MB Chapter 7

【Past】

"The wind and rain are so bad—is it urgent? Can't you stay the night?"

"I'm sorry, Elly. A pathetic man who can't even keep his promises to you."

"Don't say that, Your Grace!"

Therio gave an easy laugh—watching the woman pout and glare at him.

Soft golden hair, a face that looked gentle yet resolute, a figure both slender and full: everything about her was a merciless copy of Melishi Rubiette.

He swept an appraising gaze over the traces of himself that remained on her, visible through the thin fabric of her dress, and pressed his lips to her brow.

Even the feel of her lips against his had been the same as he remembered. Moment to moment, Therio could almost convince himself that Melishi had come back to him.

'A shame she doesn't have the grey eyes.'

"If you must go I suppose I have no choice but to let you, but you have to come back soon, do you hear?"

Therio Alte smiled at her sulking, with all the warmth he knew how to show.

"I'll be back, Elly."

'I'll be back, Melishi.'

Greeeak—the gate opened. The Alte household staff bent at the waist to welcome their master home.

Therio gave a slight nod, and Eden—the butler, who had been bowing along with the rest—stepped forward to meet him.

"Welcome back, my lord."

The loyal butler did not allow his face to register any surprise at the fact that his master had set out this very morning claiming a business trip and now, in the middle of the night, was already returned. It was not the first time. What Therio noticed instead was the unusual pallor of Eden's face—a whiteness that went beyond the ordinary.

It's nighttime. And a storm. That will account for it. He told himself this with every confidence, and the heavy thing lodged in one corner of his chest grew a little heavier, for all that.

"The imperial airships have all been grounded. Standard enough during a Witch's Moon night, but there it is."

"I see."

"…Right. The trip to Aetio's been pushed back until repairs are done, so when word comes through, let me know, Eden."

Everything he'd said was true. Even so, Therio felt, somehow, like he was making excuses.

No—or rather, to some degree, it was an excuse. When the schedule had slipped, he hadn't come straight home. He had gone, as a matter of course, to his lover—had shared a meal, shared her bed. The happiness of it had been almost painful, and the more painful the happiness, the more uneasy he had grown.

An inexplicable anxiety had been at him all day. As the hours passed, it had swelled into something large enough to keep him from enjoying even the time with her. Large enough that he had broken his promise to stay the night, fabricated a reason to leave, and come home after all.

And yet. Coming home to the Alte estate changed nothing. Gate opening, staff bowing, the light exchange with Eden—through all of it.

There can't be anything wrong at the house. He thought it. The anxiety didn't lift. To be precise.

It hadn't lifted since the moment Goiyo had said:

'Today—would you mind going a little later?'

It was Goiyo Rubiette’s fault—for stopping him like that, which wasn’t like her. He resented her for it, and he disliked the feeling: being pushed around by a single word from her.

And come to think of it—she wasn't there. The woman who always stood quietly among the staff to see him off and greet him back was nowhere to be seen tonight.

"Where is Goiyo?"

The music began the moment he reached the second floor. The room wasn't badly soundproofed—that the sound was audible through the walls at all meant someone had turned the volume up to an unreasonable degree.

The maid leading him took one look at his expression and shrank.

"Lady Goiyo asked us not to enter until she called for us, my lord, so we couldn't turn it down."

"Didn't you say she'd been alone since her bath? That's hours. You're telling me she's had it running like this for hours?"

She's staging a protest because I didn't listen to her. Therio snorted, laughing at her.

The music grew louder the closer he came to her room, until he could feel the vibration through the doorknob in his hand.

"Allow me to open it, my lord."

"Leave it. Go on, see to your duties."

He waved Eden off and opened the door himself. It swung open without a sound—perfectly smooth—and yet Therio had the sensation of wrenching open a rusted iron gate. When it gave, the music poured out, several times louder. Loud enough that it stung.

"Out of her mind, is she."

He muttered it with irritation and crossed to the music player to switch it off.

Only then, with the room gone quiet, did Therio think to look for Goiyo Rubiette.

He didn't have to look far. The moment he lifted his gaze, he found her—collapsed forward at the table across the room, her head resting on its surface.

The carpet was soaked through. A wine glass rolled across it; a bottle, half-empty, lay on its side. What had stained the carpet such a deep, dark colour was clearly the wine.

Goiyo Rubiette was in the chair at the table, head down, sprawled in a way entirely unlike her.

The long hair that streamed down from the edge of the table to the floor was wet in patches from the spilled wine—and in the dark, it looked as though she were bleeding.

Therio Alte drew a sharp breath. The anxiety in his chest swelled cold and sudden.

It's nothing. He pushed it aside, deliberately, and walked as he always walked.

With every step he came closer, the rose scent he'd never noticed in this room grew stronger—more insistent. A scent Goiyo Rubiette despised.

"The lady of a ducal house, soaked in drink like something wretched—what on earth do you think you’re doing."

"…"

"You didn't even come out to greet me. You're the one who said we ought to appear cordial in public."

"…"

"Is this a protest? Because I didn't leave later, like you asked?"

"…"

"How many times do I have to say it. I told you not to expect things from me. Whatever you do, I don't change."

