A Man Who Deserves To Die

That night a new rumor was born in the White Castle.

“Did you hear? Lady Ardine came back riding the silver snow elk!”

“That creature came straight toward the search party. And His Grace was the one who found it.”

“The knights say it really is the snow elk out of the legend.”

“They say the young lady’s whole body was sparkling with silver powder!”

“Do you think Lady Aki Paragon watched over her?”

“Then what happens to His Grace?”

“He’s protecting the young lady until she comes of age, isn’t he. The snow elk of the legend turned up in person, so that’s game over, isn’t it.”

A spirit-beast out of legend had shown itself, and the news sent a thrill of shock through a great many people. Naturally the ducal residence carried on as though there were cause for celebration.

But that a rumor with no feet should spread this fast¹ was Keith’s own doing.

“I told the traders who come and go from the castle myself, just as you instructed. I dropped a word with the soldiers on the gates as well. Within a few days every resident of Heliaria will be talking about the young lady.”

“Well done, Bishe. You may withdraw.”

Nobody dislikes an auspicious tale. People would grow curious about a young lady they had never laid eyes on, and they would come to revere Ardine. For a child who would one day be lord of the North, could there be a more fitting anecdote than this?

And by dramatizing the rumor and fanning it, he also smothered the ugly murmuring about the Great Labyrinth and the disappearance. No amount of keeping mouths shut would stop every word from spreading, but nothing that spread could overwhelm the force of the silver snow elk.

“Hooo…”

Since early morning he had been sitting at the desk built into his bedchamber. His head throbbed and his body felt waterlogged and heavy, though not as badly as it had in the Great Labyrinth. His memory was still in incoherent fragments, but it was coming back to him little by little.

“…”

— Knock, knock.

The knock came and the bedchamber door swung wide open in the same breath. It was Hamel.

“So the physician’s word about needing rest counts for nothing.”

“I rested.”

“How long. Three seconds?”

Keith raised a shield as a matter of course, sealing the room so that nothing they said could leak out. Keith waved Hamel to the drawing-room couch and took the seat facing him.

“It is bearable. You are up early yourself, Mr. Hamel.”

“Now, did I get up, I wonder?”

“…”

“Sat up the whole night through. Didn’t sleep, I said. Put in a fair bit of work looking over that blasted trap.”

He had come straight here, which meant he had found something. Keith laced his fingers together on his knee.

“Please, tell me.”

“You know the ones who set that trap weren’t simple grave robbers, don’t you? I ask on the off chance. Is there anyone besides me who has been granted entry rights?”

“No one but you.”

“The lineage is northern-school magic, right enough. But there was a distinctive signature to it. I was sure I’d seen it somewhere, and then I remembered. I once happened to meet someone who used that sort of thing.”

“Would that be a demon worshipper?”

“Oh? How did you know?”

Keith let out a low groan and dragged a hand down his face. In the fireplace beside the couch the logs crackled and burned with a scarlet flame, and still the air in the room stayed nothing but cold.

“I had a report from Enri not long ago. Traps are being found in labyrinths large and small all across the North. And it will not be only the North, I imagine.”

“So it is, then. Were you already looking into it?”

“In fact, on the day of the investiture, I was attacked by a pack of beasts tainted with demonic energy. And it looked for all the world as though someone had tainted them deliberately.”

He had passed the fact on to Kalada and asked her to investigate separately from Enri. Where demons were concerned, no amount of care and watchfulness was ever enough.

Hamel stroked his chin and muttered.

“They’ve been quiet for decades, barely there at all. If they’re throwing their weight about now, there’ll be a reason for it.”

“That will have to be dug into further. And we will need to find out whether it is an organized movement.”

“…”

“Kalada’s information guild has begun gathering in earnest as well, so the reason should come to light before long.”

“Kalada, that’d be the mercenary from the northern branch? Are you personally acquainted with her?”

“She is the one who took me into the Black Hawk.”

“Ah, so the ‘son’ she’s said to dote on was you all along?”

Keith did not trouble to deny it. Hamel went on, chuckling.

“Then it’s only the temple you need watch out for. Once that lot turn up, they’re famous for hauling in everyone down to your in-laws’ eighth cousins and beating it out of them.”

“There is a strong chance they are already moving in secret. I have no wish to make an enemy of them.”

“I haven’t the stomach for that myself. The Mercenary King needs a strong stomach as well, it seems.”

“The people best informed on anything to do with demons are the Inquisitors.”

“That lot keep the information to themselves, though.”

“If it is to protect the North, I will do anything at all.”

“…”

Hamel let out a small murmur of admiration at that resolve and wet his mouth with a sip of tea.

“Anyway.”

The word turned the talk into a new channel. Hamel opened his mouth.

“You weren’t surprised that her mana heart purifies demonic energy.”

“…”

“You knew she wasn’t an ordinary woman, didn’t you?”

“…”

Keith had puzzle pieces enough in his hands already. But he had not made the smallest attempt to fit them together, because it was obvious what picture would come out.

“So you let yourself be fooled?”

“No. She has never once deceived me, so I have never been deceived either.”

There was always a weight of meaning behind the way Pai spoke and acted, but she had never tried to hide that she was strong.

“Since when did you know?”

“…From the very beginning.”

“Hoh.”

Back when he had been waiting for Elrod Paragon to come back as a handful of ash, he had not noticed her until she was already very close, a teacup in her hands. He had known at once that she was accustomed to hiding her presence, and skilled at it besides.

“Then why didn’t you ask her first?”

“I waited.”

“…”

“I thought she must have her reasons, and I believed that one day she would tell me of her own accord. I did not want to press her.”

“Oh, the great romantic has arrived.”

Hamel slurped down what was left of his tea and got to his feet.

“I told you, didn’t I. I haven’t the stomach.”

He opened and shut the door as noisily as he had coming in, and was gone.

“…”

Keith sat rubbing his knee in silence, then rose quietly and went through into the next room. Pai had come through the crisis at dawn the day before, and she was asleep now with a peaceful face.

“Haah…”

His heart felt as though it were melting. Lacking the presence of mind even to drag a chair to the bedside, he dropped to his knees where he stood. Her even breathing threaded through the quiet. Without meaning to, Keith brought his hands together as though in prayer and propped them on the mattress.

“Mmm…”

Sensitive to the barest stir of a presence, she turned over. The face that had been gazing at the ceiling came around toward him.

Her face was white, drained almost to bloodlessness. Ordinarily her aquamarine eyes lent her a rational vitality that kept it from showing; with those eyes closed, anyone would have taken her for a sickly woman. Her eyes, which normally drew the gaze, were hidden away, and her coral lips stood out instead.

“…”

Keith stared blankly at those softly closed lips, and a memory came flooding into his head all at once. A face brought close enough that their breaths mingled, and more than that, the warm, damp feel of it and the heavy scent of skin.

“Huh…!”

The cry escaped him before he could stop it, and the woman drifting through shallow sleep twitched her eyelids.

“Mm, mmh… Haaawm…”

Pai stretched, gave a small yawn, and opened her eyes wide and round.

Keith’s breath stopped.

“I…”

He said it as though confessing a sin to a priest.

“I am a man who deserves to die.”