“It smells nice...?”

Luman made a dubious face. And why the hell does he care? I glared at him.

“Anyway, quit worrying about somebody else’s tea!”

“Ren.”

The moment I snapped, my brother called my name shortly.

“Sorry. Ren has a bit of a cleanliness issue.”

A cleanliness issue!?

I almost shouted at Luman that it wasn’t true, then stopped.

Because all at once, it occurred to me that it might be better if he thought that.

My brother looked a little bitter for some reason, but it vanished quickly, and Luman burst out laughing again like he’d thought of something all by himself.

“S-sorry...”

The physician shrank in on himself and stammered out an apology.

The second I heard him apologize, I felt ridiculously awkward. The spikes in my chest slowly started to go down.

He had been dragged into that cave because of us, and he’d treated everybody.

Calm down. The physician, Priest Kirky, none of them can figure it out anyway. If it were something people could uncover that easily, then the old apothecary would’ve succeeded in curing me already.

Once I calmed down, the physician looked kind of pitiful standing there with that disappointed face because he’d lost the herb.

Coco looked at me and shook the herb in her hand, like she was asking what I wanted to do.

“...You can keep it.”

“Huh?! Really? Is that okay?!”

The physician answered instantly, without even pretending to refuse once. He looked like he was about to start bouncing on his feet. If I took it back now, he might actually cry.

Ugh! I really, really did not want to see a grown man crying. I nodded hard, and Coco handed the herb back to him. He broke into a huge grin.

“Could you maybe tell me where you got it—”

“......”

“Ah, s-sorry!”

My brother stared at me. Like he was asking why I wouldn’t tell him.

“Hey, it’d be a problem if people started bothering the old apothecary!”

Grabbing the first excuse I could think of, I deliberately muttered it in an annoyed tone. Honestly, it wasn’t even wrong.

Luman let out an “Ah!” and nodded.

“Th-thank you. I’ll make good use of it!”

“Uh... would it be all right if I took a look at it later too?”

The physician from Coco’s family asked, glancing between the man and me.

“Sure!”

“Thank you.”

Coco’s family physician bowed to me too.

“Is it time?”

Coco looked out the window for a moment.

“Time for what?”

She thought for a second before answering.

“The funeral. If you’re tired, you don’t have to come.”

Ah...

So that was why everyone was dressed in black.

Whose funeral was it? I couldn’t ask, so I just nodded.

A servant Coco called in helped me change clothes.

I put on pitch-black clothes and black shoes. Then the servant wrapped a thick winter coat around me.

“My lady.”

A moment later, Seton appeared with a black cloak over his shoulders.

He led Coco away, and we followed behind them. Even Priest Kirky, who was always full of mischief, kept his mouth shut. Luman did too. Coco said something to Luman and kept glancing back at me in between. Their voices stayed low, so I couldn’t make out what they were saying.

The grass under the thin soles of my shoes felt damp for some reason.

Is it going to rain?

“My lady.”

Hugh joined us in the garden.

His wrists and ankles were in casts. His gray eyes met mine. He gave a short bow.

I should thank him too.

But it didn’t feel like the right time, so I just bit my lip for no reason.

Hugh took his place behind Coco and followed with a limping gait.

The funeral was held at a solemn temple not far from Gannion Castle.

The whole way there, no one said a word. The only things filling the silence now and then were the sound of hooves, carriage wheels turning, and the horses’ occasional whinny.

When we got out of the carriage, Coco put on a large black hat with black mourning netting draped from it. Her face was completely hidden, so I couldn’t see her expression at all. Luman checked his own clothes, then fixed mine too. I quietly let him fuss with me.

There were very few people attending the funeral. As for knights, there was only Seton and three men serving under him. Seton’s face was calm, but the knights beneath him looked devastated. Hugh couldn’t even lift his head, like he was in pain.

The seven sacred funeral bells rang out.

That solemn sound, the kind you could feel through your whole body, was meant to guide the soul onward.

Coco, seated in the very front row, had her hands clasped in prayer. Her black-gloved hands were trembling.

The officiating priest stepped forward and recited blessings and words honoring the dead. In the quiet, only the priest’s voice flowed on with the passing time.

When the short ceremony ended, the coffin containing the body was carried to a high hill behind Gannion Castle.

The sky was dim and dark. The air was wet, like rain could start pouring down at any moment.

The laborers lowered the coffin into the deep-dug earth, then opened the lid.

One by one, people stepped forward and tossed in a white flower with a few words they hadn’t been able to say while he was alive.

I still couldn’t see Coco’s face.

But the chrysanthemum petals trembled in her shaking hand. Coco threw the white chrysanthemum she’d been clutching into the coffin.

