MB Chapter 7

【 Past 】

"The storm is terrible... is it really so urgent? Can't you stay the night?"

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

"Don't say such things, Your Grace!"

Therio laughed—haha—at the woman pouting up at him.

Soft golden hair. A face that seemed gentle yet possessed of quiet backbone. A figure at once slender and full. In every particular, she was a near-perfect echo of Melishi Rubiette.

He cast a satisfied eye over the traces of himself that showed through the thin fabric of her dress, then pressed his lips to the woman's forehead.

Even the sensation against his lips was the same as memory. There were moments—brief, flickering—when Therio almost believed Melishi had come back to life.

'It's a pity about the eyes.' Not the right shade of blue.

"I simply must let you go, since you say you must—but you'll come back soon, won't you?"

Therio Alte smiled warmly at her petulance.

"I'll be back, Elly."

'I'll be back, Melishi.'

Creak. The gate swung open. The household retainers of House Alte bent at the waist to welcome their master home.

Therio swept a disinterested gaze over them and gave a small nod. Eden—the butler, who had bowed alongside the rest—stepped forward to meet him.

"Welcome home, Master."

The loyal butler's face betrayed no surprise, though Therio had departed that very morning citing a business trip. It was a familiar situation. What Therio noticed was something else: the peculiar pallor of Eden's face, a white that seemed to go beyond ordinary tiredness.

It's night, and there's a storm, he told himself, a reasonable explanation—while something heavy in his chest grew heavier still.

"All the Imperial airships are grounded. It happens, when the Witch's Moon rises. The weather turns, and—"

"I see."

"...Right. So the Aetio trip's been pushed back until the ships are repaired. I'll let you know when I hear something, Eden."

Every word he said was true, and yet Therio felt obscurely as though he were making excuses.

In some measure, he supposed they were. When the delay was confirmed, Therio Alte had not come home directly.

He had gone to his lover, as naturally as breathing. They had dined together. They had shared a bed. He had been happy—achingly, hollowly happy—and the happier he grew, the more uneasy he became.

The sourceless dread that had plagued him all day expanded, slowly, until it consumed even those hours of joy. Until, in the end, he had broken his promise to spend the night, fabricated an excuse, and returned to the mansion.

And yet—now that he was here—nothing was different. The gates had opened. The staff had bowed. He and Eden had exchanged their few words.

Something is wrong here, he thought, but the anxiety did not lift. Did not lift precisely because—

'Could you come home a bit later today?'

That was when it had started. With Goiyo Rubiette's words.

Uncharacteristically, she had tried to keep him. He resented it—hated the feeling of being moved by a single sentence of hers—and Therio scowled despite himself.

Now that he thought of it, she was nowhere to be seen. The woman who had always stood quietly among the household staff, unfailing in her farewells and welcomes—her face was absent today.

Therio asked.

"Where is Goiyo?"

The music began the moment he reached the second floor.

The walls were not thin, and yet the sound bled through the door at a volume that could only mean one thing: someone had turned it unconscionably loud.

The maid guiding him shifted her feet at the sight of Therio's expression.

Eden, for once, said nothing. Only watched.

"Lady Goiyo asked us not to enter until she called for us. We couldn't turn it off, Master."

"Didn't you say she's been alone since her bath? That means she's had it running for hours?"

A silent protest, he thought. Because he hadn't done as she asked. Therio gave a short, contemptuous sound.

The music grew louder with each step toward her door. By the time he reached it, he could feel the vibration through the handle itself.

"I'll open it, Master."

"Don't bother. Go and see to your duties."

He waved Eden off and opened the door himself. It swung without sound, smooth as a well-oiled hinge—and yet Therio felt it as though he were wrenching open a gate rusted shut. The music rushed out at him, several times louder than before. Loud enough to make his ears ache.

"Out of her mind," he muttered, and crossed to silence it.

Only then did Therio think to look for her.

He didn't have to look far. He'd barely raised his head before he saw her: a woman slumped over the inner table, face down, still.

A darkly stained carpet. A wine glass rolling free of its stem. A bottle—half-emptied, or half-spilled. The wine had saturated the carpet in an expanding, irregular shadow.

Goiyo Rubiette sat in the chair at the table, collapsed across it in a disarray he had never once seen from her. From where he stood, all he could see was her hair—long, dark—pooling down the side of the table, parts of it soaked in wine. In the dim light, it looked very much like blood.

Therio Alte drew a short, sharp breath.

The anxiety in his chest swelled and went very cold.

Nothing to worry about. He overrode it with practiced ease and walked toward her as he always walked—unhurried, unaffected.

The rose scent grew conspicuously stronger as he approached. Strange. Goiyo had always disliked it.

"The mistress of a ducal house, lying about in this state—drunk, of all things. What on earth do you think you're doing."

"..."

"You didn't even come out to meet me. Wasn't it your idea to keep up appearances?"

"..."

"Is this a protest? Because I didn't come home when you asked?"

"..."

"How many times do I have to say it. I told you not to want things. This changes nothing about me, no matter what you do."

She drank herself unconscious on less than a full bottle, he thought, frowning. Half of it seems to have ended up on the floor anyway—how much did she actually consume?

