Chapter 5:
An Oblong Round Trip
AT LAST, ON AUGUST 20TH, LUCIANA AND her retinue prepared to make the journey back to the capital. Everyone had gathered to see her off—Hubert, Ryan, and all the county retinue.
“Oh, I can’t believe I’ll never see Melody again.” Including Schue. Schroden, second imperial prince of Rordpier, shed genuine tears his previous personality would have balked at. Shuuichi certainly was larger than life.
He trumpeted his nose into a handkerchief. Shuuichi perhaps belonged in a comic strip.
“Well, er, you will,” Melody said. “Whenever my lady comes to visit.”
“And that’s, what, next year at the earliest?” he sobbed.
“That’s a sorry case of heartache if I’ve ever seen one. Why not go with them?” Hubert joked. “Take a little sojourn to the royal capital.”
“Oh, no. No, I’m steering well clear of that place, thanks.”
“Quickest recovery I’ve ever seen.”
Schue’s tears dried up instantly. He’d seen enough fragmented glimpses of the future to know he did not have one in Paltescia. He’d run from the empire specifically to avoid that fate. It was a shame he’d have to part ways with Melody, but Schue would always look out for number one.
Ryan, however, did not share his priorities. “Regardless, you’ll be taking a trip there relatively soon.”
“Huh? Wait, why?” Schue asked.
“A precise date has yet to be decided, but given the state of the estate, I’d say it’s fairly likely Lord Hubert will have to visit the capital at some point in the near future. He’ll need an attendant. That’s to be you, Schue.”
“It is?!” Two voices overlapped in shock.
“Lord Hubert, why is this a surprise to you?”
“I hope for your sake you weren’t planning on slipping away without a guard again, Your Lordship.” A vein in Dyrule’s forehead throbbed, much like the vein in Ryan’s.
An earthquake claimed the original Rudleberg estate. Hughes had seen it for himself thanks to Melody’s magic, but those not clued in on her abilities—such as Ryan and Dyrule—still operated under the limitations of common sense. Obviously, Hubert had to notify the head of the house about the disaster. Obviously, that necessitated a trip to the capital. Obviously, a noble had to travel with a proper escort.
Schue disagreed. Going to the capital was the exact opposite of what his common sense told him, and Hubert was closer to a farmer than a noble. So this was all news to him.
“But, Dyrule,” Luciana said, “we need you here in case of a monster attack.”
“My lady, the nearest blightland is across the horizon, beyond the county itself,” Ryan said. “There’s very little risk of a stray monster wandering into Rudleberg territory. A much more realistic concern is something happening to a member of your house, which, with all due respect, is already dangerously small as it is. Rest assured, I have the family’s well-being at heart.”
Hubert and Luciana grunted in a kind of reluctant understanding. They could not argue.
“Personally, I think Master Ryan’s way more qualified to attend to Lord Hubert than me,” Schue said.
“I taught you better than that, boy,” the butler countered. “Who will administer the county if Lord Hubert, Dyrule, and myself are absent? There’s not much time, and clearly you’ve much to learn before then. Expect your lessons to be doubly rigorous from now on.”
The boy whimpered.
“I suppose we’ll be seeing each other again sooner than expected,” Melody giggled.
“Yeah!” Schue blurted. “Wait for me, Melo—”
“I’ll take that as consent,” Ryan said with a sneer.
“Oh, dear.” Schue’s grin flickered.
The preparations complete, Luciana and her retinue boarded the carriage while Lect mounted his steed. He’d ride separately alongside them.
“I’ll be back again around the same time next year,” Luciana said to her uncle. “Try to keep things standing until then.”
“I’d like to keep it that way myself. Though I’ll be seeing you whenever that trip Ryan insists on comes around. Until then.”
“We’ll keep the tea warm for you,” Luciana said. “Won’t you, Melody?”
“Rest assured, my lady,” the maid replied, stifling a laugh.
“Goodbye! Until next time!”
Hubert waved, and his retinue bowed. Together, they gave a hearty “Safe travels!”
The carriage rolled away, and the melancholy set in—only to be interrupted by a series of frantic yips and whines.
Don’t forget me, you fools! A small pup darted through Hubert’s legs and toward the carriage, howling bloody murder. You drag me here against my will then have the audacity to leave me behind?!
As Grail hurled himself onto the carriage, its passengers shared a belated, absent-minded “Oops.”
The purified Dark One, the ultimate villain of The Silver Saint and the Five Oaths, would have enjoyed its easygoing life as a pup much more if its captors—its owners did not forget it so readily. Lect’s arrival had totally usurped the pup in everyone’s minds. How the ancient evil had fallen from grace.
Those sad puppy-dog eyes came with an extra sting.
Grail’s rage subsided about an hour or so post-departure, and he snoozed belly-up in his basket.
As they rolled up to the tree where they’d lunched just before the earthquake, Melody asked Rook to stop the carriage so she could hop down.
Lect eyed her curiously from atop his mount. “Is there a problem?”
“No. I just think it’s time we got home.”
“Is that…not where we’re going?”