After hesitating for a long moment, her voice finally came out.

“...I’m sorry. I hope your soul stays by God’s side.”

It was a fragile voice. Coco seemed like she had more she wanted to say, but in the end she broke into sobs. No matter how grand a duke’s daughter she was, she was still only a young girl. She hid the sound of her crying quickly, but it still felt like the grief carried through.

At last, the rain-heavy clouds began to spit out drops.

One or two at a time.

Tap. Tap-tap.

The raindrops traced long lines from the sky and struck the bridge of my nose and my cheeks.

A maid opened the umbrella she’d been holding and covered Coco with it.

“Shawn...”

One of the subordinate knights, clutching a white flower and trembling too hard to throw it, finally burst into tears. Another knight came forward and threw both his own flower and the first man’s into the coffin together. Their faces twisted, and they stepped back before they could even finish their last words.

“Shawn. I {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} am proud of you.”

That was Seton.

With a hand that didn’t hesitate, he tossed in his flower and turned away without lingering. Between his tall frame and the dark sky, I couldn’t see Seton’s face.

But in the light of that overcast afternoon, I thought I saw droplets glinting in his eyes.

“Shawn. You were a mischievous, wonderful boy, just like me. I’ll offer a serious prayer today, at least. ‘Etero.’”

Wearing a sorrowful expression, Kirky recited a prayer.

It sounded almost like a funeral hymn.

After giving a priest’s blessing, Kirky stepped back, then added one last thing in a teasing tone.

“Shawn, they say when a person dies, a little white ring appears over their head. The round white ring over yours will shine more beautifully than anyone else’s!”

The maid who had been attending to Coco hurried forward and tossed in her flower, then ended up sobbing so hard she broke into loud wailing. The sound of her grief stabbed straight into my chest.

If a maid could cry that hard for him, then Shawn must have been a truly good person.

After everyone who had known Shawn finished paying their respects, at last it was the outsiders’ turn.

“......”

“......”

The turn of those who had nothing to do with his death.

My brother and Luman each recited a brief Hero’s blessing for the dead, then withdrew neatly. Somehow the faces they turned away with looked cold and frightening. Maybe it was just the shadows falling across them. Or maybe it was because they were trying to show the proper form before grief.

After all, we had never seen or heard the boy named Shawn, Seton and Hugh’s brother. Maybe that was the most respect they could offer.

But then why does my chest hurt so much?

Thinking that was strange, I walked toward the empty space before the coffin.

The body, cleaned and prepared for burial, looked as if he were only asleep.

If not for the deep scar crossing his face, one even the makeup couldn’t hide, I might really have thought that.

Dark gray hair, like Seton’s and Hugh’s.

Shawn looked like a boy around my age.

It felt strange.

At a glance, Shawn looked so much like Hugh it was almost enough to mistake them for twins.

But it was weird. The longer I looked...

the more I even started to feel this bizarre illusion that he looked a little like me too.

“Ren. Don’t stare too deeply.”

Luman came close and whispered that to me. He was frowning.

Carefully, I set down my flower.

“Ah...”

The sunlight that had been hidden behind the storm clouds suddenly broke through and stabbed into my eyes. It was blinding.

For an instant, it looked like something inside the corpse sparkled too.

But then the clouds swallowed the sky again, and there was nothing in my darkened vision. Only the afterimage of the rain flickering before me.

Looking at Shawn, lying there with his hands neatly folded, I opened my mouth.

It felt ridiculous, me saying anything to someone I’d never even met.

But presumptuous or not,

there was something I wanted to say.

“I think you must’ve been a truly good person. Seeing how deeply everyone is grieving like this... Shawn, you’ll definitely go somewhere good. I pray that God’s grace stays with you.”

I spoke as steadily as I could.

And then I realized what the grief was, what the grief I felt was really coming from, and it left me miserable.

Someday, before too long,

I’ll be the one lying in a coffin like that.

And the one looking down at it

will be my brother.

“Beside the people who loved you too, God’s grace will surely remain. So be at peace...”

Go.

I couldn’t make myself say it. My lips trembled like they were cramping.

If it were me, I think that’s what I’d want someone to say.

If God’s grace stayed beside the ones left behind, wouldn’t that make it a little easier?

If you could believe that, maybe you’d worry less.

Ah. I felt like I was going to cry.

A hot, broad hand closed around my clenched fist.

It was my brother.

If I looked at him, I thought the tears would spill out for real, so I just bit at my poor, innocent lip instead.

“Ren, you with the pure ‘Aras.’”

Kirky, his face wet with tears, called to me in a light voice.