MB Chapter 36

She hadn't noticed, the two or three times he'd used magic to clear away her colds. But she'd blinked just now—which meant she could feel the mana moving.

'It was about time she grew accustomed to magic.'

"Thank you, for resolving that."

She matched his slight smile with one of her own—but almost immediately, Goiyo's smile faded. The thing she'd been holding in her hand had made itself known again.

The handkerchief was soft cloth, but the torn edges felt strangely rough against her fingers—rougher than seemed right for what it was. It kept nagging at her.

Her hands shifted without her quite meaning them to. Entzi Bethelgius's gaze followed.

"I'm sorry—it hasn't even been a day since you made it."

"What do you mean?"

"The handkerchief..."

She opened her closed hand and showed him the state of it, eyes lowered, looking rather deflated.

Entzi Bethelgius's expression did not change—not a flicker—at the sight of the torn cloth. Goiyo read this as courtesy. Deliberate concealment of how he actually felt. A handmade gift, ruined before a day had passed; of course it would be upsetting.

"It has taken on rather an antique appearance."

"I'm sorry. A deer's antler caught it—it was careless of me."

"It was the deer that was careless, not you. And—as you say—this is hardly a handkerchief any longer. Perhaps it's better suited to being..."

Snap.

The cloth in Goiyo's hand floated upward. It tore itself into several pieces—and then the pieces began folding together, overlapping like petals.

What had been torn and useless gathered itself into a small, round flower. A hair ornament.

Entzi Bethelgius's long fingers combed Goiyo's disheveled hair back from her face, and he slipped the flower above her ear.

"I think it suits your beauty rather well."

Something welled up in Goiyo, sudden and warm. The moment someone appeared to offer comfort, the sorrow she had been keeping hidden came rushing straight to her eyes.

The warmth at the corners of her eyes alarmed her. She blinked quickly.

Fortunately, the one who had called that grief up was looking elsewhere—and had not seen.

"I owe you a great deal, Dame Eliom."

"Not at all. I arrived a little too late to deserve your thanks."

Watching the knight's self-reproach, Entzi Bethelgius gave a slight shrug.

"My lady appears to have caught her quarry, and there's not much time remaining—so we'll be heading back now. It seems Dame Eliom has yet to catch anything, however."

"The hunt was not my primary purpose. I'm not concerned."

"Even so—I should think someone of Dame Eliom's ability could take a couple of birds in the time remaining."

The cool light that came into his gray eyes made Razine Eliom's smile go thin.

He's not letting this slide. With no real alternative, Razine Eliom opened her mouth again.

"Come to think of it, it would rather damage my reputation to go back empty-handed. Would you go on ahead, my lady?"

"Of course, Dame Eliom."

Thank you for today. With Goiyo's farewell, the Bethelgius couple turned and walked back toward the edge of the forest.

Razine Eliom watched their retreating figures until they disappeared from view. Then she turned slowly, and raised both arms.

At the same moment, the killing intent that had surrounded her on all sides made itself visible.

As though the motion had been rehearsed, several blades leveled at Razine Eliom in unison. Through the haze of hostility, unhurried footsteps approached.

"Something of a relief, Dame Eliom. If you'd shown even the faintest inclination toward mischief, I'd have taken your head on the spot—and taking a human head at a hunting competition is a bit distasteful, wouldn't you say?"

The man smiled in precisely the way his employer smiled, and drew closer.

"Pleased to meet you. I'm Kolave Peroto—First Aide to the Marquess, ordinarily kept exhaustingly busy, and lately running myself ragged handling your surveillance on top of everything else—I wanted to die."

"As you likely know—I'm Razine Eliom. I'll admit, I'm somewhat surprised. I assumed the perfume I gave her would cause a misunderstanding."

"We checked it some time ago. What exactly do you take Bethelgius for?"

"You tested my lady's belongings without her permission, and you're proud of it?"

"Terrifying language. We had her permission, naturally. Our Marquess is exceptionally respectful of my lady's opinions. If he'd extend even one-hundredth of that consideration to this unfortunate subordinate, I'd be a considerably happier man."

We've talked long enough. Kolave Peroto let the smile drain and took another step forward.

A drifting cloud moved across the sun; the light dimmed. Even so, the blades caught blue.

"Are you ready to speak?"

"There's no point in playing coy. And I can't see a reason to."

"I'll tell you."

Razine Eliom's mouth opened without resistance. At a gesture from Kolave Peroto, the blades withdrew.

The memory she reached for was several months old.

A woman had arrived at the Eliom estate one day. Her robe was pulled low enough to conceal everything from head to foot—the manner of someone with a great deal to hide.

Iell was away, which was how Razine Eliom came to be the one who dealt with her. Even that had only been possible because Razine Eliom happened to be leaving through the front gate at the time. Without that coincidence, the woman would have been turned away by the guards.

'My name is Marchel. I've come to collect an item that was left with Count Eliom.'

'I don't know what you're talking about. Leave. We don't deal with peddlers here.'

'There's something your father was keeping, isn't there? A music box. Themed around a bird with a broken neck inside a cage. It has a name on it—Eliza.'

Razine Eliom had never seen or heard of any such item—but something in the woman's manner made her uneasy. To test her, she said something invented.

