To be honest, Anastasia still found it all rather unbelievable.
Even though she had fled in embarrassment two days earlier after learning Lu Kang's identity, a part of her still could not quite accept that the person her father and mother admired so deeply was only a young man who looked barely a few years older than herself. She had truly imagined that the one they revered would either possess the unfathomable mystery of an angel from legend, or at the very least be some solemn, imposing man of great age and gravity.
And yet, when Nicholas II had reprimanded her afterward, his words had confirmed it beyond doubt: that boy really was the very "lord" she had longed so much to meet.
"You're nothing like I imagined," the silver-haired girl finally said, lifting her head to look the boy before her in the eye as the breeze stirred through the garden.
He really was nothing like she had imagined.
He was not especially inscrutable, nor did he carry himself with some crushing weight of majesty. If anything, he felt more like the kind of mischievous and easygoing boy next door—
But Anastasia did not dislike that feeling.
On the contrary, she thought there was nothing wrong with it at all.
"My apologies for not growing into the shape of some eldritch abomination," Lu Kang said with complete indifference. "But in the end, I've never seen myself as some kind of 'saint' anyway. I'm just an ordinary person who happens to know a few of the 'secrets' God granted to mankind."
Mystery was the unknown. It was the extraordinary power grasped by human beings.
And in those ancient mythic ages when gods still existed, the first magecraft truly had been the "hidden power" that flowed from divine beings down into human hands.
Lu Kang was not lying.
Now that he had already displayed his power, he had no need to bury himself beneath too many decorative words.
So long as it did not interfere with his plans for inheritance and his real-world gains,
he intended to do whatever pleased him.
"'Mystery'…" The girl's face flickered with thought. Her silver bangs tilted slightly, shading half her face, while the visible eye blinked thoughtfully.
Then she seemed to think of something.
"In that case… you really do have rather bad taste, don't you?"
"Bad taste?" Lu Kang echoed, puzzled.
"The other day—your power should have been able to heal my leg instantly, shouldn't it? And yet you still handed me a cane…"
As she said it, Anastasia could not help growing a little flustered again. She felt certain the boy before her had done it on purpose.
"Mm…"
Lu Kang lowered his gaze thoughtfully.
And just when the young princess thought he was about to explain himself, he spread his hands and said, "Well, Your Highness looked rather amusing hobbling around."
"Amusing?"
That stunned her all over again.
She blinked.
Then blinked again.
Just because it was amusing… he had simply stood there and watched?
Seeing her frozen expression, Lu Kang could not stop himself from grinning.
The truth was that it was not that he had not wanted to heal her—he simply did not know how. During his years of wandering among the common people, he had mostly played the role of an exorcist priest, and on occasion a physician who dealt only with mental afflictions brought about by contact with mysterious phenomena. He had never learned magecraft for healing physical injuries.
But it was also true that he genuinely found Anastasia interesting.
And adorable.
More interesting than Nicholas II.
More endearing than her mother.
And certainly more entertaining than anyone else in the court.
"As I thought—you really do have terrible taste," Anastasia let out a sigh, sounding half helpless.
And then she smiled again.
This time, it was a sly little smile.
"So even the man they call a 'sage' has this side to him? I wonder what would happen if I made this side of you public?"
As she said this, the young grand duchess glanced toward the center of the ballroom in the distance, where nobles still mingled with glasses in hand—including Nicholas II and Alexandra.
They had long since noticed Lu Kang standing together with the empire's youngest princess, but none dared disturb the sage's peace.
Besides, the two of them, close in age and standing side by side, somehow made a rather harmonious scene. Quite a few people wore knowing smiles—especially Nicholas II, whose beard twitched with visible delight as he clinked glasses with princes and dukes alike.
A sage was still, in the end, a person.
And people had emotions.
Lu Kang understood perfectly well that the Tsar wanted to use his youngest daughter to draw him in further.
He had no reason to reject that.
Faced now with the sudden slyness in Anastasia's expression, he also remembered something Nicholas II had mentioned two days earlier: that when she was among people she knew, the youngest grand duchess could be surprisingly mischievous.
Her favorite pastime, it seemed, was teasing her two older sisters.
She had done things like make fake caterpillars to terrify a sister who hated insects, or secretly tie toy mice to strings and send them skittering across the floor to make her sisters jump in fright.
Her sisters called her a little devil.
She was, in other words, quite a lively child.
So Lu Kang lifted a hand and tapped her on the forehead.
"And what do you think would happen," he asked, "if I told your father that you tried to threaten me?"
"Wah—?"
Anastasia choked on the spot.
She realized immediately that the boy before her was not one of her sisters.
He was not the least bit frightened by her tricks or her threats.
On the contrary, that very remark was more likely to become leverage against her.
The instant she understood her mistake, panic bloomed across her face.
Lu Kang laughed even harder.
Life in the imperial court had been unbearably dull. Apart from his daily immersion in the study of Mystery and ancient bloodlines, he had now acquired a very welcome new source of amusement.
…
[You and the empire's youngest grand duchess, Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova, enjoy an increasingly easy conversation.]
[This is your second meeting with her. Compared to the abruptness of the first, this one is far more relaxed. The imperial princess is no longer timid or flustered before you. In your presence, she begins to show a lighter, livelier, and more cunning side of herself.]
[After the banquet ends, Nicholas II has the young princess personally "escort" you back to the library. You think it somewhat strange to have a little girl see you off, but then reflect that the entire journey is still within the Kremlin—more like going from the first floor to the second than anything else—and so you do not refuse.]
[It is already near sunset. The broad and lofty library is dyed in maple-red bands by the falling evening light through the high windows. Walking beside you, Anastasia glances at the towering bookshelves and flushes again, clearly remembering the embarrassment of your first meeting.]
["I should be going," she says. Behind her, at a distance, a young maid and a female knight follow quietly as escort.]
["Good night, Your Highness," you answer politely, inwardly wondering why she looks so hesitant and uneasy over what is, in essence, no more than a short walk.]
[Yet just before leaving, Anastasia stops, glances back over her shoulder, and looks at you. The sunset paints her silver hair like a flowing galaxy. Her pale dress stirs in the wind, and the deep-blue cloak draped over her shoulders makes her look as bright as the evening sky.]
[Then, very softly, she says: "From now on… you may call me Anna."]
[You watch the girl flee in embarrassment for the second time, listening to the shy words still hanging in the air, and cannot help but laugh.]
[You know now that this princess has lowered her guard in front of you. She trusts people easily—or perhaps, more precisely, she has trusted you very easily. She is pure, and unguarded.]
[And once again, you think of the fate history holds for her.]
"Even if this is the upper crust of a collapsing empire…
Even if the nation itself is doomed…
there are still some people who do not have to die."
In the sunset-stained library, Lu Kang paced the central open space. Towering bookshelves rose around him in a great ring. He faced the wind descending from the upper windows, now carrying the cool of approaching night.
His expression was calm.
But his eyes were bright.
"What do you think?" he asked.
"Executors of the Holy Church—you've been hiding in this library waiting for me for most of the day, haven't you?"
He turned his head.
His gaze swept over the towering shelves standing like giants in the dimness—
and over the figures that emerged from between them, appearing as though drawn into being stroke by stroke.
"Lu Kang Luvister," came a cold, rasping voice, "do you admit your guilt for falsely taking the name of a sage and corrupting the dignity of the Church?"
-------
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