Do Not Come Out

I said it with a low laugh, but Lina gave no answer at all. Puzzled that she should stay so quiet, I turned my head—and found she could not bring herself to smile at what I had said.

"Lina?"

I called her name, startled, and she stared at me with a face full of hurt.

"The Duke is truly awful."

And then, all at once, the tears began to fall.

"Why, why would he do this to such a beautiful princess...? His Grace is truly wicked. Not one outing, not a single time—he has never once taken you out. What kind of engagement is this?"

Oh no. I was only joking.

She had taken it so hard that I could only manage an awkward, helpless smile. I hurried to draw a handkerchief from my bodice and held it out to her.

"There now, dry your tears. It was only a formal engagement anyway, wasn't it?"

"Even so, he didn't have to treat you so coldly! He was truly awful!"

Lina dabbed at her eyes with the handkerchief and spoke in a sulky rush. Well, she had watched over me from the very day the betrothal was made. She had always known how coldly I was treated, and she had disliked Alpheus for it; seeing me leave the ducal estate today before an hour had even passed must have wounded her deeply.

"I'm all right. Don't you dare say things like that where anyone else can hear. There would be terrible trouble."

I soothed her gently, and she sniffled, wiping her tears, then blurted out a question.

"Your Highness, do you want to marry the Duke?"

"Marry?"

"Yes. It's just that, lately, His Majesty has been starting to..."

"You're right. Father has been pressing me about marriage, little by little."

Of late he had asked me more than once what I thought of it.

"Would you truly be all right, marrying the Duke like this?"

She seemed worried that I would have to marry Alpheus without love.

"Whether I want to or not, I will. What does my will matter in any of this?"

"Still, if you spoke to His Majesty just once..."

"Father is waiting for this marriage more eagerly than anyone."

I shook my head.

He was already desperate to crush the nobles of the Aristocratic Faction, the bloc forever raising itself against the imperial house. He would never let Alpheus go—not when he had already fastened shackles on him in the name of an engagement.

"We've known each other a long time, so of course talk of marriage was bound to come up. Still... it's already been seven years."

I had been fifteen. Alpheus had been eighteen, the year he lost the late duke and duchess. Neither of us had understood a thing when we were betrothed. Father had not missed his chance. Alpheus, reeling from his parents' deaths and suddenly raised to the dukedom, had been lost in the confusion, and Father had seen that chaos as the perfect opportunity. He had engaged us at once.

"It's been such a long time."

Seven years of this betrothal, stretching on and on. Alpheus disliked me so thoroughly that I had been sure we would be parted within a year, and yet somehow we had walked those seven years side by side.

"Marriage..."

I tried to imagine what we would look like if we wed, and I could not. What would a wedding change in a bond we had kept so barren all this time?

I was still turning that over when Lina asked me something else.

"Your Highness, if you could marry by your own choice... would you want to marry the Duke?"

The question caught me off guard. I blinked, thought for a moment, and answered.

"If I had to marry someone, I would want it to be Alpheus."

"But the Duke—!"

"Lina."

I cut her off and smiled. The words felt awkward in my mouth, so I pressed the tips of my fingers together, worrying them, and smiled again.

"You know, don't you? How much I like Alpheus."

From the first moment I saw him, I had fallen as if the feeling had been branded into me. Even if he did not care for me, a single small gesture from him was enough to set my heart racing, to wound me, to undo me entirely.

"Your Highness..."

Lina looked at me with sorrow in her face. She had watched me weep and laugh at her side through all these years, and whenever I laid my heart bare she seemed to hurt more than I did.

I was smiling back at her when it happened.

A crash.

"What was that just now?"

Something slammed outside, hard.

Then came a grinding shriek as the wheels tore against the ground, and Lina and I clapped our hands over our ears and screamed.

"Aaaah!"

The carriage lurched wildly, unable to find its balance.

From outside, Sir Cedric was shouting at me to stay inside. Something had happened out there.

Who is he fighting?

The carriage bucked and shook as if it had gone mad, and that was almost beside the point—I could hear blades striking.

Still heaving, the carriage suddenly tipped onto its side. It toppled to the left, and a heap of heavy luggage stacked in the corner came crashing down over me.

"Ngh—!"

Pinned beneath the pile, I curled in on myself with a groan. Lina, seated by the opposite door, had fortunately not been buried, but she was hurt as well; her voice shook.

"Y-Your Highness, what do we do? Heavens. Bl-blood—there's blood— Your Highness! Are you all right? What do I do, what do I do...!"

As if being crushed when the carriage flipped were not enough, I seemed to have struck my head hard against the window. Blood was running.

