"Your Highness, it is Haven Sladin."
A voice came from outside the door of the Grand Duke's office. The Knight Commander, bringing the news he had been waiting for. The Grand Duke, who had been staring out the window with his hand clasped behind his back, answered hastily.
"Come in."
The door opened, and Haven came in. The moment he met the Grand Duke's hopeful eyes, Haven shrank. It was not out of fear. But he could not help shrinking.
"Well, what did they say?"
Haven could only give an awkward smile, which was unlike him. It would be no exaggeration to say he had never before seen the Grand Duke this desperate.
They had been friends since the days when they ran around the training grounds with wooden swords, before any hierarchy of lord and vassal had been set between them. That was why Haven felt guilty even in the role of a mere messenger.
"......It is not the news you were waiting for."
At that, the Grand Duke's face crumbled in an instant. Having dashed the hopes of his lord and closest friend, Haven bowed his head, though none of it was his fault.
"I sent letters to five domains...... and not a single one of those lords would grant my request?"
Kailan said it hollowly, almost muttering.
He had prepared no fewer than five letters bearing the name of Kailan Esselklein. It was a rare thing.
And he had had Haven Sladin, the Knight Commander of the Grand Ducal Castle, deliver them to the lords of the five neighboring domains.
All to ask one favor that was not hard to grant.
Since the Knight Commander of the Grand Ducal Castle had delivered them in person, the lords had to read the letters in front of Haven.
And they had to give their answer before Haven left.
So the time those five lords had to deliberate could not have been even half a day.
"The failure is mine, Your Highness."
Haven said gloomily. Shame and guilt that could never be washed away hung over his face like a shadow.
"How could this be your failure?"
Kailan said in a heavy voice.
As Grand Duke, he had asked only one thing of the five neighboring domains.
To look after Raizel for a while.
Nor was it a demand for charity. He would have paid them properly, and he had meant to send along the food Raizel would eat while he stayed.
And still, they could not spare a single room for one boy.
His disappointment was great. No, great was not a big enough word.
A moment that made him doubt even his whole life, and his faith in people.
"I have lived my life for nothing. Is this how strong the bonds of the North are? To think a glare from some lackey of the Imperial Family frightens them more than the name of Esselklein. Now even a toothless tiger is too good a name for me."
Kailan let out a sigh and a scornful laugh at the same time.
Afraid of falling out of favor, not even with the Imperial Family but with a mere Baron Roderick, the five lords had coldly refused the Grand Duke's request.
How hollow, how bitter it was.
"Do not say such things, Your Highness."
"Was I this lacking in respect among men?"
"It is not your fault, Your Highness."
The letters from the lords of the five domains crumpled in Haven's grip.
"Damned bastards."
Haven growled it under his breath. The anger he had been holding down spilled out. At heart he was a man with a fighter's nature. And a Knight Commander was allowed to be one. Was fighting, struggle and rage not the very purpose of a knight order? As its head, Haven was only being true to his role.
But the Grand Duke was not. He had to keep a calm as stern as the snowfields of Esseldria.
That was the burden owed by the descendants of those who had built a castle upon the snow.
"Is the Imperial Family so frightening?"
The Grand Duke's gaze turned to the window once more. Outside the window. At the end of his gaze was his son, swinging his sword in the bitter cold.
"......Yes. I am not much different myself."
He had handed his own precious child over to the Imperial Family, all but his sworn enemy, and then slept soundly for seven whole years.
How could he dare call himself a better man than those five lords? Before the years his son had spent thrown alone into enemy territory, Kailan doubted whether he was even a proper father.
However.
That did not mean he could sit still.
He had already tried everything he could.
He had asked the Imperial Family several times to cancel Baron Roderick's visit, but the Imperial Family was unbending. Even when Kailan, the Grand Duke, swallowed his pride and sent word again and again, it was no use.
All that came back was the answer that they would send Baron Roderick regardless, under that absurd pretext of consolation.
Baron Roderick would come to the Grand Ducal Castle. He would come without fail.
It turned his stomach.
But at the very least, he wanted to spare Raizel from coming face to face with Baron Roderick.
"You know. How much humiliation I suffered at that man's hands."
With the Imperial Family at his back, Baron Roderick wielded great influence despite being only a baron. His arrogant, insolent nature, combined with the Imperial Family's protection, made him a boar wearing golden armor.
Kailan looked at his right arm, no, at the place where his right arm had been. Haven's gaze naturally followed.
At that, Haven ground his teeth in fury.
He flared up.
"I will kill that bastard. Give the order, and I will tear the bastard limb from limb and hang the pieces at the four corners of the Imperial Capital."
It seemed Haven could carry out those words that very moment. He truly could. That was why Kailan smiled bitterly and shook his head.
It all felt like his own fault.
"Do not talk madness."
He recalled the past.
Baron Roderick had come to the Grand Ducal Castle once before, and the situation then had been much the same.
Right after Kailan lost his right arm. Before the wound had even closed.
Back then, Baron Roderick had come to stay at the Grand Ducal Castle on the Emperor's orders, under the pretext of consolation.
Those days when he had just lost his arm.
Days when he raged at his loss, not yet used to the missing arm and his changed balance.
Baron Roderick had pointed a sword at him.
