MB Chapter 6

Therio Alte left the terrace. His expression was dreadful in its composure, but his cooperation was, against expectation, complete.

He didn't want to attract notice—a broken-off couple quarreling in public, Goiyo thought. Or perhaps, as a noble who had not yet inherited his title, he simply found the Marquess difficult to oppose.

She had been helped, however unexpectedly, and Goiyo gave a brief thanks.

The Marquess did not answer. He smiled and moved toward the railing. The gap between them had opened enough that Goiyo took a few steps to follow.

The Marquess looked upward. Without particularly thinking, Goiyo looked up too, and found the moon.

In the black center of the night, a moon—darker than the Marquess's hair, edged with dull red—hung in the sky.

"Tonight the Witch's Moon is up. They say strange things happen on nights like this."

The Witch's Moon.

An ordinary moon tended toward pale yellow; there were nights when it ran red instead. When the mana cycling through the atmosphere stalled for some reason, the mana would accumulate and thicken, and the moon would appear dark.

The night of such a moon—people called it the Witch's Moon. On those nights, with some frequency, uncanny things occurred. Events that no human magic could account for, taking forms entirely irregular and difficult to predict.

'Nasty moon.'

Goiyo scowled. The Witch's Moon had risen on the night Goiyo Alte closed her eyes. And it had risen again on the night Goiyo Rubiette opened hers.

She had not believed she had returned to the past—not at first. But beneath her gradual, reluctant acceptance of it as reality, one of the things pressing from below had been the red moon.

"On stormy nights it plays cruel tricks; on clear nights it is said to be generous with its favor…. Tonight, fortunately, the sky is clear."

"Did you come out here because you had something to say?"

Bethelgius seemed genuinely content to let the conversation wander wherever it pleased. Goiyo steered it back.

At that, Bethelgius shifted his gaze from the moon to her.

Neither Entzi Bethelgius nor Goiyo Rubiette had red eyes, but the moon cast a faint reddish tint across both pairs. Two sets of eyes at roughly matched colors met.

“Our conversation earlier—it ended too soon. That’s what brought me out here. But…”

The Marquess's fingertips brushed her forehead—lightly, barely—and withdrew. On instinct Goiyo stepped back, and found the railing at her spine.

"Your condition doesn't seem well. I'll leave it for another time."

For today, at least. The man smiled—lightly, smugly—and turned.

'Not once but twice—small talk and then silence?'

Goiyo's brow came down. She had made up her mind to let things be. But even so, a man who lingered and then shut his mouth was its own variety of exasperating. If his intention was to leave her to fester with uncertainty, his casual cruelties were as accomplished as his other qualities.

Bethelgius had not taken two full steps before Goiyo called after him.

"Marquess."

"Yes, Lady Rubiette."

"Are you planning to propose to me?"

The footsteps stopped. He turned slowly, and for the first time all evening, the expression she had been watching—the same half-smile she had observed in all its variations—was simply gone.

Not replaced by anything either. A blank face, and in a quiet voice that was almost speaking to himself: So that was what you meant.

"Well. If I intend to cultivate a closer alliance with the aristocratic faction, it is a rather predictable thing to anticipate."

"I had not planned to attend any further balls for a while. If you have something in mind, Marquess, I would ask you to say it now."

“…And if I were to say yes—Lady Rubiette—”

Entzi Bethelgius closed the distance in a single stride. With the railing cutting off Goiyo's retreat, both large hands came to rest on either side of her—a shape that was, to all appearances, as good as a cage. It was the scent that reached her now—perfume or simply him, she couldn't distinguish—a scent that had been masked by everything else inside the ballroom.

'Of course. It would have been crowded out by all the other smells in there.'

The scent itself was not strong, but at this distance it was heavy enough. It grated at her and she pressed her lips together against it.

He did not stop at that. The Marquess bent toward her—tilting his head just enough to suggest something he had not quite committed to—and looked down at her with that expression of quiet, deliberate amusement.

“Would you do me the honor of accepting my proposal, Lady Rubiette?”

The dark lashes flickered. The scent this close was elaborate in a way she disliked. The headache she had been carrying since before had not eased. The cold air had left a chill working its way into her. And the Marquess's manner—after all this—felt less like genuine intention and more like he was testing how much she could be made to feel before she let it show.

More than all of it put together, more than any single part: she simply disliked the situation itself.

She had thrown this marriage and this life away with open hands. And yet here everything was, arranged around her as though she had been longing for it—as though she genuinely wanted this. She found it unbearable.

She could not tolerate that impression.

Past enduring it, Goiyo Rubiette took hold of the face in front of her. And before Bethelgius could pull away……

He pulled back in surprise, but what had happened had already happened.

For the first time all evening, genuine surprise crossed the Marquess's face. He pressed his own hand to the corner of his mouth. He was so startled that even his fingertips were shaking.

"I accept with pleasure. Your proposal, Marquess."

"L—Lady Rubiette—?"

"Please see that the formal letter arrives promptly."

'Much better.'

Goiyo Rubiette stepped past the Marquess with a more settled expression and left the terrace. She had no further business with him tonight.

She abandoned her family and Therio alike in the ballroom and returned to the estate, going directly to bed. What she had taken for simple stress-induced headache had, on the journey home, converted into a proper fever.

Only when she pressed her own fingers to her forehead and felt the heat did she understand why the Marquess had touched her brow.

"I love you, Therio."

A year had passed before the confession was returned, and yet Therio Alte's expression did not change.

