The Saintess Hates the Imperial Princess (1)
"What's wrong?"
"...Nothing. It's just — a strange feeling came over me all of a sudden."
When the carriage came to a halt for the negotiations with the non-humans, I stepped down and quietly gazed out at the Deep Region.
I wasn't the type to lean on hunches the way Adele did. My guesses were wrong often enough, but it remained true that my ominous feelings had never once been wrong.
I couldn't say why the thought had come to me. How should I put it — I had a feeling I was about to run into Mirajane.
When we had set out for the South, I'd heard that Mirajane had been placed under house arrest. If she was here now, then either the order had been lifted faster than expected, or she had simply walked out of her own will. Surely she wouldn't defy the Emperor's command and slip away in secret.
As I turned over what in the South might interest Mirajane, it struck me that the possibility wasn't entirely out of the question.
She had come to the South once before. Traveling with mages, one could cross vast distances in an instant, but the non-humans disliked that, so such journeys were usually made in secret. Back then, the reason Mirajane had gone south was a relic — one even the imperial family knew of, and securing it would strengthen her own position.
It was a different relic from the one I sought. What Mirajane wanted was something made by the Moon God; what I sought was tied to the Evil Dragon.
The Teranite mine affair had swelled Mirajane's faction somewhat. She now wielded enough influence to make her voice heard, but next to Keitel it was still fragile — that much was true. And if she was still fretting over that gap? Then we might well cross paths here.
Not that I hoped for it.
"You seem to be thinking about someone."
"Did you learn mind-reading in the North, by any chance?"
At that, Adele gave a shrug and strolled over to me.
Negotiations with the non-humans were Adrian's and the Paladins' affair. That left the two of us with nothing to do, and until their work was finished we had little choice but to idle in every sense.
That said, Adele's instincts were sharper than I gave them credit for. Call it a woman's intuition if you like — either way, I'd been caught red-handed thinking about Mirajane.
Not that I intended to come clean. But at my awkward smile, Adele seemed to read enough from it and simply went on studying me in silence.
Truthfully, a great deal of guilt toward Adele weighed on me — for being unable to tell her more about myself, when in fact there was so much I could have told. I suspected that saying more would only deepen her confusion.
If there was any small comfort to take, it was that she now kept some measure of guard up against the Crown Prince. As long as she watched for him herself, she wouldn't die as hollowly as the sight I had once witnessed. And if the worst should come to pass, I need only step in myself. Get through this year, and even if I lost the wager I'd made with her, perhaps I could be satisfied.
"Once the business here is done, you're heading straight back to the Central region?"
"I imagine so. It's about time I set in motion what I've been preparing, isn't it?"
Adele knew that I meant to become Family Head. I assumed she understood the purpose of this southern journey to some degree, but she knew nothing of what I intended once I held the title. Treason — I had wanted to tell her that I intended to raise it... but the conversation never drifted in that direction.
I would be busy for a while after becoming Family Head. I would have to absorb factions in my own fashion, win the nobles' backing, and reign above them — at least enough that no mere count could ever stand in my way again. In that respect, Adele's support was a considerable asset. If the Grand Duke of the North stood behind me, did that not mean three-tenths of the empire stood with me?
"I could help you, if you want. There's also the matter of what that Yuria woman did to you."
Grit. Adele's teeth were set on edge, and her mood looked far from good. Perhaps because she had read my memories — because of what I had once told her of the past. She had heard that every scar covering my body came from a single person. It was a natural reaction, I supposed.
"...How does anyone do that to their own little brother? She truly has a remarkable way of thinking."
"It's all in the past. Well — it wasn't as if it happened only once or twice."
"I'm watching it right now, so of course it irritates me. I've lost count of the times I've stopped myself from digging up those memories and hitting you."
After a brief hesitation, Adele tore her gaze away from me and added:
"I couldn't afford to wreck the board you'd laid out."
"Then I should be the one thanking you. Though there's really no need to trouble yourself over me to that extent."
"I always say it — you have a gift for making people worry. I mean that quite literally: I see you even when I'd rather not."
Since our memories overlapped, there was much we could say to each other, and that made things easy. At this point in time, Adele was probably the only person I could talk to like this. Theresia, who knew my other memories... well. She was dead, after all.
The way she used to get under my skin never changed: the unease born of feeling I might vanish at any moment, and a state of mind that could crumble without warning. My own position was that I was perfectly fine, but Adele, having heard how many times I had died, seemed to worry over it far more than I did.
I met Adele's gaze as she kept staring at me, then eventually chuckled and shrugged.
"If I worry you that much, you could simply come to the Central region yourself. Once I'm Family Head, there'll hardly be anyone left in a position to object."
"Not a bad idea. No — it's worth serious consideration."
