Side Story:
Duke Lloyd Alcott — A Promise to Protect
“BROTHER, I’VE BECOME A SAINT! Now I’ll be able to heal you whenever you get hurt during your sword training.”
“No, Colette. The power of a saint isn’t to be used so frivolously.”
“Oh, there’s Master Laurence! I’ll go ask if he’s hurt anywhere!”
“No, like I just said—hey, no running! Are you even listening to me?!”
“I’m listening, I’m listening. Master Laureeeence!”
“In one ear and out the other with you, huh… Ah! You tripped! See, that’s why I told you not to run! Now who’s the one who’s hurt?”
Lively laughter of Lloyd, Colette, and Laurence filled the Alcott manor.
Ah… I remember. We used to be so happy back then…
✦ ✦ ✦
“Already twenty-seven, huh? Ha ha… I just keep getting older and older.”
I looked in the mirror and saw the mighty Lloyd Alcott smiling wryly back. Time was beginning to show on my face, placing fine lines around my eyes and mouth. A pang of guilt struck me as I observed those creeping imperfections. The three of us had believed we would be together for ten, twenty years…but time had stopped for all but me. I was aging without them.
My guilt turned to frustration, and I slammed my fist into the wall beside the mirror.
“Hah! The miracle we need is already lost to the world! …Just where am I to find hope to cling to?”
Alone in my room, the thoughts I usually kept hidden spilled out. The past ten years had made it painfully clear that miracles did not come easily. We’d done so much but managed nothing. All our efforts seemed to be in vain…
But I couldn’t give up.
I remained hunched, my breathing ragged, before eventually collecting myself and washing my face.
Today would be no different, I was sure. It would end with me disappointed over our lack of a miracle, and then the cycle would repeat the next morning.
With one-third hope and two-thirds resignation, I left the room. I did not know it yet, but the events of this day would leave me amazed. Finally, the miracle we’d been searching for had come.
On that day, I was participating in the last of the king’s meetings with the incoming knights of the First Knight Brigade. I did not participate as a duke, however, but instead dressed up in the gaudy guise of a jester. The target for our hazing this time was a young female knight.
I thought the king and his many aides would intimidate her, but she took in the room with little more than curiosity. Everything seemed a wonder to her; sentimentality welled up in my chest as this bright young girl reminded me of my sister. I would quickly discover this knight—Fia Ruud—was nothing like my sister, however. My sister was the type to make small, adorable mistakes, whereas Fia was more like an unpredictable storm.
I cannot count how many times Fia left me flabbergasted during that meeting. She correctly identified our speech as the Lua language, picked up on how our king’s name was an anagram, detected how Cerulean’s costume was a nod to the old national flag and sacred beast, and even realized that Cerulean’s arm was cursed.
Any one of these observations alone would have been enough to shock me. Fia possessed superlative intuition and wit. But the true surprise came many nights later.
Late into the night, Cerulean visited my room with a flower all thought lost to the world. It caught the light and shone as brilliantly as a jewel.
My breath caught in my throat, leaving me unable to speak properly. In a faint, trembling whisper, I said, “That’s… No, it can’t be…”
The flower bore an uncanny resemblance to the Rose of the Great Saint that I had seen in forbidden tomes. But it, and its jewel-like beauty, should have been lost together with the Great Saint.
“Cerulean, is that…is that real?” I asked.
The tense look on Cerulean’s face and otherworldly beauty of the flower gave me my answer, but I had to be sure.
In a stiff voice, Cerulean said, “Odds are high that it is. Saviz brought it to me after looking into its authenticity himself.”
“It’s…real…” My mind flashed to my sister. Colette had adored the Great Saint. What better parting gift for her as her time dwindled? For a Rose of the Great Saint to be found now of all times had to be some sort of miracle.
I hung my head and covered my face with my hands. Cerulean spoke from above me.
“Lloyd, that’s not even the most surprising thing. Do you remember Fia, the last person we interviewed?”
“Of course,” I replied with a nod. There was no way I could forget such an astonishing character.
Cerulean dropped not one but two shocking revelations on me. “She is the one who found this rose. What’s more, Saviz claims she found it in the royal castle garden.”
“Fia found this…in the royal castle garden?”
Was such a thing even possible? I could admit Fia had a sharp and observant eye and had gleaned more during her interview than anyone else ever had, but surely even she couldn’t find a flower thought to be lost to the world? And within royal castle grounds, where many people came and went every day? Every inch of the royal castle was under strict management. If a flower with abnormal beauty like the Rose of the Great Saint had bloomed, somebody would have reported it right away. Yet this Fia had outdone all of them and spotted it first somehow?
“How can that be? Fia may be a genius, absurdly so even, but this is preposterous. How did she just so happen to find the long-lost Great Saint’s flower at the ideal moment, a flower we’ve been searching for so long ourselves?”
We’d tried to find a way to save my sister, but as her time dwindled and we drew no closer to saving her, I’d started thinking I should at least prepare her a fitting gift to take with her to the afterlife. Then this flower appeared—found by a female knight I’d only learned of recently.
“I asked myself that same question at least a hundred times before I came here,” Cerulean said. “But at the end of the day, no matter how surprised we might be, the fact of the matter is that Fia has found it.”
“…You’re right.” My heart raced. I drew a deep breath, lacing my fingers together to hide how they trembled as gratitude swelled inside me. “It would seem Fia is my savior. To the uninformed, this may seem like any other flower. Even most of those who know of the Rose of the Great Saint would merely admire it as a relic of the past tied to a historical figure. But I’ve yearned for this for a long time. It may be just some flower, and it may not help me wake Colette, but…she admired the Great Saint…more than anybody…”
Too overwhelmed to continue, I let Cerulean finish my thought for me.
“I know,” he said. “She would have considered receiving the Great Saint’s own rose to be the highest honor.”
I wasn’t confident I could manage words, so I simply nodded as the memories from ten years ago flooded my mind.