Chapter 93

Harold had wrestled with the same question.

What could he have done to make things turn out better?

If he'd acted differently, would things have been different?

For a while after his brother's death, the question had gripped him every night. Even now, on nights when the boys were deeply asleep, it still surfaced now and then, whether he wanted it to or not.

The choices he'd made. The roads he'd chosen not to walk. The options he hadn't even known existed at the time.

Harold had never once regretted his decisions. But the moment he'd taken those small children into his arms — the ones clinging to him as if he were the only warmth left in the world — Harold had, for the first time, looked back on the choices of the past. He'd retraced the countless forks in the road that might have changed this night.

If his brother were still alive, he'd have laughed at him for sure.

Harold. That's what responsibility feels like.

"..."

Grisha slowly lifted his head.

The pale gold hair and green eyes were unchanged. In Grisha's eyes, he'd look just the same.

"Want to run away, Grisha?"

One day, not long before graduating from the academy, Harold had asked the same thing.

Everyone in the generation that overlapped with Grisha at the academy knew about his origins, whether from their parents or from someone else. Ryan didn't hide his affection for Grisha, and openly made distinctions between him and his own sons.

Naturally, Harold had known about Grisha too. Later, when Albrecht learned his younger brother was friends with Grisha Lambert, he'd taken the trouble to remind Harold of it again. He knew Grisha wasn't the kind of person to hold a grudge over any misstep Harold might make. What Albrecht worried about was Harold causing trouble on Grisha's behalf.

Carlisle harassed Grisha right up until graduation. Harold had watched it happen right beside him.

That was why he'd said it. If Grisha nodded, he really had meant to run away. Even without help from the family, he was confident he could earn a living as a mercenary. If Grisha helped, they could easily manage a small mercenary company.

Grisha hesitated. Hesitated for a long time. Until the shadows lay heavy over the unnamed lodge in the King's Woods. Until his uncle, Wilhelm Lambert, captain of the royal guard, came knocking at the door looking for them.

...Thanks, Harold.

And two days later, Grisha told Ryan he didn't want to inherit the throne.

Grisha wasn't like Harold.

He didn't go tearing off wherever he pleased and then wander back. Because unlike Harold, Grisha had been taught what responsibility was from a young age.

"...What about your nephews?"

Same thing this time.

Harold grinned.

"They can come with us."

"Your nephews don't want to leave the capital."

"They liked the idea of a trip to the Reichnek domain when I mentioned it. Ease them into it, and they'll come around."

"What about... what about everything else?"

"Someone else can handle it."

"..."

Grisha's face crumpled. It almost looked like he was smiling.

If Carlisle had just kept quiet — if he hadn't dragged Barun into it and had simply waited patiently, even just until the king began to age — none of this would have happened. That short-tempered fool couldn't wait, and now here they were. Twenty years at the outside, wasn't it?

No — if he'd just waited another ten years, Grisha would have handed the house to Adelheid and left. The duke and duchess wouldn't agree, but Grisha had believed from the moment his sister was born that House Lambert should pass to Adelheid. Wasn't it more right for Hendrick Lambert's own daughter to inherit the house than for him, who didn't share a drop of blood with the family?

I guess this is what His Majesty felt when he looked at me.

Seven years ago, when Harold had come back to the capital, Grisha had said that to him.

Once he understood the feeling, Grisha couldn't hate Ryan. Harold had understood where Grisha was coming from. He hadn't at the time, but he did now.

"Want to run away?"

Harold asked for the third time.

Grisha's eyes went wide, then narrowed as he burst out laughing. Grisha's answer had been settled from the start.

If he'd been the kind of person who could let go of everything and run, he'd have done it more than ten years ago.

"No."

Grisha refused, just as Harold had expected.

"If I were going to, I'd have done it already."

You couldn't say there hadn't been chances.

"I'm just... complaining. You don't have to take it so seriously."

Grisha's face had brightened considerably.

"I've never really regretted anything before, but lately I keep thinking maybe I should have done things differently. Must be the workload."

"People have to rest properly to function."

"Right. Otherwise the head doesn't work."

"And you start thinking pointless things."

Grisha gave a small laugh.

Harold watched him for a moment, then let it out.

"I think that way sometimes too."

"Think what way?"

"Like — maybe I shouldn't have done that back then. Maybe I should have stayed on in the capital."

"You? What brought that on?"

"Guess I'm getting older too."

"Ha ha ha."

Grisha laughed out loud. Harold laughed along, his shoulders shaking.

Only after they'd laughed for a while did Grisha ask, carefully,

"So?"

"Hm?"

"What did you come to?"

"..."

Harold smiled. Grisha looked at him with unfocused eyes. Harold snapped his fingers in front of Grisha's face.

Grisha blinked.

"I did my best. So I don't want to regret the decisions I made in the past."

"..."

"It's already done. Regretting it won't change anything."

Sometimes there are things a person can't stop. You don't do anything wrong and something terrible still happens. Harold had seen that more times than he could count.

