Oscar von Valentine (2)
"...It's a wound I took in the Ballistad subjugation."
Princess Evangeline said it with a perfectly calm face.
"The doctors tell me... it will be difficult for me to bear a child."
The truth was, I already knew. I had known for a long time, and still there was a weight between hearing it from someone else and hearing it in her own voice that no words could hold.
"It's only a what-if. But if it ever came to light that the consort of an imperial prince couldn't produce an heir, wouldn't that become a serious problem?"
It felt as if my mouth had been packed full of sand, and I was chewing it. She believed she was someone who didn't belong with me. Someone who wasn't allowed to. Something warm surged up from deep in my gut.
I kept my mouth shut and looked at Princess Evangeline. Her expression was startlingly forlorn, as natural as if she were simply stating a piece of common sense. Her eyes were the eyes of someone who had already given up on everything.
This was wrong. My engagement to her was not supposed to end this way.
"...Princess Evangeline."
I opened my mouth. Over and over I asked myself whether I even had the right to say a thing like this, and in the end no certainty came.
"It doesn't matter to me."
But if I didn't say it now, I felt I would regret it for the rest of my life.
"I will not break my engagement to you because you cannot have a child. Not because you have only one arm. Not because you bear an unsightly scar."
Evangeline's eyes flew wide, as if the words had caught her off guard.
"Because, from the very moment I first met you..."
I drew a long breath. A stray thought swelled up in my head. Come to think of it — was this the first time? The first time I had laid my heart bare to her this far.
...I'd done it.
I had braced myself for this more times than I could count, and still my face felt as if it would burn red at any second.
The princess swallowed and stared straight at me, saying nothing. I had no way of knowing what she was thinking, but there was no taking it back now, and so I went on.
"If you were trying to push me away out of regard for my position as prince of a nation, then you needn't concern yourself with that at all."
"..."
"But if that isn't it — if you are simply still hesitating over the engagement between us..."
Once I had emptied out everything I wanted to say, my mind went blank.
"Then I will simply have to try harder. Until you turn and look my way."
"W-wait..."
Evangeline called after me, flustered. I deliberately pretended I hadn't heard. Shamefully unmanly of me, but I was embarrassed.
"The hour has grown late. I'll take my leave. Princess Evangeline, Lady Delphina — I wish you both a peaceful evening."
"No, hold on—"
Her flustered voice came from behind me. I shut the door without looking back, not even at the end. If I turned around now, I didn't think I would be able to leave. I didn't want her to see me looking pathetic.
Why was it? All at once, an old memory came back to me.
Six years ago.
"Oscar."
"Yes, Father."
"Your betrothed has been decided."
Even in the height of summer, his father's words fell cold as a blizzard, and eleven-year-old Oscar had to feel fear before he felt any anticipation.
"...You aren't going to ask who it is?"
"...If it is your will, Father, I will accept whoever it may be."
"Even if she were the ugliest woman in the Empire?"
Rudius von Valentine, Emperor of the Valentine Empire, let out a thin smirk and muttered it like a joke. To Oscar, listening, it was not a joke in the slightest.
"It was a joke."
Rudius said it with a dry chuckle.
"Your match is from the Kingdom."
"...The Kingdom, you say."
"Yes."
Rudius rose from his seat as he spoke.
"Wait, and the child will come here."
"Here, you mean?"
"Well, have a simple talk. The engagement isn't even settled yet."
With that, he left the young Oscar alone and departed.
"...Hah."
Only after his father was gone did Oscar let out the breath he had been holding. Only once the tension snapped loose did anticipation finally arrive.
Who in the world is my betrothed?
His father's mean little joke flickered through his mind, but Oscar quickly shook his head. Surely not. However frightening and strict Father was, he would never handle an imperial prince's betrothal so carelessly...
"Excuse me."
It was then. From beyond the door came a light knock, and with it an old man's voice.
A man?!
Oscar startled and glanced wildly around.
Don't tell me this betrothed of mine is actually...?
"Her Highness Evangeline Failondia, Second Princess of the Kingdom, has arrived. May she enter?"
"Y-you may enter."
Fortunately, it seemed that wasn't the case. Oscar let out a silent sigh of relief; his voice had trembled as he answered.
The door opened. A middle-aged butler, deep lines carved into his face, reached out first and caught it so it wouldn't swing shut. Then a golden-haired girl stepped into the reception room.
"It is an honor to meet you, Your Highness. I am Evangeline Failondia, Second Princess of the Failon Kingdom, and the one betrothed to you."
The moment he first saw her, Oscar felt something strange he had never felt in his life. Her brilliantly shining golden hair drew the boy's gaze the way the sun might. He couldn't breathe, and yet it was as if a hole had been punched clean through his chest and cold air were drifting through the gap — a ticklish, restless ache. The world went soft and blurred around her, and nothing but that girl remained in his sight.
"......I-it's a pleasure... to meet you. I am Oscar von Valentine."
Only after three months had passed did Oscar learn what that feeling was called.
First love.
At the age of eleven, Oscar von Valentine fell in love for the first time.
And time flowed on — four years later. Counted backward from the present, two years ago.
"...Prince Oscar?"
"Shh."
Fifteen-year-old Oscar von Valentine pressed a finger to his lips at the royal guard who had recognized him. The guard, catching on a moment late, lowered his voice.
"Wh-what brings the Empire's Third Prince here?"
"What brings me here? What a foolish question. My fiancée has fallen unconscious in critical condition. Did you think I could sit still?"
The guard asked, flustered.
