The motorcycle stopped on the open ground near the beach.
The engine roar cut off at once, leaving only the soft whisper of the sea wind.
In the distance the horizon melted into the starry sky.
Only scattered starlight spilled across the water, flashing and leaping with the rise and fall of the waves.
The beach was not large, and it was no tourist spot.
Not far away a small fishing village crouched quietly in the night, a stretch of pitch black that was clearly uninhabited.
On that stretch of sand a few figures moved here and there, setting small paper boats with lighted candles onto the sea.
The swaying candlelight cast patches of warm yellow on the water.
It must have been a Carolingian custom.
Claire had never seen anything like it before.
“Are those people launching the little boats to pray for blessings?” Claire asked softly.
Ophelia tilted her head a little, her gaze on the flickering lights.
“We have a similar custom back home. In Cornwall they say you write what you want to tell the dead on the lantern. The farther your lantern floats, the more likely your words will reach the other side.”
When she finished, Ophelia slowly turned around.
“You’re not going to ask why I brought you to a place like this to unwind, or why I kept it secret?”
Claire gave a small shake of her head.
“I figured out the answer to that question a minute ago, so it’s a redundant question.”
“It’s already late. Do you still want to walk by the water and talk?”
“I’m tired tonight. I don’t have anything I want to say, so the class monitor isn’t allowed to ask questions either. Walking is about all we can do anyway. There’s nothing else.”
The sea wind lifted Claire’s hair.
Her voice drifted lightly on the breeze.
Ophelia nodded.
She led the way toward the beach with light steps.
When they reached the stone stairs that descended to the sand, Ophelia bent without hesitation and neatly pulled off her boots and socks, setting them aside.
Seeing that, Claire silently copied her.
Her pale feet were bare in the cool night air.
They stepped onto the beach side by side.
The fine, soft sand wound around their ankles like silk.
With every step their feet sank shallowly into that dense gentleness.
A cool sensation spread from the soles, yet it carried no chill at all.
It felt more like a kiss condensed from moonlight.
Every step landed somewhere between solid and empty.
The dim moonlight laid a hazy veil over the sand.
The loose ground gave slightly underfoot.
The buoyancy of the waves made walking light and unmoored.
That subtle sense of imbalance was unexpectedly intoxicating.
The sound of the tide murmured at their ears—swash, swash.
The unchanging rhythm rippled through the night.
Silver foam twined around their ankles and shattered into pearls as it receded.
A new surge followed at once, stringing the broken pearls back into a line, pushing toward the shore again and again until it melted into the sand’s embrace.
Just as the tide sounded once more, the smile at Ophelia’s lips suddenly froze.
Her gaze shot like an arrow toward the shallows ahead.
Claire followed it.
In the hazy moonlight a translucent shadow swayed gently with the rhythm of the tide, its outline appearing and disappearing in the glitter of the water.
“What is that?” Claire asked in a low voice.
“A jellyfish washed ashore and stranded,” Ophelia said, a trace of regret in her voice.
Stranded. That means it will die after this, doesn’t it?
“Can it still get back to the sea?”
“Maybe. But it’s hard. Jellyfish don’t swim at night. It’s been pushed into the shallows, and the small waves can’t carry it off anymore. Anything like a stick might puncture its body and tear it apart.”
Claire looked at the jellyfish floating on the water.
A strong sense of kinship rose in her chest.
It felt so much like herself, both of them toyed with so mercilessly by fate.
The reunion with Flora, Gram awakened by her, the prophecy spoken by the Sword Saint, her sister recognizing her… and now the failure of the plan.
The experiences of this past month had been like the surging waves, wrapping her tightly inside them.
She had once sunk into a beautiful illusion.
Now she suddenly realized she was just like this stranded jellyfish, powerless to break free of fate’s grip.
“Class monitor, do you believe in fate?” Claire broke the silence, asking softly.
Ophelia lifted her head a little and looked at the stars.
“I believe it exists. But I only accept uncertain fate.”
“If it’s uncertain, does it still count as fate?”
“In my eyes fate is only where a person’s path in life leads, not a predetermined ending.”
“What if all of it was decided in advance by some existence?” Claire pressed.
“Then I deny that existence. My fate belongs only to me. I accept that I might be swept away by the sea by accident while I’m out here unwinding. But if one day the kind of existence you describe appeared and swore I would drown in the sea, I would rather never come to the shore again.”
A stubborn light showed in Ophelia’s eyes.
Claire frowned slightly.
“But what if you discovered that force majeure still required you to go to the sea? Isn’t that how it is in books? Like the fable of Oedipus. In the end he still killed his father and married his mother without meaning to, and committed the evil the prophecy named.”
“If I discovered that force majeure still required me to go to the sea, I would end my own life in that instant, beforehand. The Oedipus you mentioned did commit the evil in the prophecy, but before that he himself never knew the prophecy. He never had a real chance to fight fate. He was only toyed with by it.”
Ophelia paused, drew a deep breath, and went on.
“I think that’s not much different from being framed by a villain. I will not recognize that kind of malice as fate. On the contrary, my fate is to fight it to the last moment.”
Claire knew the class monitor had already thought of the prophecy the Sword Saint had spoken.
She was counseling her.
She should not keep asking.
They had already said enough.
Yet a voice deep inside drove her.
She wanted to hear the class monitor’s answer.
“What if the malice you mentioned was cunning enough not to tell you in advance, only silently arranging everything, and you discovered you had been in its palm the whole time only after it succeeded?”
Claire’s voice trembled a little.
“It’s simple, isn’t it?”
Ophelia smiled at her.
Claire froze.
She did not understand what the class monitor meant.
“As long as your conscience is clear, that’s enough. If you’ve done wrong, atone. If there’s a price, pay it. If there’s regret, make it up.”
