The Target of Resentment
Having taken the result she wanted from her spar with Yelich, Yulia Edfolk set her next goal: admission to the magic school in the Imperial Capital. And so she drove herself on, no different from before, day after day.
It was a weekend. After working through a morning packed solid with lessons, Yulia was on her way to her room to review what she had learned.
"Marchen, please tell Father I'll be dining alone this evening."
"My lady, the Marquis said he wished to dine with you tonight, without fail..."
"Marchen, you know. You know this is the most important time."
"I do know. But he truly said that today, of all days, he wanted to share a meal with you."
Marchen stood at a loss, wringing her hands for want of anything better to do with them. Yulia, unable to ignore her distress, offered an awkward smile.
"I understand your worry, Marchen. But as you can see, my head is nowhere near clear."
"Understood, my lady."
"I'm counting on you again today. I'll speak with Father later. I will."
With that she gave a smile so faint it was hardly there at all.
It was better than before, when her face had always been set hard — and yet Marchen could not shake the sense that Yulia was only avoiding any conversation with the Marquis, and the worry would not leave her. Lately, too, the Marquis's expression had been worsening each time he asked after his daughter. Uneasy on every front, Marchen felt her own face harden further, and it was then that Yulia, still bound for her room, stopped short and tilted her head.
"Las, in the corridor at this hour? Marchen, doesn't Las have magic class right now?"
"Yes, my lady. He does."
A crease cut between Yulia's brows the moment she heard it.
Far down the hall, Las — navy-haired, the very image of her — had seen her and turned to flee, but it was already too late.
"Las."
At the cold call of her voice, the hesitating boy had no choice but to turn his body toward her.
"S-Sister... hello..."
She did not answer. She closed the distance in quick strides, folded her arms, and snapped at him.
"Why are you avoiding me?"
"Haha, I'm not. I just left something in my room..."
"Rose. Is that true?"
The maid behind Las flinched, startled, and hesitated, not knowing what she was meant to say. Yulia's brow crumpled like paper.
"You're not going to answer?"
"Ah, miss, it's only that class ended early today..."
"If I ask the teacher in charge and this proves untrue, am I permitted to make an issue of it?"
"No. The truth is..."
Rose's words kept dragging, as if something pricked at her. Unable to bear the sight of that face, Yulia turned her head to her younger brother. Las could not even meet her eyes. He trembled, staring only at the floor.
"Las. Cast. Right now."
"Uh... what?"
"You've learned something lately, haven't you? Cast it. A basic spell will do."
Her tone was imperious, the tone of a command. At a loss, Las barely managed to unfold a magic circle — but it collapsed before it could even be completed. An indigo circle, thinning and dying out, exactly as Yulia's own had done the day she was humiliated at the banquet.
The memory rose in her at the sight. She bit down hard enough to crack her teeth and glared at him, and the look was so frightening that his hands shook as he tried to cast again. Contrary to the desperation in him, the circle would not form. Yulia watched even that. She chewed her lower lip, and then she shrieked.
"What on earth are you doing? You're ten years old! Every other child your age is already ahead of you!"
"Sister, I'm sorry."
"How many times have I told you? You're honestly unbearable. Do you want to suffer the way I did?"
"No..."
"Then you're going to keep living like that? Making a disgrace of yourself? You skipped class again, didn't you!"
"That's... that's..."
"You should at least be trying!"
"I'm sorry..."
Yulia kept advancing, and Las edged backward little by little. Tears brimmed in his eyes.
"I'm truly worn out. Every single time, all I get is sorry, and I understand."
"......"
"Then just go on living like an idiot."
"Sister..."
Las froze, as if struck. She left him there and turned her gaze on Rose, who was trembling where she stood.
"Rose, coddle him like that every time and all he'll do is humiliate himself out in the world."
"Yes, miss. I understand."
"I would rather you not give me another reason to raise my voice over something like this. Do you understand?"
"Yes, miss."
At that, Las let his tears fall to the floor and ran for his room. Yulia watched his retreating back with open displeasure, then breathed out a deep sigh and shifted her gaze to Marchen.
"Let's go, Marchen."
"Yes..."
After that she returned to her room, drank a glass of water, and was working through the studies she had set for herself without moving so much as an inch when a knock came, and Deschamp stepped carefully inside.
"Yulia, are you busy this evening?"
"Please leave. I'm busy."
"Haha. It's been nearly half a year since we last talked, hasn't it? Every time I come, you only turn me away."
"I told you it's because I'm busy!"
Still raw from what had just happened, she shouted at him in an irritated voice without so much as looking his way. And so the Yulia of that moment did not see Deschamp's eyes squeeze shut, nor did she notice Karen behind him, staring at her with a sharp glare. Karen let out a hollow laugh and spoke, low and distinct.
