Previously
Iris journeys across snowy mountains toward the far north with the Tehas Knights, watching the members perish one by one amid monster attacks and freezing blizzards while lightening the mood with theoretical games about changing the past.
A King Is Born on the Road
Just then, Iris strained her ears, alert to her surroundings.
Though it was night, moonlight washed over the snow, leaving visibility fairly clear. Yet what Iris heard was the cry of monsters still out of sight.
Heyer must have heard the sound before she did, but he asked unbothered,
“There’s one thing I’d like to ask.”
“What is it?”
“If I were to become king, could we reach House Dirfone and join them on the great plains without running from the Kahif?”
At his question, Iris recalled the path she had mapped in her head countless times throughout their journey.
Picturing the pursuit of the Kahif, said to be one and a half times faster than the people of Luwan, Iris shook her head.
“They would catch us before then.”
“I see.”
Heyer stepped out of the tent first, hauling Iris to her feet with a firm grip.
“Then there is only one answer.”
“What answer? All I know for certain is that no matter what Luwan does, it will lose the war.”
“We simply overturn the entire premise from the start.”
“…How?”
“The eight great noble houses of Luwan, squabbling over the legitimacy of the throne, reached a consensus only because you married Sid Repos. The three great houses insisting that you should be sovereign withdrew their claims because of that marriage.”
“…”
“Without that marriage, the underlying premise—that the great noble houses consented to Sid Repos taking the throne—falls apart.”
In other words, all she had to do was not marry Sid Repos.
Iris caught Heyer’s arm as he moved toward the monsters.
“There are two things I want to know.”
“What would those be?”
“You belong to House Asheri. You would be safe there, so why pay such a terrible price to head for the North Gate? And how did you even know about the North Gate in the first place?”
Heyer did not answer her questions. He dashed straight toward the sound of the monsters’ breathing.
Strong as he was, facing the beasts alone seemed manageable enough; preventing them from attacking Iris, however, proved difficult.
Over the three months it had taken to reach this point, Iris had learned royal spearmanship from Heyer. Yet she lacked the strength to wield the spear properly.
Even so, seeing that Heyer’s movements were constrained on her account, Iris raised the spear to defend herself, if only for a brief moment.
With hands trembling violently from the weight and terror, she moved the spear across the snowfield.
Monsters were beasts after all, and mistaking the length of the spear for the span of Iris’s frame, they hesitated slightly before her.
In the brief opening she created, Heyer dashed toward a tree standing solitary amidst the terribly bleak, snow-covered plains.
The massive tree, surely a thousand years old, was enveloped in a blue light. It was a Divine Tree.
Across two kingdoms and five lands, as many faiths had split apart, yet all of them shared the same root.
The belief was that Tilla, the God of All Creation, had planted five Divine Trees across this monster-infested continent to give humanity land upon which to settle.
While Luwan believed that Tilla looked through the moon to gauge the qualities of successors and choose a monarch, Suyeo insisted that the king himself was Tilla’s reincarnation.
Then there were the Kawat, the mountain folk, who believed the goddess had died and that guarding the Divine Trees was human penance.
The Kahif, the desert people, believed the god of the sands had slain the goddess to become the sole deity.
There were numerous sects, including peoples scattered widely across the highlands who forged and followed their own scriptures, yet nowhere did anyone dispute the duty of protecting the Divine Trees.
It was right after Iris sensed the monsters falling back.
With a thunderous crash, the ground shook. The Divine Tree was toppled.
Dazed, Iris looked at Heyer standing before the felled Divine Tree and asked,
“What have you done? Are you insane?”
She rushed frantically toward him, then clapped a hand over her mouth.
Matching the diagonal cut across the Divine Tree, the exact same wound opened across Heyer’s shirt, oozing blood.
Heyer did not look surprised in the least. Only then did Iris realize where the wounds she had seen earlier had come from.
Nonchalantly, Heyer opened the medicine case he always carried and swallowed a pill.
Meanwhile, the monsters surrounding them withdrew entirely.
Felling a Divine Tree drove the monsters away.
Iris finally understood why the monsters in the south had dwindled so sharply back then. And why Heyer had been unable to attempt the rebellion Annamaria had urged around the time he turned twenty.
He had already been dying for a long time.
Unable to bear the widening wound, Heyer sank back against the severed stump. He pulled a handful of flowers from beneath it and pressed them over the gash. Slowly, the bleeding subsided.
Heyer spoke.
“I know the cure, but it was already too late.”
“What kind of madman… cuts down a Divine Tree?”
“Indeed.”
Heyer chuckled softly.
Only now did Iris realize that he, too, had been constantly tempted by death.
He had suppressed that urge solely to bring Iris to the North Gate.
Iris murmured,
“I’m sorry. I can’t think of a joke. I’m a dull person.”
“Ah, I know.”
Iris glared at his teasing reply, and Heyer smiled.
He went on.
“My men are a difficult bunch. Every one of them does as they please, with nothing to offer but loud voices. If they had thought Your Majesty couldn’t find the way, they would have lain down and refused to move. The fact that they followed you all the way here means they saw something in the way you held the throne.”
“…”
“Just as I know you’re a dull person.”
Heyer playfully studied Iris’s face before continuing.
“I also know you’re someone who will keep walking. That fact alone makes you more than surprising and interesting enough.”
Iris gazed quietly at Heyer.
How well could she really have known him after three months of ceaseless fighting and marching? Yet one truth was undeniably clear.
Had she met him under better circumstances, she would have fallen head over heels in love with Heyer Asheri, utterly helpless to stop herself.
This man who smiled easily, was always composed, and loved to have a joke ready even in the face of death.
Wishing to send off this man gritting his teeth in agony with a smile, Iris attempted a joke for the first time in her life.
She knelt before Heyer for a moment, looking at him, and spoke words that could never possibly be taken for anything but a joke.
“You’re ugly.”
Heyer wore an odd expression for a second before bursting into laughter.
Only when he laughed did Iris rise and walk past him without a farewell, just as the other knights had done before.
Then she heard a voice call out from behind her.
“Iris.”
At his voice, Iris turned back.
Still leaning against the stump with his back turned to Iris, Heyer spoke.
“If something changes beyond the North Gate.”
“…”
“Do not love me then. Never.”
Heyer spoke in a gentle voice, delivering words far more terrible than the bitter wind howling around them.
At a loss for words, Iris stood silent for a long time before she asked,
“Why?”
“…”
“Heyer. Tell me why.”
“…”
“Since when did you know I loved you? Why didn’t you say anything if you knew?”
His head had already fallen limp.
To keep from crying, Iris clenched her fists so hard her nails dug into her palms.
Why, of all things?
Were those words so profound that they had to break the custom of parting with a joke?
Or was that custom only meant to be shared among the Tehas Knights?
Though Iris felt on the verge of collapsing right where she stood, she beat her chest with trembling fists. Because this journey was not yet over, she brutally choked down her grief.