Chapter 44
My mother tried to kill my older brother.
Though things have fallen apart for now, we don't know when another assassination order might come in.
I might become a curse.
As long as my brother remains on this estate, he isn't safe.
What's more, I will soon have to leave to enroll at the academy.
What if Mother poisons him again while I'm gone?
What if those Slokina bastards take matters into their own hands?
My brother is defenseless.
But I can't drive Mother out or turn her in right away.
The tart—the physical evidence—is gone because I ate it, and the vial has yet to be analyzed.
Above all, I can't bear the shock my brother would suffer.
‘I have to get Brother somewhere safe. Where?’
The Grand Duchy itself is dangerous.
He has to avoid Father's eyes and stay somewhere beyond Mother's reach.
Suddenly, one place came to mind.
‘Eisengard.’
The place where my master, Count Eisen, is.
And the place where Varg, who saved me, is.
‘If it were there...’
My brother would be safe under Count Eisen's protection.
And if he were there, I could spend my time at the academy uncovering what this medicine was and finding an antidote.
The destination was set.
But.
‘How?’
The greatest obstacle remained.
What possible pretext could I use to send my disabled brother all the way to Eisengard?
Father hated the idea of my brother leaving the estate.
He would never allow the family's disgrace to be seen outside.
And my brother would certainly refuse, since he wouldn't want to be a burden.
‘I have to persuade them. I need a justification that will convince both Father and Brother.’
An excuse.
A pretext.
But, as a mere boy, he couldn't think of any clever way to break through this dead end.
He felt his own powerlessness and inexperience down to the bone.
‘Master....’
Kairen clenched the crumpled letter in his pocket.
Rustle.
The sound of the crumpling paper traveled to his fingertips.
‘Please help me.’
The boy prayed desperately as he pushed his brother's wheelchair.
At the end of the corridor, where the sunset was beginning to fade,
a single faint candle at last gave off a light brighter than the sunset, though it burned precariously.
* * *
Kairen pushed his brother's wheelchair back to the annex office.
Creak, creak.
The sound of the wheels rolling seemed especially loud.
Kairen settled his brother comfortably in front of the desk.
Karl was still breathing hard, but his expression looked much more relaxed.
Because his younger brother had returned safely, and he believed the medicine would reach Mother.
“Thank you, Kairen. You saved my life.”
“No. I should have... come sooner.”
Kairen lowered his head.
Then Kairen's red eyes caught sight of an unopened letter lying in a corner of the desk.
Count Eisen's family crest was clearly stamped on the antique-looking envelope.
“Brother, you received a letter from Master. I just finished reading mine too.”
“Ah... You did?”
Karl replied in a tired voice.
“I was too distracted to open it yet. I was just about to read it when you came, Kairen....”
Karl gave a bitter smile and picked up the envelope.
The red wax seal had a fine crack running through it.
“The wax is cracked. Well, the Grand Duchy's mail carriage travels through every territory collecting reports. It must have been handled roughly on the way here.”
“......”
Kairen's gaze sharpened.
“Could someone have opened it in transit? Things have been unsettled lately....”
What if Mother—or a Slokina spy—had opened and inspected the letter?
But Karl gave a quiet chuckle and shook his head.
“I doubt it. You still don't know the count?”
Karl held the envelope up to the light.
“He doesn't just apply wax to the outside; he also puts glue along the envelope's inner seam. If someone had forced it open, the envelope itself would have torn.”
“Ah....”
“He always said, 「The circuit-reporting system is vulnerable to security breaches. Since spies can infiltrate along the way, it should be reorganized into direct communication between territories.」 Yet Father dismissed it as tradition.”
Karl slit the envelope open with a paper knife.
“That's why the count always sends important documents and letters separately. Of course, he times their arrival so they reach us around when the circuit mail carriage arrives, without Father noticing.”
His master's meticulousness.
When he had been studying under Eisen, that thoroughness sometimes made him feel stifled, but in a precarious situation like this, it was instead comforting.
At least the contents of this letter would be untainted truth.
Karl took out the letter and began reading.
Only the rustle of paper filled the room.
Kairen watched his brother's expression.
At first impassive, Karl's expression gradually brightened as he read.
Like a small candle catching people's eyes in the darkness.
“Haha... The count is actually asking me for a favor.”
“Asking you for a favor? What does it say?”
“Listen.”
Karl read the contents of the letter aloud.
“Esteemed Grand Young Master Karl. I am writing to seek your advice regarding the academy enrollment of the Wintersword couple currently staying in my territory....”
Karl's eyes sparkled.
“He says they are having difficulty with the dormitory arrangements and desperately need the wisdom and recommendation of the Grand Young Master, the academy's valedictorian with close ties to the faculty....”
“A dormitory problem?”
“Yes. It seems they have no suitable place to stay with Mrs. Wintersword, who is pregnant.”
Karl held the letter to his chest and smiled.
It was a bright, genuine smile—the first Kairen had seen from him in a long time.
‘I’m happy.’
With his legs crippled, he was confined to a wheelchair.
He had been withering away day by day, treated as a useless burden by his father and by everyone outside the family.
And yet his younger brother's respected master, of all people, needed him for the sake of the people who had saved his younger brother.
‘I... can still be of help to someone.’
A small spark of vitality began to stir in the heart that had been preparing itself for death.