Startled by the anger in that voice as it filled the room, Yulia finally turned her head.
"Mother — when did you..."
"Yulia. You're going to Caipol."
"What?"
At words that fell like lightning from a clear sky, she looked to Deschamp. He only kept his mouth pressed shut, his face sunk in grief.
"I said go to Caipol Magic School."
"W-What are you saying? I was going to the magic school in the Imperial Capital—"
"Only now do you look at me? After all this time of staring through me, as if I were nothing in the room?"
The air went razor-sharp in an instant. Thrown by a situation she had never foreseen, Yulia barely managed to rise and take one faltering step toward Karen, then another. But as if she had no intention of allowing the approach, Karen looked down on her with oppressive force.
"I have no mind to explain further. Do as I say."
While the stunned girl only worked her mouth, Deschamp went to his wife and carefully opened his.
"Karen, if you could speak a little more gently—"
"Enough. She doesn't even look as if she means to speak with you, so what's the use."
"Mother, I'm sorry. Truly..."
Feeling as if every drop of blood in her body had gone dry, Yulia caught hold of the front of her mother's clothes. Karen shook her off at once, and a chill dripped from her voice.
"Now? Four years— four years! For a full four years, your father and I both tried to talk to you. And every single time, what did you do!"
"......"
"Every time, you refused because you were busy — refused and refused — and on the rare occasion we managed a word, you made it blindingly clear we were a nuisance. I can hardly tell anymore who heads this house! Even the servants watch your mood more than they watch mine!"
"What does that have to do with— with school? If you hate the sight of me that much, then a dormitory, or another estate..."
Karen's expression crumpled further.
"Right to the very end, you think of no one but yourself, don't you? We have a perfectly good estate in the Imperial Capital, and you would have me send you to a dormitory, or some other house? There is such a thing as reputation. I am your mother."
"Caipol doesn't even have a management curriculum—"
"Management? After you've torn the air of this house to pieces, management? And did you think I wouldn't hear the things that are said about you?"
"Ah..."
"If you don't want to go to Caipol, enter a convent for all I care. Suit yourself."
"Mother, I'm sorry. Just once..."
But Karen shook her head, firm.
"It's too late, Yulia."
Yulia's hands trembled, and she cried out in a voice thick with the sense of being wronged.
"I only did it because I was trying so hard! My practical scores are first now, and the written— I've caught up on the written exams too!"
She shouted as if to shake the room apart. Karen did not so much as blink. Eyes lifted, she answered in a voice low and unmistakable.
"Yulia. Do you know how terrified your siblings are of mealtimes — and of seeing you?"
"That's..."
"Walking on eggshells around you is desperately hard on them. Las, and Anna, and Page — Las has even developed anorexia from the stress."
"I was worried, so I..."
"Yes. You worked hard. I'll grant you that. But your father and I both find it too painful to watch you this way."
"......"
"I'm sorry, but I will not take it back. Go to Caipol and do as you please."
As if she had nothing more to say, Karen left the devastated girl behind and went out. The strength left Yulia's legs. She sank down where she was and let her tears fall.
A long while passed that way. Deschamp, who had been looking down at her with a grief-stricken face, finally managed to open his mouth.
"My daughter."
"Is it hard for you too, Father? Having me...?"
"No."
"But it is. Then why would Mother say it like that?"
"My daughter. Your mother spoke as she did, but this decision — I thought it through from every side, and I am the one who made it."
"You, Father? Why on earth...?"
She looked up at him as if understanding were simply impossible. Seeing it, Deschamp felt a prickling ache in his heart, but he let it scatter on a thin sigh and went on in a calm voice.
"First — as your mother said, your siblings are the largest part of this. The children are terribly afraid of you, and uncomfortable around you. You, their eldest, know better than anyone how sensitive they are, don't you?"
"......"
"And I hear you had words for Las again today."
"That was because I was afraid Las would end up like me..."
"My daughter. Since I lived through what happened with you, I have been trying to speak with your siblings along those lines. And your siblings may not meet your standard, but they are trying, in their own way."
"......"
"Hearing what you said to Las today — it really was too much. An idiot, to your own little brother..."
Las, Page, Anna.
Once, Yulia and they had been warmer with one another than anyone — brothers and sisters in the truest sense. Only a few years ago it had always been Yulia leading them, running through every corner of the estate. But she had changed overnight. She cut away the hair she had treasured so dearly, and she no longer smiled at them, no longer played. A few times the younger ones gathered their courage and tried to speak to her, but what came back was only that cold reply: study, and study hard. For children younger than the ten-year-old she had been then, it was far too great a shock.
