The Answer That Wasn't Love

It was a truly pathetic story.

Betrayed by the one she loved—her heart literally torn in two—and yet she had been able to forgive him. That was what she was saying?

"So what exactly is the Child of the Red Crystal?"

Daisy asked again. She had no desire to hear any more of this idiotic love story.

"That's something you must discover for yourself."

"I have to discover it myself?"

"Yes. That is all I can tell you."

Daisy stared straight at the Archmage. It was absurd—tales she should never have shared had poured out of the woman unbidden, yet the one thing Daisy truly wanted to know was withheld.

But the Archmage's face held both a look of relief and one of desolation.

"Then what happens now? There's no way to kill you by human means, so does this end only if you kill me?"

Killing a magician was impossible, and since she wanted nothing more than for all of this to be over, there was no other question to ask. She had plenty of other curiosities, but with death staring her in the face, unraveling them would serve no purpose.

"That depends on your answer."

The Archmage was still answering in riddles.

"What answer?"

"What have you staked your life for? No one who does not truly offer up their life could ever have made it this far alive."

The question caught her off guard.

"That's the question?"

"Yes."

Daisy asked, "Did you ask my grandmother the same thing?"

"I did. I ask everyone who comes here."

"And what did my grandmother say?"

Daisy's grandmother was the only knight in the empire ever to have passed the 7 Nights, yet she had never once spoken of what happened in that forest. Not even the fact that the Archmage dwelled in the depths of the lake.

"That I cannot tell you. It is a secret between that knight and me alone."

The Archmage smiled, genuinely amused.

Was this a question with a right answer? Somehow, she didn't seem to have thrown out a question that had one at all.

Should she tell the lie—that it was for the empire and its people? Or should she say it was to protect the one she loved?

Neither would be a complete lie. She did want to survive the 7 Nights and bring peace to the empire. She wanted to solidify Franz's standing, wanted him never to suffer for it. All the more when she thought of how the Archduke had pressed at him for exactly that reason.

But that hadn't been the decisive reason she'd come to this forest.

Fists clenched tight, Daisy looked squarely at the Archmage, whose expression had turned one of keen interest.

"I was jealous."

"Jealous?"

The Archmage's voice lifted at the enthralling answer.

"Yes. Rather than spend my whole life yearning for something I could never have, I wanted to leave an unforgivable wound in that person's heart and disappear. I wanted him to remember me that way, forever. That's why I came here. Not for some grand purpose like serving the empire—I came here simply to die."

She was curious how this woman, betrayed by love, would react to such an answer.

"And yet you didn't die. If you came here to die, you could simply have left your sword behind."

"No. I couldn't. I searched for the answer all seven days, but I never found it."

"I see.... So you threw your life away to wound the one you love. How touching."

"...."

"I do not ordinarily grant the wishes of humans. But you are special, so I will grant yours."

The Archmage brought up the subject of a wish entirely out of nowhere.

"I've never made one."

Daisy hadn't been able to follow anything the Archmage had said for a while now.

"And so, Child of the Red Crystal—never trust in love. Never allow yourself to be betrayed, either. Simply let what you believe carry you forward."

Leaving those incomprehensible words behind her to the very end, the Archmage smiled—and vanished like smoke.

The moment she disappeared, water began flooding into Daisy's nose and mouth. Instinctively, she kicked out, scrambling to escape the lake.

What on earth did she mean, don't trust in love?

But her body refused to rise. She said she'd grant my wish—what good would that do if I drowned right here!

The instant she began sinking down again, endlessly, Daisy came face to face with someone in the depths of the lake.

Someone who had no reason to be here—who should not be here at all.

Franz was swimming toward her, fast. His face dark with fury.

Why is he here? Why is he making that face?

No one was supposed to be able to enter this place.

Franz's mouth moved in the water, shaping words she couldn't make out. Before she could collect herself, the current surged, spinning into a whirlpool.

Franz seized Daisy's hand in a rough grip, and at that very moment the two of them were swept away by the water together.

Then Daisy lost consciousness.

◇◇◇◆◇◇◇

When she opened her eyes, she saw a familiar ceiling.

A high ceiling covered in intricate geometric patterns. And from the smell of hay, this had to be the castle of House Matheus.

Her own room, in the castle where they always stayed when they rode north to hunt down demonic beasts. Daisy frowned. She couldn't remember how she had come to be lying here.

She had entered the lake in the Forest of Illusions, met the Archmage there, and then—

Franz!

Daisy shot upright. Franz had been there—she was certain of it. She couldn't understand how, or why, but he had.

