Two Whales
When he saw her head bob in a nod, he let go. They sat one behind the other, both of them staring straight ahead, and Evelynn, awkward in the silence, kept worrying the trailing edge of her veil between her fingers.
It was the first time she had seen her husband's face since that night. She was certain she had fallen asleep facedown... Had he carried her to the bed? Heat rushed into her cheeks.
"What are you doing? Out here, in the dead of night."
He spoke as if nothing at all had happened, easy and unconcerned, then picked up the book lying beside her.
"Dark Illusioncraft, is it."
Ilya's expression was difficult to read.
"You want to kill someone? The one you want dead... it isn't me, is it?"
Evelynn cried out, startled.
"What? Absolutely not! How could you think such a thing?"
She tried to rise, but a hand pressed her shoulder down from behind, and she sank back into her seat.
A large hand pushed in beneath the veil without warning. Rough fingers brushed her chin, her cheek, and at last the corner of her eye, gentle despite their coarseness. She was so astonished that for a moment she forgot even to breathe.
"Not crying, today."
The hand that had come in so freely withdrew beyond the veil once more.
"He said he means to take you away."
At those words Evelynn, who had been sitting there lost, came back to herself.
"Who? Odin Mardus?"
"Yes. Your brother. You knew that, too?"
"I never heard it outright, but... I thought it would come to that."
Evelynn smiled, bitter.
He's the one about to be sold off to the east in my place...
Odin's pride would never let him swallow a thing like that. Picturing that arrogant face twisting out of shape, she felt, somehow, rather cheerful.
It was then that a creak sounded behind her, and a shadow fell across the space in front.
Ilya went down on one knee and looked up at her. Unlike himself, he hesitated a long while.
"You... the Marquis. Did he, perhaps..."
He swore under his breath, then roughly tore the veil from her head. At the sight of her husband's face twisted into something terrible, her heart seemed to shrivel.
"Did Father... do something to you again? Something cruel?"
"It's not... that."
He could not bear the moist eyes fixed on him, and so Ilya dropped his gaze. A woman's white hand, bare of any glove, came into view. His brow furrowed, and he caught her by the wrist.
"A mess."
Cuts thin as threads scored the white fingers here and there, and a scar gouged deep into the palm.
Flustered, Evelynn quickly closed her fist, trying to hide her fingers.
"They're... ugly, aren't they?"
The old scars, long since healed, were probably the little one's doing. The wounds that had not yet closed—those he had made himself, that night.
And as if that were not enough, this foolish woman... working illusion magic with these hands of hers... without a shred of fear.
"Do you know that sometimes you're braver than any of my knights?"
She seemed to take it for a joke in poor taste, and let out a short breath of laughter.
Ilya gazed down at the scarred hand for a long moment, then slowly bowed his head.
And he buried his face in his wife's palm, just as it was. Hair dark as the night sky spilled across her hand.
"Ilya."
As if spellbound, Evelynn reached out with her free hand. The sleek hair she had always longed to touch wound once around her fingers, then slipped away.
Remembering the Evelynn Mardus of twenty, the girl who had dreamed of love, she smiled through a quiet ache.
Ilya lifted his face from her hand and rose. He thrust one hand out toward her.
His hand? Why... Evelynn only stared at him, blank.
"Never been escorted before?"
At the gruff question she broke into a shy, bright smile and quickly laid her own hand over his large one.
They came out of the chapel hand in hand, the way any ordinary husband and wife might. The knights standing guard outside rubbed their eyes, wondering if they were seeing ghosts.
"Doesn't the weather feel a little warmer?"
"Mm. Winter's nearly over."
Hand in hand, they walked the narrow path that led to the Annex. Evelynn stole a look at his profile from the corner of her eye and flushed.
On their wedding day she had seen him for the first time from within a white veil. He was so very tall that all she had been able to make out was the sharp line of his jaw.
I've never seen a man this handsome. He doesn't seem human.
She had fallen in love that day. When the war ended and her husband came home safe... her wish had been to walk just like this, their hands joined. Together with the child soon to be born.
Evelynn tightened her grip, only a little. Walking beneath a night sky pouring down with stars, holding the hand of the man she had loved at first sight, felt exactly like a dream. But this was neither a dream nor an illusion she had made alone.
This... is enough.
Even if, before long, she had to part from him and leave this place, she thought she would be all right so long as she could remember tonight.
They had not walked far before they reached the Annex. Ilya let go of her hand.
"It's late. Go to sleep."
"You're not sleeping here?"
