Just the Two of Us - 1

I never learned what she had seen that made her weep so, but Adrian—who had sobbed in my arms for the longest while—fell asleep just as she was.

I gazed for a moment at the woman slumped against my chest, then let out a small sigh. There was hardly anything she needed to apologize to me for. What could she possibly feel so guilty about?

Across all my countless lives, I had never once been directly entangled with Adrian. And in the time we had spent together today, nothing had happened that warranted an apology. As for what had happened today... I supposed I would have to ask her later. Being the Saintess, perhaps she had seen something special.

"...If you sleep like this, it puts me in a rather difficult position."

She had drifted off exactly as she was, nestled against my chest, so waking her right away was out of the question. She had sunk deep into sleep in the meantime, and I carefully lifted Adrian's body where she had collapsed still clinging to me. If Berod saw this, he would no doubt explode for one reason or another—but I couldn't exactly send Adrian back to her room in this state.

So much for sleeping tonight. When I laid her on the bed and drew the blanket over her, the arms wrapped around my body went slack. Watching her slip deeper into sleep with soft, even breaths, I slowly brushed the hair back from her forehead.

Why had she cried like that? No matter how I turned it over, I couldn't recall a reason—neither her apology, murmured as if she were sorry to me, nor the way she had suddenly pressed close, saying she was cold.

Then, quite suddenly, the wounds on Adrian's hands caught my eye. They were riddled with splinters and looked terribly painful—had she really come all this way carrying injuries like these? They had likely come from her rosary. The one that had hung at her neck was gone, and when I carefully drew the fragments out one by one, blood welled up in their wake.

...It must have hurt a great deal, I thought. And yet she had come to me anyway—which meant there had to be some important reason she needed to reach this place. I didn't know what it was. But it was true that I felt a faint, flickering gratitude.

How long had it been since someone held me like that? Even the days when Mirajane and I were lovers now lay decades behind me. It had been so long since I'd felt human warmth this close, and for a brief moment, I could forget this winter entirely.

Even as I disinfected the wounds and wound the bandages, Adrian showed no sign of waking. She would likely stay in this bed for the rest of the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠night. If I lay down beside her, all manner of misunderstandings could arise—and staying awake through a single night was hardly beyond me. I tucked the blanket carefully around the still-sleeping Adrian.

Then I put out the last remaining candle and, by the moonlight that remained, simply settled in to read Arwen's letter. The small hours had always been a time I spent alone, but tonight there were two of us in the room. It was bound to feel a little strange.

As the sky slowly brightened, I finished the last of Arwen's letter. To be precise, it had taken some time to break the cipher written within it. The sentences were inscribed in mana, and reassembling and interpreting them was probably beyond anyone but Arwen or me. Only by writing it this way could she rule out every unforeseen risk. To any other eye, the letter would read as nothing more than two acquaintances exchanging pleasantries—but once decoded...

...it laid bare the connection between the Crown Prince and the Evil Dragon.

I agreed with that assessment. Unless someone personally delivered the relics of the South into the Crown Prince's hands, the matter between those two remained an unknown.

It wasn't as though I had never entertained the hypothesis, but this was the first life in which it had been spoken of so directly. Perhaps because I had always approached the question from the angle of how the Crown Prince killed me, rather than why.

Strange variables surfaced in every life. Some were born in the Crown Prince's name, but the majority of them appeared in places I never could have imagined. If even those were tied to him... then this might cease to be merely my personal affair.

The Evil Dragon. What would become of me if I truly had to face it? I had glimpsed the end of the sword's path, yet I now stood at the stage of doubting whether that truly was the end. If I said I was questioning my enlightenment and pressing against the next wall, would that be the right way to put it? The problem was that my body still needed to grow. If just over a year remained until the all-out war with the Crown Prince, then how far I could raise this body would decide success or failure.