Her astonishment quickly gave way to calm.

Already up, she rolled her shoulders, testing them. Strange—her body felt heavy, and she had the odd sensation of having lost something. She didn't know what it was, and she didn't care to find out. Oddly, nothing stirred in her, no will to do anything at all. There was nothing she could do but sit there, blank and still.

She sat that way for a long while, mind empty, until a thought finally surfaced: did being here mean she had survived?

Did it mean she had lived through the Forest of Illusions and passed the 7 Nights?

It was hard to believe, but every circumstance said it was so.

Though people called her the finest knight in the empire, Daisy had never once imagined she could follow in her grandmother's footsteps. Alpina Rainer's skill and renown were that legendary.

And yet she had survived the Forest of Illusions.

Strangely, she felt nothing. Somehow, it was as though her heart had simply settled, heavy and low.

She couldn't understand how she had gotten out of the forest, or how she'd been brought all the way here. Could Franz have carried her here?

As she looked around the room, the door opened, and Franz walked in carrying a steaming bowl.

"You're awake."

He crossed the room quickly, sat on the edge of the bed, and set the bowl down on the nightstand.

"What is the meaning of this, Your Majesty? Why are you here?"

Daisy asked slowly.

"You're asking me that when you already know."

Franz's expression hardened at her question.

"What in the world possessed you to enter the Forest of Illusions without a word? I forbade anyone from entering the forest, and you defied my will as if it meant nothing. You are my knight, sworn to protect me. Have you any idea what it does to the people left behind when you vanish with nothing but a single letter?"

Franz went on in an agitation uncharacteristic of him.

"What were you thinking, pulling a stunt like that? Answer me. Were you trying to die?"

And to Daisy, who gave no answer, he asked, coldly, "Yes."

"What?"

Fury burned in Franz's eyes as he stared at her, as if she were beyond belief. When Franz raged, even Daisy had usually felt fear. But she, who would once have watched his every mood, stated only the plain facts, flat and brief.

"You meant to die?"

"I did."

"Why."

"I don't really know myself. I could bear Your Majesty marrying another woman. But it seems I couldn't accept the fact that the two of you had come to love each other in truth—and that you'd conceived a child."

Looking him straight in the eye, Daisy confessed the feeling she had hidden her entire life, holding nothing back. She had loved him, but she had never imagined becoming anything to him, never wanted such a thing. And how could anyone presume to confess their heart to the Emperor himself?

It was a feeling she had meant to keep to herself for the rest of her days. She had hurled herself into the Forest of Illusions out of resentment for him—and still, she had never intended to confess it.

At her words, Franz's brow twitched. She couldn't tell whether it was displeasure at her presumptuous confession—or something else.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

he asked, his voice low.

"I believe you already understand, Your Majesty."

Daisy met his gaze without a flicker of wavering.

"...Why bring that feeling out into the open now?"

Daisy let out a small sigh.

"So you did know all along, Your Majesty."

"...."

"You should have kept pretending not to. You never had any intention of accepting it."

"...."

"But it doesn't matter anymore. I can't be hurt by it now. What I'm telling you is a feeling that no longer exists."

Daisy said it without a trace of emotion. It was Franz who reeled from the shock.

"...What did you say?"

"Before Your Majesty dove in, I saw a woman in that lake. She said she was the Archmage. I believe she was the magician who supposedly helped found the Lowes Empire."

"A magician?"

"Yes. I thought it strange when she offered to grant a wish I'd never made, but it seems she truly was the Archmage. After all, a wish I never even knew I had came true."

Daisy's silver hair shimmered in the lamplight.

"I feel nothing at all now, when I face Your Majesty. Nothing."

It was a lie too impossible to believe. Franz searched Daisy's black eyes as though hunting for the truth. But those deep eyes held no tremor, no falsehood of any kind. Only the shadow cast by her long lashes fell beneath them.

"My feelings for you vanished overnight? All of them?"

"Yes. Nothing remains in me but my loyalty to Your Majesty. If you permit it, I will remain your knight as I always have. There will be nothing more to trouble you, nothing to displease you."

Daisy rose from the bed and knelt on one knee upon the floor.

"But as I always have, I will serve Your Majesty for the rest of my life."

The oath of loyalty from the knight who survived the Forest of Illusions.

Yet Franz could not hear it. On the surface he appeared composed, but the fingertips of the man standing over her had begun to tremble.

Only those words—that she felt nothing for him now, nothing at all—echoed on and on in his ears, like a ringing that would not stop.