The Emperor's Matchmaking
“The first Grand Duke of House Esdelheim possessed a supernatural gift known as a divine blessing. With god-given strength he swept the enemies from the battlefield and raised the very pillars of the palace you stand in now. That is how he became Grand Duke.”
The Emperor read the flicker of interest that crossed Ervan's face. His expressionless features remained impassive, but the Emperor, having confirmed that the man was unsettled, spoke again.
“The next generation's head could teleport. He knew no other magic, but that one gift alone let him go anywhere he wished.”
“Teleportation... you say, Your Majesty?”
“He used that power every single day. He adored his wife, they say. The moment his duties at the palace ended, he raced home faster than anyone. By teleportation.”
It was a hard story to believe. Ervan posed a careful question.
“As I understand it, the Grand Duchess has an older brother. He is called the Young Duke, is he not?”
“The current Grand Duke holds no gift.”
The Emperor cut in sharply.
“Look back one generation, two — it was never only the eldest son or the family head who inherited the gift. The divine blessing of Esdelheim is granted to one person among the Esdelheims.”
The Emperor's suspicion that Laila possessed a gift was a reasonable one. Having heard the story, Ervan had arrived at the same thought himself.
And yet there was one thing in the Emperor's words he could not agree with.
For the Grand Duchess, the gift she was given is no divine blessing.
Ervan recalled his first impression of Laila. The sight of her driving herself relentlessly toward perfection had seemed as precarious as walking on thin ice.
Everyone makes mistakes. But Laila, gifted with the power to be perfect, behaved like someone who had never learned how to err.
Watching her cling to that flawless image like a compulsion, Ervan had felt, somehow, a pang of pity for her.
“I have no intention of belittling the Grand Duchess's efforts. Even today she arrived with those lovely hands torn to shreds. She must have practiced her archery for days on end.”
“That is correct. Even her grip on the bow has changed noticeably.”
Ervan affirmed it, and the Emperor tossed out a question.
“Viscount. If this generation's gift was granted to the Grand Duchess, what do you suppose it is? The power that makes that child so utterly perfect.”
Ervan found himself at a loss for words. He had never considered it, nor did he particularly wish to know. But the Emperor's mind was working along different lines.
“Luck that wards off all misfortune? Or foresight — the ability to glimpse what the future holds?”
Ervan's eyes wavered, ever so slightly. The Emperor did not miss that reaction.
“Think on it. Consider how much it would benefit the Empire if that gift were used for Jim.”
At some point the Emperor had risen from his seat. He came close and pressed a heavy hand on Ervan's shoulder.
“You are a subject of Jim, your loyal Emperor. You will manage it. Won't you?”
Without so much as entertaining the possibility of refusal, without even waiting to hear his answer, the Emperor flashed a benevolent smile.
“Seeing you two today, Viscount, you and the Grand Duchess suit each other remarkably well. The bandage wrapped around her hand — that was your handiwork, I take it?”
“Your Majesty—”
“And I was deeply impressed by how much more aristocratic your table manners have become.”
“...”
The Emperor had seen everything. Ervan ground his teeth.
“Jim, too, grieves that your humble birth draws contempt from the other nobles. So your marriage partner ought to be the most perfect noble there is.”
“I am fond of the Grand Duchess. That much is true. But I am not yet thinking of marriage.”
“A common thing in noble society. Marriage first, affection after — that is the usual way of it.”
The Emperor had no intention of listening. At last, his proposal fell like a sentence passed.
“Jim shall arrange the match between the two of you.”
“Laila, you came home rather late yesterday.”
Laila looked up. The man sitting across from her, wetting his throat with an aperitif, was her dear older brother, Kyle.
Golden hair of a paler shade than hers, blue eyes, and a face that seemed gentle at a glance — the very picture of a well-bred young lord. But Laila had known since childhood.
That Kyle did not like her.
“Princess Ariel invited me to dinner, so I dined with His Majesty the Emperor.”
“I see. I heard about the Princess inviting you to dinner as well. However—”
The tips of Laila's fingers stiffened. Kyle's tender voice never failed to put her on edge.
Kyle smiled.
“It isn't a pretty sight, a lady wandering about late at night.”
At his mild, lecturing tone, the Grand Duke and the Grand Duchess, sharing breakfast alongside them, beamed with contented smiles.
Laila quietly set down her fork.
“The Princess lent me her own carriage. I only finished the meal and came straight home from the palace, nothing more.”
Whenever she spoke with Kyle, Laila noticed how her words grew unusually long.
Kyle, playing the part of the affectionate brother, always used concern as a pretext to cut her down, and so she kept adding words in a reflexive effort to defend herself.
“Of course, we naturally think no such thing.”
“...”
“Our perfect Laila would never do anything like that, would she?”
Laila's chest tightened. It was a familiar feeling, and yet one she could never quite grow used to.
“But I wonder — will everyone else think so too?”
Kyle, pretending to worry for her sake, wore the mask of a doting older brother. But Laila knew his hidden heart all too well.
Kyle set down his aperitif glass with a light clink and went on.
“You know as well as I do — high society is cruel.”
“...”
“A newly minted Grand Duchess, barely of age, dining at the palace and coming home late... And—”
From the moment Kyle had opened his mouth, Laila had been unable to touch a single bite of the breakfast set before her. Anything that went down her throat felt as though it would make her sick.
Kyle glanced at her untouched plate, paused for a moment, and spoke.
“And Viscount Ervan was there as well.”
Both Laila and Kyle felt the Grand Duke and the Grand Duchess, who had been silently listening to the exchange over their meal, flinch in surprise.
Kyle did not miss the instant Laila's eyes wavered.
“I worry, as your brother, that people who love to gossip might say unkind things about you.”
That feigned tenderness made his cruelty all the sharper.
“Our Laila is always so perfect, you see — even the smallest scratch shows all the larger for it.”
You must be perfect. If you are so much as blemished, people will point their fingers at you in an instant.
There had once been a time when Laila believed Kyle was truly offering her harsh words for her own good.
But Laila had learned the truth. Kyle's twisted heart.
“You didn't say anything, but Mother and Father must have worried too.”
The Grand Duke and the Grand Duchess neither affirmed nor denied it.
It was always like this.
In that silent complicity, Kyle had always tightened the noose around Laila's throat in exactly this way.
Tamed for so long by a skillfully woven trap, Laila could no longer resist.
“I'm sorry, Brother.”
Laila answered quietly.
“You owe us no apology. Only — for the honor of the family, if nothing else, it would be best to conduct yourself with a little more restraint.”
“...I will keep that in mind.”
Laila bowed her head in silence.
While Kyle smiled in satisfaction and returned to his meal, Laila, fork still set aside, clenched her right hand where it rested on her lap.
The unhealed wounds on her knuckles throbbed, and in their own way, comforted her.
Kyle was the eldest son of Esdelheim and Laila's older brother, seven years her senior.
With the face of an angel, Kyle had been showered with love from childhood and grown up without a single rough edge. What changed him was Laila's birth.
At first it was nothing more than a petty jealousy over having to share affection with a new sibling.
“Young Master, Lady Laila is still a baby. You mustn't pinch her or hit her.”
“You must learn to be dignified, Young Duke. My, look how composed the Grand Duchess is — she doesn't even cry!”
As he grew, Kyle came to understand something. That compared to the expectations people placed on him as the Young Duke, his own talents were utterly ordinary.
You think you're any different?
What had begun as a small jealousy soon curdled into Kyle's one-sided sense of inferiority.