Interlude — The Children of Valentine

"…Well. Shot down again."

The carriage door shut, cold and final. It drew slowly away from Oscar, leaving behind nothing but the low murmur of two girls' voices from within.

He watched the rear of the carriage go, and thought.

Is this that thing they say is all the fashion in the Republic — push-and-pull, or whatever they call it?

Pushing a man off while pretending to want nothing to do with him, and yet, now and then, leaving just enough of an opening that he could never quite bring himself to leave. Was that not a manner of courtship scarcely different from training a man?

…Well. She is the Princess Knight. Training a man would suit her. Being the one who gets trained would not suit her in the least.

For a moment Oscar imagined a married life beside a gentle, picture-perfect wife who wore Evangeline's face. It was not an unpleasant picture. And yet it did not suit the woman he knew. Not in the slightest.

The pleasant fantasy did not last. A voice at his back seized him and hauled him into the real world in a single breath.

"Well. If it isn't Oscar."

"…Brother Cardinando."

Cardinando von Valentine. First Prince of the Empire, and second in the current line of succession. A third-year of the Knight Faculty at Polaris Academy. With Yuliana von Valentine he shared a bond worse than enmity — family so desperate to devour one another they could hardly bear the wait.

"What brings you here? I was given to understand you would not be attending the eve festival."

"Ah, yes. Of course I had to stay away."

Cardinando let out a thin, empty laugh.

"You and that sister of yours — the one who can't live without you — mean to enjoy the eve festival in person. What use would there be in a wretch like me squeezing in?"

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

He looked down on Oscar in a voice that sneered without shame, and yet his eyes never once stopped moving.

"Thing is, I heard something from a Shadow Doll I keep for my own private use. Something I simply couldn't overhear and let pass."

Even after he belatedly gathered his feelings back under control, a strange flush lingered on him. The carriage that had stood on this spot only moments ago. The back of the woman who had been with Oscar, glimpsed from far off — and a left arm that shone an unnatural white, as though it were reflecting the full moon even in the dark.

"…Aha."

Cardinando's smile turned sly.

"So the fiancée came."

"…"

A hairline crack ran across Oscar's carefully blank face, and vanished. There was no chance Cardinando would miss a moment like that.

"Well, well."

"…"

"So you do know how to get angry. A little, at least."

He said it without bothering to hide the mockery.

"And here I thought you were nothing but Yuliana's puppet."

He turned his head and tipped his chin, lightly, toward the carriage pulling away.

"Is that fiancée of yours really so precious?"

"Of course she is."

Oscar answered while glaring at the man in front of him. Cardinando narrowed his eyes and asked again.

"Even though she's defective goods, unfit to bear so much as a single proper child?"

Crack—! Blue-white lightning gathered in Oscar's left hand in the same instant: a wild-horse thing, grinding and straining so violently it seemed ready to burst free at the slightest slip. He hauled his arm all the way back, poised to drive that lightning straight into Cardinando's face — and then stopped dead, frozen in the posture as if he had turned to stone.

A blade painted pitch-black pressed, slow and firm, against the throat of the man who stared at Cardinando with bloodshot eyes.

"…I see."

Even faced with it at point-blank range, Cardinando did not shed a single drop of cold sweat. His tongue kept moving.

"So even Yuliana's puppet doll treasures his own woman. Is that it?"

"…Take it back."

Oscar said it with his left hand creaking under the strain. Every word he forced out made his throat jump, and on that bobbing Adam's apple a single bead of red welled up.

"Easy. Easy, now."

Cardinando watched the bead of blood.

"Thrash too hard and — snick — it'll come clean off."

"…What is all this? Hardly like you, Brother."

Oscar shot a sidelong glare at whoever had set the black-painted blade to his throat, and let a scornful line fall.

"Is this your Shadow Doll?"

"It is."

"How many more are there?"

"Do you take me for a fool stupid enough to tell you that honestly?"

Cardinando snorted. Oscar inclined his head, slow, and answered quietly.

"Well. I thought as much."

The left hand that had been turned a bare fraction forward twitched — and in the next instant lashed toward the space at his back.

Lightning screamed. There was a hard metallic crack, and an assassin pitched onto his face, unconscious, without even a dying cry. Whether the figure had been charred black, or the clothes had been black from the start, was impossible to tell. The black-painted dagger in that hand had snapped cleanly in two.

"…Hah."

Cardinando let out a long breath, as though genuinely astonished.

"A blade in your neck, and you aren't even afraid?"

"Did you imagine a shoddy dagger that cannot so much as carry aura could pierce a battle mage's mana armor?"

Oscar's reply was plain.

"I will not say it a third time."

Bzzzt—! Lightning massed in his left hand once more, sharper than before, and far more violent.

"The slander you aimed at my fiancée. Retract it. This instant."

…Come to think of it.

Inside the carriage on the way back, I gazed at my face reflected in the window and murmured. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠It was dim outside, but the carriage was bright enough that the glass threw my face back at me, clear as it was.

There was a Shadow Doll behind Oscar, too.

It hadn't seemed to be looking at me in particular, so I'd left it alone. Even so. What had that been about?

"…That Princess Knight, or whatever she is, must be precious to you indeed."

