Chapter 77 - The Heart Needs Something to Lean On

Only a few days earlier, Shan had wondered whether a sufficiently gifted priest could restore the stricken king. He was surprised that, by a curious coincidence, exactly that had happened.

Not that he knew how the king had recovered yet.

“So what happens now?”

“What do you mean?”

“This whole war started because the king collapsed. Surely they aren't going to pretend none of it happened?”

Roden gave a brief, thoughtful hum at Shan's question.

“Of course they can't... In any case, we need to get back to Pales quickly, if only to figure that out.”

He said things were unsettled, and even Sherin, who ought to have been holding everyone together as their leader, seemed somewhat unstable. Rather than addressing the immediate unrest, she was immersing herself in work. All he could surmise was that the king's recovery had come as a great shock to her.

In any event, Roden believed Shan was the only person she could lean on at a time like this. He was Pales's Lord Guardian and its strongest knight, as well as Sherin's closest friend.

“The princess?”

“She didn't show it, of course, but that's how it looked to me.”

If Roden said so, he was probably right.

Their private conversation over, Shan immediately excused himself to Viscount Treva beside them.

“I'm sorry, but something seems to have happened at the castle. I'll have to ride ahead.”

“Oh dear. Would it be an imposition if I followed?”

“I don't think so.”

He had only been told to hurry back, not to dump the viscount somewhere or stop him from coming, so that was probably true.

“Well, in that case, off you go. I'll follow at a more leisurely pace.”

It was somewhat rude for an escort to leave midway through bringing a guest over, but the viscount did not seem particularly concerned. If anything, he even seemed slightly pleased.

Leaving Roden to explain matters to the others, Shan mounted Arwin and galloped along the riverbank. Perhaps bored from keeping pace with the other horses all this time, Arwin drove her four legs hard, cutting through the wind to cover in just two hours a distance that would take an ordinary person a full day's walk.

* * *

Reaching the port connected to Pales, Shan raced along the road into the city. Ignoring the rules, he kept riding through its streets and up to the count's castle.

“His Majesty really has...”

“What will happen to us now?”

“Wouldn't that be treason—”

As he hurried in, he could feel that the castle was in disarray, just as Roden had said. When he reached the stables, the servants recognized his face and bowed deeply.

“Oh! Welcome back, Sir Shan!”

“Here. She's come a long way, so give her something good to eat.”

Shan handed Arwin's reins to the stablehand, then strode away as quickly as a knight's dignity allowed. Sir Aran stood guard outside Sherin's office.

“Sir Shan? I hadn't heard the hunting party was back. How are you here already...?”

“I came ahead. Her Highness is inside, isn't she?”

“Your Highness! Sir Shan is here!”

[“Already? Well, send him in!”]

When he entered the office, Sherin was undoing the hair she had tied tightly back to keep it out of her way while working. She looked at him with a mixture of surprise and delight.

“How did you get here so quickly? I did see Roden rushing out earlier—”

Her words trailed off because Shan's face looked even clearer than before. His skin had melted away, and the subsequent healing had erased even its tiny scars.

“You really were badly hurt...”

An accomplished mage, she recognized these signs of recovery from a grievous injury.

Under her sympathetic gaze, Shan put on a somewhat exaggerated smile.

“As you can see, I'm fine now. The priest Viscount Treva assigned to us was exceptionally skilled. She...”

“A priestess, I hear?”

“What? Oh, yes.”

“I hear you two talked quite a lot on the way back.”

For some reason, Sherin looked rather displeased as she said this. Pouting slightly, she shook her head.

“This is no time for that sort of talk. How much have you heard?”

“That His Majesty... I mean, that the king has woken up.”

Remembering that Sherin disliked hearing her father addressed respectfully, Shan deliberately dropped the honorific.

“Yes. Unfortunately, it seems to be true. I don't know how much he's recovered, but he's well enough to write letters.”

Calling her own father's recovery unfortunate, she picked up a letter from one side of the office and waved it. Apparently, she had deduced that he had regained consciousness from its handwriting.

