Chapter 47
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The Last Dance Before Midnight
A masked dragon asks the lanternwright for one slow dance
Moonlight revealed the dragon rider’s armor.
It stood two meters tall, adorned with intimidating decorations designed to overwhelm its opponent.
But Ferda had seen that armor more often than her bare form, and it felt to him like a part of Valdrova—something he could love as a part of her.
He had once thought he would be glad to encounter Valdrova looking like that by surprise, but reality was different from what he had expected.
He felt more bewildered than happy to see her.
Could he already be seeing things because he had gone mad with desire?
Just as he wondered that, she stopped before Ferda.
“……”
“……”
Silence alone flowed as they stared at each other.
After the silence dragged on for quite some time, it was Valdrova who finally opened her mouth.
“So, the thing is, um, I mean….”
She struggled to speak, as though picking a pearl from sand.
“I just wanted to… take a walk… so I came out.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes, exactly!”
Ferda knew she was lying.
But that was not particularly important to Ferda.
Valdrova answered that way, then fidgeted with her neatly clasped hands.
Clink, clink.
The steel of her gauntlets interlocked with a noise.
She looked restless.
Was she uncomfortable because she had run into Ferda so suddenly?
Then, unable to bear it, she opened her mouth again.
“A-actually, that’s not it!”
“Pardon?”
“I knew that you… were coming out, Ferda… so that’s why I came out too!”
“Is… that so?”
“Yes.”
She sighed, rubbing her chest as if relieved.
It was as though she had confessed a sin she had kept buried in her heart.
Ferda did not care.
She had known Ferda was alone in the corridor and come looking for him.
That was all that mattered.
In other words, she had come here because she wanted to see Ferda.
‘She wanted to see me.’
Now that he was conscious of it, he began to tremble for no reason.
Had he brushed his teeth before coming out?
Did his clothes smell?
He might have absorbed the smoke while relying on a single candle in a sealed room.
Those concerns lasted only a moment.
Ferda belatedly recalled the most important thing and bowed his head.
“I greet Your Grace, Grand Duchess Valdrova.”
“Ah, yes, welcome, um… Ferda… Ferda….”
Her voice trailed off as she said his name.
The faltering speech that could not seem to find its ending echoed like a mournful cry, perhaps because of the voice-modulating tube built into the helmet.
“Were you trying to say ‘Regent’?”
“Ah, yes, that! Regent!”
She clapped her hands, and her voice brightened.
“Yes. Regent Ferda. I wanted to try using that title. That’s what they call the king’s fiancé, isn’t it?”
“Actually, that’s… no, yes, that’s right.”
He stopped himself from correcting her.
If he kept touching that sparkling innocence because he found it lovely, he would only soil it.
“Then may I call you Regent now too?”
“There’s no need. It’s a term used only in official settings, so when we’re alone, please just call me Ferda.”
“Ah, all right. I will, Ferda… sir.”
Ferda, Ferda….
Valdrova repeated and practiced the name inside her helmet.
It tickled his ears oddly, as though she were whispering directly into them.
“I wanted to see you one more time, Mr. Ferda, but strangely… I couldn’t bring myself to.”
“I understand.”
Ferda quietly sympathized.
Perhaps she, too, had strong feelings?
“I came here because of Luri.”
That was not the reason.
“Luri?”
Valdrova nodded.
“She seems to have been having a hard time lately.”
Ferda remembered refusing Luri’s request to attend the Grand Council.
The last time he had seen her, she had been angry.
“I don’t think I’m very good at understanding emotions, but I know what that child looks like when she’s sad. She’s… definitely sad right now.”
Her helmet turned toward Ferda’s face.
“If you happen to know what’s troubling her… I thought you might know, Mr. Ferda….”
Ferda’s lips only parted and closed.
It was difficult to bring himself to speak.
How could he explain when he knew he was the cause?
Would she come to hate him if he told her the truth?
Yet in the end, he told her the truth.
