Chapter 52. A Stone Lifted Off My Chest by the Person Who Had the Right to Hold It

Chapter 52: 52. A Stone Lifted Off My Chest by the Person Who Had the Right to Hold It

I smiled. She smiled back, and then she looked out over the yard, and her expression turned thoughtful. A breeze lifted the end of her braid.

"You know I’m not doing this because I’m jealous," she said. "I’m not hiding it or anything."

"I just think that if I’m going to be the head of this ridiculous arrangement... then it’s my job to protect everybody in it."

"And that includes people who aren’t in it yet... Eveline, Sharon... Maybe others we haven’t met."

"Including from me?"

"Especially from you." She nudged me with her shoulder. "You’re a very dangerous man, Roland."

"You walk around being kind to people, and they fall for you without noticing it’s happening." Alicia laughed. "It’s an unfair advantage."

"Well now... I’m not doing it on purpose. But I can’t blame you if I am that handsome."

"That makes it worse."

I laughed, and she laughed, and for a minute we just stood there, shoulder to shoulder, watching the shadows grow longer.

Then she added, in a stage whisper that she’d absolutely planned in advance, "Also, she’s a rabbit... If you scare her, she’ll run into a wall."

"She already did."

"Several times."

"In the first ten minutes."

"It’s a talent."

I put my elbows on the rail and let out a long breath.

For a while I’d been carrying a stone in my chest, and I hadn’t realized how heavy it was until Alicia took it off me.

It’s one thing to make a promise to yourself. And it’s another way to say it aloud to the person who has the most right to hold you to it.

"Thank you," I said.

"For what?"

"For not making it weird."

"I make everything weird, right? That’s my job."

"You know what I mean."

She smiled, and she squeezed my hand where it rested on the rail. "I do..."

I took the chance to check the panel before the moment passed, because curiosity is a vice I’m never going to shake.

I thought of a question at the system as clearly as I could.

’How am I recovering? After the training, I mean.’

’The Lust drop.’

[ANALYSIS]

[Current Lust: 91%]

[Recovery Rate: Moderate, supported by two active bonds and rest.]

[Recommendation: Do not drain your full reserve in order to impress anyone.]

’I didn’t try to impress anyone.’

[You swung a sword at a wooden post and said a very rude word.]

’That was awe... It doesn’t count.’

[It counts a little.]

I gave up and closed it.

"What did it say?" Alicia asked.

"That I’m showing off."

"Welp... It’s right."

"It’s very annoying."

"But still... It’s very right."

"Okay, you..." I leaned my head against hers and let the argument go.

...

Dinner at the Royal Knight Order’s dining hall was a loud, steamy, chaotic affair, with long wooden tables, dented metal trays, and a kitchen staff that seemed to be in a constant state of war with the oven.

By the time I’d collected my plate, the hall was full of knights in their off-duty tunics, laughing, arguing, and stealing food from each other.

I’d been banned from anything heavier than stew, so I carried a bowl and a heel of bread to the table where Alicia and Laura had saved me a seat.

Sharon was already there, demolishing a leg of something with her bare hands, and across from her sat Eveline, who was staring at her bowl with the fixed concentration of a person trying very hard not to knock it over.

I sat down.

Nothing happened, but I thought, ’Maybe she’ll be fine.’

Then she tried to reach for the salt.

I don’t know how it happened...

One moment her hand was moving toward the shaker, and the next, her elbow had caught the edge of her tray, which flipped, which launched a bowl of soup into the air, which landed upside down in the lap of a young knight at the next table.

He yelped and jumped to his feet. The tray clattered to the floor.

A loaf of bread rolled across the planks and came to rest against Sharon’s boot.

"I’M SORRY!" Eveline shouted, leaping up and bowing so deeply that her ears flopped over her face. "I’M SO SORRY!"

"I’LL CLEAN THAT UP!"

"I’LL REPLACE YOUR SOUP!"

"PLEASE FORGIVE ME, SIR!"

"I’LL WASH YOUR TROUSERS!"

"It’s fine..." said the young knight, who looked more amused than angry. "Really! Don’t worry about it, Whitehare."

"It’s not fine!"

"It happens every time you eat here."

