Sarg was unchanged. His white, precisely-formed face looked as if it had been carved with a straight edge, and the color of his hair—absent of any shade, pale as spun silver thread—caught the light with a quiet gleam. His straight-shouldered, broad-framed body seemed to grow only more solid as the years passed.
As Chesa had begun summoning Margarite to the palace more frequently, Sarg—as the Saint’s guardian—had likewise become a more common presence within its walls. But Hyderlin crossed paths with him less often than she once had. She had been largely absent, carrying out the King’s secret commands beyond the city.
Since Antonic Marcelo’s arrest, she had also stopped visiting the Kroitze Cathedral’s knight’s hall to practice sparring with Sarg. At some point along the way, she had stopped asking him to call her Hyderlin—or Hys.
Hyderlin had no desire for Sarg to become entangled with her and earn an unnecessary stain on his reputation.
She was content with the distance between them.
Unlike Hyderlin, who had amassed a considerable infamy, Sarg had built a reputation that shone. He needed to remain an unblemished Holy Knight—a solitary star burning in a sky too high and far away for human hands to reach.
But it was perfectly acceptable to acknowledge an old acquaintance when you happened to pass them.
Hyderlin smiled carelessly and closed the distance between them. Sarg’s brow drew slightly together.
“You smell of blood.”
She had scrubbed herself with soap and then bathed in scented oil, and still the traces of last night lingered on her.
Sharp as ever.
Hyderlin played innocent.
“Sir. When a woman smells of blood, a gentleman is supposed to pretend he hasn’t noticed. Surely you don’t conduct yourself the same way around the Saint?”
Sarg faltered visibly. His clean face flushed red all at once. Hyderlin felt almost worse listening to his flustered apologies than she had about her own remark.
“…You must be tired. Please go inside and rest.”
Still stumbling through his words, Sarg fixed his gaze somewhere in the middle distance and stepped past her. Without quite knowing why, Hyderlin felt a flicker of anxiety rise in her chest—and without quite knowing why, she reached toward the back of his head.
She stopped herself immediately and clasped her hands behind her back. She fell into step with Sarg, matching his pace.
“Don’t be embarrassed. I understand, really.”
“……”
“It’s a phenomenon that affects the majority of women at this stage of life, and yet men are remarkably uninformed about it. Though I suppose for a Holy Knight such as yourself, you would be even less likely to—”
“…Please. Stop.”
Sarg’s jaw clenched. Hyderlin smiled.
“Is the day after tomorrow when you and the Saint depart?”
Sarg, who had been staring stubbornly ahead, exhaled.
“…Yes. The day after tomorrow. We should be back around autumn.”
The Saints lived among the lowest of the low and ministered to them. Saint Margarite the Miraculous was no exception—she was preparing to begin a pilgrimage across all of Lotsa in order to heal and bless the people of humble station with her gifts. Sarg, as the Saint’s knight, would travel with her.
If not today, Hyderlin would not see him until autumn.
She wanted to talk with Sarg a while longer.
“But why are you still here at the palace? You haven’t gone back to the cathedral. Don’t you have packing to do?”
“Your Chesa is holding Lady Margarite here.”
That was easy enough to understand. He would not see Margarite again for half a year, and he wanted to steal a few more hours in her presence.
Having reached this conclusion, Hyderlin also noticed something else about what Sarg had just said.
“I’ve told you more than once—you are not to address His Majesty the King so familiarly.”
She said it plainly, but with enough of an edge to make the warning land. Sarg’s response was indifferent.
For years she had given him the same reminder at regular intervals, and he had never shown the slightest inclination to comply. A man who kept every principle with rigid precision somehow felt perfectly free to say the King’s name without a second thought, and there was something almost absurd about it.
And then Sarg stopped walking. Hyderlin came to a halt half a step ahead of him and turned. He was looking at her steadily with those ash-grey eyes.
“If I may offer one piece of counsel.”
“Coming from the Radiant Knight himself—I shall receive it gratefully.”
Hyderlin’s tone was slightly imperious. Sarg did not hesitate.
“Lady Margarite is a Saint—she belongs to God. She is a woman who extends her hand to all of humanity. She is not someone who can exist for the sake of a single person.”
“Is there anyone in Lotsa who doesn’t know that?”
“The King of Lotsa seems to forget it from time to time.”
“……”
“I would think reminding one’s lord of what he has forgotten is among the duties of a knight who serves him.”
So Sarg had noticed Chesa’s feelings as well. It would have been stranger if he hadn’t, given how close he had been to them both.
Hyderlin shrugged.
“His Majesty is a wise man. He will conduct himself appropriately.”
Sarg said firmly:
“The wisest conduct would be to conceal even the feeling itself and reveal nothing. Sir Biche—I have seen your King allow his longing to show.”
“……”
“One who covets what cannot be had brings only suffering upon themselves.”
In that moment, a quiet pain passed across Sarg’s face.
