MB Chapter 12

Entzi, who had been listening to Goiyo in silence, looked down at her.

The faint smile had left his face, as though it had never been there.

An expressionless face — but with the smile gone, the long-cut eyes turned cold as a knife's edge, sharp enough that those who stood before him would feel a chill passing through them.

A brief silence. Then he returned the question. What I want, you ask.

"What I want is power."

"Is that so."

"Power that is absolute and merciless — where I need not be driven by the anxiety of what if, where nothing I possess can be taken from me, where I need not hide anywhere, where I could drive a blade into the throat of anyone who opposes me and no one would dare whisper a word against it."

Entzi turned his gaze away. The sound of small waves meeting the hull, splitting along the side of the ship.

Looking out at the Orion River, which held the night sky whole within itself, he continued in a measured voice:

"The halfway power of sheltering behind someone stronger and playing puppet is not enough. If there is someone above me, that is already no longer my power. A strength such that no one could dare command me or ask anything of me — even if that someone were—"

Even if that someone were the Emperor. The quiet voice carried despite its softness. Goiyo was briefly startled, though she let nothing show.

"Of course I am not saying I intend to lead a rebellion. Being the Emperor is a position carrying an enormous weight of obligations. Since I, like you, do not love this country, I have no intention of bearing all of those obligations.

"If there is anyone I owe an answer to — the only person I must repay is the single person who pulled me out of the mire."

He continued.

"For that I have lived. What others would call unnecessary effort — the effort I poured without restraint, because I didn't want to live by military force alone, falling short of everything.

Cutting thousands of throats, drenched in blood. Retching. Suffering nightmares. Until at last I grew accustomed, until even the word murderer could not shake me."

I alone think that effort was meaningful. His voice had dropped lower still. Had she not been listening carefully, it would have sunk beneath the sound of the sea.

"And at last — I have crawled this far."

A wind swept in from the river, a little stronger than before, and threaded through both their hair as it passed.

The words spoken by this cold-faced man were dangerous beyond reckoning — yet strangely, Goiyo thought she glimpsed in his face something she had seen in mirrors. Fleeting, in the face across from her: an ashen expression that had become practiced at concealing its exhaustion.

Then Entzi Bethelgius abruptly narrowed the corners of his eyes.

The cold that had filled his face dissolved in an instant. The unfamiliar man traded his expression for one she recognized — slightly.

"...But if I were to say all of that — what would you do, Goiyo?"

"Pardon?"

"I'm joking. I have no dream so grand. If there is anything I want right now, it would only be for our married life to pass without incident."

He shrugged and drew the coat on Goiyo's shoulders more snugly around her.

"It's cold. I think you should go inside soon."

"It will come true. Before long."

Goiyo had been watching him steadily. She tilted her champagne glass and swallowed a mouthful.

Yes — Entzi Bethelgius's dream would be realized. In the future she had witnessed before returning to the past, he had cut Rubiette's throat.

Alte and Rubiette, the two great ducal houses that had stood beneath the imperial throne: one pillar had fallen, and the vacancy it left found a far larger occupant within only a few years, before anyone else could think to covet it.

Entzi Bethelgius. The man who had leapt from commoner to Marquess in a single stroke through his military distinction swallowed Rubiette whole and received the title of Grand Duke.

How, one might wonder, could someone known to be of common birth have dared become a Grand Duke with rights to the imperial succession — the answer was that it was precisely then that his bloodline was formally and publicly recognized.

"Your dream — truly."

He was the illegitimate son of the late Emperor, the third son of Malato II, Entzi Bethelgius. A bloodline more than sufficient to become Grand Duke, with Rubiette as his sacrifice.

The current Emperor certified him as the child of the late Empress — who had died before she could become Empress Dowager.

A child conceived late in life, constitutionally frail since birth, simply not publicly disclosed — an explanation that, if anything, barely made the effort of sincerity. Yet there was no one who could directly refute it.

Rubiette was gone. Alte was the Emperor's faithful right hand. The newly minted Grand Duke Bethelgius was both the architect of Rubiette's annihilation and, by military force alone, something capable of descending on the world as an object of terror.

Moreover, before moving against Rubiette, Entzi Bethelgius had gathered the nobility faction around him, reigning as though their leader, while from behind quietly collecting every manner of leverage.

All the nobility of Solaris knew he was not legitimate blood but an illegitimate son — yet he was a truth that could never be spoken aloud.

In the end, he was recorded in the history books as the legitimate imperial prince of the Solaris house.

It was roughly half a year before Goiyo had taken her own life that Entzi Bethelgius formally received the Grand Ducal title.

By then Goiyo had retreated almost entirely into seclusion, and was not well-informed — yet even so, it was not the sort of news one could ignore, and even through Goiyo's narrow world, it had reached her.

Perhaps, because she was Rubiette, someone had deliberately ensured she would hear it. But to Goiyo at that time — her heart already dead — it was a matter that could go either way.

And so to Goiyo even now, Marquess fell more familiarly on her ear than Grand Duke — yet he would, in the end, receive that title and rise to the highest position of anyone.

Formally he remained the Emperor's subject. But from the fact that the Emperor had moved so recklessly against long-loyal Rubiette, and certified an illegitimate son as legitimate blood, it was not difficult to surmise that the Emperor too had something that could be used against him.

Unlike Goiyo Rubiette, who had not been able to achieve even that modest dream, Entzi Bethelgius would ultimately realize that most dangerous of dreams.

"Well — shall I take that to mean Goiyo is also looking forward to a happy honeymoon with me?"

