SN Chapter 27

"I heard from Raymond that you fell from a cliff. It truly is a relief to see you like this. Idelabheim must have been watching over you."

"Yes."

"When the attack first broke out, I was looking for you. I couldn't find you anywhere, and I worried a great deal. I never would have imagined you might be at a cliff so far from the encampment..."

"Was the cliff where I was found very far from the encampment?"

Yes, no, and that's fine—Rosaline had recently acquired a third answer to rotate through. Diez appeared pleased by the new development.

"Yes, it was in the completely opposite direction. That's apparently why finding you took a bit longer."

"Is that right."

"I'm sorry I couldn't be of more use. I've been so busy since returning that I haven't managed to visit even once—but seeing you in good health is..." A brief pause. "I'm glad. Truly, I'm relieved, Rosaline."

Diez's eyes curved into soft crescents. Among all the people she had observed thus far, he smiled the most readily. Following his smile, the corners of Rosaline's mouth rose in turn.

"Thank you."

Even at such a brief answer, he couldn't quite suppress his delight.

Diez bid his farewell shortly after and turned to go. That final parting exchange had apparently been his true purpose all along.

Rosaline recalled a question she had been carrying for some time—one she had briefly set aside.

She had heard something similar from Raymond: that during the dawn assassination unit's attack, he hadn't seen her. More precisely, hadn't seen her for considerably longer than that. At the time, both of them had waved it off—probably just too many people to track in the chaos. But from what the Fifth Prince had said today, she could now confirm it: Rosaline had not been present at the scene during the battle. Or even before it.

It had spent a great deal of its strength healing the body in the first moments after occupying it. The broken bones that would have resulted from the fall. The organs compressed and damaged by them. Those were the gravest wounds, which was why it had paid little attention to external damage—torn skin, open lacerations.

But thinking about it now, the wound on the back had also been no ordinary thing. The flesh had split all the way through to the muscle, deep enough to expose bone. Even without the fall from the cliff, that wound alone would have been sufficient cause of death.

The absence from the scene. The cliff located so far from the encampment, in the completely opposite direction. The wound torn deeply into the back.

Several facts interlocked. What Rosaline had taken for certain until now tilted and distorted.

Perhaps Rosaline had suffered an accident before the assassination unit's attack.

"Kallix."

Kallix looked at his sister with dazed eyes. Her smiling face was as soft as a spring breeze. In the time they hadn't seen each other, she had come to make more and more Rosaline-like expressions. Rosaline crossed to him in quick strides and threw her arms around him in a sudden embrace.

He startled, then held her in return. Somewhat awkward, somehow—and yet his hands had already found their way to patting her back. A small smile came to Kallix's lips as well.

"Have you been well, Sister?"

"Yes."

Rosaline's eyes caught the sunlight and sparkled. Warmth had risen into them. She had been someone who wore an expressionless mask with no temperature to it—and yet, in the time they hadn't seen each other, she appeared to have socialized considerably.

Kallix handed her a box. Cream puffs from a famous confectionery in the capital. Rosaline smiled broadly without opening it—her sensitive nose had apparently already identified the contents. If pressed to name Rosaline's favorite food, meat was the undisputed answer, but desserts were not to be excluded. The image of her the first time she'd encountered fresh cream—eyes gone wide, entire body gone rigid—remained etched in Kallix's memory with startling clarity.

Rosaline sniffed happily at the box.

Snff. Snff.

Kallix watched his sister with quiet warmth. She opened the box and extended a cream puff to him. He looked at it sitting alone in his palm, then back at her.

She was giving it to him?

She had reached the level of sharing food?

Kallix came very close to shedding a tear, thinking of the storm of hardship that had been his life these past months. When he looked at her with that misty, deeply moved expression, Rosaline's face became slightly sulky. Before he could quite wonder at it, she reached into the box, took out a second cream puff, and placed it in his palm as well.

She had apparently interpreted that moved expression as a request for another.

Kallix swallowed his laughter and ate the first cream puff. He fed the second one to Rosaline. Famous capital confectionery, apparently—savoring it, her eyes went very narrow. She looked thoroughly satisfied.

"By the way, Sister. Isn't this your escort time with His Highness?"

"Yes."

"But being here like this—is it alright?"

"Yes. His Highness permitted it."

She added, as an afterthought:

"He said something about how one ought to see one's family before dying."

"...His Highness Rikardis remains as ever, I see..."