The fragile grief that flickered in those eyes the color of tempered steel.
The question came to Hyderlin without thinking.
“Is that your own story you’re telling?”
Sarg did not answer. But Hyderlin felt that she had heard the answer anyway.
Is your “someone” the one you covet? Is it because you are a Holy Knight and she is a Saint that you cut that feeling away?
Hyderlin envied Margarite—who had Chesa’s complete devotion and every tender thing Sarg had to offer, all to herself.
Perhaps she resented her, if she were honest.
Those rich brown curls and those large, round eyes. The pearl-pale cheeks that bloomed rosy pink with every small joy, like flowers in spring.
That magnolia smile—as though she had never known a single dirty thing about the world—was something that suited the word girl far better than woman.
She was a person positioned at the precise opposite end of everything Hyderlin was.
Hyderlin loved her. She admired her. She had always wished for her happiness. And inwardly, she resented her and kept her distance. Those two conflicting feelings managed, somehow, to coexist.
And now, in this moment, Hyderlin came face to face with the part of herself that blamed the Saint—and felt something sink in her like a stone dropping through deep water.
She spoke in a voice that had gone dry.
“I see.”
“…That’s not what I meant.”
“Of course.”
Hyderlin looked at Sarg with her dark eyes for a moment. The Holy Knight looked, for once, faintly unsettled. She forced a small smile and gave his shoulder a light tap.
“I’ll keep your secret.”
She crossed the corridor and walked away. She was exhausted from the night’s mission. She wanted nothing more than to stop thinking entirely.
Now she truly needed to rest.
“Well? How do I look?”
Chesa turned in a slow circle. He looked nothing like his usual self—dressed in the bare minimum of formality at the best of times. His hair was combed back neatly, and the fitted formal coat he wore was immaculate, without a single crease. She almost imagined she could detect the scent of flowers.
Not imagined. That really is rose—isn’t it.
Hyderlin sniffed again for a moment, then laughed aloud. She gave Chesa the answer he wanted to hear.
“You look absolutely wonderful. The young women of the court had better be careful—they’ll fall hopelessly in love the moment they lay eyes on you.”
Chesa smiled, wry and pleased with himself.
“Oh dear. That would be most unfortunate for someone about to propose marriage.”
The brightness faded slightly from Hyderlin’s expression. Not because of her brother’s self-congratulatory preening.
“…Chesa. Are you proposing today?”
“Of course.”
There was no need to ask to whom.
“But…she’s a Saint. A woman who swore to serve God for the rest of her life.”
“Don’t worry. Just in case, I went and asked some of the cathedral’s priests—is it impossible for a Saint to marry? Turns out there’s no such rule. The ones forbidden to wed are the Holy Knights and the ordained clergy.”
Then she had no grounds to stop him.
“Even so—why today?”
“It has to be today. If I propose now, she’ll think of me for the entire pilgrimage, won’t she.”
As he said it, Chesa looked happy. And so Hyderlin did not stop him.
After the banquet, the King and the Saint took an evening walk together through the gardens.
The sun was beginning to descend. The entire landscape was lit in gold.
Winter was nearly over. Tender leaves and small buds were beginning to push their way out of bare and withered branches. The King pointed at one and said something to the Saint. The Saint smiled back, as if in answer.
Hyderlin and Sarg stood some distance away and watched them.
A breeze came suddenly. Sarg’s long silver hair swept across and brushed lightly against Hyderlin’s cheek. She felt it like a tickle.
Sarg apologized quietly and gathered his hair back with one hand. Hyderlin reached up and touched her cheek for no particular reason.
“Sir. Your hair smells rather lovely. What soap do you use?”
When Hyderlin leaned in with an exaggerated sniff, Sarg’s brow tightened slightly and he took two steps back. Hyderlin couldn’t help but smile.
The sun was going down. The world was drenched in the last of the evening light. The man and woman standing in the garden below were visible only as dark silhouettes against the glow—like paper figures in a shadow play.
Then the man went down on one knee.
Hyderlin filled in the lines on her own.
Margarite. I can no longer hide what I feel for you. Will you marry me?
The woman’s slender arms rose, slowly. Both hands, pressed together, came up to cover her mouth. Shadow plays, in general, had happy endings.
Yes. I love you too.
The woman moved. As she drew farther from the backlight, the flatness of the silhouette gave way to dimension again—she was coming toward them. Running.
Her face was pale.
As though she had heard something that she should not have had to hear.
“Sarg! Sarg—Sir Sarg!”
Margarite ran toward Sarg as though she were fleeing. She nearly fell into his arms, and then forced out her words as though she had to wring each one from inside herself.
“Let’s go. Let’s leave. Right now.”
Sarg looked startled. But he followed the Saint’s words faithfully.
The Holy Knight and the Saint left. Just like that.
Hyderlin stared at her King, her expression gone blank.
His face, with the dying sun behind him, was lost in shadow and impossible to read.