The anxiety that had already been pressing against Goiyo's chest began to spread. His feelings are still the same, she had believed—but was it possible that something had shifted in a year?

The brief worry turned out to have nothing to sustain it. In the next moment, a tear fell from the expressionless face.

"Therio…?"

"Thank you, Goiyo. I’ll do right by you. I really will. I really—really will.”

"No, I will too. It's all right—don't cry."

"Crying? Nobody’s crying."

But his face was soaked with it, and Goiyo had reached for her handkerchief to wipe it dry, extending her hand this way and that—but the man in question kept whipping his head away, unwilling to be seen, and no matter how she reached, catching the face of a talented knight was simply not within her abilities.

In the end she surrendered on the handkerchief, and the absurdity of the situation struck her and she laughed out loud. An open, unclouded laugh.

Enough to fix Therio's eyes on her—against all his determination to look elsewhere.

He gathered her against him all at once.

"Kyah! What are you—"

“I love you. This time it’s real. I’ll love you forever, I’ll never change. Goiyo. I love you I love you.”

The color rushed into Goiyo's face.

How could he say something like that—over and over—without dying of embarrassment? She had barely managed to say it once, and she had thought her heart might come through her ribs.

Tender words poured down without pause. Unable to stand the prickling sensation inside, Goiyo put her own arms around him.

When Therio had confessed his feelings for the first time, Goiyo had felt the ground move beneath her—felt it as a kind of betrayal. The one person she had called a friend had been looking at her differently, and she had not known. That friendship, the most stable thing she had, might become something else, something uncertain—and she had not been able to accept the change.

But in the end, Goiyo Rubiette had lost. Even the part of her that had resolved to keep him only as a friend had shifted without her permission. Having lost that hold, she could hardly blame Therio for losing his.

But perhaps this is still all right. The sweetness was not something that lasted forever, she knew—but even so, if she married Therio and had children with him, she might build the quiet, ordinary family she had always wanted most.

And perhaps Therio's love would last.

The vow from a man clearly, visibly in love—she had wanted to believe it. She had let herself believe it. Their arms around one another, Goiyo closed her eyes. Her mother's voice drifted through her mind, unhurried.

‘Goiyo, marry someone you love. You can’t be happy in a marriage without it. Carrying a child for someone you don’t love—that’s not happiness, that’s tragedy. That’s when hell starts.’

'Mother, why would you say something like that…?'

'Be happy. Even if I was not, you at least—'

'Yes, Mother. If I had married for convenience, married someone only because the terms were right, I would never have known this happiness.'

But Goiyo had found love. And between House Alte and House Rubiette, there was nothing for a father to object to on the grounds of the terms.

Unlike my mother's ending, mine will be full of happiness. Goiyo had believed it. The happiness welled up past bearing and forced its way out of her.

"I love you too, Therio. If your love is forever, then mine is the same."

I love you.

"You're the one who killed Melishi."

I love you.

"If you hadn't refused the marriage proposal—if you had let me go—Melishi would be alive right now."

I love you.

"She has not a drop of Rubiette blood in her, and she would be in my arms crying right now."

"Therio?"

The arms that had been holding her pushed her away. She landed on the floor. The face looking down at her—she could not comprehend it—and in a cold, unrecognizable voice:

"I was never in love with you."

In an instant the dream collapsed, and the long nightmare was over.

Goiyo's eyes flew open and she dragged a rough breath in.

Her heart was pounding as though she had been running. It felt as though it might simply leave her chest entirely.

She managed to push herself upright and settle against the headboard. Her whole body was wet with cold sweat.

Damn Therio Alte.

Words she had never used came out as though they had always been ready. She screwed her eyes shut and forced them open again—driving herself back into her own body—and pushed the damp hair back from her forehead.

'It has been a long time since I dreamed of the past.'

The room opened. Annie, Goiyo's lady's maid, stepped in. Her face was odd somehow. She offered her morning greeting in the usual way.

"My lady, are you awake?—Oh, hold on. My lady, why does your face look like that—"

"Annie."

"Your color—you're soaked through! Did you have a nightmare?"

"I had an unpleasant dream."

For Goiyo to have nightmares was not exceptional. Annie nodded with something like sorrow in her face and held out the glass of water she had brought in on a tray.

The cold water moving down her throat was what finally returned something like clarity to Goiyo.

"Is it past nine?"

"No, my lady. It is only half past eight."

"Then why are you here so early? I said after nine on the morning after a ball."

"That is, my lady… there was something I needed to tell you urgently."

What is it? Goiyo passed the glass back and asked. Annie hesitated briefly before speaking.

"A marriage proposal has come in from Marquess Bethelgius."

For a moment Goiyo stopped breathing. She blinked, once, at a measured pace.

Did you know, my lady? He danced with you last night, they said—did you know something of this? Annie looked as though she had been sent with orders, and asked carefully—but her words did not reach Goiyo just then.

So her dreams had been ill-omened after all. The man certainly acted quickly. Her heart, in an entirely different sense than before, began to strike against her ribs.

She had been the one to push him. And yet finding herself moved by the outcome was absurd—and Goiyo laughed, a thin, helpless thing.

‘Marry someone you love. You can’t be happy without it.’

No, Mother. A marriage of love was my worst hell. Even if every other path ends in death—

'I would not choose it again.'

“I didn’t know.”

Then the relatively less agonizing death is the only option left. The one thing I can still choose.

Isn’t that right, Mother?