The Returning Spring
Roslayen.
At the mention of that place name, Roberta narrowed her eyes.
"Have you heard of it?"
"Yes, just a little while ago."
It was the place name the bard had spoken in the square.
After Akean and his eleven knights had completed their journey, one among them was said to have become the Count of Roslayen. When Roberta mentioned this, Ulrich nodded.
"It's a well-known tale in this region."
"Does that story have anything to do with the purpose of your visit?"
"It does. Very deeply—connected to Roslayen's former master."
Ulrich spoke while watching Fritz.
"If we trace it back, it goes nearly a thousand years. Roberta, do you remember Banares of Carbonihar? From even before the time I met that child."
Roberta nodded, saying she knew. When she had been in Dithmarschen, she had visited Duke Vailen, who sought a guide to the Ice Peninsula—his grandfather had been Banares. He had also been king of the Kingdom of Carbonihar, a man who lived more than six hundred years ago.
It was quite the distant past, yet it stirred little emotion in her. Having encountered Emperor Akean through historical texts, she had immediately recognized him upon seeing the bronze equestrian statue.
And with someone who had lived far longer than that standing before her now, what meaning could a mere thousand years hold?
"Time…"
But Ulrich seemed different.
Roberta had only encountered such figures through records, but he had met Banares and Akean in person and formed bonds with them. Their names, the passage of time—such things could not help but feel different to him.
He trailed off, pausing for a long while before finally speaking again.
"What kind of person is the Akean you know?"
"Well…"
The sudden question made her trail off.
"What kind of person, you ask…"
"It's hard to answer, isn't it? He wasn't a child who achieved anything particularly dazzling as an emperor."
"Yes. Though it seems he was quite remarkable before he wore the imperial crown."
"In truth, it's quite different from that."
Roberta smiled faintly.
"You speak as though you saw it yourself."
"I suppose… I should say I was his guardian."
At that, Ulrich stopped speaking and checked the firewood Fritz had been holding. It was thoroughly dried through to the core, yet neither overly cracked nor overheated.
After praising him, Ulrich was about to hand over another log, but upon seeing the empty basket, he stood up.
"That should be enough practice. Let's continue over a cup of tea."
He brushed off the wood chips embedded in his scorched clothes and left the room.
***
The inn's dining hall was quiet.
During lunch and dinner hours, it would be crowded with guests eating, drinking, and gambling, but at this in-between time, only one or two people lingered.
The innkeeper, dozing in a corner, didn't even notice Ulrich's group descending the stairs. They silently took seats at an empty table.
Ulrich brought over a metal kettle of boiled water and poured it into teacups. Since there was no tea at the inn, each had brought their own leaves—Ulrich's, as always, being pine pollen tea.
I really can't get used to that.
At the sharp, pungent aroma of the pine pollen tea, Roberta unconsciously furrowed her brow, but said nothing. It wasn't as though it had been just a day or two—he drank it every day. What would be the point of asking if he ever grew tired of it?
"To continue the story…"
After drinking tea for a while, Ulrich spoke again.
"In reality, things are often very different from what records say."
"Well, that's true. Records can't capture everything."
"And there are important truths that were never recorded at all."
"Is this about Akean?"
Ulrich nodded.
"More precisely, about Akean and his sister."
Roberta tapped her teacup lightly with her index finger.
"A sister? That's new. Though I suppose that's nothing unusual."
"But you can guess who I'm referring to."
She nodded silently, and Ulrich emptied his teacup before continuing.
"The beginning of the problem lay with a certain dissolute emperor. No one ever expected him to ascend the throne, so he was a wastrel who had never once been restrained. Naturally, he had many heirs."
Among them were two children—the siblings Ulrich spoke of. The elder was born two years earlier, and when the younger was born, their biological mother passed away.
"Their mother knew the emperor would pay no attention to his children. She also knew that once she was gone, the children would be killed by rivals. So she left a request to me."
She asked him to entrust the children to someone reliable—someone unconnected to the emperor.
Wishing to fulfill her request, Ulrich entrusted the siblings to a certain couple who had no children of their own. They were not nobles, but they were wealthy farmers, and thus could provide a comfortable upbringing.
"I didn't even tell their adoptive parents that the blood of Jokuster ran through them. I hid the truth so the child could live the quiet life she wished for. Though, as you know, the result turned out differently."
"A result completely opposite to the intention."
Ulrich gave a faint smile and slowly shook his head.
"She was a brave child. Or rather, Akean simply had no fear. While the dead were rising all across the land, instead of fleeing, he was struggling to put on his adoptive father's armor by himself."
When Akean was fifteen, a magician who had dreamed of immortality rose from his grave and became the lord of the dead.
