Something to Hold Onto
When I saw the princess coming toward me, I was surprised — only a little, if I'm honest.
She looked as though every step cost her, and yet she was coming of her own unmistakable will. It heartened me. She seemed to have fought her way, however slightly, past the sickness in her heart, and done it herself.
The princess I was meeting for the first time turned out, unexpectedly, to be someone who struggled with people. A little different from what I had pictured. And still, for all that — a person, the same as me.
Then she asked a strange question.
"...Then you know about that, too?"
"What do you mean?"
"Your mother. That story."
She got the words out only after hesitating again and again, her face tight with pain.
"The last battle Narcissa Cornwall fought."
I had never imagined I would hear that name first from the princess's own mouth.
As she said it, her eyes shook without rest — badly enough that it hurt to watch. What had pushed her to this? Impulse, or courage?
And yet I could see the rest of it as plainly as if I held it in my hand. What she was afraid of. And what answer I had to give her.
"...Of course I do."
The moment I spoke, she bit down hard on her lower lip.
"The Third Defense of Roubille. The battle that turned the whole course of the Demon War — fought between the kingdom's army and the Demon King's forces over Roubille, the greatest stretch of farmland in the realm."
With every word she seemed to find it harder to bear, shaking her head, her eyes quivering. I went on anyway.
"There, my mother saved tens of thousands of the kingdom's soldiers. She saved Roubille. She saved your life, Your Highness. And she died a glorious death."
It was duty. The one thing that might draw her up, even a little, out of the black clinging mire that held her, and let her breathe. The duty to do, in this moment, the greatest thing I could.
"But I don't resent anyone."
I looked her straight in the eye.
"Whatever choice my mother made, it was only the best she could judge in that instant. There is nowhere any reason for you to blame yourself—"
But something was wrong with her.
Both hands trembled, wandering like a lost child's with her own head caught between them. Something was wrong. I called to her, carefully.
"...Your Highness."
She didn't answer.
"...Your Highness!"
I raised my voice. She still didn't answer.
That was when I understood. The sickness in her heart was not the sort of thing a person's will could touch. A bottomless black swamp, too deep to climb out of alone. She had already sunk so far she could no longer even see what stood in front of her.
I bit my lip. I had to drag her out of there, whatever it took.
Please, forgive the rudeness. I murmured it once, briefly, to myself, and reached for her.
"Your Highness!!"
"Hk—!"
Shoulders hunched like a child's, she let out a single thin cry and jerked her head up.
"...Huh?"
Like someone startled awake from a dream, she looked around with shaking eyes.
The rudeness was already done. Crossing the line a little further would hardly matter. I decided that on my own, and raised my voice as if to pin her there.
"Listen well, Evangeline Failondia."
Her pupils shrank small with fear. I held her fast so she couldn't run, and spoke.
"I don't know what you were told. But I have never once said anything hostile to you."
She stared at me in silence, eyes trembling, as if she were still half inside the dream and not yet all the way awake.
"I don't hate you. I don't resent you. You did nothing wrong, and there is nothing you need to be afraid of."
I hauled the words up out of my gut and forced them out. The things I wanted to say. The things she needed to hear. The things that had to be said here, now, or not at all.
A small tear gathered at the corner of her eye.
I smiled. For that one moment, at least, I made myself smile.
The thirty-two hours aboard the airship were peaceful to a startling degree.
Evangeline no longer avoided Delphina. She wasn't afraid of her, and she didn't try to look away. If anything, it was the princess who drew close first, and she seemed far better than she had been.
So it was that, after one night's sleep and four meals, Evangeline and her party set foot on the outskirts of the Inviolable Territory, where Polaris Academy stood.
"We've been waiting, Princess Knight Evangeline."
"Eek..."
What met us on our arrival at Polaris Academy was a procession of more people than I could count — and, at the center of it, an enormous carriage hung with a great banner, waiting to receive me.
"Goodness. I've never seen a carriage like that."
Delphina stared blankly at the thing, decked on every side with glittering silver and jewels.
"...What is that. It's embarrassing."
The discomfort dragged a sullen tone out of me before I could stop it.
"We still have to go, though. It's not as if we can say we won't ride it."
When I made no effort to hide how much I hated the sight, Delphina said it the way one soothes a baby. It stung my pride a little. But it was Delphina, so I decided to let it go.
"Welcome to Polaris Academy. I'm Ricky Rezalo, of the Faculty of Politics and Diplomacy."
A tall man, his skin burned dark by the sun, spoke with both arms spread wide.
"Thank you for the welcome. I'm Delphina Cornwall."
