Chapter 138
“So please, open this door!”
The shout that poured through the closed door was enough to shatter the silence in the room to pieces.
Click—.
The strength drained from the hand that had been tightening on the trigger just before pulling it.
The revolver fell to the floor with a dull thud.
Thunk.
The sound rang out unusually loud.
Lionel’s vision blurred for an instant, then sharpened again.
The cold touch of metal that had been against his temple moments ago vanished, and instead his heart began to pound violently.
Wheelchair.
The word echoed in his mind.
A young woman in a wheelchair, he’d said.
Lionel walked straight past the revolver on the floor toward the door.
His steps were still heavy, but there was no hesitation in them.
“Colonel, are you listening? Hurry to Marsen—”
Bang!
Kalt, standing in front of it, flinched violently as the door was flung open roughly.
Lionel’s face, as he appeared through the door, was pale, but his eyes alone shone sharp.
“Report again. Who boarded the Corel?”
Kalt, stiff under the pressure radiating from Lionel, held out the documents he’d prepared with difficulty.
“Neither Leuceviten nor Lady Agnes appear on the official passenger list. However—”
“However?”
Lionel’s gaze swept across the documents.
Within them were listed a ticket issued under a name he’d never seen before, and a record of a report claiming someone had seen Agnes.
“There is a person who boarded the ship under the name of Sir Kain’s younger cousin. Upon confirmation, the actual owner of that identity is currently staying at an eastern recuperation resort.”
In short, it meant someone had boarded the ship under a forged identity.
Reason gradually settled into Lionel’s irises.
“And it seems a young man was also part of Leuceviten’s party.”
“And his identity?”
“Likewise appears to be forged. However, there is someone who saw him.”
With those words, Kalt stepped aside.
Behind him stood Jessie, who was, it turned out, revealed. Jessie was holding tightly to the hand of Jane, who came up only to about her thigh.
“Jane, tell His Grace what you saw.”
Jessie gently swung her little sister’s hand.
Jane worked her small mouth for a moment, then spoke up in clumsy pronunciation.
“I saw the pretty lady—no, the duchess—walking with some brother. His brown hair was all curly and his eyes were round like this!”
Jane, having told the truth about what she’d seen in front of the inn the other day, looked up at Jessie.
“Sister, did I do good?”
“Yes.”
Jessie stroked her sister’s head, then bent at the waist and added further explanation to Jane’s testimony.
“Right after the duchess’s incident, we happened to see someone resembling her at the inn where we take in work. A young man was with her.”
Curly brown hair and gentle eyes.
Lionel realized that was Kain.
He had been told that none of those in the carriage had survived.
But if Kain was alive…
Then there was a possibility that Agnes was alive too.
Lionel’s chest pounded violently.
Humans truly were foolish creatures.
Hope that had already been trampled down so many times was, once again, about to catch a spark over its dying embers.
Kalt bowed his head deeply.
“The ticket inspector at the dock also said he saw someone resembling Lady Agnes. It’s at least worth confirming.”
Confirming.
That single word lodged itself clearly in his mind.
Lionel slowly drew in a breath.
The tangled, blurred thoughts forced themselves into a single line.
Marsen.
The Emperor had sent someone to Marsen.
And there, Agnes might be.
If so, there was only one choice. No—it wasn’t even something that could be called a choice.
He couldn’t be late again.
He wasn’t allowed the luxury of flailing in despair.
“We go to Marsen.”
Lionel said, putting force into his throat, as he handed the documents back to Kalt.
“We move with a minimal force. Kalt, you stay here in case of any unforeseen situation.”
His body, which moments ago had had no will left to move at all, began moving forward as if it were a lie.
“We must arrive before the Emperor. Without fail.”
His voice was coldly composed.
But even a little scrutiny made it easy to see that Lionel was, in truth, anything but calm.
In his blue eyes, which had turned sharply away from the path toward death, lay a desperate, wrenching urgency.
Let him be called foolish, if that’s what it was.
Let them mock him for clinging once more to uncertain hope.
The mere possibility that Agnes might be alive was enough.
It didn’t matter if he became a madman, clinging to that possibility and refusing to let go.
After all, he was the kind of man who, wherever Agnes’s breath might reach, could do nothing but run there.
***
And so Lionel drove his horse onward, riding hard.
Without stopping, until the line between night and day lost all meaning.
Even as the horse’s breath tore out ragged and its hooves tore up the stone road, throwing sparks, he never eased the reins.
The horses, changed several times over, staggered as if about to collapse from exhaustion, but Lionel never once slowed his pace.
Now and then, whenever the memory of himself over the past few days—dreaming of tomorrow, knowing nothing—came back to him, something in him twisted.