She's deep under. He frowned. There was only one bottle, and it looked as though half of it had already spilled—how drunk could she be on that? Had Goiyo always been this hopeless with wine? He tried to remember the last time he'd seen her drink, but it was too far back to reach.

He placed his hand on her shoulder to wake her. Damp where the wine must have reached here too—cold against his palm, like touching moss.

Cold ran down his spine. He pushed it aside—again. He shook the shoulder he was holding. Wake up. Wake up.

"My lord."

"Ah—Eden. I told you to see to your duties, didn't I."

"My lord."

"Actually, it's fortunate you're here. She's well and truly out. Move her to the bedroom, would you? It's undignified to have the Duchess lying like this—it reflects on my reputation."

"My lord…"

"No, it's all right. You've been tired from your own work tonight. I'll carry her myself. Honestly, what a nuisance she—"

The hand closed around his arm stopped the sentence. Eden's hand. This was not a man who laid hands on his master uninvited. Why.

Bafflement, and then anger, surging fast. Who do you think you're stopping—the thought was already up, and Therio raised his head ready to express it. The anger died.

"You hated her, my lord, didn’t you."

A man with a face in ruins was looking at him.

"You resented her, my lord, didn’t you."

"Eden…?"

"It was all for your sake, my lord, I thought, and so—"

'What are you saying.'

Therio squinted at Eden's face, trying to bring it into focus. It was strange—it kept blurring. More and more blurred, until in another moment he could no longer tell whether what he saw on the butler's face was anguish or something else entirely.

"And yet you are weeping, my lord. Why."

"…I'm weeping?"

What is he talking about. He rubbed at his eyes to clear the blur, and found his face was cold and wet, all of it.

Then, at last, he understood why he couldn't see.

The funeral of Goiyo Rubiette—of Goiyo Alte—was quiet.

By Solarian custom, most funerals were private affairs, attended only by close family. Grandparents and parents, children and siblings.

But at Goiyo Alte's funeral, there was no one. The reason was simple: no family remained.

Goiyo Alte…

Therio stared blankly at the name on the casket.

He could not recall precisely how many years they had been married, but he knew it was not a short time. And yet in all those years, Therio had never once called her Goiyo Alte. He had always thought of her as Goiyo Rubiette. It wasn't only a matter of habit.

Even after the marriage, what was in Therio's heart was someone else. And so he had not wanted to put his own name behind hers.

I keep saying it wrong out of habit, he would tell her, when the hurt showed on her face. He had told her this many times.

After the fall of House Rubiette, that same habit had acquired a different meaning. Rubiette is gone. Yet here you are. Melishi Rubiette is dead. Yet here you are.

That this anger was unreasonable—that had never mattered to him.

I will never in my life call you Goiyo Alte.

And yet the one who had written Goiyo Alte on that casket was him. The one wounded by his own vow was him.

Thud. Tap.—drops fell onto the name written there, one after another.

Goiyo, paler than she had ever been in life, lay with her eyes closed, accepting his tears.

There was no outward wound—death by cardiac arrest left none—and her face looked as though she were only sleeping. Colourless, yes, but the kind of colourless that seemed as though she might lift her eyelids at any moment and ask why he was crying. Bodies do not open their eyes.

Goiyo… Goiyo… He called a name that could not answer him, but the name kept coming, and kept coming.

His throat was closing until he could not breathe. But what was worse than that was the thought of losing sight of her face through the tears—and so Therio scrubbed frantically at his eyes, again and again.

If he wasn't looking, even the body might vanish.

But the tears gathered faster than he could clear them. He had to press his fingers into the corners of his eyes until the skin was raw, two or three times every minute.

His hands shook too badly to touch her. They hovered and circled, trembling, over her face.

'Your funeral hall is so quiet, Goiyo. Your mother isn't here. Your father isn't here. Your brothers and sisters aren't here. There's only me.'

'The hall is this large, and there's only one person in it. There is no one to share your death with except me.'

'It was I who brought the Silverbell to my lady, at her request.'

An unbearable, crushing solitude and grief—and not a single person to help carry it.

It was like being squeezed in a fist, every part of him, slowly. But then—hadn't this loneliness been yours alone to carry, while you were alive?

Therio Alte wept aloud.

'I knew what would happen to her if she took the Silverbell, and I brought it anyway. I thought—I thought it was the only way for you to be happy, my lord. I… I killed her. So if you would rather take it out on me—'

How had he not seen it. He had lost one person he loved—but Goiyo had lost everything. Mother, father, siblings. And the one person she had still trusted.

If the nails driven into her casket had gone through his heart instead, that would have been right. If it were him lying there and not her, that would have been right. If she had killed him and lived, that would have been right.

'There's no way—Goiyo took Silverbell? That can't be. That means—that means—'

'My lord?'

Why did you have to kill yourself, you wretched, pitiable thing. Why did you have to die the same way as your mother.

You cried and told me you didn't want to die like that. And then you went and did exactly what you'd been afraid of.

Ah.

All of it. My fault.

A foolish man who had believed his own unhappiness was the greatest tragedy in the world cried out, and the sound had nowhere to go.

He had abandoned someone with nothing left, and now there was nothing left of him either.

No amount of regret brings the dead back.

There would be no forgiveness. Not ever.