Volume 1 - CH 1.5

“Felicia,” I called to my sister. A look was upon her face—one that I’d seen her make never once before. A face filled with unbearable sorrow, made in light of things one can ill-do aught about, I reckoned. I then too, came to share in that sorrow, as one who caused his own sister such suffering.

And it was behind that sister of mine that my parents appeared.

“Felicia,” Father said. “Do not concern yourself with that thing.”

“Do heed your father, Felicia dear,” added Mother. “Consort with traitors to the Deiva and you are like to share in their filth.”

To such sharp words, Felicia did little but quietly set her eyes downward. Seeing the futility of any conversation to be had, I strode past the three without a word.

“Hold,” my father threw at my back. “The one to claim lordship over House Buckmann shall be Felicia. Know this, and keep it.”

“Aye,” was my curt answer. I continued on to my room without sparing them a look back.

“Felicia will not be made to suffer your presence from this day forth,” warned my mother. “Understood?”

“I do.”

It was one thing to be branded a man unblessed by the Deiva. It was another to be a son who betrayed the single most important hope of a noble house: succession. As such, the words uttered by Mother and Father alike oozed with both enmity and discontent.

♰

That next day—the day of our long-awaited departure.

Emilie and I were to set off by carriage from the Buckmann abode. Her parents and servants all were gathered to send her off.

Long possessed of a magnetic personality, Emilie had gotten along well with even her servants. To point, a veritable crowd had come to celebrate. Among them was a very young handmaiden of House Mernesse by the name of Maria, whom Emilie thoroughly adored. The little girl had her hands clasped about Emilie’s, prattling to her mistress with youthful eagerness.

Baron Mernesse and his wife, for their part, then held their daughter in a tight embrace. Word had already spread of the Aureola, indicating Emilie’s receipt of the fullest gift of odyl, and her parents naturally were well apprised of this. Their eyes, reddened from shedding tears, were brimming with pride.

The same could not be said of the Buckmanns.

While present for the departure, Mother and Father kept silent, sparing me only looks bitter and cold. It seemed they meant not to see me off, but rather to make sure I had well and truly left.

I proceeded to board the carriage, but then, for the briefest moment, stopped.

Fifteen years, I lived on this estate. Fifteen years, each filled with bliss. Nothing but fond memories comprised the collective childhoods Emilie, Felicia, and I shared together. How unfortunate that the day I took wing from the nest would be this dreary. I could not see myself ever returning.

With such turbid emotions roiling within me, I looked up at the Buckmann manor, spying in one of the windows a lone figure.

Felicia. From high up in her room, she watched on.

I returned a look of my own, as if to say ‘sorry’. After all, a new burden was now on her shoulders, what with the heirship of the Buckmann estate having been suddenly passed to her. My sister, however, is an exceptional individual. Light work will she make of this new trial, I’m sure.

A sharp, dry sound rang through the air—one of Mother slapping her son across his face.

“Don’t you dare even look at Felicia,” she said. “The heir to House Buckmann need not suffer the filthy gaze of the profane! Have you no shame!?”

“…My apologies,” I replied.

“How could a son like you ever… ever…!” Her voice quivered as tears welled from her eyes. Dearly and tenderly had she loved her son, certain in the brilliant days ahead of him. But then came that son’s betrayal. At the very least, that was how she and Father must have felt.

Nay. Certainly, given the common sense of this kingdom, anyone else would have felt the same.

Father then embraced Mother by her quaking shoulders.

“Felicia enters the Order in the coming year,” he began. “You will not meddle with her in the slightest. Do you understand?”

“Yes, I do,” I answered, boarding the carriage. “Be well, then.”

A farewell unreturned. As I thought.

Soon after, the carriage departed in earnest. Emilie and I were now well on our way to the 5th Chivalric Order’s headquarters.

♰

“You were… you were disinherited!?”

“That I was.”

In the course of the trip, Emilie and I had spent a long while in silence. But perhaps unable to bear it any longer, Emilie nervously spoke out to me. The stammering conversation that ensued centred on the happenings of the night before.

My future claim to the Buckmann estate had been revoked—”disinherited”, as it were. Emilie was left in shock upon hearing of the ill tidings.

“Are… are you sure that’s what your father meant?”

“Clear as day, his words were. ‘The one to claim lordship over House Buckmann shall be Felicia’,” I confirmed, earning her baffled reaction. “Emilie. I’m sorry.”

“Why do you apologise…?” she asked.

“Our engagement—it’s gone the way of the wind. And I fear your life has been upturned along with it.”

For an instant, a look of paralysing hysteria flashed across her face.

“What do you mean, our engagement is… But… why!?” A question asked with a voice wishing to scream.

“It pains me to admit, but that’s the way of it.”

Such a circumstance was a forgone conclusion the moment I was disavowed of my family. That Emilie could not realise it herself until now was symptomatic of just how disarrayed her thoughts had become. She had felt aught but shock in the past few moments, after all.

“You were to wed the coming master of House Buckmann,” I reiterated. “Now that I’ve lost the claim to that title, well… it goes without saying, the arrangement itself is lost, too.”

“B-but that’s…! You and I… we’re…!”

“I’m sorry, Emilie. I was given no odyl, and now it’s come to this…”

“Rolf…”

Emilie’s eyes quickly teared up.

How astonished I was. Ever the choirgirl to the Yonaic faith, my dear Emilie. Yet here she was, daring not even to disdain me for what I had become: a traitor to her deity.

I could not have felt any more thankful for such compassion. Only, I also felt deep remorse at having roused her tears—a remorse that far outweighed the shame of having betrayed my parents’ hopes.