He had offered the greeting in the Republic's fashion, and Delphina returned it in the Kingdom's, then asked, lightly:
"Are you from the Delmaria Republic?"
"Sharp eyes. Hoping for the Faculty of Cultural Anthropology, by any chance?"
"Afraid not. The Knight Faculty."
From the very first moment he was remarkably easy with the royal party of a sovereign nation. Not a trace of nerves. I could guess at once why the Academy had sent him.
That aside — how to put it. People of that so-called social-butterfly breed had always sat wrong with me. Even in my previous life.
Still. A greeting was a greeting.
"...Thank you for the welcome. I'm Evangeline Failondia."
"Oh, the Princess Knight!"
Hearing my voice, Ricky all but cheered.
Don't call me that. It's embarrassing.
"...That's only an old title. Please, just call me Evangeline."
"If you wish."
Had I shown my discomfort too openly? At my words he dialed himself down at once and escorted us in a softer, quieter manner.
"Into the carriage first, if you would. I'll take you to the private dormitory where you'll be living for the next four years."
I was stepping up into the carriage — oppressive just to look at — when a strange word caught my ear, and I asked without thinking.
"...What dormitory?"
"A private dormitory."
He answered in an offhand tone, as if he couldn't see what was odd about it, and I very nearly pitched forward off the step. If Delphina hadn't caught me, I would have broken my nose for certain.
The private dormitory was, fortunately, not as oppressive as I had feared.
At most, it was the size of an annex a minor count or baron might keep — five rooms or so, counting the sitting room and the kitchen. A small building set well out toward the edge of even the Polaris Academy grounds. Delphina looked less than pleased, which was fair enough. House Cornwall was hardly nameless; within the kingdom alone it had produced two knights of the Seven Swords.
But this was the Academy, not the kingdom. The Inviolable Territory that held Polaris was by no means small, and yet it was hardly a place where one could raise a fortress and live as one did back home. A compromise of this degree was only to be expected.
"To receive the princess of Failondia, we carried out an extensive remodeling, modeled specially on the style of the Failon Kingdom."
And with Ricky standing right there explaining it all, proud as anything, we could hardly wear our disappointment in the open.
"Polaris is far too kind. I hardly know what to do with myself."
I said it with a smile.
"Not at all."
Ricky shook his head, smiling.
"You're the hero who kept the kingdom — all of humanity — from the brink of ruin. No one would fault you for taking this much as your due."
"...I can't."
I answered with a bleak smile.
"The people who died because of me, and the people I failed to save — you could fill dozens more carriages with them. How could I?"
"...I see."
He looked thrown for a moment, then nodded, his face gone solemn. More understanding than he appeared. I was glad of that.
Only after the inside of the building had been given a once-over did Ricky take the carriage and the crowd and withdraw. I watched the splendid thing dwindle into the distance, and I thought: if I had still been the person I was up until yesterday, I couldn't even have said those words aloud.
I still couldn't climb all the way out of that day's nightmare. That had been impossible from the start. But at least I was no longer only thrashing in a bottomless mire. I had something to hold onto, and with it I could endure.
A person can get a great deal better just from having one thing to hold onto. Enough that the one who boarded the airship and the one who stepped off it might as well have been different people, all over again.
"...Thank you, Delphina."
"Yes?"
She must not have caught the whisper. Delphina, steeping tea in the kitchen, leaned her head out the window.
"It's nothing."
I put on a bright smile on purpose and went inside.
I sat on the sofa just inside the door and waited a few minutes. Delphina came in with a teapot and two cups, pouring as she spoke.
"It was in the cupboard, so I brewed a fresh pot. The scent's nice, isn't it?"
"Yeah."
I nodded and lifted the cup. Only when the tea of Polaris touched my lips did it finally feel real — that I had left the kingdom, and come to the Academy.
Will I be able to get by all right...?
No. I had to, somehow. If only for my father, who would be worrying.
"You'll get by just fine."
As if she had read my mind yet again, Delphina said it lightly.
"Your Highness."
One of the attendants who had been hovering nearby came up to me then.
"Yeah?"
His expression was strangely awkward — at a loss, expectant, flustered, all stirred together into something I couldn't neatly name. He kept failing to get the words out, fidgeting, so I prodded him.
"If you've got something to say, say it. Quit stalling."
"I— well, that is—"
"What is it, exactly?"
"The Third Imperial Prince of the Valentine Empire... that is, Your Highness's fiancé. He wishes to see you."
"Pfft—!"
I sprayed the tea in my mouth across the table.
Why the hell is he here?