"Saint? I have no interest."
—That single remark went around the entire continent within three days.
The neighboring kingdom of Leiberg. The princess's private chambers.
Halfway through the dispatch her maid was reading aloud, the princess snapped her fan shut.
"Once more. The last part."
"'Saint? I have no interest. I am, after all, the Grand Duchy's Economic Advisor.' —That is what it says."
The princess looked out the window at the garden roses, their edges whitened with frost.
"Now she is my ideal."
The maid smiled and said nothing more.
The magical communication rooms of every embassy. That night, the transmission stones trembled until dawn.
The True Saint resides in the Grand Duchy of Vernant.
Her homeland, Albert, had enshrined a false Saint.
The True Saint has refused the Holy See of the Mother Church and remains a mere Economic Advisor.
The words crossed seas. They crossed mountains.
Before the night was out, the white-haired master of the merchants' guild rewrote the investment targets on his map, narrowing them to a single nation. "We invest in whatever country she settles in. Write that in the reason column. It's reason enough." Low laughter filled the conference room, or so it was said.
Each time the operators carved the final line into their stone tablets, their hands paused of their own accord.
"I respectfully decline."
They'd never known three little words could feel so good.
The homeland, Albert. A room in the royal palace.
Alfred sat sunk deep in a chair before the fireplace. The fingers gripping his wine cup were white.
"...Why?"
The murmur reached no one.
"But why?"
A spark popped in the fire.
—The Saint was supposed to be mine. That woman was supposed to be my fiancée. The kingdom was supposed to be my kingdom.
Why, why, why.
To the very end, the three words "I was wrong" never left his mouth. His pride alone remained sky-high.
And the next morning, over the main gate of the palace, a banner proclaiming the accession of the King's younger brother would be quietly raised. The throne he had sat upon was no longer his.
That same night, in the palace archives, an old record of the Saint selection was dragged up from beneath the dust.
Over ten years ago. The response of the Temple Stone to the young daughter of House Abel, then still a small child—"No reaction." The signature was that of the high priest of the time.
"...We..."
The Chancellor's finger stopped on that single line.
"We examined the True Saint with our own hands, declared her 'no Saint'—and on top of that, we handed her to a neighboring country?"
No one could answer.
They hadn't simply thrown her away. They had examined her, and then thrown her away.
That the stone had stayed silent because "back then, there was still no one in her memories"—not a single person in that room could possibly have known.
A convent in the north.
In a small room enclosed by gray walls, Miria was said to still be muttering.
"Big Sister ran away, so I had to..."
"I was deceived. This wasn't supposed to happen..."
Every sentence ended with someone else to blame. To the very end, she never once reflected on what she had done.
The nun who heard her only shook her head.
The infant who should have been in her arms had already been taken in by the Queen Mother. The name "Lionel" remained in the royal genealogy. The name "Miria" no longer passed anyone's lips.
And with that, her name vanished from the talk of the continent.
And then, the Grand Duchy.
The office, at dusk.
Rosalind finished the final check of the tariff schedule and set down her pen. Outside the window, snow had begun to fall.
"Rosalind."
The door opened quietly.
"Your Grace."
As always, Lucas held out a shawl.
"The ceremony must have worn you out. I moved your afternoon schedule."
"Thank you. But I did process my paperwork properly this afternoon."
"I know."
Rosalind accepted the shawl with a wry smile. Part of labor management, I suppose—she caught herself translating it in her head again.
Standing before her desk, Lucas spoke, almost on impulse.
"There's something I want to ask you."
"About the Saint matter? I have no interest. I shall say so as many times as necessary."
The corners of Lucas's mouth lifted slightly.
"...That's not it."
"?"
He started to go on, his lips beginning to move—but then Lucas closed his mouth.
"Never mind. Get some rest early tonight."
"Understood."
Rosalind nodded and began putting away her pens.
Steam rose from the black tea an attendant had brought. At the edge of the desk, at some point, a single baked sweet had appeared.
On the note beside it, one short line.
I'm proud of the future you chose not to take.
Rosalind read it and could not move for a while.
—...If only, on the night I collapsed at work in my past life, someone had given me this one line.
The fingertips that had set down her quill trembled, just a little.
She folded the note and tucked it into her bodice.
She had never once thought of getting back at anyone. And yet, before she knew it, it was all over.
Her homeland had crumbled. The Church had yielded. Miria had vanished. Alfred's name no longer appeared in the continent's dispatches.
What remained was, perhaps, just one thing.
Rosalind gazed at the blank sheet in front of her. Nothing was written on it yet.
What remained was—the very deepest part of her own heart. Something she couldn't yet put a name to, not even for herself.
Outside the window, the snow kept falling, soft and silent.
Whatever it was, she tried, once again, to shelve it as something outside her scope of work. As always. Rationally.
But today, it didn't work.
The tea was still warm. The sweet should have tasted the same as always.
And yet today, her fingers were a little slower than usual, just a little, as she put away her pens.