faintly burning stars. Point met point to draw lines, and those lines gathered into a single shining cluster. I was sinking deep into that baptism of light, where even the smallest darkness could not be found—
—when a voice reached my ear.
"Cursing yourself is never a good habit."
The voice was feminine in its lilt, yet threaded with a peculiar chill. It carried none of the hostility Yuria aimed at me. More a rebuttal of something—no, closer to a remark taking issue with my very attitude.
I startled and turned my head—and my eyes went wide at attire that belonged nowhere near this palace.
"It's been some time since I last came to the Imperial Palace, and the first thing I lay eyes on is you. I can't decide whether to call that good fortune or not."
While everyone else glittered, that rough garment was the very color of pale black. Unlike the white hair threaded with moonlight, the black cloth melted perfectly into the dark. No—it was less clothing than a cloak. The sort worn, it was said, by the people of the North, its wolf fur ruffed about the neck and rippling in the wind as if to confirm it.
"...Lady Adele."
The ruler of the North—someone even the Crown Prince could not treat carelessly. The bearer of supreme power above all others, sanctioned by the Empire itself. She had guarded the frontier and been hailed as the Iron Wall; and that name belonged not to any man, but to a single woman.
Hair white as a whirling snowfall came into view. Even so, her beauty yielded nothing to the stars, and my gaze remained locked on that face. Behind her hung the round full moon, and even through a expression darkened by that backlight, her faint smile reached me unmistakably.
I murmured, dazed for a moment. I had expected her to come, yes—but this was the first time I was meeting her at this point in time.
"I never imagined we would... meet like this."
"The same goes for me, I'd think. Wandering out to the garden was pure chance."
Adele Egret, Grand Duchess of the North, smiled at me.
"A pleasure to meet you, Lord Taylor."