Lost In Character: Transmigration Chronicles Of A Nameless Heroine 26 House Of Mourning

The infirmary door opened just as Hilde was rising from the bed. In went a sandy-haired woman of about twenty-five. She was carrying a food-laden tray, and over her shoulder hung a sky blue nightgown that Hilde recognized to be hers. Seeing Hilde, this woman's thin and long face split into a wide grin.

"Welcome back, Princess!" exclaimed Nadia, Hilde's only attendant. Belatedly, she remembered to curtsey. The cutlery on the tray clinked and the nightgown slid to the floor.

"I asked for you to be here half an hour ago," Lady Saskia said with a resigned smile. She walked over and picked up the fallen garment herself.

"I only just heard, though, Lady, and I came as quickly as I could – WOW, Princess Hilde, you look all right! I'm so happy you're alive!"

"Thank you, Nadia," Hilde replied wryly, unsure of what to feel about the exuberance. "But I was just told I shouldn't take my survival for granted yet."

Nadia's face fell. "Oh…" she said. "Then I could still be out of a job…"

While Hilde forced her expression to remain neutral, Lady Saskia had no trouble choking on her laughter. "That would indeed be tragic," she said.

Soon after, Hilde stepped out of her mourning clothes so it could be ironed out of its sleep-induced creases. Again, she didn't think anyone would notice or mind, but in this matter, Lady Saskia and Lady Ilse were cut from the same cloth. They'd sent Nadia out again for this task – not for her to do it herself, as she'd blithely admitted she was bad at it, but to find another attendant who could.

Dressed only in her nightgown, Hilde and Lady Saskia shared a simple but filling meal that was meant to be fuel for the hours ahead. They finished just as Nadia – who still looked concerned about her uncertain future – returned.

Hilde wished she could be as open about the heartaches and fears plaguing her own mind, but her present reality was demanding that she once again set those aside. Back in her mourning clothes, her hair fixed by Lady Saskia, she felt she was as ready as she could ever be for what's to come in this world, that day and beyond.

"Princess," said the Lady suddenly while Nadia went ahead to open the door for them. "Would you like to see him first?" Hilde halted walking mid-step but didn't turn to her questioner. "In private?"

Neither needed to clarify who she meant by "him." They'd both lost count of how many times that person had brought the Princess to the Physician for injuries he'd directly or indirectly inflicted himself.

Hilde swallowed past her constricted throat. "You said yourself, Lady," she finally replied. "I should start getting used to how things are now."

Lady Saskia stepped in front of her patient, forcing Hilde to meet her eyes. "Denial won't help with that," she said point-blank. "I witnessed what happened when you saw his brother – I think almost everyone did."

Being taller, Hilde averted the Lady's gaze by looking ahead. Eventually, however, after an infinite moment where she rallied her courage, she nodded. "I have time?"

"I can make time for you. Go."

She threw the older woman a grateful look before striding out of the room, as swiftly as her current strength would allow.

"Look after her," she heard the Physician say before she was out of earshot. "Properly please, Nadia. For once."

***

The fallen would have arrived at Oste some time in the previous night. It was a speed that, given the number of miles that had to be crossed, could only have been accomplished through an unceasing relay of drivers, horses, and escorts.

Whether the exact hour had been at dusk, or at midnight, or at the small hours before dawn, their arrival would have been greeted by everyone already present in the palace, just as if the people who'd come were all still living.

The Prince and his soldiers would have then been brought to the House of Contemplation, the closest thing that the Royal Palace had to a sacred place. There, the closest kin present would have sat vigil with their dead.

For Hilde's brother, those would have been the Queen and her young son. Given Nelke's relative nearness to the capital, however, Lady Ilse and Gisela should have been there too, as should Hilde.

She knew, though, that even if she'd stayed in Oste days ago and never got into an accident – by chance, forcing her aunt and cousin to wait with her until she could travel – it would have been with Lothar that she sat. The entire world's judgment and censure would not have stopped her, and she would have fought anyone who tried to cite rules or forcibly make her do what was "expected."

Hilde followed a pa.s.sageway leading to one of the royal residence's side entrances, interrupting people in their tasks as they were all required to pause and acknowledge her presence. As she willed herself into invisibility out of habit, it numbly occurred to her: it was just as well that "she" left that day. If she hadn't, she'd have inadvertently dishonored the dead a dozen times over before they were laid to rest.