Rustle—

I had been poring over Arwen's letter for some time when the sound came from behind me, and I turned my head. The soft, even breathing had at some point fallen silent. Was she about to wake? The sun had fully risen by now, so it seemed safe to send her back up. If she wished to escape Berod's notice, this was the perfect moment.

I was trying to recall which tea was best for easing fatigue when rosemary came to mind. It was probably among the tea leaves I kept on hand. I boiled the water and set the leaves to steep, and a fresh, fragrant aroma began to fill the room. Winter mornings are not so bitterly cold. The newly risen sun burns brightest at this hour, and the warm light spilling over the pristine snow was the perfect thing to wake a sleeper.

As the scent of tea spread and I took out the cookies I'd bought earlier, arranging them on a plate, a rustling sound rose from the bed.

"Are you awake?"

I approached the bed and held out a teacup. Adrian, rubbing her bleary eyes, stretched long and shivered. Still half-lost in sleep, she simply took the cup I offered and gave a careful nod.

She drank her tea in a daze, smacked her lips softly, and then her gaze found me. Her eyes, always closed, were narrowed to slits. Those transparent eyes turned toward me—and then the hand raising the teacup gave a sudden tremble. Little by little, a small voice slipped from her dazed, parted lips.

"...Robert?"

"It seems you're a bit more awake now."

"Wh-when did you come to my room? Where's Emily—"

"She'll be at the top floor of the Moon Tower, naturally. She came by at dawn, and I sent her back."

The look on that maid's face when she had come to find me mid-letter—it was as if she were beholding something quite wondrous, Adrian asleep in my bed. Hadn't she said the Saintess could never fall asleep easily anywhere but her own room? But I supposed the circumstances had been different this time. She had cried herself to exhaustion, after all.

"She's fallen too ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠deeply asleep to wake now, so I'll bring her up with me in the morning."

"What a relief. I thought she'd vanished and was about to wake the paladins. Still... it isn't that I don't trust you, but—please, take good care of her."

"I have no intention of doing anything improper. Besides, this is the Moon Tower, is it not?"

I understood what she feared, but I had not the slightest thought of laying a hand on Adrian. It helped that, since coming here, I had shown everyone nothing but good conduct. At the very least, they seemed certain I was not the sort of man who would do something untoward—enough to entrust Adrian to me, after all.

When I told her I had sent the maid away, Adrian flushed scarlet and passed a hand over her cheek. It took a long while for the color to fade, and then—perhaps as the memory of dawn returned to her—the tips of her ears burned red all over again.

"Ahh..."

"There was nothing worth being embarrassed about. Well—I will admit I'm a little curious as to why you were crying yesterday."

"P-please don't say such things. I already know it myself..."

When I let out a soft laugh at that faint, creeping reply, Adrian kicked the bed with her heel—thump, thump. Thinking back on it now, it truly was an embarrassing memory. She had come to me out of nowhere, thrown herself into my arms, apologized over and over, and cried herself to sleep. Even I felt my cheeks heat at the recollection, so what she felt must have been far worse.

Adrian hugged her knees and kept her mouth firmly shut for a long while. Then, slowly, she turned her head toward me. The scarlet had mostly faded from her cheeks, leaving only a faint trace of color behind. Perhaps she was finally ready to explain yesterday's events; her gaze stayed fixed on me like that for a long time, unwavering.

"You're still here, aren't you?"

"Of course. Where would I go?"

"...Would you hold my hand? I'm feeling a little anxious."

I looked at the shadow that had fallen over her face, then smiled faintly and nodded. I couldn't for the life of me understand why. Adele, and Adrian too—both of them had always said they were afraid I might disappear.

When I pushed back the blanket and lightly took her hand, Adrian flinched, shoulders jumping—and then gripped my hand tight. Her fingers slipped between mine and interlaced, and I quietly studied the hand now held fast in my own. It seemed to say: don't run away.