...She had only been telling them to do well. She had only said it because she was so frustrated...
The sound of her aggrieved sobbing filled the room. Swallowing a sigh, Deschamp went down on one knee and met her eyes.
"What your father hopes is that you'll go to Caipol this time and let a new place refresh you. The weight of your studies will be far lighter, too."
"Nobody goes there. Nobody. Yelich said so, and even Renerit in the year below — they're all going to the magic school in the Imperial Capital..."
"My daughter, that does not make Caipol's magic school a lesser one. The chairman is your father's old—"
She had heard enough. Yulia shouted at him.
"That isn't what matters! I wanted the best school — the best school!"
With that, silence flowed between them once more.
A long time passed. Her sobbing went on until the sun had gone down entirely and moonlight came in at the window, and only when he saw that she had calmed, a little, did Deschamp manage to speak again.
"My daughter. Even so, I will make you this one promise."
"What?"
"As you know, I have a hotel in Roten. Attend school in earnest for two years, and I will give it to you. And depending on how you manage it, I will also see to it that you may run the hotel we are building in Caipol."
"......."
He could not bring himself to say the rest, for fear of wounding her.
He knew she had not a single friend at school, and that there was no one who wished to be close to her. Through Marchen he had heard, more than once, how severely the strain of it weighed on her. Perhaps that was why the words she turned on the servants, and on her siblings, had been growing sharper and sharper. Of course, if he said as much, Yulia would only burst out shouting that such a thing had nothing to do with anything. And perhaps, just as she would claim, it seemed to matter not at all right now. It might still be fine.
But when this piled upon itself, year after year, until six years lay stacked one on another, he did not think the mind of a girl who only feigned strength, and was nothing but fragile, could hold out that long. He had watched, more than anyone, how the eyes of soldiers who seemed perfectly sound at the start of a war grew clouded as the war went on.
And so the choice he made was to separate his daughter, for the time being, from the people in the Imperial Capital. Caipol Magic School was freer than the capital's, at least, and it would be easier on her heart. Yulia would resent him for it — this choice to part from the daughter he loved, a choice he had made while weeping blood in secret. He had already made a choice that could not be undone, and hurt her with it. With this one, taken with a longer view, he would hurt her again.
Deschamp thought he might never exchange so much as a single warm word with his daughter until the day he died. But if, within the act of resenting him, she could keep from breaking — if the worst could be avoided — then he was prepared to take that resentment upon himself, and gladly. He would stand as its target.
Yet the Yulia of that time knew neither this care nor the reason for his choice. And even if she had known, she would never have tried to understand him.
She flung away the hand he laid over her trembling one, and for three days she did not come out of her room.
When the story was finished, Deschamp tipped his head back and drained his water in one long pull. Blow, who had listened without a word until the end, spoke carefully.
"You must have been deeply worried."
"My word. I do end up telling you all manner of things."
"Not at all. Talking it through with someone does lighten the heart."
"......"
"Has Grand Duke Karen spoken with the young lady since then?"
Deschamp shook his head and let out a faint sigh.
"I... have taken most of the communication upon myself."
"With everything Senior Yulia has set in motion lately, there must have been a great deal weighing on you."
"I've been managing it by speaking with Marchen."
"I see."
"And even with things as they are, you still mean to try?"
"Yes. It may not be easy, but I ought to say my piece, shouldn't I?"
Where Deschamp spoke with care, Blow answered with an ease that was almost startling, and as if to set the older man at rest, he even offered a bright smile.
"If that is how you see it..."
"Yes. If anything, I feel easier. It doesn't seem as if there's anywhere left for this to get worse."
"Nowhere left for it to get worse, you say?"
"My apologies. Now that I think of it, that isn't quite true. Before I collapsed, I believe I'd already done worse."
Having said so, he bowed, and bowed again. Deschamp, who had been staring at him, broke into a rumbling laugh.
"Haha. You really are without a shred of hesitation, aren't you..."
"I'm sorry. I think I spoke out of turn."
"So. What do you intend to do?"
"For now, as I said earlier, I'll try speaking with Senior Yulia. If she refuses, I'll just have to hang off a trouser leg — or the hem of a skirt, whichever I can catch."
Blow nodded as he said it. Watching him, Deschamp felt something strange.
There was something truly childlike in this man called Blow Deblique — an innocence one could not simply bring oneself to dislike, and that stirred a kind of expectation besides. He seemed light of heart, and yet he was considerate; he seemed nothing but frivolous, and yet he was heavy; he seemed shallow, and still there was no knowing his depth.
This was truly—
"Deschamp. From now on, it will be your era."
For an instant he saw someone's face laid over Blow's, and before he knew it, his breath had stopped.