"Once you make a choice, it’s only natural for the other path to vanish. Even if you settle a grudge, it was still the result you chose. What’s lost isn't coming back."
It was an answer that seemed to pierce right through to the heart of my question.
He knew. Ragna likely knew everything.
He knew the reality of my annulment and the full story behind my disgrace.
"…This happened a little while back," he murmured.
I braced myself for what he might say next. Until now, he had always spoken of death as if it were a joke—casually mentioning the bets placed on his father’s demise or how quickly one could perish in this land. But now, his tone shifted. He began to speak with a heavy, somber sincerity about how his family had died in battle.
He told me he had hunted down and killed the soldier who took his father’s life.
Apparently, dying in battle was considered a great honor in the Brave Territory. For that reason, he had been told time and again that one must never fight for personal spite; one fought only to protect the kingdom. Those were the lessons he had been raised on, yet he couldn't stop himself.
No matter how unfavorable the odds, no matter how many people tried to hold him back, and no matter what the cost, he couldn't let it go. Having lost the family he had spent his life with, he pursued the enemy forces until he had taken their general’s head.
The current manpower shortage in House Brave—everything the territory was suffering through—was a result of the sacrifices made during his reckless, forced march. He spoke of it with a self-deprecating smirk.
"—No matter how much I was taught that it was 'natural,' I still felt regret. But I’m grateful to the people who loved and raised me enough to make me feel that way. It was then that I realized I still had people left."
Gazing out over the Brave Territory stretching beneath us, he continued.
"It’s not like everything is gone. I still have plenty left. That’s why I’ve decided to do my best as a noble, even though I don’t want to be one. And it’s why I’m going to the Academy, even though I have no desire to go."
I still have plenty left, he had said.
I listened to his words with rapt attention and tried to search for anything remaining in my own life. As expected, I found nothing.
It made sense. After all, the person I had been looking at wasn't the Prince himself, but rather the image of myself standing beside him once he became King.
"…And what if nothing was left?" I asked. "What if you were taught from birth that a specific path was your purpose, but that path was closed to you forever? What then?"
"As long as you aren’t dead, something remains."
"Nothing remains!"
The words burst out of me before I could stop them.
"The girl I used to be is dead! My life in the House of the Duke is… that’s why I’m here in this Abandoned Land… I’m sorry. That was uncalled for."
I should have learned by now that acting on impulse only leads to failure, yet here I was, behaving like a pathetic child again.
The burn scar over my left eye throbbed. A sharp, stinging pain began to prick at my heart. No matter how hard I tried to put it behind me, I knew I would never truly forget. It felt as if I were standing in a bottomless swamp; the more I struggled, the deeper I sank into the cold, dark mud.
Just as Ragna said, even if I achieved some kind of revenge, the person standing at the Prince's side would already be someone else. I would never be satisfied.
…Maybe it would be easier.
How much simpler would it be if I just threw myself off this cliff?
The majestic view that had made me feel so small and my problems so trivial was now just a landscape. Once my eyes became clouded and I lost sight of my path, everything else lost its meaning.
Just as my vision began to blur and the strength started to drain from my limbs, I heard it.
"Alicia, I will protect you from now on. Always."
The words rang clear in my ear. My vision snapped back into focus, revealing Ragna standing there with an expression of absolute seriousness.
"…Excuse me?"
What did he just say? If I hadn't misheard him, did he just say he would protect me forever?
As I stood there in a daze, he pressed on.
"If the Daughter of a Duke version of you is dead, then the person in front of me is Alicia of House Brave, the girl who came here to be my wife. Right?"
He held out his pinky finger toward me.
"In that case, I can promise you this much. I will definitely protect you."
It wasn't an answer to my question at all.
And yet, if I were asked if I could have provided a better answer myself, I would have struggled. I probably would have offered some empty platitude about how "time heals all wounds."
It was a difficult riddle he had been set. He had thought about it, struggled with it, and the answer he finally produced was a pinky swear.