The news that Rikardis had been appointed chief delegate of the delegation to Balta had brought Kallix all the way to the imperial capital. Rosaline's danger naturally followed wherever the Second Prince's did. And, exactly as Kallix had predicted—not one degree off—Rosaline was in a state of perfect serenity.

The knot in his chest grew tighter and more complex. He already knew well the feeling of losing a sister. He had spent so long piecing his shattered heart back together—awkwardly, unevenly, but held together nonetheless—only for the threat of losing her to loom once more.

Kallix's complexion darkened. As a senior knight responsible for the prince's direct protection, she would be exposed to considerable danger. And of all things, right after her promotion.

He lowered his voice.

"The First Prince of Balta, Haqaev, who holds de facto rule over that kingdom, clearly has deep ties with Dark Moon. Since Dark Moon is effectively Balta's highest governing force, you should consider the Kingdom of Balta itself to be the Second Prince's enemy."

"Yes."

"...It will be dangerous. The country has a closed character—there is much about it that remains undisclosed. There will be other threats beyond the newly synthesized magical poison. You truly must be careful—"

"Wait."

Rosaline raised one hand and cut off his words. She turned her head in a single sharp motion, like a wild animal catching a scent, and stared hard at something beyond the high wall.

Then she scaled it.

The sounds of "Uwaak!" and "Kyaaak!" reached Kallix's ears from the other side.

Has she finally pounced on someone? His sister had not, in fairness, pounced on any passing humans yet—but Kallix knew well. Her wildness hadn't completely died. That wildness was like a lumpy, irregularly crumpled ball: roll it left and it bounced right, throw it right and it rolled downward, toss it away in frustration and it landed in the goal and scored. That subtle, irrepressible irregularity.

So even if she had pounced on someone to steal their food, it wouldn't have seemed particularly strange. It was the sight of her faithfully socializing, showing increasingly human aspects, that felt unfamiliar. He had known this lumpy ball she was for only a handful of months—and yet in some ways she had left a more vivid impression than the Rosaline he had observed for twenty-some years. So she had been engraved in him deeply. This stable irregularity. Kallix let out a quiet inward breath of relief.

He climbed the wall after her.

When she had climbed, what reached his ears was the soft sound of her palms lightly touching the stone.

When Kallix climbed, there was a rough, deep thunk-thunk—as though he might leave marks in the wall itself.

The contrast was stark.

By the time he stood atop the high wall and looked down, Rosaline was subduing a man. Kallix had been half-prepared to call out don't kill him! or you mustn't steal other people's food!—but Rosaline didn't appear to have killing intent particularly, and neither person had food in their hands. He decided to watch in silence from his vantage point.

The man with his dark navy hair tied back lay face-down on the ground, pinned underneath Rosaline. The auburn-haired woman was crawling away on her knees. Rosaline tucked into a clean aerial somersault and landed—thak—directly in the fleeing woman's path.

The fleeing woman, Rhaetisia, caught sight of the trouser hem that had descended with perfect serenity, and very nearly had an episode.

"Hiiik!"

Rosaline crouched down and tapped Rhaetisia on the forehead.

"You died again. Rhaetisia. Eberhardt."

"Hhuaah..."

"Haaaah..."

At the pronouncement, both of them fwumped onto the ground. Their backs and chests rose and fell in eloquent testimony to the state of their hearts just moments before.

"What will you do if you can't even hear the sound of someone climbing a wall?"

"I couldn't hear it..."

"That's serious, Rhaetisia."

"I did hear something—I thought it was just tok-tok against the wall..."

"The location of the sound changes when someone climbs by stepping up the surface, doesn't it? If sound is coming from the upper section of the wall, you should naturally have been on alert. Eberhardt."

Kallix, still atop the wall, was moved nearly to speechlessness by his sister's impeccable formal speech—this, before he had even processed the rest of the scene. How truly radiant your wisdom, Sister...

Rhaetisia and Eberhardt looked up at her with eyes full of visible grievance. Through dozens of simulated deaths in training, they had come to believe they could read the wind to some degree. They had been so confident only yesterday. And today—right today—her footsteps had grown one register quieter. Did that mean until now hadn't been her full strength?

The unspoken rule between them: ten brutal sets of physical training every time they failed to block her attack. Since she was never nearby when they did it, Eberhardt had once raised a tentative concern—how would you know if we actually did it, what if we were to sort of... not—at which Rosaline had narrowed her eyes slightly and smiled just a little.

And then:

'Please. Do try.'

In that moment, Eberhardt found her scarier than a furious mother. Far more frightening than an assassin openly declaring intent to kill him.