But at the same time, he felt a strange sense of relief.
There was still something he could do for Agnes.
If, truly, she was alive.
Then he could burn away everything he had, if it was needed for her safety.
Even if it meant tearing out the Emperor’s throat, he had no intention of hesitating.
The rest and peace that Agnes had never once been able to enjoy at his side.
He wanted, without fail, to give her that.
That resolve added strength to the hand gripping the reins.
The messenger who caught up with him now and then reported that the Emperor’s forces were moving quickly southward.
Spurred further by that news, by the time he finally, barely reached the harbor, the Emperor’s ship had already set sail just ahead of him.
“We follow right behind. Prepare to set sail.”
At the order that fell without a moment’s pause for breath, the military vessel that had been readied in advance raised anchor at once.
The sails swelled taut, catching the wind roughly and pushing the ship forward.
Deep blue-black waves struck against the hull as it slowly began to move.
Standing on the deck, Lionel glared at the horizon stretching to the very edge of his sight.
The Emperor’s ship must surely be cutting across the water somewhere ahead.
The long wake trailing from the ship’s bow seemed to trace the very path the Emperor’s vessel had taken, and his mouth went dry with tension.
As they followed the vessel and entered the waters off Marsen, in the far distance, a massive ship moored at the dock came into view.
It was a warship bearing the Emperor’s crest, unmistakably.
As they drew within range, he saw the Imperial soldiers moving busily, searching the docks.
They were looking for something.
Lionel’s grip on the railing tightened.
Let him not be too late.
Just this once, please, let him not be too late.
Lionel clenched his jaw.
“Lower the sails. Change course.”
At Lionel’s order, the ship turned, tracing a wide arc.
The hull moved cutting through the water as minimally as possible, so the Imperial forces would not notice.
The military vessel drew close to the shoreline silently, as though sinking into the sea itself.
***
Meanwhile.
Standing before the harbor, Agnes pulled the brim of her deeply drawn hat down even further.
Still, unease would not leave her, and she pulled the shawl draped over her shoulders up to cover her chin.
‘Why is it so chaotic?’
Agnes’s large eyes swept busily over her surroundings.
Marsen’s harbor was always crowded with travelers.
But today, somehow, the atmosphere was different.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have come out…”
Agnes rested her hand on the wheel of her chair.
The Chairman was currently staying at Leuceviten and Kain’s residence.
It was the result of following Leuceviten’s opinion that, since there was no telling what he might do out of sight, it was better to keep him in view and watch him instead.
The secret letter had, in the end, been entrusted into Agnes’s hands.
Because she had, in the end, been unable to turn away from what the Chairman had said about Lionel.
Still, she wasn’t at all certain how she should handle this letter.
But she couldn’t stay like this forever, either. She thought she should first check on the mood within the Empire.
And so she had come here.
Given the nature of Marsen, getting news from the Empire, or bringing in goods, ultimately meant relying on the words of the merchants who traveled back and forth to the Empire.
Still, she couldn’t step forward herself, so she planned only to observe the merchants’ movements from a distance and then return.
But something about the ship taking up half the dock, moored there, seemed strange.
Unlike an ordinary passenger vessel, a large emblem was emblazoned on the side of the massive ship, its stern elaborately decorated.
The instant she recognized it, the color drained from Agnes’s face all at once.
‘Why is the Imperial crest here…?’
What gleamed beneath the gold-trimmed deck was, without doubt, the Imperial crest.
Moreover, armored soldiers were sweeping through the docks.
They were roughly searching through the merchants’ cargo, seizing passersby to bombard them with questions, combing every corner of the harbor.
Agnes’s fingertips went cold.
She had to run.
Instinct screamed it.
Turning sharply, Agnes pushed hard at the wheels of her chair.
But the stone ground, wet with seawater, was slicker than she’d expected.
The wheel failed to move in the direction she wanted and slid sideways instead.
“…!”
She pushed the wheel again with force, and the moisture clinging to it immediately transferred to her palm.
Even so, the wheelchair barely moved forward at all.
In the end, Agnes turned toward the alley where the ground was at least less wet.
Just as the wheelchair, rattling, finally caught its direction—
A large hand shot out from behind and seized the handle of the wheelchair.
“—!”
A ragged breath tore from Agnes’s startled lips.
In the next instant, a firm arm slipped carefully beneath her knees, and her body was lifted into the air.
The wheelchair toppled sideways, its
wheels rattling, scraping against the stone ground.
Agnes was pulled straight into a firm embrace.
Thud—. Thud—.
The rapid beat of the other’s heart carried through to her ear.
And then, along with the faint scent of cigar smoke, a low voice, sunk deep against her ear, flowed in.
“…Found you.”