I had tossed it out as a joke, but Adele seemed to weigh it with real sincerity. Alarmed that she might actually come, I asked again, and she answered as though it were obvious.
"You can't seriously mean to come. Don't you have duties of your own?"
"Lotos can handle them. He's done it before."
It seemed I had brought up something quite unnecessary. Watching Adele genuinely deliberate over my words, I quietly offered up a silent prayer for Lotos. Lotos being made to suffer undeserved burdens seemed little different this life than in the last. Perhaps that, too, was fate. A grim one for him, no doubt.
Adele excused herself, saying she was tired, and once again I was left alone. It was one thing when I had someone to talk to; alone, my thoughts naturally multiplied. Wanting to spare myself a tangled head, I tried contacting Mirajane, the person I'd been thinking of earlier.
Adele... Adrian, and Mirajane. Each of them dazzling in her own right — and the people I wanted to look after to the very end in this life. Even if I died, it would be better if these people, at least, went on living.
I wished Mirajane were in the Imperial Palace rather than the South, but I doubted events would unfold according to my wishes.
The ringing tone didn't last long before her voice came through. When that familiar sound finally reached my ear, a smile rose to my face unbidden.
"Have you been well?"
Had what happened last time still lingered in her mind? When I laughed out loud at the somewhat curt voice, Mirajane spoke again, sounding displeased.
"Didn't you give it to me for personal conversation in the first place? If you'd prefer, I'll restrict myself to official matters from now on."
"Understood. In any case, today I'm contacting you precisely because I wish to speak with you, Your Highness."
At that came a single false cough through the artifact, followed by a voice far brighter than before. Anticipation bled through her voice alone, and I couldn't help a wry smile at the sound of Mirajane's tone.
"I suppose I do."
"I didn't take it for a joking matter. Did it perhaps displease you?"
Mirajane's voice brimmed with emotion she couldn't hide. For all that she strove, as an Imperial Princess, to keep up her dignity, delight saturated her voice at my words, and I smiled quietly to myself.
Talking with Mirajane always set me reminiscing. Her jealousy, her affection — partly because I had watched so much of it, but even her voice alone told me exactly what she was feeling.
"I truly was asking after you. We're making for the southern Deep Region just now, so I found myself with time to spare."
"It would stir up friction with the non-humans. Nothing to be done about it, is there?"
Even as I said it, I was focusing on the sounds reaching me from Mirajane's end — not merely her voice, but everything around it.
When we had spoken from her chambers before, the sound had carried a faint echo; this time there was no such resonance. An open, unbounded space, then. She might be in a garden, but using this artifact somewhere like a garden was not Mirajane's way — at least when speaking with someone she cared for, she never favored deserted places. Not the Imperial Palace, then. Where, then? The sound from beyond answered that question: the cry of birds wheeling through open sky, a sound that could never be heard inside a palace.
Screeee—!
Realizing it was the call of a bird that dwelt in the South, not the Central region, I laughed a bitter laugh. I had hoped Mirajane wasn't here, but it seemed that ominous feeling of mine had struck true. I squeezed my eyes shut. Merely imagining it was enough to make my head ache.
"Forgive me for asking, but you're somewhere other than the Imperial Palace right now, aren't you?"
"Would you care to know something?"
Mirajane had never been able to lie. Her voice betrayed her the moment she tried, which was why even her attempts to deceive Keitel so often failed. Perhaps it was because we had spent so very much time together — nowadays I could tell what she was thinking from her voice alone, and I knew at once that she was lying.
"You truly are hopeless at lying, Your Highness. That bird's cry just now reached my ears as well. And I trust you understand exactly what that means."
"Am I wrong? And here I thought surely not — you really are here."
Screeee—!
A moment's delay, but the bird's cry that had reached Mirajane reached me as well — not through the artifact this time, but from directly above my head. What else could it mean? The direction the bird had flown in from — in other words, Mirajane was in the Deep Region. When I pressed her once more, she murmured in a small voice, as though resigned.
"What on earth were you thinking— hah."
To Mirajane saying that, I had only one thing to say. I didn't imagine she had come all this way from the Central region alone, but even so — this was the Deep Region of the South. It had happened before, and I remembered that even then Mirajane had returned without a scratch. And still I could not help but worry. Mirajane was, after all, the one person I could never stop fretting over.
I swallowed my groan for a moment, then opened my mouth — in as gentle a voice as I could manage, so as not to sound angry.
"Stay right where you are. Not a single step until we come for you."
Only with her kept within my own sight would my heart finally settle, I thought.
And if Mirajane was here — did that mean all three of them, Adele and Adrian included, were about to gather in one place? My head began to throb; I passed a hand across my brow and let out a sigh.
It was a headache. A thorough one, in every sense of the word.