"I’ve been thinking this since this morning, but you really are prone to the most sudden, erratic behavior."
"Well, you see…"
He scratched his head sheepishly as I spoke.
"I tried my best to find the right words to say, but the male children of House Brave aren't exactly used to these situations. I could only say what was on my mind."
"…Pfft."
I couldn't help but let out a small laugh at the sight of him.
That guileless smile and those honest words were a perfect reflection of the way of life here—of people who lived each moment with pride. There was none of the murky vanity or deception so common in aristocratic society.
Standing there just as he was, without a shred of pretense, he looked remarkably gallant. It made me feel as if I had returned to my childhood, reminding me of something I had long since forgotten.
"Was it that weird? I’ve never said a line like that before… My father and brothers were the types who 'spoke with their backs,' you know?"
I spoke to the flustered Ragna.
"To tell you the truth… that’s the first time anyone has ever said that to me."
To have someone look directly at the real me and say those words.
"Huh? I figured a Daughter of a Duke would have heard that from all sorts of people."
"The type of person who blurts out such things unexpectedly is usually considered a nuisance, you know?"
"Dammit… Sebas is going to be nagging me to find a good wife once we're at the Academy, so I've been secretly practicing. I guess it was all for nothing…"
"What kind of ridiculous practice is that?"
The sheer absurdity of a man practicing pickup lines while living a blood-soaked life on the frontier made me feel more exasperated than amused. He truly was a strange man. And yet…
"I don't dislike it. You’re easy to understand."
Perhaps my younger self would have thought he was unrefined. But now, after living through the complexities of the capital, failing, and replaying the Prince's words over and over in my head, his straightforwardness reached my heart.
High-ranking nobles are often judged by their status rather than their character. I’m sure it was the same for His Highness. In a society that valued tradition above all else, he must have been exhausted by the fact that no one truly looked at him or understood him.
Now, I finally understood. It was only natural that he had called off the engagement.
"You're right. I might have been making things far more complicated than they needed to be."
Looking down at the Brave Territory, the horizon stretched out forever, encompassing the rivers, forests, towns, and fields.
"I’m small. So very small. Clinging to a past that’s already gone and moping about it forever…"
"Well, humans are like that."
"But in House Brave, I assume that sort of thing is forbidden?"
"Yeah. Doing it once is fine, but the right thing to do is to switch gears after that."
The girl I was is dead, and now I am Alicia of House Brave.
I felt the hollow ache in my chest slowly begin to fill. This situation wasn't a punishment. I would treat it as a new beginning and change my outlook. That was the way of House Brave.
"When you return to the Academy with me, you’ll likely be the center of a lot of attention. To be honest, we probably won't have a place there, and there will be plenty of hostility and malice… Even so, will you still protect me?"
I held out my pinky finger to Ragna. He hooked his finger around mine and squeezed firmly.
"I'm used to that kind of thing. Leave it to me."
To an onlooker, it might have looked like a romantic scene from The Story of the Hero and the Princess I had read as a child. It was a bit ironic, though, considering both our faces bore scars.
An exiled lady and a Margrave from the Abandoned Land. We were a far cry from the perfect characters in those stories, but for the current me, this felt right. It was comfortable. It was as if my life until now had been Volume One, and Volume Two was just beginning.
"Alicia, wait. I want to redo the part where I swear the vow."
"…What?"
I felt like I had been doused with cold reality. Alicia, you already knew he was a rude man without a romantic bone in his body, I told myself, trying to stay calm. I shouldn't have expected anything else from him.
"Just wait a second, I'll call him over."
Ragna filled his lungs and shouted.
"—Onyx!"
In an instant, a massive Black Dragon descended from the sky and landed right before us.
Wait—is that really a dragon? I had never seen one in person, but its form was exactly like the illustrations in the picture books and encyclopedias I’d seen as a girl. My instincts screamed that it was a dragon.
A Black Dragon. In the stories, they were always depicted as symbols of evil. Now, it turned its massive head toward me and glared with a piercing gaze.
In that moment, my consciousness winked out.