'I have no idea how you came to know about that—but my father never asked me to pass any item on to anyone. Leave.'

'I am the owner of the item. You won't simply take my word for it, I see—so I should establish that I'm worth listening to.'

'Worth listening to?'

'In three months, Count Eliom will be declared dead from prolonged absence, won't he? Your older brother would then inherit the estate.'

'That would be assuming our father fails to return.'

'That particular concern is, unfortunately, unnecessary.'

Most of her face was still hidden by the robe—but the thin smile at the corner of her mouth was visible with a clarity that prickled along the skin.

'He was killed by Marquess Bethelgius, you see.'

Razine Eliom closed her eyes briefly—then opened them. The present came back.

"That was all—afterward she simply said that if I wanted to confirm anything, I should approach the Marquess directly. I was still turning it over in my mind when I attended the tea party at the Bermus household and saw the Lady. The magic gave me a convenient pretext to approach her. My interest in magic was genuine, so it wasn't difficult."

"...Is there anything else you know about this woman?"

"I couldn't determine her identity, so while we were speaking I stole a look at the hair just visible beneath her robe. It had been dyed gold—but you could tell the real color was something else."

Razine Eliom's eyes narrowed slightly.

"The color of ash. As though something had burned down to nothing. An unusual shade."

"Ashy..."

"I turned the estate upside down afterward, but found no such music box. Iell hadn't seen it; none of the servants had either. I'm not even certain the item actually exists."

It couldn't possibly exist, Kolave Peroto thought, his mouth twisting before he could stop it.

"When I saw how the Marquess regarded me, I became certain there had been something between my father and him. After that, the woman's purpose became somewhat clearer. She hadn't come for the music box—"

"She came to make sure word of her reached the Marquess."

"An amateur's guess. But that's what it looked like."

An amateur's guess. Perfectly correct.

Eliza was the name of Entzi Bethelgius's mother.

To describe her as a bird with a broken neck inside a cage—and then leave the name "Marchel" behind so openly—everything the woman had done was, without question, a message sent directly to Entzi Bethelgius. Whether to announce she was in the capital. Whether to signal she knew Bethelgius had been tracking her movements. Whether something else lay beneath it entirely.

Even if there were no grand design behind it, as a means of driving Entzi Bethelgius's fury upward, the aim had been precise.

Both the person targeted, and the message delivered.

Kolave Peroto pressed his back teeth together, remembering the flash of something cold and very blue that had moved behind Entzi Bethelgius's smiling eyes—If you want to die, die alone.

"If what I've told you has been of use—there's something I'd like to know as well."

"Well, this isn't quite a matter of give-and-take. But ask—I suspect I already know what it will be."

"Is Count Eliom dead?"

Naturally. Kolave Peroto answered without pause.

"He is."

"...I see. He died, then."

Her father's death, reported to her—and Razine Eliom only murmured it quietly, with perfect flatness.

She had used her father as bait to approach Bethelgius, and yet she showed nothing. The absence of feeling was strange enough that Kolave Peroto's eyebrow shifted.

"Are you thinking of revenge, then?"

"Hardly. You'd have no reason to know this—but the reason I first took up a sword was to take my own father's head."

"Take his—"

"He was someone who could be more vile toward those weaker than himself than almost anyone. While my mother was alive, he made some effort to appear human—but after she died, he behaved as though he owned the world.

To Iell. To me. He was garbage reeking with a stench. After he vanished into hiding, I was more afraid he might come back than not."

She had taken up a sword to protect her family—setting aside the magic she had always dreamed of, the talent that lay in that direction rather than this one—prepared to accept prison if patricide was what it came to.

Her resolve had hardened as her body grew and her understanding deepened. She had imagined taking his head on the day of his return hundreds of times. Thousands. Building toward a readiness she wasn't sure would hold.

Even then—when the moment had finally drawn near—she had not been certain she could actually go through with it.

All that preparation. All that bracing. And in the end, Count Eliom had died at someone else's hands.

Hollow. And bitter. And glad. And furious.

It was truly a strange feeling.

"So that's what the Marquess meant when he said there was nothing to worry about with you," Kolave Peroto muttered, half to himself. "That wily, fox of a man."

"I beg your pardon?"

Razine Eliom was opening her mouth to ask what he meant—when the ground shook with something that arrived before the sound did.

Both of them turned at once. A massive twin-headed boar was driving itself toward them, each stride hammering the earth.

'How much scent did Emily Renier actually use?'

Razine Eliom's expression went flat even as her hand found her hilt. She recognized the creature from a monster compendium—a higher-ranked specimen. The kind that left average swordsmen unable to nick the hide.

Depending on how this went, it might claim a few lives before it could be put down.

The blades had been drawn against her just moments ago—but she had been the one in the wrong, and a knight was a knight.

She drove a rush of blue mana into the drawn blade and swung.

—skirr— Barely more than a motion of the wrist. Barely visible. One of the boar's heads sheared sideways and rolled to the ground.

Except.

Not one.

"...What—"

One stroke. Two heads fallen.

Razine Eliom stared, tilting her head in confusion. Then she found Kolave Peroto looking back at her with the same expression.

The moment their eyes met, both of them knew they had arrived at exactly the same thought.