Had Goiyo Rubiette always been this hopeless with wine? He tried to remember. He couldn't. It had been too long since they had drunk together.

He reached out and put his hand on her shoulder to wake her.

The fabric was cold. Wet—saturated with something. Like touching moss.

A chill moved through him, slow and certain, down the length of his spine.

He ignored it. He shook the shoulder he was holding. Wake up. Wake up.

"Master."

"Ah, Eden—I told you to go. What is it."

"Master."

"Actually—good timing. She seems to have passed out. Help me move her to the bedroom. Hardly becoming for a duchess to be found like this. It'll reflect badly on me as well."

"Master..."

"No, on second thought—you've been on your feet all day. You must be tired. I'll carry her myself. Troublesome woman..."

The hand that closed around his arm stopped him mid-sentence.

Eden's hand.

Eden, who would not presume to lay hands on his master without cause.

Confusion gave way to a swift rise of anger. Who do you think you are, to stop me— Therio turned, ready to say it, and the anger died.

"You hated her, didn't you, Master."

A man with a ravaged face was looking at him.

"You resented her."

"Eden...?"

"I did it for you. I thought—I thought it was for you..."

'What is he saying.'

Therio squinted to see Eden's face more clearly, but strangely—it kept blurring. Growing more indistinct by the moment. Until, soon enough, he could no longer be certain whether what moved across the butler's face was grief at all.

"Then why are you weeping, Master."

"...I'm weeping?"

What are you talking about. He rubbed at his eyes to clear them—and found them cold and wet.

It was only then that he understood why his vision had gone so wrong.

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

By Solarian custom, most funerals gathered only the nearest kin. Grandparents, parents. Children, siblings.

But at Goiyo Alte's funeral, there was no one.

Naturally. There was no family left to come.

Goiyo Alte...

Therio stared at the name written on the coffin, uncomprehending.

He could not remember precisely how many years they had been married. But he knew those years had not been short. And in all of them, he had never once called her Goiyo Alte.

To him, she had always been Goiyo Rubiette. Not merely from habit. The reason was simpler, and uglier than that.

He had married her, and still the person in his heart was someone else. And so he had not wanted to give Goiyo his name. He had not wanted to write it after hers.

Out of habit, he would say, when she looked hurt. I keep saying it wrong. You know how it is. He had told her that, over and over.

After Rubiette's destruction, it had taken on a different weight. Rubiette is gone—why are you still here? Melishi Rubiette is dead—and yet Goiyo Rubiette lives.

That it was not a fair grief, not a fair resentment—that had never seemed to matter to him.

I will never call you Goiyo Alte. Not ever.

What a pointless vow to have made. It was his own hand that had written Goiyo Alte on the coffin. It was he who now flinched from seeing it.

Drip. Drip. Tears fell onto the letters of the name.

Goiyo—paler than he had ever seen her, paler even than the white wax of the candles—lay with her eyes closed, receiving his tears in silence.

A death by cardiac failure left no mark on the body. She looked as though she were only sleeping.

Her face was colorless, drained to ash—and yet, despite it all, it seemed as though she might open her eyes at any moment. Might look up at him and ask, in that quiet, careful way of hers, What are you crying for?

But the dead do not open their eyes.

Goiyo... Goiyo... There was no point in calling. He knew there was no point. And yet her name kept coming, flowing out of him unbidden, unstoppable.

His throat had closed so completely he couldn't breathe. But more than that—more than the breathlessness—he couldn't bear the thought of her face disappearing behind his tears. He wiped his eyes frantically, desperately, only for them to fill again immediately. He could never keep up. Every minute or two, he had to scrub at them until the skin around them was raw.

His hands—trembling so violently he could not bring himself to touch her—hovered in the air just above her face.

'Your funeral is so quiet, Goiyo. Your mother isn't here. Your father isn't here. Your brothers and sisters—none of them. Just me, alone.'

'The hall is this wide, and there is only one person in it. I'm the only one left to share in your death.'

'It was I who brought Lady Goiyo the Silverbell, Master.'

The grief and loneliness were unbearable. And there was no one to bear them alongside him.

It was like being wrung out by invisible hands—every part of him, squeezed past endurance. But this loneliness, this grief—in life, it had been entirely yours. Every bit of it, yours to carry alone.

Therio Alte broke apart.

'I knew what would happen if she took the Silverbell, and I brought it to her anyway. I thought it would make you happy, Master. I thought—I killed her. I killed her. So please, instead, just—'

'Why didn't I know?'

He had lost a lover. She had lost everything. Her father, her mother, her siblings—and the one person she had trusted, in the end, above all.

If only the nails in Goiyo's coffin had been driven into his heart instead. If only it were him lying there, and not her. If only, instead of dying herself, she had killed him.

'Don't be absurd! Goiyo drank Silverbell?'

'Master—'

'Then—does that mean—'

Why did you have to kill your poor, wretched self? Why did you have to die like your mother? You cried and told me you didn't want to die—that was the secret you gave me to hold—and still you chose that ending.

Oh.

'It was all because of me.'

The foolish man who had believed his own unhappiness to be the greatest tragedy in the world wept and wept.

He had abandoned someone who had nothing left. And now there was nothing left for him.

No matter how much he repented, the dead did not return.

There would be no forgiveness.

Not ever.