Thanks to Miss Maria, we moved our conversation into the castle instead of on the road. On the way, the citizens welcoming me home was embarrassing, but still made me happy.
But there was one, just one, single problem.
“Sir Celes, put me down!”
“Don’t you mean ‘Celes,’ Lucia? But no can do — not putting you down.”
He’d picked me up again on our way, without a word as to why.
“Gross, Celes,” Miss Maria grunted.
“You’re one to talk, Sacred Maiden.”
“You’re so narrow-minded, Captain,” Eric pouted.
“You’ll understand one day, Eric.”
“Yeah, you will.”
“Yes.”
“Sir Celestino, I understand, but...” His Majesty started.
“No,” Sir Celes was answering everyone with a smile, but this was just weird! And embarrassing!
While I worried, His Majesty led our march, walking through the castle halls. We were in the same order as we were on our return from the journey of purification, but Sir Celes was making it awkward by not putting me down. I could feel everyone’s piercing gazes. Sir Celes didn’t understand how popular he was! The knights were staring, too!
“C-Celes, please put me down...” I groaned, nuzzling my face into his shoulder. I was so embarrassed, I thought my face was going to burst into flames.
“Celes...”
“Just leave ’em for now, okay?” Just as Miss Maria was about to try to talk to Sir Celes on my behalf, Sir Gaius moved to stop her. “I know you wanna spend time with her, but let him have this for now. He’ll probably let her go once we get to a room.”
“What’s with that?” Miss Maria pouted at Sir Gaius.
“Sorry, Lucia. Just hold on for a bit longer,” Sir Celes murmured.
I really had no idea why he had to carry me all the way to a room. Sir Celes wouldn’t tell me why, but Sir Gaius seemed to know. I’d have to ask him later.
As I wondered about this, we finally reached our destination.
Once I was finally freed, Miss Maria ran over to me. “Now it’s my turn to have you! I’ve been waiting for so long!”
“I’m sorry, Miss Maria. I’m so sorry.”
“You have nothing to apologize for.”
“But you were waiting for me to come back before you would go home, weren’t you? Even though you had Shiro’s crystal to use...” I touched the stone hanging from her neck. The golden “Drop of the Cristallo Sacro” and white stones were both on the same chain. The stone almost felt warm to the touch. It kind of felt as if Shiro were welcoming me home, too.
“You promised to see me off, didn’t you?” Her pale hand overlapped mine, and she smiled up at me. Being able to see her smile once again made me so happy, I started crying again.
“Oh, geez, don’t cry! You’re gonna make me cry too!”
“Yeah, Lucia! I’m tearing up, too! You should be smiling since you’re finally home,” Eric said, sniffling.
Lord Reynard followed up with, “That’s right. If you cry too much, Sir Celestino will get possessive again.”
Miss Maria and I buried our faces in each other’s shoulders as Eric and Lord Reynard smiled beside us.
“I’m just so happy... I missed you so much.”
I missed everyone, so, so much. Seeing them all smile made me deeply happy to meet them all again.
“Er... Lucia,” His Majesty nervously spoke up, his usual self-confidence nowhere to be seen.
“Yes?”
“I won’t ask you to forgive me. I can’t. It’s fine if you resent me and my father. In the end, there was little I could do to stop him. I relayed all the details about the two of you without thinking of how he would respond. Everything is my fault. I deeply apologize for making you go through that, and separating you from Celestino. Are you really okay?”
I smiled back at him. I didn’t resent His Majesty. I might have been sad, and it might have been hard, but that was all over now.
“I don’t resent you. But, um... What happened to the former king?”
That was what I was really curious about. Back in Riunione, we hadn’t even heard that our own king had changed. I didn’t know whether he had passed or just abdicated, so I chose my words carefully.
“He...passed. After abdicating, I had him retire to the villa where my mother passed, but he breathed his last soon after.”
“I see...” While I was slightly suspicious of his averted gaze, I nodded. “I’m sorry for your loss. Let the Cristallo Sacro bear his soul.”
As I said the usual words of lamentation, Eric suddenly spoke up, “So we always say that when someone dies, right? But wasn’t it monsters that the Cristallo Sacro sprouted? What does it mean? They say it because the myths say that all souls return to the Cristallo Sacro, right?”
“That’s true. I’ve never thought about it before.”
“If the trees bear the souls of the dead, does that mean monsters used to be people’s souls? It’s making me curious!”
“How’re you gonna research it, though?” Sir Gaius jeered.
“That’s it!” Eric said, pointing at him. “I’m gonna study the trees.”
“Huh?”
“Eh?”
Eric looked proud as we all spoke up in surprise.
“Up until now, we haven’t been able to research the trees because of all of the monsters. People at the Academy have wanted to study the sources of magic for a long time. It’s always been too dangerous, but now the Sacred Maiden and Lucia have gotten rid of all the monsters, right?”
“Are they really all gone?”
“Yep. The Knights have been searching high and low since you purified them, but there hasn’t been a single sighting,” Eric said, nodding strongly at my question.
“Ah, we didn’t see any on our journey, either,” Sir Gaius added with a hand on his chin.
“Right!? So this is our chance! I’m all ready to go. Since Lucia is home safe now, I’ll be going to Kyriest with the investigation team.” Eric couldn’t contain his excitement as he told us his plans. “I’m so excited!”
We already knew he loved researching, so it seemed as if he was ecstatic to have a new subject to look into.
“You’re such a research dummy,” Sir Gaius grunted.
“Thanks for the compliment.”
“It wasn’t a compliment.”
After exchanging his usual banter with Sir Gaius, Eric faced me again with a huge smile. “So next for you is your wedding to the Captain, right? Everything’s nearly ready for the ceremony!”
“Ah, Eri-kun! Don’t tell her that!” Miss Maria spoke up, seemingly trying to stop him.
“Huh? It was a secret?”
Ceremony? I looked up at Sir Celes, thinking he must have asked them to get things ready, but he shook his head.
“I didn’t do anything!” he said.
“Yeah, we left to search for you right after everything happened. He was so mad, he wouldn’t have been able to.” Sir Gaius slapped Sir Celes’s shoulder while he nodded with a grimace.
The two of them had gotten so close since the end of our purification journey.
“It was me,” Miss Maria mumbled guiltily, raising her hand. “The only thing I could think of to help you while I waited was to get things ready for you to marry Celes. Like...he’s popular, right? I didn’t want any other women worming their way in, so I got Ed to publicize your relationship to cement your place. Sorry.”
“Oh, you mean the play?” I asked.
“You knew!?”
It seemed that the play about our relationship was Miss Maria’s idea.
She looked up at me, surprised, before apologizing again. “I’m sorry for doing it without your permission. I couldn’t take the fact that you’d worked so hard and no one knew the full truth. And after Celes ran off to look for you, people started talking about marrying him off, so I just couldn’t resist.”