"I'm riding out at dawn. A band of orcs raided a village."
Tonight he was truly strange. Holding hands the way other couples did, sharing the small shape of an ordinary day... All of it was new to her, and she had no idea what she was meant to say to her husband.
After a moment Evelynn found something, and asked.
"Is Sir Naz going with you?"
"No. The knight commander has to stay and hold the castle."
She knew, if only dimly, how heavily duty weighed on him. His office was always crowded with vassals and knights, strategists, master craftsmen—every sort of person. Inspecting the domain, drilling the soldiers against barbarian raids: all of it fell to Ilya, as lord. And on top of that, revenge against House Mardus.
If it were me, I would have quit playing lord ages ago.
Evelynn looked at him with eyes full of awe.
"Why are you staring like that?"
"Your Grace, when you come back... I'll make you two whales."
"What?"
At the utterly unexpected remark, Ilya burst into a great, unguarded laugh.
"Sleeping outdoors is such a hardship. When you return you'll need proper rest, but you can't sleep, so... you do like whales."
"You really are—hahaha!"
He laughed until he folded at the waist. Evelynn went blank before a side of him she had never seen.
How splendid he was when he laughed! Those fiercely drawn eyes curved soft, and the blue of them spilled light like ripples racing outward.
"I'll look forward to it. Two whales."
Evelynn watched his retreating back for a long while, then ran inside.
"Your Grace, just when are you planning to come back? It's already been a week—you said five days would be plenty!"
Naz was groaning again today, buried under a mountain of paperwork.
The door banged open, and a guard came rushing into the commander's office.
"Commander! Odin Mardus has just reached the castle gate."
Naz's head snapped up.
"Why is that bastard here already?"
Tearing at his hair, Naz muttered to himself.
"Of all times, now, while His Grace is away from the castle... Did the wretch come now on purpose?"
A commotion rose by the door. Senior knights, having heard that the heir of Mardus had arrived, came pouring into the office.
"Commander, they say the armed force numbers forty at the least."
"His Grace isn't even here. Let them in and have a clash break out..."
"Leave them standing outside the gate, and that's a problem of its own!"
"As if the Black Forest Knights would be afraid of scum like that!"
Naz, who had been listening to the knights argue back and forth, spoke with finality.
"We go to the gate first. And send word to the mage—that red-haired bastard. Tell him to get out here."
With Naz at their head, the knights drove their horses like a storm. As the wall drew near they slowed. A sentry who had been watching the field from atop the rampart came running out in a hurry to meet them.
"Commander!"
He led them forward to the parapet, from which the ground outside lay open below.
Naz leaned out and looked. The men wrapped head to toe in long monastic robes numbered, even at a rough count, more than forty. Worse, the bulges at their waists suggested that every one of them was wearing a longsword.
Anxiety tight in his throat, Naz swallowed.
"Did those bastards really come here to make a war?"
The senior knights who had followed him shouted toward the outside.
"Monastic robes! And here I thought the Holy Knights had shown up."
"Seems they know they'd be stoned to death, swaggering around the north in Mardus colors. Ptui."
The knights mocked the men without the slightest attempt to hide it. Naz's face hardened; he raised one hand, and in an instant the noise around him died.
"Show your faces, and state your allegiance."
At Naz's call, a man on a white horse slowly rode forward.
He lowered the hood of his robe, and blond hair spilled free, blazing in the sunlight.
Full siblings, they said... He really is the image of the lady. So why is that face so damned unpleasant?
Odin Mardus spoke in a calm, even voice.
"I am Odin Mardus, second son of the Marquisate of Mardus. Evelynn Mardus, wife of the Archduke of Azantis, is my younger sister."
When he raised one hand, the men in monastic robes uncovered their faces all at once.
As Naz's gaze traveled over those faces, a ripple passed through his eyes. Why is that woman there? The black-haired beauty who met his look winked, playful.
A huge man at the very rear flung high a banner he had kept hidden inside his robe. What snapped in the wind was a priest crowned in blue—the banner of Mardus.
"I should think this sufficient to confirm who we are."
The eyes of the Black Forest Knights flared blood-red. Senior knights to a man, every one of them had marched in the Tatar campaign. Here, of all places—how dare they. An enemy banner flying in the north set their blood boiling.
"Commander, are we just going to stand and watch? That damned flag ought to be torn to shreds this instant!"
"Where do they think this is? I'll go myself!"
Naz broke into a cold sweat, struggling to hold back knights who looked ready to kill.