As they spoke, Shan was a little taken aback by how composed she seemed. Roden had certainly said she wasn't doing well. Was Shan too inexperienced to notice the signs?

“His demands are simple. Undo everything I've done so far and return quietly to the palace.”

“Are you going to?”

“Of course not. I'd have to be mad.”

Sherin snorted and flung the letter onto her desk. Then she groaned in exasperation.

“It's caused an absolute uproar. The people of Pales have always despised the man, of course, so they aren't wavering much. But Conrad's faction could well fall apart the moment the news reaches them.”

“I wonder how they cured him. After being treated myself, I feel like the highest-ranking priests could save anyone who isn't actually dead. To bring back someone even they had given up on...”

“Father's illness originated on the southern continent. Perhaps they found some miraculous cure there. The Kingdom of Luman does trade with the southern continent, after all.”

Puzzled by her casual answer, Shan asked,

“You knew what the king's illness was?”

He was sure that when he'd asked before, she had brushed the question aside as though she didn't really know either.

Sherin clicked her tongue at her slip and smoothed down her hair.

“Well... I did know. They tried to keep it secret, but they couldn't escape my spiders' eyes.”

Shan did not press her about the king's illness. If she hadn't wanted to discuss it all this time, she must have had her reasons. But perhaps interpreting his silence as pressure, she hesitated for a long while before letting out a fading sigh and confessing the truth.

“Father has a venereal disease. That's why they've kept it secret. Three queens dying one after another from nothing more than a venereal disease? The moment that became public, the royal family's authority would be dragged through the mud.”

“What? A venereal disease?”

“A disease transmitted through sexual relations. Don't you know what that is?”

“I do, but...”

During his general education, Roden had told him such things existed and warned him to be careful. Shan had never been particularly interested in sex, so he had given the matter little thought.

No, to be honest, he even felt a certain revulsion toward it. The memory of the mercenaries dragging Debbie, the Altoan circus's fairy acrobat, away to rape her was seared too deeply into his mind.

“It's so bad that even the priests' miracles can't cure it? Surely the king could receive as much treatment as he wanted from the highest-ranking priests.”

“That's because it isn't an ordinary venereal disease.”

The illness Giselle III had contracted was a rare venereal disease that had arrived from the southern continent decades earlier. Its victims generally died within a few years, and its symptoms were severe. As a result, it had died out before spreading far through the Arman Alliance, leaving few people even aware of its existence.

“I secretly examined some hair Father left behind once. It seems to be a disease related to magical creatures. Its infectiousness and lethality are on an entirely different level from ordinary diseases.”

Yet Giselle III, unlucky enough to contract it, had maintained his health through regular treatment from the highest-ranking priests available to a king, and had succeeded in fathering several children. Naturally, all three queens had died young because they, too, had been infected.

There were only so many priests powerful enough to halt its progress, and secrecy had to be maintained. The queens had therefore been denied the life-prolonging treatment the king enjoyed.

“Now you understand why I hate Father so much, don't you?”

“Yes...”

Shan had never had proper parents himself, but he thought that if this were why he'd never even seen his mother, resentment toward his father would come naturally.

Looking desolate, Sherin murmured,

“The only reason I could let go of some of my desire for revenge was that he finally succumbed to the disease. I could laugh at him. After clinging so desperately to life, look where he ended up. Serves him right. But... now he's recovered? After killing Mother?”

Her initially quiet voice grew more and more heated until, overcome by emotion, she slammed her fist onto the desk with a crash. Her expressionless face twisted with hatred accumulated over long years. At the sudden noise, Sir Aran opened the door a crack, peered inside, and hastily shut it again.

“That isn't fair! If he gets to live, what does that make Mother? She was sold off to a man she didn't love, bore him a daughter, and died of some horrible disease...”

As though the mask she'd forced herself to wear had fallen away, Sherin poured out her fury, then clutched at her sea-dark blue hair as if to tear it out. It was the self-harming behavior of someone unable to master their emotions.

