COARV Chapter 10

Berke's grand duke, Lesche, asked the question again, cold enough to cut.

"…So he went out—like that—and now there's no word at all?"

His eyes looked ready to cut a man down without mercy, and the knight who'd come to report kept his head bowed low.

"Yes, Your Highness. All contact with the Marquess of Haneton has been lost."

"He's lost his mind. Did the Saint and the Marquess both go mad together? Does he not grasp that the Stern's wedding is two days off?"

"A blizzard picked up without warning, Your Highness. It's assessed they've lost their way."

Just as the knight said, a blizzard had been sweeping in without cause for two hours now, visible through the window. The sun had already gone down besides.

It was as good as a stranding.

Lesche rose from his seat at once.

"Prepare a search party."

"Sir Elliot is already assembling one."

"No. I'm going myself."

"Yes? You, Your Highness?"

The startled knight was a beat late shouting his acknowledgment. "By your will!"

Lesche ground his teeth and strode out of his study.

Just how dangerous a Stern's wedding was—Lesche, head of the Berke house, knew that better than most. Punctuality. Location. Break either condition and the Stern's own divine power detonated inside her body like fireworks. Unable to withstand the shock, the Stern would vomit blood and take injury, or in worse cases, die outright.

For that reason, a Stern's wedding could only be held at designated sites. Lesche knew this well—and Kallis would know it just as well.

He had been chosen as the Stern's man, after all.

Having already completed the Covenant Ceremony at the Grand Temple, Kallis was bound to stay more circumspect and well-behaved than anyone else until the wedding was over. Not acting like a goddamn idiot, like now. It was difficult to make sense of, short of assuming he'd lost his head entirely over some talk of a god-sent Saint.

"And still he went out."

If he'd known this would happen, he'd have knocked Kallis out cold the first day he set foot in the territory and thrown him in the castle's holding cell.

Of all the times for this shit to happen, it had to be while he held the title. Berke territory—one of the few sites that possessed a Stern's marriage altar. As head of Berke, Lesche bore the damned obligation of presiding over it, whether he liked it or not.

Irritation and weariness rose in him at once. He called Linon over and gave a few instructions; then, without meaning to, glanced out the window. A beat later, his brow furrowed sharply.

Because among the crowd assembling a search party by torchlight, he'd spotted Seria Stern.

"Is the Lady Seria Stern going out with them as well?"

"Huh? Yes! It seems she's worried for her fiancé…"

"Worried?"

"Yes, Your Highness…"

Lesche's study was on the second floor. And, knight that he was, his eyesight was exceptional. He could confirm it without difficulty.

That Seria Stern's deep blue eyes had gone utterly flat, sunk with something heavy. It was strange. Even a year ago, Seria Stern's eyes had been genuinely arrogant, insolent. Her bearing had matched it. She'd behaved gracefully enough in front of him, the Grand Duke—but every other retainer in the household had been thoroughly sick of her. The phrase circulating the capital's social circles, "the mad filly," had fit her precisely.

That someone who'd once carried on so recklessly could change this much in a year. Was it love for Kallis, running this deep? Did love change a person like that?

Lesche found it an emotion he couldn't understand.

"Funny. In her shoes, I'd be down on my knees praying to the Stern crest, begging that the two of them freeze and croak together, nice and cozy."

Harsh words, but the knight didn't so much as flinch. Lesche Berke was a watchman, after all. He cursed like that plenty, out hunting demonic beasts.

"Tell Lady Seria Stern this: she is not to set one foot outside the castle."

"By your will!"

The knight saluted and ran off at once. Lesche, a heavy fur cloak thrown over his armor, headed straight out into the driving snow.

"The wedding is… the day after tomorrow, isn't it?"

Checking a wedding dress right up until the day before the ceremony was an unspoken rule among the capital's designers. Begonia, who'd altered and re-altered my dress in true capital fashion, had clearly already heard the rumors. Her expression was odd, almost strange.

"It's the piece I've put the most care into this whole season, and to have it caught up in a scandal like this—"

Scandal.

Begonia called it a scandal. Out in the world, they had an uglier word for it.

A young, handsome marquess and a bright, beautiful Saint, two nights before his wedding, going out to a glacier alone together in the winter dark and vanishing—of course talk like that would spread.

"I'm sorry."

Begonia was a designer with real pride in her craft. When I offered a careful apology, she creased her brow slightly.

"Why are you apologizing, miss? Lady Seria, you may find this unwelcome, but—how is this any different from an affair?"

"…"

I had nothing to say.

The irony of it. None of this was my doing, and still the shame was mine to carry.

"If they were going to do this, they should at least not have gotten caught. I truly cannot fathom why they'd cause a scandal this loud. It shows exactly how little regard they have for the other party—Saint or Marquess, either one."

Genuinely displeased, it seemed, Begonia let all of that pour out.

Just then, a knock sounded at the door, and Abigail came in.