“That change is probably my fault.”
“Your fault, Mr. Ferda?”
“Luri asked me to let her attend the Grand Council, but I refused. That is the only factor I know of.”
“Why is she going there…?”
“She said she wanted to speak with Silverwind’s side.”
Valdrova’s body flinched.
But then she lightly nodded, as if she finally understood.
“If it’s only a conversation… couldn’t you take her with you?”
“Because it is futile hope.”
“Futile hope?”
“What that maid is trying to do is no different from scratching a scab. If you keep scratching a place that hasn’t healed, the flesh comes away again and the wound opens. That is exactly what this would be.”
“Ah… that… hurts a lot.”
“Yes, it hurts a lot.”
Valdrova gave a small nod, seeming to sympathize.
She wrapped a hand around her forearm.
“But that futile hope… might not be futile after all, might it?”
Valdrova ended the sentence with an uncertain question.
“Silverwind still harbors a grudge.”
“I know that too. But… maybe that isn’t how they feel about Luri?”
“Do you think talking to them will make things turn out well?”
“At least it would give that child a place to return to.”
“Return?”
At Ferda’s question, she seemed to realize her mistake and spoke solemnly.
“Ah, you don’t know, Mr. Ferda. She isn’t my spawn. She’s a Silver Dragon spawn.”
“Ah….”
“She was loyal to me, so it was only natural that she might be misunderstood that way.”
“Yes….”
It was something he had known from the beginning.
What surprised Ferda was merely the idea of her returning.
“Dragon spawns are families bound by blood. Luri’s family is the spawn of Silverwind.”
“Are you saying Luri should return to her family?”
“Is there anything more precious than family?”
A precious family.
It was a subject utterly foreign to Ferda.
His family had tormented him and, in the end, abandoned him.
The source of Ferda’s vengeful feelings had been his family, and in the end he had returned to them everything they had done to him.
And now that all those emotions had been resolved, he no longer cared about them at all.
But what about Luri?
Ferda did not know what Luri thought.
Luri cherished Valdrova.
But compared to her blood connection with Silverwind, that bond might be insignificant.
This might be Luri’s chance to sever her ties with Valdrova.
She had not appeared until the future Ferda tore out Valdrova’s heart, so perhaps that was the case.
“Luri may want that, but….”
Ferda looked up at Valdrova and asked,
“Do you want that?”
Instead of answering immediately, she turned her head toward the sky.
The hand resting on the railing curled into a small fist.
It was not an easy thing.
“I’m the one who kept that child here. If she has a way back… then I should let her go.”
“……”
“And….”
Valdrova looked down at Ferda.
“I do have a proper fiancé now, don’t I?”
An indescribable tightness gripped Ferda’s chest.
It made him question a matter that had already been settled.
Was it really all right to take Luri to the Grand Council?
In the end, Ferda made his decision.
“I understand.”
“Will you take Luri with you?”
“Yes. After you put it that way, how could I refuse?”
“Ah, yes, thank you.”
She gave a dazed little nod.
With one topic concluded, a heavy silence settled in again, trying to make itself comfortable.
“The Grand Council….”
Valdrova carefully kicked that silence aside.
“I’ve only ever heard that it convenes regularly. I didn’t even know what happens there.”
“Are you curious?”
“I’m extremely curious. It’s where all the races gather to discuss the peace of this continent, isn’t it? Of course I’d want to know what they talk about there!”
Valdrova’s helmet whipped around to look at Ferda as she asked,
“When you return, Mr. Ferda, could you tell me what happened there?”
Though hidden by her helmet, he could tell what she was hoping for.
Like a child listening to a hero’s tale about warriors gathering beneath the light to drive away the darkness.
Like a pristine field of snow piled up in the cold winter.
It was dazzling innocence.
“The story won’t necessarily be pleasant to hear.”
“Wh-why not?”
Bewilderment colored her voice.
Ferda realized he had made a mistake.
But the water had already been spilled.
