19
Prisca cannot triumph over me. She has more weaknesses than I do. Therefore, if we fight each other, Prisca will die—it is inevitable.
However, even I do not wish to kill the little sister I love the most. And that’s why, suitably impressed with your actions here today, I grant you an opportunity. A chance to save Prisca.
As for how…
“ ”
“Finally up, are you?” Someone, just a face in profile, spoke to her as her eyes fluttered open on the bed. She found herself looking up at an unfamiliar ceiling, but a quick glance to the side revealed a man in most unusual raiment, pure white from head to toe. The man’s name… It was…
“You’re all white…”
“It’s Chisha Gold. I wish that you would at least take the effort to remember my name. Merely my own opinion, of course.” Chisha, as he called himself, showed no change of expression despite his complaint. The girl on the bed—Arakiya—paid no heed to his objection. She felt something was wrong; she brought a hand to her left eye. Sometimes, the world looked fuzzy when you first woke up, but the hazy quality it had at that moment was different somehow. Almost as if she had no vision in her left eye.
When he saw Arakiya’s fingers brush her eyelid, Chisha explained calmly, “Consider it the price you paid in exchange for being left with your life. Much like how I’ve turned white as snow. But the important thing is that, indeed, both of us are alive.”
Arakiya wasn’t particularly shocked to learn she’d lost her eye. She’d done what she did knowing full well that it might cost her very life. The fact that she was still there at all was the more surprising thing.
Moreover, her being alive was as much as to say that Vincent’s plan had succeeded. Otherwise, the poison would certainly have killed her.
“The princess. Where?”
“You mean Lady Prisca? I’m afraid she’s quite dead.”
“ !” Arakiya drew a sharp breath. Chisha sounded every bit as calm as he had explaining about her eye, but she couldn’t ignore what he had said. Her right eye, the one remaining to her, opened wide, and she reached violently toward Chisha, seeking to wring his pale neck.
“Oops! Not now—you’re still convalescing. Calm down, sweet little puppy.”
“Gah!”
No sooner had he spoken—almost bantering—than something hard hit her in the forehead and she felt herself go limp. She blinked, trying to understand what had happened. At the edge of her vision, she saw a blurry but smiling face. The figure bent over her, peering down at her where she’d collapsed—it was the blue-haired boy.
The instant she realized who it was, Arakiya, who hardly ever betrayed emotion, felt as if her heart was in a million pieces.
“Smiling jester…”
“Ha-ha-ha! I know you must be happy to see me, but there’s no need to call yourself that. After all, there’s not a person alive who can help grinning when they see my face!”
“ ” With her remaining eye, Arakiya glared at the boy who’d jabbed her in the forehead, revealing a very obvious desire to kill him. Chisha shook his head slowly. “Allow me to apologize for his blathering. And also for my all-too-easily misunderstood answer to you. I reiterate that Lady Prisca is dead. However, your princess remains with us in this world.”
“But…that…”
“His Excellency will be true to his word. You became the poison that felled Lady Prisca, and for that reason, he will not perjure himself. However…”
“I can’t ever…see the princess…”
“ That’s correct,” Chisha said softly and nodded. Arakiya all but ignored him; she pressed a hand to her left eye and held her breath.
Vincent will keep his word. If what Chisha had said was true, then Prisca was dead but had survived. The Rite of Imperial Selection had ended for her with Arakiya’s betrayal.
“Princess…” Arakiya called to mind the beautiful face she had spent so long studying. Did she hate Arakiya now? Did she hate Arakiya, who had given in to Vincent’s plan and become poison to her? Arakiya, who had been unable to have faith in Prisca’s ultimate triumph and had instead acted on her own initiative to save her princess from death?
It was not that Arakiya had been enraptured by the magic of Vincent’s words. If Prisca truly could not hope to best Vincent, then it was not because of a matter of strength or wits. It was a matter of the heart. Prisca was so deeply compassionate, so kind. That was why she couldn’t hope to defeat the cold and cruel Vincent.
“Oh… Ohh…”
“Oh my, she’s started to cry. Chisha, what do we do with the puppy? His Excellency says she’s a stray now.”
“I’m told her course of action is to be left to her discretion. Anyway, what about you? The brutality with which you annihilated the Pruning Force is getting around.”
Chisha and the boy chatted by Arakiya’s feet; Arakiya herself covered her face with her hands and wailed. She completely ignored the other two; instead, she cried, and as she cried, she prayed. Though she was a spirit eater, a barbarian with nothing to pray to, she cried out to Heaven. She begged that what the princess of her heart had always said would be true.
That the world—
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