The Saintess Hates the Imperial Princess - 4
"You look deep in thought."
"Can you blame me? The gentleman up on the driver's box has been glaring something fierce."
"He does seem devoted to you, Saintess."
At Adele's words, Adrian gave a small nod—and then, seated across from me, she seemed to fix her gaze quietly on me. One way or another, I had no choice but to read the room. All we were doing was sorting out seats in a carriage, but the moment I considered how each of the women here saw me, I realized it was a far weightier matter than I'd expected.
That was what made it so exhausting. Adele, settled in beside me, probably thought nothing of it, but in this life at least, I could count on one hand the times I'd agonized over anything this much.
I liked to think I had lived longer than most. I'd piled up more experience than even the grayest veteran, and the wisdom that years accrue was no small thing either. And yet I had never imagined I'd end up fretting over a problem like this. I ought to push them away, deflect them—but I honestly didn't know whether I could. It wasn't that I wanted to look indecisive. It was that every one of them was precious to me.
Perhaps the cleanest answer would be for me to simply disappear. If everything wound to a close the way it should, maybe I'd slip off on a journey without telling a soul. I was a little curious how the others would react. Adele would surely hunt me down one way or another—though surely she wouldn't actually take a ship to do it.
In any case, I decided not to think about the situation at all. The deeper I dug, the more tangled everything became—and I was the only one who suffered for it. These were bonds I would have to sort out someday, and even now we were all balanced precariously on a knife's edge, but the moment for cutting them loose wasn't now. No one had laid their feelings for me bare, and no quarrel had broken out over me.
If anything, Mirajane seemed relieved not to be sharing a seat with me. Whenever our eyes happened to meet, she would look away with an odd expression—perhaps she was still embarrassed about what had happened earlier. We were awkward with each other yet. It had been the same with Adrian and Adele, but with Mirajane most of all. We hadn't spent all that much time together, and the meetings we did have were mostly short, searing moments. From where she stood, she probably couldn't fathom why I carried on so devotedly.
When Mirajane's memories finally returned, I hoped she wouldn't torment herself over having killed me. That was just something that had happened, once. An accident—something no one could have helped. If anything, back in that life, dying at her hands was what I had wanted.
As the people around me recovered their memories of previous loops, their hearts only grew more complicated. Even as I hoped they would never have to grieve watching me die, I feared they might come to look at me with feelings unlike the ones they held now.
"...That used to be my seat."
At Adrian's murmur—so soft that only I could have caught it—I let out a wry chuckle. Because that was exactly what I wanted: to go on living while hearing words like that. I had no intention of begging for sympathy or pity over a handful of deaths.
When thoughts like these took hold, Adele was a great help. At this point in time, wasn't she the only one who could actually pull me out of them? I sank into thought, staring out the window, until Adele tapped my shoulder with a finger.
"You're better off not thinking so much. You especially—you have a habit of assuming the worst."
"Then someone ought to keep me talking, shouldn't they? Would you care to volunteer as my conversation partner, Grand Duke?"
"I can lend you a shoulder. Or were you not planning to sleep?"
Sleep, huh. Truth be told, I was a little worn out from fretting over Mirajane. Adrian and Mirajane had at some point drifted off with their heads leaning against one another, so I rubbed at my eyes and looked over at Adele. Adele huffed a small laugh at my gaze, then swept her hair aside and shrugged one shoulder.
"Go ahead and sleep."
"No—I can't just sleep like that."
Adele took my head in hand and planted my face straight into her shoulder. When I made muffled noises, briefly unable to breathe, she laughed under her breath and eased her grip. At this rate I'd never fall asleep at all—and yet, contrary to my expectations, my body must have been more exhausted than I'd realized. Through slowly dimming eyes, I stole a glance up at Adele. A faint smile curved her lips as she looked down at me, and with that small reassurance, I let myself drift off. I had a feeling I'd fallen asleep just like this once before. In an old memory—one that Adele, too, would now come to remember.
"...Exactly the same."
She murmured it, watching Robert asleep against her shoulder. There had been no real need to act this way, but in the old memories that had been surfacing more and more of late, there had been a moment like this. The midwinter Barbarian Subjugation—long since finished in the present, yet still unfolding within those old memories. There had been a time when the two of them, hunted by barbarians, had taken refuge in a cave and clung to each other's warmth, stripping off clothes soaked through with blood and wrapping themselves in cloaks with nothing beneath but underclothes.
When it all came back to her that vividly, she had been a touch flustered—but the lingering echo of the emotions she'd felt then left Adele with a strange, subtle ache. Robert, his back against the rough cave wall, drifting off against her shoulder. And herself, quietly watching him. Even with his blood-fouled hair brushing against her, it hadn't felt unpleasant. If anything, she had only wished that moment would stretch on a little longer.
Wondering why she had felt that way back then, she had let herself try it—and found the experience less unpleasant than she'd expected. It struck her how soundly the man could sleep on another's shoulder. Had it been her, she would have stayed too wary of everyone around her to sleep so easily. Did he trust her that completely, or was he simply the sort who trusted people readily? Judging by Robert's usual conduct, the former seemed more likely—but Adele found it difficult to read his heart with any certainty.