Shan now understood exactly what Roden had meant by her unstable condition. As if something suppressed for years had finally reached its limit and burst, she had lost control of herself. She hadn't been like this even when she confessed to killing her nurse.

“Please calm down, Your Highness.”

“Just imagining it is horrifying. Filthy! To think the seed I came from was something crawling with those germs...”

Shan listened quietly to her muttering, then laid his hands over hers. He pressed firmly on particular spots, loosening her grip.

“Ah!”

“You'll pull all your hair out like that. I know, because the hydra's venom left me bald. I'd always thought about shaving mine off because trimming it was such a nuisance, but once it was actually gone, I really missed it.”

And hers wasn't plain black hair like his. Wouldn't it be a shame to lose hair such a beautiful color?

Perhaps soothed a little by his words, Sherin let her hands fall rather than clutching at her hair again. Then, without warning, she threw her arms tightly around Shan, who had stepped close to release her hands, and buried her face in his chest.

“Oh.”

“Just a moment. Just for a little while...”

At that moment, Sherin was neither an ambitious leader commanding a faction despite her youth nor a brilliant mage. She was simply a teenage girl, desperate for release from the hurt and hatred she'd carried since childhood.

Shan could understand something of how she felt. There had been times in the barn in Willow Village when he'd wanted to hold someone, anyone, and share their warmth.

Only the crackle of logs in the fireplace and the sound of sobbing filled the office.

* * *

Giselle III, King of Pendia.

As the previous king's younger brother, he had originally stood little chance of inheriting the throne. Unless, that is, something as absurd as his brother and all his brother's children losing their lives were to happen.

Of course, as his eventual accession made clear, that absurdity had actually come to pass.

A carriage overturning with its passenger inside. Someone ceasing to breathe in their sleep. A monster attack during a hunt...

After a succession of unfortunate accidents, any one of which might conceivably have happened, extinguished the previous king's bloodline, the newly crowned Giselle III faced immense condemnation. Who could have been more suspicious than the king's younger brother, who had held the title of count palatine as chief steward of the royal household?

Several lords rebelled, declaring that they would not stand by and let a usurper and kinslayer sit upon the throne. The king responded with a variety of schemes to overcome these difficulties.

First, he married the daughter of Duke Ranpel, a great western lord, binding the duke to him by marriage. He recruited the legendary knight who would later become Marquis Abel and used him to purge his opponents. He married a princess from the Kingdom of Luman across the sea to keep the southern lords in check. And he asserted his might by intimidating the notoriously independent Pales region with military force and carrying off the count's daughter...

He actually welcomed the prospect of the princes born to his various queens becoming sources of conflict. The more divided and opposed his subjects were, the stronger his own power to favor one side or the other became.

In other words, he bore a considerable share of responsibility for Pendia's present condition.

Naturally, the people of Pales, who had suffered at his hands, had no reason to like him. Yet even they could not help wavering when Pendia's rightful king recovered and ordered their faction dissolved. Such was the power of legitimacy possessed by a royal house that had endured for centuries.

Amid the commotion in the Pales court's council chamber, their leader, Princess Sherin, finally appeared. As she surveyed the assembled retainers, her face showed not a trace of her earlier distress. With her appearance mature beyond her years and her heavy makeup, she looked fiercer and more resolute than any male ruler.

At her side stood Lord Guardian Shan Barendil, the kingdom's strongest knight, who had recently slain the hydra. The mere sight of the two standing together soon calmed the bewildered retainers.

Once some order had returned, Sherin, who had been silently surveying them, went straight to the matter at hand.

“You will all have heard that His Majesty the King, my royal father, has sent a letter.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

Kladek, Count Pales, answered as the highest-ranking retainer present. Sherin acknowledged her maternal uncle with thanks, then addressed those around her again.

“My father has ordered our factions dissolved. He has named Elvin, who cured him, his rightful successor, and instructed Conrad and me to return all troops under our command and subjugate Duke Morayen. But... is this truly his will?”

At her next words, the retainers understood how Sherin meant to overcome this crisis. In a compelling voice, she impressed her position upon them.

