2. East

The New Midland Republic was buzzing with news of the Grey couple’s divorce.

Even the policies announced by the strategic planning council were pushed aside. The long-awaited declaration on the redistribution of noble territories, for instance, was quietly buried.

But unlike the commotion outside, the Grey estate was quiet.

Elsie hadn’t expected Kaiden to see her off, and true to that expectation, he didn’t show his face on the day she left.

“Madam, here you are.”

Jasper held out a bag to Elsie as she stood before the carriage. A rectangular travel bag, visibly heavy.

“There’s no need for this…… I’m fine.”

“These are the master’s orders. He said only the essentials were packed, and that even if you refused, it was to be given to you. Ah, and the ticket is to be handed to the coachman. He’ll give it to you at the station.”

Jasper didn’t step back, and Elsie reluctantly took the bag.

The former wife of Kaiden Grey, hero of the Republic. Elsie Resleth.

The wedding had been grand enough to astonish even the king, but the moment of leaving the estate was as sparse as it could be.

Only Jasper saw her off, with no other servants present.

And even he looked as though he had been dragged out against his will.

In the end, Elsie climbed into the carriage without a proper farewell from anyone.

***

A cold wind crept through the train station platform.

Elsie pulled her thin coat collar tighter and gripped the travel bag. In her other hand, after adjusting her collar, was the train ticket the coachman had given her.

“An open first-class pass?”

It was a generous ticket, but there was no one to protest to.

The unknown contents of the bag, and now this ticket. She told herself to think of it as a parting gift and pushed down the discomfort.

Where to go now.

An open pass meant she could travel freely without a fixed destination.

All around her, people moved with excitement and purpose. She alone seemed to be standing still.

She studied the timetable posted above the ticket booth for a long time.

The northwestern region, where Eldenmarche was, was where Elsie had been born and raised. She had rarely left what had once been called the Resleth territory.

The only other place she had been was……

“East again, I suppose.”

The east, where she had gone before.

Starting a new life in the place where she had tried to die didn’t seem like a bad thing.

Telling herself so, Elsie slowly made her way to the end of the platform.

***

Unlike before, the first-class compartment was hers alone.

With the solitude came, strangely, thoughts of Kaiden.

This time, the word divorce had come from his mouth.

Sad as it was, that offer had finally let Elsie smile with a light heart.

What on earth had changed in him.

She was curious about what was going on inside him, but no matter how hard she turned it over in her mind, no answer came.

Come to think of it, there had been a point when she stopped being able to read Kaiden easily.

It hadn’t always been that way.

A memory from long ago drifted up.

***

Before the two of them were married, Elsie had waited for word from Kaiden every day with an anxious heart.

With good reason. Kaiden was a soldier who could be called away at any moment and lose his life, and the waiting wore on her terribly.

She had stood on the platform with her hands clasped together in something like prayer. How long had she waited.

Long enough that it felt like days had passed before Kaiden finally stepped off the train.

“Iden! Are you all right? You’re not hurt anywhere?”

“……I always say this, but getting hurt is part of the work.”

“Training or not, you’re not supposed to get hurt.”

Elsie stuck out her lower lip and rose onto her toes to look him over.

His face was fine. But his hand……

“Your hand…… are you all right? It’s not serious, is it?”

From the back of his hand to the part hidden under his sleeve, gauze stained a brownish color was wrapped around it.

“I’m fine. It’s nothing.”

“Nothing, he says…… Come on, let’s go. I’ll have the physician ready.”

Her face had crumpled into something close to tears as she took Kaiden’s wrist and pulled him along.

They arrived at the Resleth estate and she had the physician called to see him right away. Kaiden had looked reluctant, but there was no one in the estate who could get the better of Elsie when she dug her heels in.

Kaiden was particularly helpless against her tears.

She knew that well, and used it freely to make sure he received proper treatment.

Afterward, the two of them had a quiet dinner and walked hand in hand.

Up to that point, it had been an ordinary date, no different from any other.

I can’t sleep…… Maybe I’ll sketch something.

Elsie had wrapped a shawl over her nightgown, taken a blank sheet of paper and a pencil, and slipped out of the bedroom.

She had snuck out of the estate more times than she could count, and she knew exactly how to avoid the staff on her way to the rear garden.

Under the soft moonlight. Sketching the evening garden, which had a faintly melancholy air to it, was a pastime she found quietly charming.

But that night was different.

Iden?

Kaiden had gotten there before her.

She had been about to call out to him, glad to see him, when she stopped.

Iden is……

Half-swallowed by shadow, Kaiden was looking up at the sky.

His hand moved to cover his forehead. Then it slid slowly downward, covering his eyes.

There were no tears. And yet he was clearly crying.

“D*mn it. If I had just done it properly back then……”

The slurred words carried anger and grief.

His head dropped. The despair in that posture left Elsie speechless.

Kaiden had always seemed cool and composed, with an ease about him.

But the person in front of her now was the opposite of that.

He looked so worn down that he might shatter at any moment. Elsie watched him until he finally left.

She felt she had seen the real Kaiden.

***

There were times like that, weren’t there.

Back then, at least, Kaiden had hidden his wounds but never been false with her.

How absurd it was that now, with all the old hierarchies gone, everything was more steeped in falsehood than before.

Not that she wanted to go back to before the revolution.

She didn’t understand politics, but the choice Kaiden had fought for must have been the right one.

Elsie closed her eyes. She felt the train rushing forward without hesitation.

***

Half a day later, in the dim of evening, the train pulled into Earnest Station.

Should she go on to Lubeck.

Arriving any later would make finding a place to stay difficult. She decided to get off at Earnest.

Elsie rose from her seat and opened the compartment door. A conductor noticed and helpfully brought down her luggage.

Earnest Station was the same as before.

The smell of the sea, drifting all the way into the station, wasn’t unpleasant.

She had come here once wanting to die. Now the sea felt like something peaceful. At the very least, she was thinking about living rather than the opposite.

Where to go.

Elsie set down her bag and sat on a wooden bench.

No clear destination. No place to stay.

The fact that she had nowhere to go struck her with a fresh helplessness.

She sat blankly among the people moving busily around her.

She had no sense of how much time had passed when,

“Is something wrong?”

She looked up to find a woman in a thin coat.

“You’ve been sitting here for a while, so I thought I’d say something.”

The woman continued with a quiet smile.

“Sorry if this is sudden. Well, it has to be sudden, I suppose. A stranger just came up to you out of nowhere.”

She cleared her throat lightly, trying to cover her own awkwardness.

“Anyway, I was wondering if something had happened. You’ve been on my mind…… Are you all right?”

Her hair looked blonde.

No, looking again, it was a faded brown.

Elsie had been staring at her blankly, and the woman waved a hand in front of her face.

That brought her back.

“Oh, I’m sorry. My mind was somewhere else. I just didn’t know where to go, so I was sitting here.”

She felt her cheeks flush with embarrassment at the inadequacy of her own answer.

“You have nowhere to go?”

“Well……”

Elsie hesitated, then nodded.

“The festival is about to start, so finding a room will be difficult. Do you have a reservation anywhere?”

This time she shook her head.

“In that case……”

The woman glanced at the large clock inside the station.

“My name is Nellie Fox. Would you like to come to my house? There’s a spare room where guests can stay.”

Fox?

It was a common enough surname in Midland.

But the reason the word caught in her ear was Kaiden. He had once told her about his family.

“……Thank you. Would it be all right if I stayed just until I find somewhere to stay?”

“Of course.”