The Price of a Watch Chain
We snacked our way through the stall district, buying this and that from the vendor stands, and finally made our way into the shop-lined alley beyond.
Between browsing and picking up little odds and ends along the way, both my hands were already weighed down with purchases.
And my stomach's full, too.
I hurried back to the carriage to stash away everything I'd bought, then returned to the Grand Duke's side.
Coming back to the alley where the Grand Duke was waiting, I found the atmosphere quite different from the square crowded with market stalls. It felt a step more refined.
In other words, everything here probably costs an arm and a leg.
Walking alongside the Grand Duke, I came to a stop in front of a certain shop.
That's...
When I halted, the Grand Duke circled back and stood beside me.
"You're thinking of buying that as a gift?"
He seemed to think it wasn't a good idea.
"In the Grand Duchy, the only people who'd ever use something like that are the butler and me."
I nodded. "Yes. I'd like to give it to His Highness."
"...To me?"
The Grand Duke glanced at me once, then looked at the pocket watch displayed behind the glass window.
"I know you treat the pocket watch you carry now as something very important."
I continued in earnest, speaking with the heart of a butler who truly cared for her master.
"However, I noticed the clasp has been repaired quite a few times. It seems likely to give way again before long, so I thought perhaps a new chain would be in order."
"..."
The Grand Duke stared silently at the pocket watch inside the window. I stole a sidelong glance at his expression.
Same unreadable blankness as always. That utterly inscrutable face made me anxious for no reason at all.
...Is it not going to work?
Truthfully, I'd been planning to get a closer look at the Grand Duke's pocket watch with this excuse.
I had confirmed that the boy who appeared in my dreams went by the name Kadrian.
But a single name wasn't enough to be certain that the Grand Duke and that boy were one and the same.
It wasn't a common name, to be sure, but neither was it particularly rare.
So I have to see it with my own eyes.
The initials inside the pocket watch. And the little heart tucked between them.
Hiding my true intentions, I waited calmly for the Grand Duke's answer.
Then, without a word, he strode forward and pushed open the shop door with a jingle of the bell.
He tipped his chin toward the interior.
"Go on in."
"..."
I stared at him for a moment before answering.
"Yes, my lord!"
At that same moment, in the Empress's Palace of the Cadea Empire.
"Artair."
"...You wished to see me, Mother?"
"I did, my son."
Artair stepped into the Gloria Garden, the largest and most splendid of all the gardens in the Empress's Palace.
At its heart, seated in stately poise among the flowers in full bloom, the Empress looked more radiant than any of them.
Only after setting down her teacup with practiced elegance did she raise her head to look at Artair.
"Sit, Artair."
"Yes, Mother."
Artair took the seat across from Empress Sylvia.
For a long while, Sylvia said nothing. Artair clenched the fist he'd hidden beneath the table.
The Empress Sylvia was a profoundly difficult person to face.
Was this what it would feel like to stand before royalty stacked atop royalty? She was harder to deal with, and far more grating, than his own father the Emperor.
Every time he faced her, Artair felt as though the air itself was being squeezed from his lungs.
"Artair."
"Speak, Mother."
"Ellaris has been crying all day."
"..."
Ah. Artair sighed inwardly.
So it's finally reached Mother's ears.
Kadrian, and his butler, Freya. It was clear the Empress had summoned him over matters concerning those two.
Sylvia's love for the Third Princess was unlike anything else.
From an auspicious dream foretelling her conception to the oracle said to have descended upon the temple the very day she was born — the Third Princess's birth was sacred in every possible way.
So sacred, in fact, that her arrival instantly quelled the distrust the empire's citizens had been nursing toward the royal family as the World Tree began to wither.
It went without saying that the Emperor and Empress doted on such a daughter beyond all measure.
And that's exactly how her personality turned out the way it did...
Artair cleared his throat and spoke.
"I failed to look after her with due care. I beg your forgiveness, Mother."
"No. That is not it, Artair."
Sylvia's gaze, fixed not on her son but on the garden, was serene and distant. Yet the words that left her lips were chilling.
"Do you wish for Ellaris to simply die as she is?"
Startled, Artair hurried to answer.
"M-Mother. How could I ever wish death upon my own sister? Of course I don't!"
With his eyes cast down and even his gaze gone dewy and moist, he looked every bit the older brother genuinely worried for his little sister's wellbeing.