Her hair, her shoulders, her cloak—all of it was buried in fresh white snow. A maid hurried over with a towel for her to dry off. Abigail said, "Thank you," and wrapped her frozen hands in it.

Had they found Kallis and Lina?

I looked at Abigail with a sliver of hope, but she shook her head.

"The blizzard worsens the closer it gets to the glacier. We couldn't push in any farther. It was judged that pressing on could get the search party itself lost."

"…Is that so."

"Half the party's returned to the castle. The other half is pitching camp on the glacier for the night. They'll resume the search at first light."

"…"

I'd only learned it because I'd tried to go along with them at first.

Just how enormous the search party was.

Not only the senior Haneton knights who'd come to Berke territory for the wedding, but a large contingent of Berke's own knights had been mobilized as well.

Begonia, who'd been listening quietly beside me, spoke, her hand trembling faintly.

"Just how deep in could they have gone, exactly?"

Something rose up inside me. I pressed it down, blinking, and Abigail suddenly took my hand in her cold one.

"Miss. His Highness the Grand Duke had a message for you. May I pass it along exactly as he said it?"

"Hm? …Sure."

I nodded, and Abigail smiled.

But the smile faded in an instant. All at once, her eyes went bright and sharp.

"You said you were her personal knight. Then go and tell her that."

"…?"

"That goddamn bastard—I'll have him roped up and thrown into the ceremony hall myself—so even if there's still no word come the wedding day, Seria Stern."

"…"

I realized it a beat late.

That Abigail was reciting, word for word, exactly what she'd heard from Lesche. That was why her eyes had gone suddenly frightening… She'd copied his tone and his gaze right along with it.

"The lady is to stand ready for the Stern's wedding regardless. The wedding will proceed as scheduled no matter what."

The moment the slow recitation finished, Abigail's eyes returned, bright and clear.

"That's what he said. I don't know why he said it in such a frightening way, though."

I nodded.

Even I didn't know why Lesche had bothered to say that much, but it was true that I needed to be standing in the wedding hall at the appointed hour without fail. The Grand Temple had drilled it into me, again and again, with the utmost severity. That for a Stern's wedding, punctuality mattered above all else.

Even if the guests, having heard about Kallis and Lina's scandal, laughed at me and none of them came. Even if the wedding hall stood entirely empty. I had to remain standing there until the very end.

But…

Hearing it said this way, from the master of the castle, it felt different somehow. My nose stung, oddly. Begonia said, "Now then, miss," and took hold of my arm gently.

"Since His Highness the Grand Duke has spoken so sternly, I'd like to give this the best preparation I possibly can. It wouldn't be so bad if the wedding ran a little late. All the guests will need time to appreciate this dazzlingly beautiful dress, after all."

"Right."

For Begonia, someone who took such enormous care with her own work, this was already a considerable kindness to me. It wasn't until she'd tried fifteen different jeweled ornaments against my hair that I finally got a chance to look out the window.

Outside was already pure white with snow. The blizzard sweeping in from the glacier showed no sign of easing.

Would Kallis make it back in time?

I prayed, desperately, that he wouldn't be late. I didn't fall asleep until very late that night.

The next day.

The search party hadn't returned.

The morning of the wedding.

Even by that hour.

"The blizzard won't let up…"

Lina murmured to herself, listening to the storm howling fiercely beyond the shutters.

It hadn't started out this violent. They'd barely gotten onto the glacier when the first snowflakes had begun to fall.

At Kallis's suggestion that they turn back, since snow made things dangerous, Lina had pouted, but there had been nothing to do about it. She'd complied readily enough with turning around.

Just as he'd said, the shift from snowflakes that melted the instant they touched her palm to a full blizzard had happened in the space of a breath. A heavy snow. Unable to see more than a few steps ahead, the two of them had quickly lost their way.

After wandering for a long while, they'd finally found a hut.

The glacier was vast, and winter weather there was famously fickle, so Berke had long ago built shelters like this scattered here and there.

Inside was a map with their location marked. Only once Kallis had checked the map could he work out roughly where they were. His face grew serious.

"We came in too deep. Did we really wander that far off course?"

"We got that far away?"

"Far enough to be dangerous. It's fortunate there was a hut at all, at least."

Just in case, they'd packed provisions before leaving the castle. Berke had watched over this glacier for a very long time, and manuals and packs prepared for glacier inspections were always kept on hand. Nearly all of it was meant for maintaining body heat.

Even the small hut had dry firewood, a modest stove, thick blankets and bedding, and a raised bed to keep off the cold rising from the floor, along with preserved rations.

Blizzards didn't last the whole season through.

It meant they could hold out well enough.

The problem was time.

Kallis had to make it back by the day, by the hour, no matter what.

'If only we hadn't come out here.'

Regret changed nothing now.

"Kallis?"

"Lina."

Lina blinked wide-eyed as Kallis suddenly began putting on his dried-out cloak. Cinching it tight, he turned to Lina, sitting on the bed, and said—

"I need to try to get back to the castle."