“Yes, but as much as I’d like to enjoy a leisurely journey—”
“The Summer Ball won’t wait around for us. We don’t have time for leisure,” Luciana said, descending from the carriage behind Melody. “All the more so now that Melody has her own preparations to see to. Best we abridge the return trip.”
“Then my next question is why did we stop?” Lect pressed.
“Because we’re far enough away. If you would, Melody.”
“Right away, my lady,” the maid replied. “Humble welcomes—Benvenuti Porta.”
A set of double doors adorned with lavish silver materialized in the middle of the road.
“Why is this so familiar?” Lect muttered. It came to him after only a moment of stupefaction. Just before the summer recess, Melody had appeared from a similar door in the middle of his estate. She’d led him through it to the academy. And then she’d done it a second time when they took an unconscious Rook into a strange forest.
This was not his first encounter with Melody’s uniquely absurd magic powers, but it was his first time experiencing instant, cross-city travel.
I didn’t have time to process those other times, but that’s some spell, he marveled. Paula didn’t even blink. Honestly, sometimes I think steel would suit her better than me, but that’s beside the point.
“Melody,” he said, “will this take us straight back to the capital?”
“Correct. To the Rudleberg estate, to be precise,” she replied. “I apologize for the abruptness. I’m to keep these spells a secret, and there was no chance to inform you earlier.”
“Oh. I see.”
“It’s as my lady says. Now that I’ll be attending the ball as well, time is of the essence. We need to make the most of it, so by her suggestion, we’re going to take a little shortcut.”
“A necessity I brought on. I apologize.”
“Please, I’m the one who accepted your invitation. I will say, though, it’s a good thing you already know of my magic. We don’t have to go to the trouble of pulling the wool over your eyes.”
“R-right.” As Lect absorbed the knowledge that he was one of the few people to know her secret, more joy bubbled up inside him than the lovelorn knight dared admit.
The Benvenuti Porta doors threw themselves open. Leaving Rook to look after the horses and carriage, Luciana led everyone else into the Rudleberg capital estate.
The foyer was empty, soundless, until Serena’s approach interrupted the silence. “Welcome home, my lady.”
“Glad to see you again, Serena.”
“And you as well, Gentlesister.”
“Home sweet home,” Melody said. “Inform His Lordship and Her Ladyship of our return, if you would, and see that you include Sir Lectias Froude. He’s our guest.”
“Yes, Gentlesister. Welcome, Sir Froude. I am Serena, one of House Rudleberg’s humble maids.” She offered a most perfect curtsy.
But that was not the reason for Lect’s surprise. “Selena…?”
“I’m sorry?” The comely maid’s head tilted to one side. “Begging your pardon, Sir Knight. Serena is my name.”
Lect’s heart hammered in his chest.
“Come to think of it, we never got the chance to introduce you,” Melody said. “As she says, this is Serena. A magical doll I’ve fashioned into a maid.”
The aforementioned missed chance came during Rook’s sudden growth spurt in the Wood. Pleasantries had fallen to the wayside in favor of more pressing, and more naked, concerns. Rook still had no recollection of the chaos he had caused.
“A…doll, you said?” Lect muttered.
“It’s a lot to take in, I know,” Luciana said.
Micah nodded. “Easier than ‘magical maid automaton,’ at least.”
But Lect’s shock was twofold.
This Serena, he thought. She looks just like Lady Selena in the portrait.
Count Cloud Leginbarth had sent the knight on a quest many months ago to seek out Selena—Melody’s birth mother. Lect had been given a portrait of her, painted when she was just a young woman in her teens, to aid in his search, and this maid very well could have stepped straight out of the image.
Too many things were happening during our first meeting for me to notice the resemblance. If His Lordship sees her, heaven save us all. He paused. Or maybe he already has. Perhaps that’s why he was so adamant about me bringing Lady Cecilia to the ball. He misses Lady Selena.
Cecilia’s appearance, in every sense, had shaken Lect’s lord to his core. He’d maintained his composure thanks to a mask of iron forged in the flames of politics. That it only slipped when he demanded Lect bring the girl that so reminded him of his beloved to the ball implied something had agitated the still-fresh scar on his heart.
House Rudleberg and House Leginbarth were both countships. Their estates, though separated by a gulf of wealth, were not all too different. Serena might very well have passed by Count Leginbarth’s carriage at some point. Supposing she had, Cloud might have caught a glimpse of her and been left to speculate, though he hadn’t yet interrogated the Rudlebergs over it. He might have wondered if it was a ghost born of lovesickness, some phantom of fatigue.
Theories aside, something tore open his lord’s broken heart and set it bleeding again. That must have been why he was so adamant about seeing Cecilia. Only this stranger carried the salve to soothe the Selena-shaped hole in his chest.
Seems I’m cursed to betray my lord yet again, the knight lamented.
Perhaps he needn’t have kept this secret, but Serena was not Selena. She was a doll of Melody’s creation, and so long as Melody had to hide her magic, so too did she have to hide her miracles.
What am I to do?
Conflict consumed the knight’s heart once more.