Ophelia’s voice was especially clear against the sound of the tide.
The sea washed over their ankles again.
The cool water brought a thread of clarity.
Ophelia’s words fell into the tide and were carried back into the depths of the sea by the receding waves.
Claire looked out across the water in the direction the waves had gone.
In that endless darkness her unknown fate seemed to be hidden.
“Why can’t I be stronger… If I were stronger, would everything have been different…”
Claire murmured, her voice full of self-reproach and unwillingness.
“You’re just too tired, Claire. Yes, we’re small. We lack power. You always worry and get angry because you didn’t do things well enough, but then you keep working with your whole heart… That you is dazzling.”
Ophelia reached out and gently patted Claire’s shoulder.
“I don’t understand why you’re suffering so much, but the failure of the body-double plan doesn’t mean you have to be separated from Her Highness forever. We’ll go back and think of another way. The Director-General and the rest of us will always stand with you. Tonight is my reservation. Relax a little more.”
Ophelia looked at Claire gently, her eyes full of concern.
When she finished she turned at once and walked toward the long stone steps beside the beach.
Claire was a beat slow to react and hurried after her.
A trace of daze still lingered in her eyes, as if she were still immersed in the conversation just now.
Across the soft sand, the ocean that had seemed able to swallow everything now restrained its violence and became a quiet night painting.
The surging waves looked especially tame under the moonlight.
The surface gleamed with a deep blue-black luster, like a piece of polished obsidian.
They sat side by side on the cold stone steps.
In this hazy, ambiguous night, only that constantly moving white line of surf sketched the border between land and sea in the dark.
Just then a dazzling white light suddenly pierced the darkness, like lightning thrown down by a god, flashing at the edge of their vision.
The corners of Ophelia’s lips lifted in a gentle, nostalgic smile.
“Just like the lighthouse back home. It always lights at nine o’clock sharp. The first time I saw it as a child I was as surprised as you are now. And then…”
She paused.
Some emotion difficult to name entered her voice.
“Then I was moved.”
“Moved?”
“Meeting light in boundless darkness, meeting a light strong enough to pierce the dark—anyone would be moved, wouldn’t they?”
Ophelia lifted her face, following the rotating beam.
“Reason tells me the lighthouse light is only routine. But if you always look at the world with that utilitarian eye, how dull life would be.”
The lighthouse beam swept past again, briefly stamping their silhouettes onto the stone steps.
In the monotonous sound of the waves it was as if one could hear the longing of distant ships for the light.
“Honestly, I never thought the class monitor would say these things to me.”
Claire gave a small shake of her head, a faint smile appearing on her face.
“Actually, Claire, you were once my light too.”
Ophelia turned her head and smiled at her.
“Huh?”
Claire’s eyes widened in an expression of disbelief.
“The final exam the year we graduated. Me, you, and Liz were a team. The topic was drawn by lot. I was the one who drew.”
Ophelia narrowed her eyes a little, sinking into memory.
“Mm, I remember. You drew the most ridiculous target in several years. A mad fourth-generation Vandro had turned an entire town into blood servants and occupied a mountain fortress. Thinking about it now, the draw was probably rigged by the Toriduo side. Even though the rumors made it sound terrifying and there were plenty of idiots gloating, we still passed in the end.”
“When I saw the slip I felt the sky had fallen. I even pictured myself being sent to a sanatorium. When I went back and saw the two of you I kept thinking how I was going to apologize. Liz’s face looked terrible too, but you had that same deadpan look as always: ‘Let’s go. We’re going to kill the traitor!’”
Ophelia imitated Claire’s tone from back then, laughing as she spoke.
“Ugh… did I? I was only thinking about finishing the exam and getting posted. And I wasn’t as dumb as the class monitor makes me sound.”
Claire scratched her head, a little embarrassed.
“You’ve got some nerve. In the academy you were the little hedgehog who isolated the entire school all by yourself, wearing a stone face every day. Once in shooting class you finished early and just stood at the back of the room with your hands behind your back. A junior even mistook you for the instructor.”
Ophelia teased.
“I barely remember any of that. Those years I only wanted to get promoted and go to the Southern Continent as fast as possible. Sometimes I couldn’t even remember what month or day it was.”
Claire laughed soundlessly.
“But that line of yours during the exam was really cool. You were truly dazzling then, like that lighthouse lighting me up.”
Ophelia looked at Claire with sincerity.
“Class monitor, you’re not telling me you have some kind of…”
Claire tilted her head a little, deliberately drawing the words out.
“Hey, hey, hey, we’re just friends. The one who has feelings for you is Liz!”
Ophelia quickly waved her hands.
At the mention of Liz, Claire’s expression instantly dimmed.
She lowered her head, a flicker of guilt and loss crossing her eyes.
“Liz’s stubbornness toward you isn’t any less than your stubbornness toward Her Highness. Don’t be fooled by how fierce she was with you just now. You’re the one she treasures most. After we go back, apologize to her properly.”
Ophelia gently patted Claire’s shoulder.
Claire gave a small nod.
“I brought you here to relax, and now your face looks even heavier. Let’s talk about something else.”
Ophelia blinked.
From the trivia of the Intelligence Academy to the treatment at their respective postings, from holidays in Albion to the sights of Carolingia, from the serialized novels they had read together as students to half-baked political opinions, from gun-fighting techniques to champagne and specialty wines…
The topics drifted farther and farther, as if carried away by the tide.
Old stories they had laughed over hundreds of times, news they had not yet had the chance to share, simple complaints and venting—whatever came to mind was spoken aloud.
Claire vaguely felt the impulse to ask herself what on earth she was doing.
From the moment she sat on the motorcycle, every conversation had been so aimless, just like the journey itself.
Yet strangely, the heart that had been stranded seemed to have gone home with the waves.