Kailan Esselklein, once the finest knight in the Empire.
And he had lost. To Baron Roderick, and to a mere 2-Star imperial guard knight the baron had brought with him.
Purely because, at that moment, he had not yet accepted the loss of his right arm.
"I only do not wish my son to be mocked as I was."
Mockery over the lost right arm.
That shame and helplessness.
Baron Roderick would surely wag that tongue of his in front of Raizel too.
And...... Kailan was a man who could say nothing in the face of it, who could not even be a shield against his son's shame.
"I wanted to send him to a neighboring domain, at least, so that he could avoid meeting that bastard...... and I cannot even do that for him."
Kailan let out a short, hollow laugh.
"As a father I was already lacking...... and now I have failed as Grand Duke as well."
Four weeks left. Twenty-eight days.
Of course, his son's reaching 1-Star a few days ago was a remarkable feat.
But if Baron Roderick found out...... his fate would be sealed, and his sword would be taken from him.
For the Imperial Family would never tolerate a Raizel Esselklein who was not a cripple.
"If there had been no hope to begin with, perhaps, but to be given it and then lose it......"
"......It is a torment past bearing."
Kailan closed his eyes for a moment. The feeling of his lost right arm was still vivid.
"If there had only ever been darkness, the eyes would soon grow used to it. A hand that has once held the light cannot forget its warmth."
Sometimes the flesh of the forearm he no longer had hurt as if it were being torn away.
This relentless phantom pain did not end.
"......That is why it cannot help but hurt more. A world I believed was possible, a time when it was on my side, however briefly...... vanishing as if it had all been a lie. Longing for what you never had is only imagination, but losing what you had remains as memory. And that memory asks every single day. Why it was possible then, but not now. Whether I may still believe in hope. Why fate must be this cruel."
Kailan nodded, swallowing a lonely sigh.
"I only hope this lingering warmth is not a mockery."
If the days behind him had been a lie and he had simply been deceived, he would not have been broken this badly. It was an afternoon when even such foolish thoughts came to him.
***
"You mean to leave the Grand Ducal Castle for a while......?"
Before the ducal couple. Unlike the dumbstruck ducal couple, Raizel held his conversation slate with an indifferent expression.
Vestia, feeling embarrassed for no reason, respectfully clasped her hands at his side and bowed her head.
"I'm sorry......"
Alicia pressed her fingertips to her temple.
"It is not entirely your fault, Vestia. But when you are always at his side and my son keeps getting strange ideas, it is hard to say it is not your fault at all."
It was not just the stubbornness of a doting mother. She had reasonable grounds.
"Raizel was never like this before, was he?"
Raizel had been kind, to put it nicely, and weak, to put it bluntly. Leaving home right before a major event like Baron Roderick's visit was a decision worth being suspicious of.
For instance...... running away from home out of excessive worry.
「That woman treats you like a child without the faintest idea what sort of murderer you are. Is it not funny?」
As Raizel waited for the ducal couple's permission, the Heavenly Slaughter Star's laughter rang in his head. At once, Raizel's expression cracked.
'Shut up.'
Murderer? Who was the murderer here? It was absurd, coming from the very one who had made his fate that way.
"Your reason?"
The Grand Duke asked. Raizel flipped over the slate he had prepared in advance.
[I need more Snow Beacon Flowers. Because I want to grow stronger.]
That short sentence made quite an impact.
"Ah, my head."
"Do not talk nonsense."
Alicia complained of a headache, covering her forehead with the back of her hand, while Kailan frowned.
Raizel's face turned sulky with displeasure.
"If you want to freeze to death in the cold, do as you please. Otherwise, I cannot allow it."
Kailan said sternly. Raizel thought for a moment, then nodded.
"You nod at something like that?!"
Alicia said it almost like a shriek. The displeasure on Raizel's face grew deeper still.
Watching him, Kailan began to worry even more about Baron Roderick's visit. Raizel...... did not hide his expressions. Whether he could not or would not, he did not know, but either way it was a problem. And Baron Roderick was a man whose position meant he was coming to find fault, it would be no exaggeration to say.
Kailan thought. Perhaps it would be better for Raizel to go up the snowy mountain after the Snow Beacon Flower.
Were avalanches not common enough, as accidents go?
If he were stranded on the snowy mountain 'unexpectedly,' 'by bad luck'...... then naturally he could not meet Baron Roderick, could he?
And if Baron Roderick heard there was an emergency, he would not stay at the Grand Ducal Castle long.
For his own safety was the most precious thing in the world to him. A Grand Ducal Castle on alert over an avalanche was not the sort of place Baron Roderick would want to stay.
If the snowy mountain was dangerous, he only had to send enough people along. Yes, that might even be the better choice.
His calculations done, Kailan spoke.
"I have changed my mind. If you mean to become a knight, you ought to taste hardship beyond the fortress walls. I will give you Knight Commander Haven Sladin and two knights under him. Vestia, you go as well."
"Pardon? Y-yes!"
Kailan turned his head. His eyes met Raizel's. Those characteristic steely silver eyes of his narrowed.
"Go."
This was the best choice.
But Raizel could not read what Kailan was really thinking.
The only thing in his head was his goal of reaching the 2-Star realm.