“My father has lost every means of defending himself and is effectively Elvin's prisoner. We cannot give weight to a letter written under such circumstances. I shall therefore regard this demand for dissolution as Elvin's unilateral claim and reject it.”

She went on to declare that she would obey the king's orders only when he was safe from Elvin's influence—in other words, under her protection—so that his true wishes could be conveyed. This also meant that she intended to build her strength and crush Elvin's faction.

Of course, if Giselle III ever truly came under Sherin's protection, he would find himself in a state worse than death. Both his daughter, their leader, and the people of this land hated him.

“Well said!”

“Long live Princess Sherin!”

“For our young lady!”

Given a plausible excuse to defy the king's wishes without rebelling against him, the retainers cheered. A few among them were, in fact, reluctant to oppose the royal house, but they could not express it. In this land, the name of Miss Aste's daughter carried more authority than the lecherous king.

All the people wanted was a leader who would declare without hesitation that they would fight.

“Moving on to the next matter, Viscount Treva has expressed a wish to establish friendly communications with us. He is due to arrive at the castle tomorrow with the hunting party, so I intend to settle our position beforehand.”

“Might His Majesty's proclamation change his mind?”

“We shall have to discuss that when we meet tomorrow.”

“Would cooperation with the viscount benefit us? We would be in a difficult position if his lands were attacked. Unlike Pales, his domain is exposed to the outside, is it not?”

“The Kanzen Wetlands are difficult terrain for invaders. We simply never pursued closer relations because of their isolationist tendencies and the difficulty of travel, but under present circumstances, I believe cooperation would bring more benefits than drawbacks. For instance, among the magical plants we can cultivate using the hydra materials we acquired, some grow only in swamps...”

Brimming with confidence, Sherin led the meeting and held her retainers firmly in her grasp. As the discussion moved from cooperation with Viscount Treva to the distribution of hydra-hide armor and the uses of the magic stone, the retainers, too, abandoned their initial unease. Her treatment of the king's dissolution order as something of no consequence naturally swept them along.

Several hours later, after declaring the meeting concluded, Sherin walked down the corridor with Shan.

“Thank you for your hard work.”

“All I did was stand beside you and look intimidating.”

“And that helped enormously. I probably couldn't have managed it on my own.”

After holding Shan and crying endlessly in her office, Sherin had felt something within her wash away. Her hatred for her father remained unchanged, but she could now contain it more steadily instead of lashing out indiscriminately.

She had thought depending on others could only make her weak. Yet having something in her heart to lean on made her feel stronger instead.

Suddenly remembering how she had buried her face in Shan's chest, Sherin changed the subject in embarrassment.

“Oh, I'd forgotten. You had some astonishing experience while hunting the hydra, didn't you? Roden said I should hear it from you directly. What happened?”

“Oh, that.”

He had meant to tell her as soon as they met, but somehow it had been pushed aside.

“What?! Why are you only telling me this now...?”

As expected, Sherin took a great interest in the unusual magical patterns carved into the hydra's body and the vision Shan had seen. Her reaction was so like Roden's that he couldn't help smiling a little.

Although the account of Emperor Baren, who could be called her ancestor, also intrigued her considerably, she showed even greater interest in the Alto Empire.

“Perhaps the people of the Alto Empire were developing techniques to control monsters.”

“You think so?”

“If they were researching ways to enchant monsters' bodies, it's hard to imagine another purpose. If we could find some clue to it... Hmm. Perhaps it's too late now.”

She had already heard that the city where the owner of A Thousand Forms had lived had been burned by the crusaders. Judging by the circumstances, the monsters had probably been confined in the same place, so there would be little chance of finding any traces.

Seeing her disappointment, Shan brought up what he had been meaning to tell her.

“Actually, I wanted to talk about that. The facility where the monsters were kept might still be intact. I'm not certain, but it was some distance from the city. It was underground, too, so I doubt it would have been easy for anyone to notice.”

“Really?!”

Sherin's head whipped around so fast it looked as though it might snap. It was exactly the reaction one would expect from a mage hearing that an unexcavated Altoan ruin lay close at hand.