Had she foreseen some future in which I vanished? Her manner was rather difficult to fathom. But I didn't open my mouth. I simply waited for her to explain in her own time, holding her hand in silence for a long while.

It seemed the name of Saintess only truly shone in moments like these. Though she had only just woken, not a hair of her appearance was disheveled; her crimson lips, vivid against that snow-white skin, caught the eye all the more. She hesitated, her face brimming with the words she meant to say to me.

"I'll wait until you're ready to speak. So take your time. We have plenty of it."

"It isn't that I mean to waste the time. It's only... I don't know how to explain what I saw."

I sat down beside Adrian and waited a long while. Sometimes gazing out the window, sometimes at her face. It was true that merely being at her side stirred a strange feeling in me, but even so, I did not leave. Was I not her friend? If she had something to say, I was willing to wait as long as it took.

How much longer had passed? The newly risen sun climbed higher, and the birds that had slept through the night began to sing. Then a soft voice flowed into my ear.

"Did I startle you yesterday, coming so suddenly?"

"A little. I never imagined you would come."

"I'm sorry. There was something I needed to say, so I came to find you. I didn't stop to think about the hour."

"What was it you saw? You wept so—and yet there was nothing you needed to apologize to me for."

At my words, Adrian smiled a bitter smile for a moment, then exhaled quietly and stared into the empty air. It looked like the process of smoothing out yesterday's memories. She had said she didn't know how to explain it to me—so perhaps now, at last, I would hear it.

"I had a dream."

At the word dream, I turned my gaze to her. Adrian's expression was slightly warped, as though she were blaming herself for something. It was the same face I had once worn—a face that looked ready to burst into tears at any moment.

"...A dream where you died, Robert. Because of me."

"I see."

"It wasn't just once. Many times. I watched you take your own life, and sometimes I watched you die at the hands of someone you loved. And there were times when I could have helped you—yet I did nothing but watch, right up to the very end."

Those words sounded exactly like an account of my own past. Every one of them mirrored one of my deaths, and I couldn't help but think: perhaps she really had read my past.

"That's why I wanted to apologize. For failing to help you, for merely standing by as you died. For turning away from it—me, a Saintess, acting so unlike one. That's why you died."

"So that's how it was."

Yet my voice remained as flat as ever. Even if that dream had been a reading of my past, never once had I believed I died because of Adrian. If I held any resentment, I had held it toward myself—cursing the me who hadn't done better, who hadn't been cleverer.

"There is no need to apologize to me."

"...Even though you died because of me, you can still say that?"

"Yes. It was only a dream, after all. And even if it had been real, I would not blame you. My deaths are my own doing."

I died because I was weak. I died because I failed to see what surrounded me. I died because I could not protect the one I loved, because I was swallowed by my own madness. Who was there to blame for those dozens of deaths? Killing the Crown Prince was merely about putting an end to this regression—and never once, in all of it, had I blamed Adrian.

There was a woman watching me in open puzzlement. To her—gazing at me in silence as though the tears might come again—I spoke slowly.

"It was not your fault."

Even if she had truly seen my past, I would have thought the same. The fault lay only in how rashly I had rushed in. Had I approached more calmly, had I climbed up from the very bottom of the Church, the outcome might have been different. And ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠if it was only a dream, then it was even less her fault. I stroked Adrian's cheek.

I ran my hand down that cheek, soft without a single blemish, and soothed her. Warmth still flowed through our joined hands. It was warm enough to make me forget, if only for a moment, the cold seeping in through the window.

"Am I not still here?"

"...If you die—if my dream becomes reality—then I—"

"I will not die."

I knew well that a Saintess's dreams were no ordinary thing. Prophecy or a reading of the past—it made no difference; it was not a dream at all, but a glimpse of reality itself. That must be why she trembled so. Smiling faintly at the goodness of her heart, I opened my mouth.

"I will live on, however long it takes—and I will return to the Moon Tower."

To reassure Adrian, I whispered the lie, quiet as a breath.