"I'm all righ—"

My whole body throbbed so badly I could not move, but I forced the words out for her sake. They never reached her.

"Your Highness!"

As if everything until that moment had been some cruel joke, the carriage overturned with violent force. The world went black. In that darkness, I closed my eyes.

My vision was a blur. Only after I blinked again and again did it grudgingly find a focus.

"...I think I'm going to be sick."

My stomach rolled. I had eaten almost nothing, and still I wanted to heave it all up. Worse, my head hurt so badly I thought I might die.

"What on earth happened?"

I ran my tongue over my parched lips and called out.

"Lina? Sir Cedric?"

"Sir Eden? Sir Jose?"

I named the knights one by one in a voice scraped utterly raw. No one answered.

Is my voice too quiet?

I could see nothing of the outside, and I had no way even to guess what had happened. Worse still, the luggage crushing me left me unable to move at all. I could not stay like this. After a moment's hesitation I set myself to shoving the baggage aside.

"I'm going to die..."

Merely shifting the weight that pinned my upper body drained every ounce of strength I had.

"What is this? Blood?"

I touched my head without thinking, and when I drew my hand away it came back wet. The moment I understood that I was bleeding, my head went light and my strengthless waist folded of its own accord. Truly—too much, past anything I had words for—my head hurt.

"...Ah. My head."

Had I ever hurt like this in my life? It pounded as if it would split, and my arms, my legs, my whole body began to throb beyond anything I had felt only moments before.

"I have to get out of here."

I could not remain trapped in the carriage. I clenched my teeth and began to shove aside the luggage blocking my way, piece by piece. My arms had no strength in them and it was not easy, but once I had forced the largest piece clear, the rest came a little more readily.

"The entrance."

How many times I repeated the same motion, I could not say. At last I saw the opening. With everything I had left, I crawled toward it. The moment I had hauled half my body out, I froze in horror.

"This can't be."

A short distance from the carriage lay the coachman and the knights, already cold corpses. In that instant I forgot the pain. I leapt down and limped toward them as fast as I could. The sight stole the words from my mouth.

I did not know whose doing it was, but the knights' bellies had been torn open, their entrails laid bare, and several were missing parts of their bodies altogether.

"Urgh—"

The stench of blood was overwhelming. They looked as if wild beasts had torn into them, and the nausea rose in me unbidden. I barely held it down, and swallowed the tears that tried to spill.

"...What in the world happened here?"

I felt I might faint at any moment. I forced my trembling hands still, took off my outer cloak, laid it over them, and turned away.

"This isn't the time to shake. I have to find people. Quickly—quickly."

The trouble was that I had no idea where I was. The carriage wheels were gone, and there were signs it had rolled; it seemed to have come tumbling from somewhere in the forest. The helplessness lasted only a moment. I had just resolved to walk, and was about to take a slow step, when a mutter reached my ear.

"Ghhh..."

A human groan.

But... do people usually sound like that?

It was strangely like the cry of a beast, and a chill ran down my spine—but I hurried toward the sound, limping as fast as I could.

"Good heavens. Lina?"

The familiar maid's uniform was a relief for only a heartbeat. The moment I saw that something was badly wrong with her, I broke into a run.

"Lina, are you all right?!"

She was leaning against a tree. The instant I seized her shoulders, I could not contain my horror. There was not a sound place on Lina's face. It was mottled red, as if something had raked her; bruises covered her body, and her hair was soaked in blood.

"What is this? What happened?"

In that state she could not even open her eyes properly. All she could do was let her head nod weakly and let out a groan now and then. I kept speaking to her, trying to wake her, and at last she mumbled and her eyes opened.

"Y-Your Highness?"

The moment she came to, relief dropped me to my knees.

"Are you all right? Are you with me?"

"Your Highness..."

Her voice was as ruined as mine. The pity of it brought tears to my eyes unbidden. It was all my fault. I had insisted we go out to the outskirts, and because of that the knights were dead and Lina was gravely hurt.

"I'm right here."

I caught her fumbling hand and held it tight—she seemed to be searching for me—but with what little strength she had left, Lina pushed me away.

"Run... please. R... un... please."

"What are you saying?"

Perhaps she was not truly conscious yet. She only repeated the same words, and then her body went slack. I shook my head and took her face in my hands.

"No, Lina. Don't say that. All right? Stay with me."

She gave no answer.

"We have to go back... together..."

Lina remained half-bowed, staring blankly, and as I slowly forced the words out a strange unease took hold of me.

Lina's eyes.

In that pitch-dark forest, her half-open eyes.

...Were they always yellow?

They were yellow, like the eyes of a beast. Goosebumps had already risen thick along my arms, and instinct was just pulling me backward when—