"B-but... I was certain I'd heard that Your Highness had devoted yourself to the Magic Tower..."
"Devoted myself? What nonsense. I merely received instruction in order to build my strength."
"Your strength?"
"Isn't it obvious? So that I might become a man worthy of my gallant fiancée, of course." Oscar shook his head as he answered.
"I've already received permission in person from the King of Failon. Where is my fiancée?"
"...If you mean the Princess, she has been admitted to the Third Medical Ward."
"Would you show me the way?"
"...Please follow me."
Following behind the guard, Oscar thought. She had been wounded and transferred to the capital, yes, but the injury surely couldn't be serious. She was simply exhausted from victory after victory, battle after battle. That had to be it.
What should he say to encourage his fiancée, lying in that sickroom? Any food she craved, any thing she needed, the royal attendants would already be seeing to all of it, so there was little point in his bringing something himself. Then wouldn't the simple fact that he — her future partner — was at her side be strength enough?
As he confidently unspooled this delusion, the guard's voice reached his ear.
"This is the place."
"My thanks."
The guard gave a light bow and took his leave. Oscar lifted his head and read the plate beside the door.
So this is it. Rather tucked away, isn't it.
Was her condition worse than he had thought? Just as he moved to knock, worry quickening his hand, a low old voice came from inside.
"...Princess."
Whose voice is that? A doctor?
Two years earlier, when he heard that his fiancée had taken the field as a princess knight, he had volunteered for the Magic Tower and endured brutal training for the single purpose of standing at her side. This was the result. Mana circulating through his whole body along his blood vessels had amplified his hearing to an extreme — enough to catch even the old man's small, low voice seeping through the thick wall.
"I am truly sorry to have to say this under these circumstances, but..."
Oscar swallowed, mouth dry, and without meaning to brought his ear to the door.
"...The wound in the abdomen is very deep. The immediate treatment is finished, however..."
The old man hesitated, swallowing his words again and again. Just as Oscar, unable to bear it, was wondering whether he ought to pretend he had heard nothing and simply knock—
"...The womb has been too severely damaged. From now on, conceiving a child will be difficult..."
Oscar's heart lurched and sank.
Infertility.
What that word meant to a woman. As a prince of a nation who had matured far faster than others his age, he knew it all too well, whether he wanted to or not.
"...I see."
Evangeline's tone was calm. Far too calm.
The old man was silent for a moment, then dragged his chair as if to stand. At the scrape of wood, Oscar jerked his ear from the door and looked around. The place was so remote, even within the palace, that fortunately no one seemed to have passed in the meantime.
The door creaked open. The doctor who stepped out met Oscar's eyes, and neither of them spoke. Oscar shook his head without a word. The old man regarded him briefly, nodded just as silently, and walked past.
A breeze from the room swung the door shut on its own. Oscar was still standing outside it.
"...hk."
From inside, a small sob leaked out.
"Huh. Why... why are there tears."
Even though no one was listening. Even though it was a private ward, with no one beside her.
"Th-this is strange. Why, why the tears. Hk. Why, hup. Hk, why..."
Evangeline was forcing herself to hold the crying in.
Standing rooted before the door, fifteen-year-old Oscar clenched his teeth until they creaked. He was praying that his own unsightly tears, at least, would not reach the girl inside that room.
Chirp. Chirp-chirp.
"...What time is it."
At the birdsong drifting in from the window, I rubbed the grit from the corners of my eyes with my sleeve and cracked them open.
"...Delphina?"
Delphina and I had fallen asleep side by side on the sofa, half wrapped around each other.
"Hweh... Priiincess..."
She had her face buried against the nape of my neck, mumbling in her sleep, and only then did yesterday start coming back to me, piece by piece.
"Oscar, that bastard."
The nerve of him, confessing his love whenever he damn well pleased and throwing a fit. He could work his ass off till it fell clean off for all I cared. As if I'd marry him.
I propped the still sleep-drunk Delphina upright and hauled my stiff, aching body off the sofa.
"Krrrgh."
Stretching, I looked out the window. Sunlight was spilling in at just the right angle, filling the living room.
"Huh. Hell of a view."
Beyond the glass spread a field of blue flowers and trees. Staring out at all that green, the restless stir in my chest seemed to settle on its own.
"That said, I had a rotten dream."
Of all the things to dream, did it have to be that. Right. This was because that prince had to go and drag the story up for no damn reason.
"I'll pay you back for this. Count on it."
I was inwardly swearing revenge when Delphina's whiny voice reached my ear.
"Mmm... where is this..."
She scrubbed hard at her eyes and looked around, then jumped the instant she saw me and yelped in a thin little voice.
"E-eek! Princess!"
"Oh. You're up?"
"Wh-wh-wh-why are you— no, that's not it. I mean..."
Babbling, wobbling her head, tripping over her own tongue, Delphina jackknifed at the waist and bowed as if she meant to plant her face in the sofa.
"Y-yesterday I committed a most terrible discourtesy...!"
Now that I got a look at her — wasn't that a dogeza? And where the hell had she learned a thing like that.
"It's fine. I don't care, so get up. You'll crack your head."
"I mustn't!!"
"I said get up."
"Yes, ma'am!"
Watching Delphina snap upright with the razor-straight posture of a model soldier, I let out a long sigh.
"Anyway, start getting ready to head out."
"Huh? Head out?"
Delphina cocked her head as she asked.
"Wasn't today a day off?"
"Delphina, the entrance ceremony is tomorrow."
"Right. So today is a day off..."
Still tilting her head and talking past the point, she finally let out a small ah.
"That's right — the eve festival!"