Finally Reaching Your Sorrow - 4
This was the first time I had ever told anyone close to me about the Crown Prince, yet Adrian's reaction to my story was unexpectedly muted. Perhaps because she had already come face to face with it while reading my memories.
Or perhaps because she had watched the deed carried through to its end several times over within those memories, even the words I will kill the Crown Prince drew little reaction from her. What was certain was that hers was not a negative one. Had she felt poorly about it, she would surely have said something while the memories played out before her.
A brief silence followed, and around the time the visions of the Coffin of Memories began to dissolve, Adrian—still held against my chest—slowly parted her lips.
"...I don't believe it's the right thing to do. Before I ever weigh anyone's sins, I am a Saintess."
Having said her piece, Adrian swallowed quietly. But her words didn't end there. When she opened her mouth again, hesitation filled her expression—though her voice, at least, rang resolute.
"But that doesn't mean I'm defending Keitel."
Adrian owed no duty of loyalty to the imperial family. She was the head of her Order and the Saintess of all people; not even the Emperor could bend her to his will, and by virtue of being chosen by God alone, no one held any right to interfere with her. She could not be pinned to either side—and if one insisted on naming her position, it would be neutrality.
That was why I had deliberated over this for so long. She now knew of these memories, but whether I ought to tell her that I meant to kill the Crown Prince was another matter entirely. My telling her could well become a weight that pressed down upon her. I had no wish to unsettle a Saintess who stood neutral between Church and Empire.
But she had read my heart. She knew why I repeated my regressions without end, and she was the only woman alive who knew all of my memories. Speaking of this reason had been inevitable.
In her voice, naming him Keitel rather than the Crown Prince, I caught a small ember of anger. Adrian knew how many times he had intervened in my deaths. Perhaps because of that, the mere mention of his name had left her visibly unsettled.
"As the Saintess, I cannot understand your will. To kill the Crown Prince of a nation is no simple matter—and the mere utterance of those words constitutes treason. I must stand neutral in all things, always, so if you hoped for my endorsement, I'm sorry."
"That's quite all right. But... if you won't stand with me—"
"But I, as Adrian, am different."
Adrian spoke with a hand pressed to her chest. When something steeled in her expression, I finally understood that these words were her truth. She was appealing to me in earnest—trying to tell me that the Saintess and Adrian did not stand in the same place.
"...I want to understand you. Not everything you carry in your heart may be right, but I have seen Robert's memories. I have watched what feelings you lived with, and what thoughts you carried through your days."
The hand that had rested over her heart reached out to me, carefully brushing down my cheek. It was a gesture meant to soothe—and laughably enough, it truly did put my heart at ease. I looked at her with a faint chuckle.
"May I speak honestly?"
"...By all means. Say whatever you wish."
"If you carry any sin, it is this: you thought yourself worth too little."
I couldn't bring myself to argue against being called a man who thought himself worthless. Through all those regressions, perhaps it had simply been easier on the mind to count every failure as my own doing rather than blame another. I had lived believing that was right.
If the deaths of those around me, or my own death, were my fault, then all I had to do was correct them in the next life. But at some point, I could no longer tell what was wrong. No matter which direction I took, no matter how cleanly I avoided every mistake, death was waiting at the end all the same. It took several lifetimes for a mind I had once let slip away to find its way back.
"Sometimes it's all right to say it was someone else's fault. Pour your troubles out to another, grow angry once in a while, tell a lie or two. Why you always insist on carrying everything alone... I truly don't understand it."
"Those hardly sound like the words of a Saintess."
Being told to blame others and lie—I smiled at that, and Adrian smiled in return. The hand that had been tracing one cheek now cradled my face entire, and the warmth flowing from her palm spread until my skin glowed with it.
"Because right now, I am Adrian. Not the Saintess—Adrian."
We smiled at each other over those words, and then silence flowed in once more. She couldn't simply let what I had said pass. It was far too grave a thing to brush aside.
Her closed eyes opened a sliver, and my blurred reflection surfaced in their pale clarity. Blue eyes met those clear depths, and her gaze returned to me. It was then that her hesitant lips finally parted, and the silence broke.
"Now, at last, it reaches me."
"What does, may I ask?"
"I saw your face in the memories, you see. I couldn't help wondering whether the man before me was really that same person."
Her fingers drifted past my eyes, my nose—feather-soft. Those gentle hands, determined not to inflict the slightest hurt, traveled the whole of my face. Her world began at her fingertips and ended at her palms, and when Adrian's touch came to rest against my cheeks once more, she smiled faintly.
"Am I anything like the man you saw in those memories?"
"...Hard to say. But I think I know one thing."