Across many nations, the living lost their lands to the dead—and then their lives as well. Ulrich had tried to evacuate the adoptive parents and the siblings, but Akean refused to comply.
"It didn't seem like the situation would settle anytime soon, so I began gathering people. That child forced his way in. He hid in a wagon with his sister and followed me. I wanted to send them back, but knowing his temperament, I had no choice."
"That's… very different from what I heard."
What had the bard said again?
'A knight of the highest rank came and awakened his calling.'
But where, in Ulrich's recollection, was anything like that?
Stories told by bards were often exaggerated, so she hadn't taken them too seriously—but the events didn't match at all, and she let out a hollow laugh.
"He had learned from both his adoptive father and me, but not enough to face the dead. If he had taken up a sword right away as the stories claim, he would've ended up a corpse."
Ulrich remarked that he had been even more clumsy than Fritz.
Even the eleven knights differed from the legends. They were people Ulrich had gathered, and their number had been greater than eleven. The reason they became eleven was simply because that was how many remained at the end.
Those who did not survive were omitted from the bards' tales, while those who lived on had even the fame of the dead added to their names, becoming verses in song.
"The pursuit of that dead magician continued for years. Though reduced to bones and having lost his reason, once he realized there were living people hunting him, he began to conceal himself."
And in that long pursuit, Akean grew. The boy who had once been nothing more than a greenhorn became a knight, and in the end delivered the final blow to the lord of the dead.
The magician, who had not fallen even under the assaults of worldly rulers, crumbled from that single strike. Though the beginning differed from the legend, the ending was nearly the same.
"And the others… what happened to them?"
Roberta cautiously brought up Akean's sister.
"Moira—she was there as well."
After defeating the lord of the dead, the twelve who remained each claimed their spoils. The dead do not covet treasure, but they had seized the lands of the living—and thus, land itself became the reward.
"She took Roslayen as her share and disappeared. The siblings both learned of their birth, but unlike her brother, Moira showed little reaction, as I recall."
The thought lingered in Roberta's mind—she showed little reaction, even though she was in a position to claim the throne. Considering that Akean had eventually asserted his claim and become emperor, it was a stark contrast.
"There must have been a reason."
"From her perspective, it was a reason greater than any throne."
Roberta already knew that reason.
The bard had said it before:
'Among the knights, there was one who could not resist temptation.'
'That person learned immortality by a different method from the lord of the dead.'
That knight had reached for something unattainable, been cursed for it, and was ultimately cut down by Akean's blade.
"Moira pursued immortality."
She had secretly taken relics left behind by the lord of the dead. Using the research he had conducted in life, she sought a different path to immortality—because following the same method would only turn her into a mindless skeleton.
Over a long span of time, she continued her research alone and eventually discovered a way to sustain life without becoming bones, and without commanding the dead.
And until then, her secret had never been discovered. She was better than anyone at hiding her true intentions.
Though Akean and Moira shared the same blood, they had little in common. The younger brother was the same inside and out, with a fiery temperament—but the sister was unreadable, her inner self impossible to discern, and coldly composed.
"As time passed, we realized what Moira was plotting. We couldn't just leave it be. There was a chance she might begin to command the dead."
It was over fifty years after Akean had become emperor.
The boy who had once been so young now stood above all others—but had become an old man who could no longer rise from his bed.
As age consumed his body and death drew near, Ulrich said he revealed his sister's secret to him.
"Akean remained silent for a long time, then handed me his sword."
It was a request—to judge his sister in his stead.
"I went to find Moira together with the knight who had become the Duke of Sirkaf. He had fairy blood in him, so aside from Moira, he was the only one who still retained youth at that time. We assessed the severity of the matter and passed judgment on her."
Ulrich paused and stood, pouring water from the kettle into the empty teacups. Roberta waited for him to continue. But even as time passed, he only sipped his tea in silence.
"Please go on. If you passed judgment, then why are you visiting that place? I've heard that the current Count of Roslayen is merely a vassal of the former lord, with no blood relation."
Unable to wait any longer, she asked.
"Perhaps I spoke in too roundabout a way. We did not kill Moira. We punished her, yes—but her crime was not grave enough to take her life. So we simply took away many things she possessed."
Ulrich set down his teacup.
"And the reason I return to Roslayen after all this time… is to see that child. Moira—she is neither immortal nor ageless, yet she still lives."
Roberta's hand, which had just been reaching for her teacup, trembled. Her fingers slipped from the handle and fell onto the table. From her lips came only a single, stunned word:
"…What?"
"You saw it yourself in Dithmarschen—the result of someone who pursued immortality."
He gave a bitter smile.
"That child… is but a fragment of it."
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