Chapter 98

Starting from the beginning of her journey when she was fourteen and counting up until today, how much time had she spent like this, riding on a train? It definitely hadn’t all been fun and games, but she’d never once wanted to turn around and go back. For Kieli, at least, so many important conversations had taken place in four-person sets of seats just like this one, even if maybe there hadn’t been very many in terms of numbers. Most of the people who’d sat with her here weren’t great conversationalists, so the chats hadn’t always been lively, and sometimes they’d had fights, too. But all of it, everything, even the sometimes awkward atmosphere—this small box-shaped space had contained everything she loved. That had always been true, from the very beginning, and it was still true today. There’d never been a single thing here that she didn’t want to keep. …But still. However. Nonetheless. Be that as it may. The stiff, uncomfortable atmosphere here today easily broke all their previous records. Sitting in her usual spot on the aisle side of their set of facing seats with both fists placed stiffly on her lap and her head hanging slightly, Kieli was currently glaring up through her bangs at the seat directly across from her. She could tell even without a mirror that her frown was making creases between her eyebrows. Why did this person always sit right across from her? Although that seat had almost always been empty in her journeys thus far, today it held a passenger. He was wearing the same sort of long, jet-black priest’s robes as when he’d first appeared before her. Right now, those eyes the same deep slate color as the night sky gleamed bright gray in the sunlight coming through the window. He sat there looking happy as you please, apparently completely unfazed by Kieli’s scowl. I’m a replacement envoy from the capital. Pleased to meet you, he’d greeted them when he came with a replacement watchman. That was yesterday. His thin, too-forgettable smile had blended in so perfectly with his featureless priest’s robes that for a second Kieli didn’t realize who he was and very nearly accepted him into the group without a fuss. “Can I help you with anything, miss?” he asked with feigned innocence, calmly letting her openly suspicious glare wash over him. Kieli made her scowl even fiercer and darted an uncomfortable glance at the seat next to the (fake) priest’s, the one diagonally across from her. The copper-haired man there was smoking a cigarette with his tall, wiry body pressed up against the windowsill in a position she thought couldn’t possibly be comfortable. The two men with almost identical slim but tall builds looked so impressively claustrophobic sitting next to each other that she could practically see a wall in front of her penning them in. The seats on this miners’ train were already more cramped than a normal passenger car’s anyway, and on top of that was their biggest problem: These two hated each other so much that they might seriously start trying to kill each other rather than let their shoulders touch even the slightest bit. Harvey was turned away from the other man’s seat, grinding the end of his cigarette between his teeth and apparently doing his best to calmly ignore him, but his left eye had been twitching for a while now. The blood vessel there looked about to burst at any moment. The small radio in front of him on the windowsill was spewing a continuous stream of menacing static. “Boy, was I ever surprised. Who would’ve thought that you, Miss Kieli, would be Lord Sigri’s honored daughter?” In his (fake) priest’s clothes, Joachim was the only person in the train car who was all smiles, seemingly unruffled by the totally unwelcoming attitudes of everyone else around him. “Stop calling me that. Stop saying…‘miss’ and ‘daughter.’” “Hmm? Why?” “We don’t know for sure if it’s true yet,” Kieli growled in a low voice. Joachim blinked, looking surprised, and then burst out laughing. His guffaws sounded blatantly mocking. Kieli, indignant, glowered even more. “What, that’s all? He thinks it is, right? So who cares either way? All you have to do is gladly take on the name. You’ll get great status, you know. Hey, that’s an idea: Maybe I’ll try to marry up. How old are you right now, Kieli?” “…Huh?” By rights, she should have ignored the question. But she’d reacted before she could help it. Now she glanced hesitantly over, not at the questioner, but at the man in the seat diagonally across from her and murmured, “Seventeen…as of today.” “Today?” It was Joachim who replied; Harvey continued to look the other way with his chin propped on his hand and his elbow against the windowsill, pretending he couldn’t hear them. Kieli could tell he’d blinked at that, though. She nodded slightly, still watching Harvey’s profile. Spring came to the northern end of the continent much later than it did in South-hairo, but according to the calendar, at least, this was the last day the winter winds would blow—the day Kieli’s grandmother had decided on for Kieli’s birthday. “Seventeen, huh? You’ve really grown up…Okay, seventeen is no problem for me.” “P-problem?” Joachim beamed as he spoke words she didn’t really understand, standing up and coming over to the window seat next to Kieli, so by the time she’d stammered out her response, she was being crowded toward the aisle and he was knocking knees with Harvey as he sat down (was the weird creaking sound she heard coming from somewhere around Harvey’s temple just her imagination?). Kieli held herself stiff. Joachim propped one elbow against the seat back above her head and started drawing closer to her. “Hey! Get away from Kieli, you bastard!” called the radio as though its patience had run out. Ping! This time she definitely heard something snap. Harvey abruptly stood up from his seat. As Kieli and Joachim both stopped moving to look at him, he stepped over their legs with long strides (Kieli couldn’t really see, but she was pretty sure he kicked one of Joachim’s legs along the way) and kept walking right out into the aisle without saying a word. From where Kieli sat, her view of the rear of the car was blocked by her seat back, but she could hear a commotion—there were shouts like Hey, what the hell, cut that out, give it back!—and then not a moment later Harvey marched right back to them, dragging a Church Soldier whose arms were wrapped around his waist along behind him. A naked saber dangled from his left hand. Both eyes—copper on the left, dark brown on the right—looked strangely glazed, and a dark, ominous light gleamed in their depths. “Wait, Ephraim—hey, that’s dangerous!” “Eep!” Kieli and Joachim slid down their seat backs and ducked fast. The blade of the saber plunged into the seat with a shrill whacking sound at exactly the spot Joachim’s head had been a split second ago. “Hey, whoa, calm down!” “It looks like we’d better give your head some ventilation holes so your moldy brain can get some fresh air.” “Yeah! Do it, Herbie. Do it!” “Stop it—both of you—You’re joining in, too, Corporal?!” Harvey tried to drill the point of the saber right into Joachim’s skull; Joachim grabbed the naked blade with his bare hands and pushed it back toward him; and the radio irresponsibly egged them on in their closely matched contest of strength. The Church Soldier Harvey’d dragged over just milled around in confusion. He looked pale. Just as the commotion started to get too far out of hand for Kieli to do anything about it by herself, a low, forceful voice shouted angrily, “Everybody, pipe down!” All of them instantly stopped moving. A short but muscular old man in sooty work overalls was standing in the aisle, brandishing a long-handled shovel in one hand. Even Harvey and Joachim shrank back a little, frozen where they’d been grappling on top of the seat, and looked at him.