Kairen knew it instinctively as he watched his brother smile.
‘This is it.’
This letter was the opportunity.
A justification to get his brother out of the estate.
‘Could I use this letter as a pretext to send Brother to Eisengard?’
What if he created a justification for his brother to write directly to the faculty or travel to Eisengard and meet with them in person?
“Brother! Then how about going to Eisengard yourself and helping them?”
Kairen hurriedly suggested.
“It would make it easier to contact the academy professors and consult with Master....”
But Karl's expression darkened again.
“...I want to, too, but Father won't allow it.”
“......”
“You think he'll let his disabled eldest son travel all the way there just to advise them about a dormitory problem? He'll surely dismiss it, saying there's no need to go in person when I can do it by letter.”
He was right.
The Grand Duke considered his eldest son's going out and about a disgrace to the family.
They needed a more powerful justification.
A grand justification Father could not—or must not—refuse.
‘What could it be... What....’
Kairen bit his lip anxiously.
‘A simple recuperative stay?’
No.
Father hated even seeing his brother show signs of illness.
That was why he had shut him away in the inconspicuous annex.
‘No....’
Then an inspection of the territory?
What about the pretext of inspecting Eisengard as the eldest son of House Northgard?
‘That won't work either.’
He would surely sneer, asking whether he intended to show others that unsightly state, saying, ‘What kind of damned inspection can a cripple who can't even walk conduct?’
No matter how he racked his brain, he couldn't find a justification capable of piercing Father's cold rationality and twisted obsession with the family.
His head felt ready to burst.
He approached the window to clear his cluttered mind.
Outside, the red afterglow had already faded.
At the estate's main gate, the night guards were in the middle of changing shifts.
Clatter, clatter.
Just then, the estate's enormous iron gate, which was about to close, suddenly halted.
He could see the guards making way in confusion.
“Who's coming?”
Two carriages were entering along the drive as darkness fell.
The splendid carriage bearing the Grand Duke's crest was nowhere to be seen.
A practical, sturdy-looking carriage.
And a carriage of a strangely familiar shape.
‘Has Father returned? No, if Father were returning in state, it wouldn't be so modest.’
As the carriage drew closer, Kairen's eyes widened.
That carriage was...
It was exactly like the carriage he had seen in the borderlands.
The top-of-the-line sleeping carriage Eisen had ordered after growing tired of the cramped one.
“D-don't tell me...?”
Kairen approached the window as if about to press his face against it.
“Kairen? What is it? Who has arrived?”
Karl asked in puzzlement, but instead of answering, Kairen swallowed hard.
The carriage stopped in front of the estate's entrance.
A knight wearing armor emblazoned with Eisengard's crest dismounted from the driver's box first.
And then.
Creak.
The carriage door opened, and a massive shadow stepped out.
An imposing bulk clearly visible even in the darkness.
And a massive double-bladed ax strapped to his back.
“......!”
Kairen's eyes widened.
“It's Master. And... Varg has come with him too.”
“What? The count and that benefactor?”
Karl, startled as well, turned his wheelchair toward the window.
Kairen's mind reeled for a moment.
It made no sense.
Master's letter had arrived today.
Yet the people who sent it had arrived almost simultaneously with it?
‘Ah... 「the circuit」.’
As Brother had said earlier, Master sent important documents and reports separately.
The Grand Duchy's circuit carriage traveled through twelve territories in succession, collecting reports.
Master was more familiar than anyone with the snail's pace of that administrative process.
He must have sent the letter on the mail carriage, then handled his business in Eisengard and departed a day or two later.
If he took a direct route, he could overtake the circuit carriage, delayed by stops at multiple territories, and arrive precisely when the letter did.
Even that interval had been calculated with meticulous precision.
‘But why did he come in person? Did something happen?’
The question arose.
‘More importantly, why did Varg come too? He must be busy preparing for enrollment. Did his wife come with him?’
But his joy and relief outweighed those questions.
“Hup….”
Varg, who had stepped into the courtyard in front of the estate, raised his head.
“As expected... I need to keep my body moving.”
Eisen, standing beside him, quietly spoke.
“Mr. Varg... No, here I suppose I should call you Sir Wintersword.”
Eisen adjusted his glasses, set aside the familiar way he addressed Varg at his own estate, and regarded him with a serious, formal gaze.
“In any case... what you said earlier must all be true. That 「person」 is in danger.”
Eisen put weight behind his words.
If Varg's words were false, it would amount to insulting House Northgard.
Yet the earnest hope of a master who was also a retainer of the Grand Duke's house—that they had not arrived too late—gave those words substance.
Varg chuckled and answered firmly.
“For now, take it as a warning. That's not why we came; we came because of the dormitory problem.”
Then he casually shrugged.
“But... if the dormitory problem is resolved, 「that matter」 might be resolved as a bonus.”
Varg looked directly at Karl's study window on the second floor of the annex.
As though he knew Kairen was there.
The moment their eyes met, Kairen felt it.
The salvation he had wished for so desperately had walked in of its own accord.
“Brother.”
Kairen spoke in a trembling voice.
“We don't need to go. They... have come to save us.”
“Come to save us?”
Karl smiled as he looked at his younger brother, who was saying something he could not understand.
Because although he thought his brother had grown up, the cute little brother he knew was still there.