In the beginning, his eyes had simply been hollow. They betrayed no feeling at all; he had looked like a man about to slip away at any moment, and that was why she had held on to him. Lately he showed a good deal of emotion, but the change had come so abruptly that she couldn't begin to guess what went on in his head. Sometimes he smiled gently, as though truly glad. At other times his face clouded with sorrow, as if he had lost the entire world. Robert's face was not given to dramatic shifts—a faint smile or a knitted brow was the whole of it. But his eyes could not tell a lie.
He must carry other memories. She had never assumed the only memories he possessed were the ones he'd made at her side. There would have been times with that Saintess, and no doubt moments when he and the Imperial Princess had shared something deep as well. But for now, he was beside her. And no one else here seemed to have remembered anything, either.
It pricked at her. That there were things she did not know—and that she could not exactly dig his secrets out of him. With anyone else it might have been different, but where Robert was concerned, she went inexplicably soft. Perhaps it was because of the memories she had once carried; she couldn't say. She simply... could not treat Robert the way she treated Lotos or Bunta. She could have brandished her sword and bullied him into talking, or leveraged her rank as Grand Duke to pry his lips apart. The only reason she hadn't was that she hadn't wanted to.
Lotos had told her that the way she treated Robert was unlike her usual self. Which was exactly why he had gone and spread that absurd rumor that the two of them were lovers. When she had first heard it, she had considered burying Lotos somewhere warm and sunny—though on reflection, it hadn't felt half bad. It was nothing but idle gossip now, but her thinking had shifted along with the returning memories. The woman inside those memories had even been contemplating a proposal to Robert. Of course, that feeling was not the one she held now. Perhaps that was why she felt so unmoored. She had no intention of being buffeted about by this incomprehensible past—a past whose very existence she had never known.
A quiet huff of laughter. Robert, asleep against her shoulder, did not so much as stir. Whether he was sleeping deeply or not, his soft breathing carried on steadily through the gently swaying carriage. She stared at him. The slightly long lashes, the skin pale to an unusual degree. The eyes that had watched her, the lips that had been chattering away until moments ago. And so, little by little, the space between face and face began to close—
"...What exactly are you doing?"
Adele's brow knotted hard. Her focus shattered. In that flash of colliding feeling, Adele wrestled her composure back and lifted her head. Robert still leaned against her shoulder, and Mirajane was regarding her in silence.
Mirajane had no idea what might have happened while she'd dozed. Robert and the Grand Duke had clearly been sitting far apart—when on earth had they ended up pressed together like that? Even as she watched Robert asleep on Adele's shoulder, she had distinctly seen the woman's face leaning toward his just now. What could she have been about to do to a sleeping man? Adele, meeting Mirajane's narrowed eyes, spoke.
"I was only looking at him for a moment."
"It didn't look like 'only looking' to me. I've no idea why Lord Taylor fell asleep like that, but are the two of you close enough to stare at a sleeping man's face like that?"
"We are."
To Adele, it was an obvious answer. They were not bound by friendship or any other name, but she was the only one who knew Robert's memories. So what more was needed than the word close? Robert knew, and she remembered. Within this carriage, at least, no one stood closer to him than she did.
The unabashed answer flustered Mirajane, but she quickly steadied herself. There was no reason to lash out; she had merely been startled to find Adele and Robert pressed together. If a different question remained, it was over the grounds for declaring their closeness so confidently. She knew Robert had served as Adele's adjutant, but close hardly matched the relationship she had witnessed between the two of them in the North back then.
"...Was there something I wasn't told? The two of you seem far closer than before."
"A great many things happened."
As Adele smiled low, Mirajane stole a glance at Adrian, still asleep. There was still so much she didn't know about Robert. Him growing close to Adrian without her noticing was one thing—but she had never dreamed something might have passed between him and the Grand Duke as well.
"Well, we have been called lovers, after all."
At those words, Mirajane went rigid. Lovers. If she had heard correctly, the meaning was unmistakable. She didn't think it was said in jest... but truly? It was too hard to believe. The composure Mirajane had held onto began to waver in her eyes.
At the sight, Adele smirked. Princess or Saintess—watching them waver at words like these laid their hearts bare. It would be different with her. So long as she knew the memories of the past, she could hardly be like them, confusing past with present. Even if their feelings were longing for Robert, even if her own heart remained tangled—Adele had no intention of handing Robert over easily.
Hadn't she been the first to take an interest in him? She had met him first, and she had been the first to bid him come north. Their first meeting had been anything but clean, granted—but it was certain that what Adele felt for Robert had long since outgrown mere interest. She would not let go. As she had said before, she did not think of Robert as a possession—and yet she still considered him hers.
The North had a saying. If you want something, seize it first. She could not claim to have Robert entirely in her grasp, but then—who was to say how things would unfold? If this feeling of hers ever came to match those women's, she would simply take Robert by other means. Whatever those means might be, they were not something Adele needed to ponder deeply. She had always lived that way: taking what she wanted, and seizing by any means necessary what she needed. That was Adele's way—and the North's.
"I do hope we arrive soon."
Adele said, watching the shaken Mirajane. Even if they posed no obstacle to her, it was always better when rivals disappeared quickly. And so Adele, pressing onward toward her destination, turned her eyes to the window. There was not much occupying her thoughts. Robert, still asleep against her shoulder, took up half of them; a sliver went to the two women seated across from her. And the rest was for the name of the Relic they were riding to meet. Coffin of Memories—a name she had heard in passing since coming to the South—circled round and round in her mind.