With Nadia chattering by her side, Hilde reached the kitchen's side entrance and exited into a walled garden of vegetables, herbs, and fruit trees. They took one ambling path that led to another door, this time exiting into the pleasure gardens.

All across the region, summer was on the wane. In this small patch of paradise on top of a hill, leaves were also beginning to change colors, and the neatly s.p.a.ced beds and bushes boasted fewer flowers in bloom.

But the copse of evergreen trees standing sentinel around a small building of gray stone was as proud and vibrant as ever. Their profusion of leaved branches almost completely hid the already-inconspicuous structure that was Hilde's destination.

She hadn't realized how hotly the noonday sun was s.h.i.+ning down on her until she entered the shade of these trees and immediately felt cooler. That was but a taste of the grueling hours ahead, yet at the moment, she'd much rather skip this next part and jump right into that one.

She paused at the edge of the clearing where the House of Contemplation stood. Two soldiers standing on either side of the gray building's only entrance had known of the two women's approach for a while, but it was only when Hilde came into full view that they saw her face clearly for the first time.

With practiced timing, they stood straighter, stared rigidly forward, and brought their right fist over their heart. Both soldiers wore black-lacquered ceremonial armor, and one of them had bandages around his neck.

Even without those distinguis.h.i.+ng features, Hilde would have recognized them as soldiers belonging to her brother's Guard.

Or rather, they used to.

Neither eased their stance until Hilde was before them and had given her nod. She would have walked right past, but something caught her notice. It was the glint of reflected sunlight on the injured soldier's tear-filled eyes.

She stopped in her tracks, jolted out of her own anguish that had been exponentially increasing the closer the rectangular and doorless entrance of the House loomed. As she watched, those tears overflowed.

Hilde drew in a shaky breath and found herself scrambling to recall the names of these soldiers, certain she'd learned them before. Fiercely hoping her memory was serving her right, she addressed the companion of the crying soldier: "Raban."

"Princess Hilde," the man responded.

She took great pains to hide her relief. Though her eyes were trained on the silently weeping soldier who kept his gaze steadily forward in turn, it was the soldier Raban she asked, "No one puts any of the blame on the survivors, is that correct?"

"That is correct, Princess," he answered with grave certainty.

If anything, the words caused his fellow soldier's tears to flow harder. Hilde intuitively understood then that he already knew this to be true. He simply couldn't forgive himself despite it.

"Survivor's guilt," they would have called it, back in her old world. Unbidden, images from her recent dream flashed in her mind. Would others feel it even if they were never the target of a fatal attack?

She firmly pushed the disquieting thought back. Keeping her own emotions carefully dammed, she borrowed a leaf from Lady Saskia's book and stepped in front of the soldier, forcing him to look at her. The moment their eyes met, she spoke without preamble.

"Lothar spoke of you to me, Inge," she told him. He responded to her use of his name by blinking twice. "He said you were always the quickest to tease him about all the 'secret' lessons he gave a 'secret' someone." Hilde saw Inge wince, but he did not look away despite his discomfort. She grinned a little. "He was never offended. He said he found it adorable how jealous you seemed to be at times. He a.s.sumed you also wanted a chance to wipe the floor using that certain someone – who's really quite a handful, or so Lothar heard it said."

His tears were yet to stop, but his sorrow was not enough buffer to keep his embarra.s.sment at bay. Perhaps he never imagined that his fallen comrade would have been so uncivilized, he'd tell a princess of these cra.s.s yet largely meaningless exchanges between men. Heat rising to his cheeks, Inge could no longer meet Hilde's eyes. He took a page from HER book and stared over her head instead.

This freed Hilde from his scrutiny as well. She released the forced levity from her expression as she said, "For what it's worth, Inge, I wish for you to stop blaming yourself."

This proved to be the limit of what he can bear.

"It's not right," Inge said, voice shaky and thick with his emotions. "The Prince – Lothar – they were the best of us – it's not right." Like Hilde, he must still be weak from his injuries. Inge swayed, and in the next instant, Raban was there, his expression grim, bracing his younger comrade's shoulder. Hilde couldn't even move; the reverberation from what she threw out was threatening to destroy her own self-control. "It's us," Inge went on, his sobs harsher as he pounded his fist against his chest. "It's me who should have—"

She could not stay there anymore. Her breathing heavy, she turned to the other soldier, who met her eyes steadily and nodded, indicating he'll take care of the rest.

Wis.h.i.+ng she hadn't been so badly damaged right before going face to face with the greatest wrecker of all, Hilde went inside the house where the dead were lying in wait.