If there was anyone here with the right to howl at the unfairness of it, it wasn't Harold — it was the boys. By the time they were Harold's age, there was no telling how much they'd remember of their parents.

That wasn't Harold's fault, and it wasn't Albrecht's. Obviously it couldn't be called Edgar and Edwin's fault either.

But Harold could tell his nephews stories about their parents. He could tell them how much those two had cherished and loved them. He would protect them and love them until they were grown, and after that too.

That was Harold's job now.

"I'm just going to keep doing the best I can right now."

"...You haven't changed."

"If a person changes too easily, they die."

"That much, huh."

Harold gave a shrug.

"I know it's not easy, but rest when you can rest."

"..."

"When people can't rest, they just spiral into pointless dark thoughts. Come down to the Reichnek domain this time. I heard the duke's coming down too."

"With Mother and Adelheid down there, Father will too..."

"Right. A family gathering."

Despite all the complications surrounding Grisha, Harold said it firmly.

"You should come too."

"...Should I."

"Yes. Your mother said Adelheid's taken with her older brother, hasn't she? If you don't show your face, she might just come up to the capital herself."

Harold barely knew Adelheid, but Claudia's word was enough. Judging by the fact that Grisha couldn't quite bring himself to deny it, he'd hit the mark.

"...It's going to be hard to leave the capital before Founding Day."

That wasn't a no.

"All right. Then if I see her, I'll let her know you'll come down after Founding Day."

"..."

Harold hadn't been fishing for an answer from Grisha, but Grisha gave a faint smile and nodded.

His eyes had come fully back now. He wouldn't have been able to show this side of himself to the duke and duchess, who had enough to worry about as it was, so he must have been suffering through it in silence.

Grisha would probably keep wobbling like this in the future. Even so, that was fine. Harold hadn't decided to follow Grisha because he was some steel-nerved superhuman.

"When are you heading down to the Reichnek domain?"

Grisha was fully back. Harold shrugged.

"Not sure yet."

Doak's train tickets were still spread across the table.

He needed to go to the bank. He could check expense records himself, without Mattheus's help. He'd been asking Mattheus for all sorts of odd jobs outside his actual duties lately, and Harold had at least enough sense of shame not to keep calling him in.

"I plan to head down once we get a reply from the Barbosa family. What we do next will depend on what it says."

"Whenever you go down, I'll need you here for Founding Day."

"I know."

That conversation was already settled.

"Worst case, I'll leave Edgar and Edwin at the Reichnek domain and come back up to the capital."

"You'd be all right with that?"

"They're better off there. I've got my hands full, and if the boys are in the capital too, I won't be able to focus."

Grisha nodded.

Just thinking about leaving the boys and moving separately was stressful. But as he'd told Grisha, it was just as worrying to have them in the capital.

They still didn't have a single lead on whoever had killed Dustin Glenn.

At least at the Reichnek domain, Harold would have time to review the security setup. As long-established as House Reichnek was, it'd be as hard for outsiders to slip in as it was on the Bertholdt domain.

"Let me know the moment a letter comes from the Barbosa family."

"Of course."

"I'll let you know if anything new turns up on my end too."

Once Grisha had gathered up all the papers he'd spread out, he took out his glasses and put them on again. Clearly a move in preparation for Claudia.

When Harold laughed at the sight, Grisha cleared his throat to cover his embarrassment and spoke.

"Ah — because of the Doak business, my meeting with the northern base commander's been pushed back a bit. It shouldn't have had to be, but... with the watch involved, there's no helping it."

Grisha shrugged. Anne had said something similar, so it wasn't news.

"Even so, there's no problem with you operating in the capital under the northern base's colors. Though ideally it doesn't come to a point where you have to lean on that affiliation, of course."

"That's up to someone else to manage, not me."

"Yeah, yeah."

Grisha rose with a small laugh. Harold picked up Grisha's bag for him — it wasn't heavy — and said,

"You're going to see Mother before you leave, right?"

"I should."

"She'll be with Edgar and Edwin... come say hello to my nephews too."

"The boys are doing all right?"

"Doing fine."

Fine enough that the worry felt misplaced.

Even the sudden move to the hotel, if anything, seemed to be treated as an adventure. Edgar was hooked on the art gallery, Edwin on the garden, and between them they looked ready to split their uncle in half and haul him off in two directions.

Lately they seemed to have negotiated it out among themselves and were dragging Harold around in shifts, mornings and afternoons. The children who back in winter had been so tightly wound didn't even wake in the small hours anymore.

"That's good to hear."

"Still, they seem to be getting a bit bored — they've been curious about meeting Adelheid."

"They didn't have other friends back when Albrecht was alive?"

"Friends?"

"Your nephews, I mean. Usually you'd have kids their own age get together and play. You spent plenty of time with Inspector Archibald when you were little too, didn't you?"

"Well, she was next door..."

The boys hadn't specifically brought up any friends. Being twins, maybe they hadn't felt the need for other children.

Making a note to ask the boys about it later, Harold headed down to the garden with Grisha, where Claudia and the children would be.