"I’m very sorry...!"

A ripple of laughter ran through the hall, and I realized that nobody was annoyed.

The whole room was laughing the way people laugh at a favorite relative who always trips over the rug.

A tall knight at the next table called out, "Welcome home, Eveline!" and two others started clapping, and someone passed her a replacement tray with a gentle grin.

Eveline, red to her ears, sat back down and apologized to the entire hall one more time.

"Oh wow... She’s very well liked," I murmured. "I’m glad to see that."

"Everyone loves her," said Sharon, through a mouthful of meat. "She’s a menace, but she’s our menace."

Laura had sat down next to me, and I noticed her looking across the table at Eveline with a cool, careful stare.

It wasn’t hostile, but it was the look of a knight sizing up a possible threat, even though she knew perfectly well there wasn’t one, and when she caught me watching, she raised an eyebrow, as if to say, ’I’m still here.’

I raised both of mine, and she looked away.

"Lady Lapisfield?" said Eveline.

Laura’s head came up. "Yes?"

"I just wanted to say that I’m a HUGEEE... admirer of yours."

Laura blinked. "I’m sorry?"

"The way you held the line at Dunmore, the report you wrote on the Harrowgate incident, and the northern patrol you led last spring!" Eveline’s amber eyes were wide and shining. "Everybody in my cohort studied it!!!"

"They used it in the academy! Your plan for the bridge defense was the most beautiful piece of tactical thinking I’d ever seen, and I tried to copy it and ended up falling in a river!"

Laura went very still.

"It’s an honor to be at the same table with my idol," Eveline said, and then, because she couldn’t help herself, "I think you’re the coolest knight in the whole Order!"

I swear I could see the temperature on Laura’s face rise. She opened her mouth, closed it, and tried again.

"I... thank you... That’s very kind."

"You’re welcome!"

"You don’t need to say that..."

"But it’s true!"

Laura’s ears were crimson. She picked up her spoon, put it down, and looked at me with the expression of a woman who’d been ambushed by sincerity.

I tried not to grin, but... I failed, and she kicked me under the table.

"Don’t," she hissed.

"I didn’t... say anything."

"You were thinking it."

And that I know... I wasn’t going to survive this week.

Eveline, meanwhile, had turned to me, and her face was bright with a different kind of enthusiasm. "And you, Roland!"

"I heard you didn’t even have a rank when you fought Garrick! And I mean... That’s soooo incredible~!"

"My father always says that knights who protect people because they want to are rarer than SSS-Ranks!"

"Oh? Does he?"

"He’s a very wise man! He’s also the worst cook in the northern provinces, so you have to take his advice with a pinch of salt!" She smiled, a little shyly. "But I think he’s right!"

"I think most people with power only care about how strong they are... but you... you seem like someone who actually cares about whether the people around you are safe."

I looked at her, and for a second, I didn’t know what to say about that.

She’d said it with such simple honesty, without any flattery or calculation, and it landed somewhere in my chest and stayed.

"I try..." I said.

"I can tell."

I thought, ’Maybe she’s the most honest person I’ve ever met in this Order.’

It wasn’t a romantic thought, and I didn’t let it become one.

It was just the plain recognition that this girl, who’d tripped over a bucket and a belt and a tray in a single day, was kinder and more straightforward than most people I’d met in either of my lives.

"Ravenshield," said Sharon, wiping her hands on a napkin.

"Yes?"

"You’ll be doing light drills with Whitehare starting tomorrow."

"I assumed."

"Keep an eye on her."

"I thought I was supposed to be the one being watched...?"

"You can do both." She jabbed a thumb at the rabbit. "Someone has to stop her before she hurts herself with her own sword."

"I’m right here..." said Eveline.

"I know. And I’m saying it to your face so you can hear it with your rabbit ears."

"It’s rude... ughhh..."

"It is what I call mentoring."

Laura buried her face in her hands, and Alicia had to put down her spoon because she was laughing too hard to eat.

And then I thought, with a warm, faintly stunned feeling, ’I like it in here...’

’I liked the noise and the chaos and the family-sized quarrel of it all...’

’I’d never had a place like this before, and I intended to protect it...’