The hand on my cheek slid down to the corner of my mouth and gave it a firm little tug, and Adrian burst into peals of giggles as she pulled my lips upward.
"I think a smile suits you far better. The face I saw in there was always one of suffering."
It was true that I hadn't smiled much. I had more memories of weeping than of laughter, and more of anguish than of tears. And yet the corner of my mouth, hauled up by force, had at some point eased into a smile that felt entirely natural.
I caught Adrian's hands against my cheeks, drew them gently downward, and answered slowly.
"...I'll try."
"That isn't what I meant. What I wanted to say was this."
Her hands slipped down from my cheeks and reached forward. There, with each of us gazing at the other, Adrian took my hands in hers and spoke.
"I mean that I will stay by your side. Until you can smile with ease, Robert—and if that can never be, then until you kill Keitel and end these regressions. I'll be here beside you."
When she flashed a grin and asked, "May I?", laughter slipped out of me unbidden. No one was dragging the corners of my mouth upward this time. I was simply smiling at a woman.
Why had it taken so long to meet someone like her? If I had met her in the beginning, I wouldn't have had to repeat so many regressions. What Adrian offered was simple: having heard everything I had said, she meant to remain at my side regardless. There was no refusing words like those. To be precise, it meant I couldn't have refused even if I wanted to—and only one thing was left for me to say.
"You're a more frightening woman than I took you for."
Perhaps knowing what lay in Adrian's heart would prove harder than knowing Mirajane's or Adele's. I stared blankly at the vast, hollow chamber—the Coffin of Memories, which no longer held any power of its own. I had thought there was nothing left to gain in this place, yet I was walking away with more than I had ever imagined. But if I had to name the most precious thing I'd found within it...
...it would be Adrian. When I held out my hand and said it was time to go, she took it as naturally as breathing and followed me out. Things were going well. Far better than I had ever planned.
"By the way, what will you tell Mirajane? Once a relic like that has been used, I doubt it can ever be used again."
It went without saying that a relic wielding such overwhelming power demanded a great span of time before it could serve again. Racking my memory of what I'd uncovered while studying the Coffin of Memories long ago, I recalled it being said that reactivation took a good ten years even under ideal conditions. That was with mages mobilized to fill it with mana; left to recharge on its own, it would need half a century. The relic Mirajane had come to secure had been here. Now it was gone.
"I'll have to tell her it no longer exists. That will do Mirajane more good in the long run."
I was sorry she'd made the journey for nothing, but I hoped that through this experience Mirajane would come to see that things don't always unfold the way she wants. After all, how could everything go exactly as I intended, every single time? It was nothing but an excuse, of course—and Adrian, who knew it, nodded along with a quiet laugh.
"You're right. I've been hoping Mirajane would stop taking such dangerous chances, too."
"I feel the same. She's been a constant worry."
"Next time, I'll keep a closer eye on her myself. You have more than enough to watch over as it is, Robert."
With that, she swung our clasped hands gently back and forth, and all I could do was quietly murmur my assent. Ever since we had left the Coffin of Memories, Adrian's manner had grown markedly warmer. Where once she had kept a careful line drawn between us, now she kept stepping over it.
Where would this relationship finally settle? She had said she would remain beside me until everything was finished. The Saintess could not endorse me—but Adrian the woman had promised to take my side. I was grateful for that heart of hers, though I couldn't say whether it would hold until I reached the end.
...And yet, the thing that had gnawed at me for so long seemed to have lifted, if only a little. There was still a long road left before I would see its end. For one, I had to claim my place as Family Head, and I had not yet secured a position among the Crown Prince's inner circle. There was so much to be done. This relationship was not about to advance anywhere, and neither was Adrian—she made no move to come any closer to me than this.
Then, from a distance, came the sound of footsteps. Sensing Mirajane and Adele—who had been combing the levels above—making their way toward us, I released Adrian's hand and offered her my arm in its place. We had been holding hands for some time now, but there was no need to put that on display.
"Ah, Lord Taylor. Was the relic down below? We searched the upper levels fairly thoroughly, but there was no sign of it."
"If there was a relic, it would have been underground. So—did you find anything?"
At Adele's words I glanced toward Adrian, and Adrian cast her gaze toward the place where my face was. Like conspirators checking their story, in that fleeting, brushing exchange of sightless glances, the answers we were about to give might as well have been identical.
"It seems someone has already used it."
"That's right. My divine power didn't respond at all."
"...Someone used it? Are you saying it's gone?"
"I suppose that's what it comes down to."
I smiled as I watched Mirajane's face fall into blank disappointment. Perhaps the day would never come when she learned how that relic had truly been spent. This was something only Adrian and I would ever know.
Only one thing remained now: to secure the relics and press onward. And slowly, the hour was approaching when I would face my sister.