MARCUS went to the training ground at the appointed time. Cesia was alone, sitting in a chair and repairing some equipment while waiting for her audience with him. Lately, she had been using the space more than Marcus, so the training clubs and the blades of the training swords were much more worn down than he remembered.
Noticing Marcus, Cesia stood up and greeted him. “Thank you for sparing the time to meet with me, Your Royal Highness.”
“Yeah.”
“I…” Cesia hesitated. “I wanted to ask about Juliette…and Anita.”
The news that Juliette had perished after trouble at sea had given rise to various theories within Emeroade, but as it had occurred within Gwyllt’s territorial waters, it was impossible to know the truth. Everyone had their own opinions on the incident, but the chance to ask Juliette what had happened had been lost forever.
Anita was currently still under questioning by the Security Bureau. The bureau had cooperated with the Second Division for a short while, but they never readily gave up all the details of their operations if they didn’t have to. They had let the Second Division know that Anita was testifying willingly, but beyond that, Cesia had no way to know how she was.
“Apparently, Anita’s very cooperative in questioning, and she’s also testifying in detail about the evidence found in her quarters,” Marcus said.
Juliette hadn’t had definitive evidence with her when she had come to Emeroade, but Anita had carefully preserved and hidden everything as if she had known something like this would happen. Marcus had so easily been able to gain the cooperation of the Security Bureau and bring that many people to the port to surround the Gwylltian ship because of that evidence. In contrast with Juliette, who had remained silent until the envoy had arrived from Gwyllt, Anita answered everything she was asked. Thanks to her, the full picture of Juliette’s plot was coming to light.
“I still don’t understand why,” Cesia said.
Marcus nodded. The evidence Anita had gathered had been so well-organized that it had required hardly any scrutiny to understand. At the same time, it was also a record of her five years in Emeroade. To Marcus, it felt as if various emotions, too complicated to be put into words, were contained within it: the debt of gratitude she owed to Juliette, the free life she had led in Emeroade, the trusting relationship between her and Mavis, and the joy and satisfaction she got from faithfully performing her job. Juliette had saved her back in Gwyllt, but the days she spent in Emeroade had been happy ones. There was an unexplainable longing within that evidence; she had made sure to preserve all of it while at the same time dutifully following Juliette’s order to remain to the end as a decoy.
“The night we found the daughter of Marquess Acton, I had gotten the invitations to that party from May. Thinking back on it now, I wonder if Anita played a part in all of that,” Marcus said.
Cesia bit her lip. “The last time I spoke with Anita… She called Juliette ‘Lady Juliette.’” Anita had been the underling of someone who had kidnapped Mavis, poisoned Lady Amy with drugs, and tried to kill Prince Ronald. She had been lying the entire time. “But another time,” Cesia said, sighing in between words. Tears began to fall from her eyes. “She spoke to Lady May the same way…”
Marcus silently embraced her.
Juliette was gone, and Gwyllt had officially answered that the former Count Peck, who was maintaining his silence, was someone they had no relation with. The evidence Anita had provided was enough to prove her criminal involvement, so once her questioning was over, she would serve her sentence. Considering Anita’s willingness to respond to questioning and the fact that her testimony had allowed them to determine Juliette’s location so quickly, she hadn’t been sentenced to death by execution. Instead, she had been granted the kindness of being allowed to drink a cup of poison.
Cesia quietly continued to cry. She couldn’t change the past to make it so nothing had happened, and she knew it was far too late to help Anita. Unable to do anything else, Marcus held Cesia close as she cried from the sorrow of losing her friend.
After a while, he gently let go, and perhaps because she was embarrassed from having cried, Cesia purposefully pouted. “Still, that diplomat! He was so cruel, casually pinning all the blame onto Juliette.”
“I thought you wouldn’t forgive Juliette.”
“I haven’t! But… I think she should have lived to pay for her crimes. If she dies, nothing comes of it at all…” Cesia said, lost for words. Marcus hugged her again.
She was right—death didn’t make a difference. However, there were crimes that could only be atoned for in death. Many of the women who had been kidnapped and taken to other countries had had no relatives, and efforts to return them had stalled because it was difficult to even determine who had been taken. Amy, the daughter of Marquess Acton, along with many others, were still suffering from the effects of the drugs they had taken.
It had been the opinion of the Emeroade side that Juliette should be kept alive in Emeroade because the information that she knew and hadn’t yet divulged might be vital to those follow-up efforts, but the death penalty would have awaited her anyway after she had testified to everything she knew. However, Emeroade hadn’t been able to get any information out of her, and her deportation to Gwyllt, away from the eyes of the law, had basically been an assassination.
Gwyllt might have actually gotten the better end of the deal in terms of outward appearance once their criminal princess had perished in an unlucky accident, but the fact that the accident had been a cover for an assassination meant that any room for doubt that Gwyllt had been ordering Juliette behind the scenes was gone. The only remaining source of possible evidence was the still reticent former Count Peck, though it didn’t seem likely he would speak. Anita couldn’t testify about any possible backers because she knew very little about them, having been in Emeroade for five years.
It was frustrating, but the case was over. All the crimes had been determined to have been committed by Princess Juliette alone, on her authority, without any other outside actors. Juliette herself was probably frustrated the most by such an unsatisfactory conclusion.
“It’s definitely a conspiracy by the entire Gwyllt royal family. But, we can’t expose it?” Cesia asked.
“There’s no evidence. Juliette left nothing in Emeroade. Even at the end, she couldn’t talk her way out of it only because she had been caught red-handed.”
Cesia fell silent and looked at Marcus imploringly. It’s frustrating. It’s all so frustrating.
“However, this was our victory,” Marcus said.
“Huh?”
“We lost Anita, let Juliette get away, and lost any way to pursue Gwyllt for their crimes, but the negotiations for access to their canal are proceeding in Emeroade’s favor.”
“Well, yes. But it’s still dissatisfying.”
“Between countries, it’s uncommon for anyone to be satisfied. In the worst case, trying too hard to get what you want leads to war.”
Cesia was taken aback.
“Well, that’s an extreme example,” Marcus said. “We have parliament and laws, so that doesn’t happen. Even if war does occur, and we settle everything in our favor, the citizens are the ones who suffer the most.”
Cesia paused. “You’re right.” The way countries were had distorted the innocent Anita to such an extent. It was probably the same for Juliette, too.
“War must be avoided, most of all. This time, things ended favorably for us, and the people will be better off. We aren’t acting to satisfy our personal grudges; we’re acting in the national interest…to protect the people of the country.”
“I see. Putting it that way, it is Emeroade’s victory.” Cesia still wasn’t satisfied, but they had accomplished what they had set out to do. Today, tomorrow, and the day after that, they could do nothing except continue living in this unequal world of theirs.
“Is this what you wanted to talk about?” Marcus asked. “I was prepared for you to scold me for getting captured by Juliette.” He lightheartedly laughed.
Cesia blushed, glaring sharply at him. His comment hadn’t been wise. “I am angry! You got captured on purpose, didn’t you?”
He had probably expected it to happen when he went to Juliette’s quarters. He had seemingly taken all of his actions, including casting a spell on Cesia’s hair that had let her track him, with the probability of him being captured and unable to send a message or use magic in mind. The magic energy in Cesia’s hair automatically returned to its owner, Marcus, when the proper steps were taken, and naturally, Marcus knew that Roy knew how to do that.
“Not at all,” Marcus said.
“Please don’t avert your eyes. You have a bad habit of using yourself as bait.” Cesia lowered her gaze. “Everyone cares about you, and it worries them.”