At his answer, Sylvia smiled faintly.
"Spare me the theatrics, Artair."
"Theatrics? You wound me, Your Majesty the Empress."
"Haha." Artair flashed a smile like something out of a painting.
Sylvia wiped the smile from her lips and spoke with steel-edged finality.
"Arrange an occasion with the Grand Duke. If the two of you see each other often enough, even a heart that felt nothing might come to feel something. While my son dithers, what if someLowly creature attaches herself to the Grand Duke, hmm?"
Well, one such vermin does already seem to have latched on, if you ask me. Sylvia murmured under her breath.
"Artair."
"Yes, Mother."
"My son is the Crown Prince. Second in power only to His Majesty the Emperor in this entire empire. And you're telling me a man like that cannot bend a single Grand Duke to his will?"
"..."
"I have never once allowed a weed to grow in my garden."
It was a command to prove his usefulness.
A weed. A weed, she says...
Just how many people in this empire could dare sling the word weed at its Crown Prince?
Artair, who had been listening in silence, let out a soft chuckle and rose from his seat. Then, casting off the mask of the doting older brother worried for his sister, he painted on the smile he wore for the public and spoke.
"Your Majesty, honored Empress. That particular command, I must decline to follow."
"What did you say?"
Artair shrugged his shoulders and smiled beautifully.
"It's not something the Grand Duke would want — and neither is it what I want. Your Majesty, I trust you will keep decorum."
"Artair!"
Even under the Empress's sharp rebuke, Artair looked her straight in the eye.
"You cannot force anything upon me, Your Majesty. Nor upon my friend, for that matter."
"..."
"Correcting the Third Princess's misplaced greed is a parent's duty. It is not mine to do, nor the Grand Duke's. ...That responsibility falls to you, Your Majesty, and you alone."
"Artair!"
"Then I'll take my leave."
"..."
As she watched him exit the garden, Sylvia's gaze turned ice-cold.
For just a moment, the face of the dead First Empress had overlapped with her son's.
Of all the traits to inherit from that woman.
Tsk. Clicking her tongue, Sylvia lifted her teacup once more.
Never knowing that she herself might be hastening her own appointed hour.
I had no idea there were so many different kinds of chains used for pocket watch fobs.
Copper chains, silver chains, gold chains — and to top it all off, even chains that threw everything together in a riotous jumble.
Then another chain caught my eye.
And here I was thinking this one had a grandeur all its own...
Every single link of the chain bore an engraved pattern — strange, unrecognizable sigils. You could feel the craftsmanship poured into even the smallest loop. And there was one more reason this chain simply had to be the one.
That violet jewel looks just like the Grand Duke's eyes.
A small gem was set into the clasp that joined the chain to the watch, and its color was remarkably close to his. It looked like an amethyst one moment and like a mana stone sealing the Grand Duke's violet aura the next — utterly enchanting, either way.
"How about this one?"
"..."
The Grand Duke glanced down at the chain I was pointing to for a moment. Then he said, with a look of supreme indifference:
"Suit yourself."
"..."
Haha. I managed a tight smile, barely choking back the curse that had leapt to my tongue. My clenched jaw actually ached.
Watching me, the Grand Duke let out a small laugh — pfft — then turned and headed up to the second floor.
One of the shop attendants hurried after him.
"Ah, sir, right this way! The second floor is where you'll find our men's accessories, exactly what you're looking for—"
That one was clearly born to sell.
Meanwhile, the shopkeeper standing before me lifted the chain out of the glass display case.
"You have an excellent eye! You're intending it as a gift for that gentleman, aren't you?"
The perceptive proprietor whispered, and I nodded. Whereupon he launched into a long-winded explanation.
"As for this chain, it comes from the far eastern edge of the continent—"
I let his explanation wash over me, one ear and out the other, keeping an eye on whether the Grand Duke might come back down from the second floor.
Just then, as if sensing I was about to slip away, the shopkeeper raised his index finger with an air of utter confidence.
"One hundred twenty gold. One hundred twenty gold and sixty-two silver, to be precise — but I'll trim the loose change and let you have it for an even one hundred twenty."
"...Huh?"
My mouth hung open.
O-on-one hundred and twenty gold?!
I swallowed dryly without meaning to.
One hundred twenty gold...
That's my entire annual salary...!