Cardinando snorted, as if he could not believe what he was hearing.

"You're a prince, aren't you? A man who can take his pick of any woman he wants and use her as he pleases. What could you possibly be lacking, that you'd cling to a woman that worn-out and used up?"

"Not every man in the world is a rake like you, Brother."

Oscar clicked his tongue outright and shook his head.

"And you have been crossing the line for quite some time. Evangeline is a hero who saved humanity from ruin. She is not someone the likes of you may wag his tongue at however he pleases."

"A hero of humanity? No. A hero of the Kingdom."

Cardinando shot it back as if the very idea amused him.

"Evangeline moved for no reason but to save the Kingdom. Is there even a single person of the Empire she saved?"

"Do you truly not know? The Empire and the Republic came through unharmed only because the Kingdom held, and did not fall."

"If the Kingdom had perished and the Demon King's army had driven deep into its territory, they would have met the three-front war of the Holy State, the Republic, and the Empire head-on."

"Just how little do you care about the Human-Demon War?"

Oscar raised his voice, unable to hold it in any longer.

"The Demon King's army we fought was no intelligent force — it was a swarm of monsters! Creatures on whom ordinary sense did not work!"

"Then it would have been all the easier. They would have charged in blindly, without ever grasping the danger of a three-front war, and burned themselves to ash."

Cardinando went on answering, still perfectly at his ease. To Oscar, the man looked like nothing but a fool. One could have argued that, judged only by how coldly he weighed profit against loss, he was anything but stupid — and yet what would come of it, if a man like this became Emperor? The whole of the Empire might slide back into the past of thirty years ago. Back into that dreadful age, when it waged endless war upon the other three nations and gnawed away at its own flesh.

"Wasting feeling on something so pointless. Are you a man of the Kingdom, or of the Empire?"

Cardinando sneered it at Oscar, who had fallen silent.

"…Only now do I finally understand."

Oscar looked straight at him and drove the words out, cold scorn coiled through his voice.

"…"

Only after those words did Cardinando's composure break. His face twisted.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Precisely what I said."

Watching that face contort, Oscar drawled, mocking.

"You're a man who should never be Emperor."

"…You've crossed the line. Far past it."

Cardinando's voice dropped low. Oscar only snorted, and compressed the lightning burning in his left hand sharper still.

"A man who stayed shameless no matter what was said, and he shakes the moment I so much as utter the word emperor. What is the throne to you, exactly?"

He shouted it as if the sight disgusted him.

"What is the imperial throne, that brothers must draw steel on one another, poison a younger sister's meal, and go so far as to tear down — right before his eyes — the woman his own younger brother loves?"

"…The likes of you will never understand it. Not in a lifetime."

"Then all the more reason it must never pass to you."

"What did you say."

"All the more, if it is a child's sort of ideal — one that cannot even properly explain a single thing it wants."

"…Right to the end, you cross the line."

Cardinando's right hand settled on the hilt at his waist. With a click, the blade slid free of its sheath, and the characters engraved in intaglio along the steel caught the moonlight and glowed, faint and cold. Magic formulae: a kind of permanent enchantment, able to loose sorcery that wrapped the blade at the mere infusion of mana.

Oscar read the blue-glowing formulae hovering over the steel, one after another, and then let out a hollow laugh.

"So you mean to see blood after all."

"You were the one who drew lightning first."

"Because you let your tongue run where it didn't belong."

By then, not a trace of respect for his own blood remained in Oscar's voice. A hostility on the verge of bursting shimmered in the air between the two of them.

At the same moment, both men stepped forward.

And the voice that came from behind Cardinando arrived in that very same moment.

"…Sister."

Oscar said it, unsettled.

"Why are you here?"

"The eve festival is over. I could hardly remain in that building forever."

So saying, Yuliana turned her head toward Cardinando, who had not looked back.

"Your words and conduct up to now. As Student Council President of Polaris Academy, I cannot simply let them pass."

"…Yuliana."

Only then did Cardinando turn, and snarl. The formulae circling his blade dimmed one by one, but the hostility blazing in his eyes did not fade. If anything, it burned a deeper red.

"Speech that deliberately belittles a specific person of another nation, or ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that person's achievements, is grounds for discipline under Academy rules. Run your mouth any further, and it will not end at a punishment of the ordinary sort."

"…Ha. Playing emperor already, are you? Raise that nose any higher and you'll pierce the sky."

"Have you gone deaf? I gave an order as Student Council President of Polaris."

"…"

"If you are determined to invite a corrective measure upon yourself, well — I won't stop you."

"Tsk."

Cardinando looked from Yuliana to Oscar and back again, clicked his tongue aloud, and left without another word.

To her younger brother, who stared holes into that retreating back, Yuliana spoke with care.

"Oscar?"

"…How did you know to come here?"

"I set a Shadow Doll on you."

Yuliana answered as if it were nothing at all.

"Right after Evangeline scolded you so thoroughly?"

Oscar said ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it with a hollow smile.

"…It has become a habit, you see."

Yuliana gazed steadily at Bill No. 422 as it emerged from the shadows in the grass, and murmured, low.

"And I went to such trouble to make it… I could hardly just throw it away."