It was too late to remain silent or make excuses.
So he told her what he knew.
“They aren’t the sort to tell stories that are all sunshine and roses. They’re too busy looking after their own interests.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. So please don’t place too much hope in it.”
He brought the difficult statement to an end.
Valdrova quietly looked down at him.
What expression was she wearing?
Was she staring blankly with her mouth open in shock,
or had she been overcome by those emotions and begun to cry?
“Mr. Ferda….”
The reply came in a calm woman’s voice, without a trace of moisture.
“Do you know what it was like when Godwin rose up to destroy this world?”
Of course he didn’t.
It had happened 150 years ago, an era even Ferda’s grandfather had not lived through.
“When Godwin plunged the world into chaos, we were the first to give up.”
“You mean the dragons?”
Valdrova nodded.
It was not a story that made much impression on Ferda.
But if a scholar from Escolleia had heard it, the academic world would have been turned upside down.
Valdrova seemed to realize she had let something slip and covered her mouth.
She glanced around for no reason, then whispered cautiously,
“Everything I’m telling you now is a secret, okay?”
“I’ll take it to my grave.”
“Anyway… back then, we concluded that the most ideal course of action was to compromise with chaos. The long-lived dwarves and elves were also inclined to accept that compromise.”
But that could not have happened.
If that compromise had been reached, the Far East would not have become a land where demons were driven there and left to spew filth.
“But there was only one race that did not.”
This was a story Ferda knew as well.
“The humans were the first to rise up.”
She folded both hands neatly and drew them to her chest.
“Because they refused to compromise, because their swords did not forgive the demons, they realized there was still hope for the continent—and that was why peace returned to it.”
Immersed in memories of that day, Valdrova was thinking something Ferda understood with his heart.
It was admiration.
Dragons and humans.
Long-lived races and short-lived races.
Immortals and mortals.
Humans might admire and revere dragons, but it was impossible for dragons to admire humans.
Yet Valdrova was different.
“Even if their eyes are clouded by greed now, they will fight for humanity at the most important moment. So….”
Valdrova’s head gently lowered toward Ferda.
The red armor beneath the moonlight shone with truly noble radiance.
“I will love them.”
It was then.
The chemical reaction taking place in his mind led Ferda into an unknown realm.
He began to see the delicate woman hidden inside the helmet modeled after a dragon’s head.
Hope dwelled in her two eyes.
And hope was smiling.
“Ah.”
Ferda let out a foolish exclamation.
It was as if he had flown high into the sky and then plunged straight down.
The impact of falling from an endless sky was beyond measure.
“Mr. Ferda?”
“……”
“Are you all right? You aren’t saying anything….”
Valdrova fidgeted anxiously as she examined Ferda’s complexion.
Ferda, who had been quietly staring at her, opened his mouth.
“Just once.”
“Yes??”
“Could you show me that dragon visage just one more time?”
“M-my dragon visage? Uh, you mean my face…??”
“Yes. Your face.”
Ferda’s hand unconsciously reached toward Valdrova’s helmet.
Valdrova started and guarded her helmet.
“N-no! I, um, I can’t show you my face yet!”
“Please. I beg you, just show me that dragon visage one more time….”
“I-I told you, I can’t!? Don’t come any closer!”
When he took one step forward, she took one step back.
The one who broke the chain of pursuit that seemed destined to continue forever was Valdrova.
“I’m sorrrry!!”
With Valdrova’s cry of apology, she disappeared into the darkness.
All that remained was the warmth left where she had stood.
Ferda, his face feverish and intoxicated by that warmth, stared blankly at the place where he had last seen her.
Wind blew in through the open window.
It was nowhere near enough to cool Ferda’s fever.
He looked up at the moon again.
The full moon.
But there was not even a crack in his overheated chest through which thoughts of his mother could squeeze.
Yet unlike before, there was nothing to worry about.
The emotion dwelling in Ferda’s chest was rotating red.
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