At the clumsy attempt at playfulness, Goiyo smiled without a word. As if about to add something more, Entzi let out a long sigh and came to stand beside her again.

"...I don't expect you to believe me, but I bear you goodwill. Even if I cannot love you, I will respect you to the fullest extent I can."

"I see."

Goiyo answered without particular care. The carelessness was unhidden, and so it reached Entzi exactly as it was.

"I've said as much — and you truly don't believe me. That makes my heart a little desolate."

'Knowing how this ends for the two of us — what is there to believe?'

Goiyo thought this with cold precision. Knowing the inner workings of another person made their words something to smile at. Then a sudden curiosity arose, and she called to him.

"Have you ever, in all your time with other people, truly loved someone?"

"So you're not assuming I have no experience in romance."

"That was the most tedious joke you've made yet."

"It's distressing that all my jokes until now have been tedious — but more importantly, it wasn't a joke."

Unable to believe such a claim, Goiyo looked at him skeptically — then something crossed her mind, and she tilted her head.

"Oh. Does that mean you shared — without feeling, only the body—"

"Don't say it as though you've understood. There was no sharing of bodies either."

Entzi objected in a flat voice. Between Kolave and now Goiyo, he could not fathom what sort of person he appeared to be to prompt such reactions — there was even a part of him that felt, frankly, aggrieved.

"The first kiss was yours as well, Goiyo."

"Just now, at the ceremony?"

"No."

Entzi, who had been standing beside her, turned his body toward her. He placed both hands gently on the railing to either side, bent forward, and brought his face close.

Exactly the same posture he had taken on the ballroom terrace. He curved his lips into that sly, teasing expression.

"At the ballroom."

'Will you accept my proposal, my lady?'

Ah — Goiyo let out a small sound. That was right — she had pressed her lips to his at the ballroom, on impulse.

Thinking about it now, it was a little curious. Then and now, the same posture — and yet the scent that came from Entzi was not particularly unpleasant. Perhaps having seen him a few times had made her accustomed.

Yet nowhere in the scene was there any trace of what one might expect to feel in such a moment — no tension, no flutter.

For Entzi Bethelgius, who was accustomed to reactions following swiftly upon the meeting of eyes and a smile, this was startlingly unfamiliar — and slightly, just slightly, disappointing.

"I noticed this before, but you're not nervous at all."

"Would you like me to be nervous?"

"It's less that and more..."

Entzi let his words trail away. He knew very well that his own appearance was conspicuously striking — that there might perhaps be no finer face anywhere in the world, if one were to look. He had made good use of that face many times in life — and it had occasionally put him in danger too — and as for the number of times he had made use of it, he couldn't have counted them all.

Of course, not everyone lost their head at the sight of him. But to be this composed — this was genuinely the first time, and he was genuinely baffled.

Steeling himself for a rebuke, Entzi asked:

"Have you never thought that I'm handsome?"

"No — you are handsome. The most handsome I've seen."

But what came back was not a rebuke. It was a plain, direct statement. Entzi's ear flushed faintly with surprise. Goiyo regarded him with interest.

"You seem composed on the surface, but you're actually rather easily flustered, aren't you, Entzi."

"I'm flustered — you are the one I took for quiet and composed, and you turn out to be surprisingly sharp and impulsive."

"If you mean the ballroom — wasn't it your fault for that sort of teasing at a moment when something important was being decided? Besides, I don't speak impulsively about people's appearances. That has been my consistent impression all along."

"...All right. Let's drop the subject."

There was simply no winning against Goiyo on this topic.

Having someone speak of his appearance with such disarming earnestness — Goiyo's words made even Entzi Bethelgius, who was not versed in modesty, feel something close to embarrassment. It must be the cold, he told himself — the distinct warmth burning in his ear was entirely the cold wind's fault.

Entzi let out a long sigh.

"My wife turns out to be more difficult than I anticipated."

"Wife?"

"Of course — wife. The ceremony is done. Legally, you are Goiyo Bethelgius now."

Goiyo's eyes went round. In her heart, which had been sunken and still, something small moved.

'Wife...'

A word Goiyo had never once heard addressed to her. She had loved Therio and become Goiyo Alte — but he had never once called her that. She had not grieved at the word itself so much as at the reason behind it, and so she had never thought to want it.

And yet — hearing it said aloud now — Goiyo found her chest a little—

Tender. Just a little. Small enough to dismiss.

Misreading whatever showed on Goiyo's startled face, Entzi added with a playful air:

"So running away is out of the question now. I'm something of a possessive sort."

"Holding on without love — truly a man of poor character. But it doesn't matter."

She tipped the glass and drank down the last of the champagne, then set it aside. The cool breeze off the river touched her cheeks, still warm from the wine.

"From the moment I made up my mind to become Goiyo Bethelgius, I resolved to die as Bethelgius — so escape never once entered my mind."

Goiyo's words were plainly meant exactly as they sounded. But to Entzi Bethelgius — skilled as he was, yet unable to open another person and look inside — they sounded like something else entirely.

His gaze settled on Goiyo where she looked out at the river. The chestnut hair scattered on the wind, and the pale face gleaming between the strands — and Entzi found, inexplicably, that his throat had gone dry.

When Goiyo, sensing his gaze, turned her eyes toward him, their gazes wound together.

Thump. A heartbeat struck — it shoved at the back of impulse — and Entzi's hands rose to cup that face.

Through the long strands of hair, he pressed his lips to hers. Goiyo, briefly surprised, closed her eyes. Between the two of them, silence descended.

The breath that passed between their lips was unusually warm.

It must be the cold wind, both of them thought.