The Diary of Verity, Duchess of Touraine
Volume VI
This volume contains the notes of Verity, the Duchess of Touraine, during the years she spent at the Royal Court after winning her duchy. It principally consists of an eyewitness accounting of the events leading up to Serafina Komaru's ascension as Crown Princess.
Possession of this tome is worth **** Research Point per session. If delivered to the Church, this tome is worth **** Church Prestige Points.
Hear me, oh seeker into forbidden lore!
My name is Verity Touraine, and in life I was known as the
Duchess of Touraine.
I sacrificed my life to the pursuit of knowledge, out of belief
that truth is a virtue, and wisdom an honorable aspiration.
History will decide if I was a monster or a hero, but the truths I
discover will survive me. These texts contain all that I learned
during my life.
Read them and follow me in my journey through light and
darkness.
...
It has been a hundred and ten years since Paraceln's Vision, and a year since the death of my mother, Honor Touraine. For the past four seasons, I have resided within the palace at Komaru City, reveling at last in the purity of my freedom. I am a duchess, and the only chains that bind me are those that I permit to encircle my wrists and ankles. All of the years I have spent in enforced exile are, at last, being repaid to me. It is glorious.
I have danced across the marble floors of the Starry Hall, and sat in the carved oak chairs of the Royal Council Hall. I have flirted with men and boys in the riverside gardens of the Sone while cherry petals swirled around me. I have foiled schemes and shattered plots, broken hearts and stolen favors. In only a year, I have lived.
And yet another ninety-five lie before me!
...
One things I have not done again is fall back in love. Although I have banished Anastasia from my life, the memory of her is with me every night. I struggle to come to terms with my memories - with what I have done while under her sway, with what she wanted me to be. I look upon a handsome boy or a beautiful girl, and I find myself wondering if my desire for them is mine alone, or somehow Anastasia's, bound into me while she bound me. I have taken more than one lover, but there is an emptiness in me, and a gnawing fear that I cannot satiate with simple indulgences.
What could she have meant when she wrote, "Our son is safe?"
...
Yesterday, the Royal Heir Mirabelle Komaru chanced to attend a Sone party, held in boats on the Hebiten. The party, which began at sunset, lasted until well past midnight. The hosts, who dressed themselves as Gitany, sang and played their stringed instruments to entertain all their many guests - at least, when not showing their guests their musical talents in the private cabins built into each craft. Wine and sake and flame powder flowed freely, and by the night's end any semblance of privacy in the cabins had vanished, replaced by a tangle of limbs and skin that would have scandalized those members of the Church who were not participating. Sometime after midnight, Her Royal Highness rose from one boat and attempted to cross to another, only to slip and fall between the crafts.
Her corpse was discovered the next morning.
...
I distantly remember Loreline Komaru's reign as Crown Princess, but even now, when I hear the title, I think of her. Growing up, I or one of my friends would play at being her, while the others would be her attendants. She was a cold, strong woman, with pale skin that seemed tightly pulled over her strong cheeks and piercing brown eyes. She let her hair go gray, I remember. Yet beyond that I was too young to ever have a sense of her as a person. Then, before I turned fourteen, well before I came of age amidst the love and affection of my family and the adoration of Martin Komaru, she died, and her nephew Phillipe Komaru became our Crown Prince.
Phillipe Komaru's reign has always seemed strangely disjointed to me. When he was crowned, I remember my mother curtseying to him and swearing fealty on behalf of the Touraine family. She was slightly older than him, and very beautiful, and I couldn't help thinking that she was more regal than he. Then my exiles took me away.
When I returned to the capital, I found a Crown Prince in the fullness of his power. For the first time, I also discovered that I possessed the skills to judge him, as both a man and as a ruler. In neither case is he the greatest if men, but in neither is he the least. He has never been widely loved, nor tremendously patient. He is petty in his rages and free with his affection. He governs wisely in forming policy, but a headache and a foolish request turns him into the tyrant of the moment. He has a ready smile, and the Royal Crown leaves creases on his brow when he sets it aside. He loved his daughter Mirabelle very much. And now her death has unmade him.
Since his stroke, the Royal Council has done its best to handle the governance of the realm, for better and for worse. The Crown Prince cannot speak clearly, let alone name a Royal Heir, and few believe he will last through the winter. The Komaru family itself is bitterly divided on the subject of his successor, with some favoring his rebellious daughter Serafina, others supporting his two-year-old son Yuu and a Regent, and yet others standing behind their cousin Ryu. Serafina is the best candidate by bloodline, but her defiance of family convention and elopement with Touya Minamet has damaged her credibility with the family. For my part, I find myself drawn to handsome Ryu, despite the utter pretension he shows in claiming the throne. I do not know how this will end.
...
Some days, I am a foolish, foolish woman.
Over tea with my young cousin Kaolinite, he expressed his devout desire to never lose his heart to a woman. I chided him, telling him that love was not such a terrible fate to fall into, and he challenged me with hypocrisy. "My dear cousin, you say that, but yet you share your love with no man. I know you have many admirers, and who would not admire a woman with your youthful beauty? But there is no man whom you are truly able to love, is there?"
I confess I was flustered by his words, and that this made me say too much when I answered him, "That is not so. There are many men whom I could love, would they but spare a glance for me. Yet I am not the beauty you claim I am, for the spare not even a glance for me."
He pressed me, "Oh? Surely no man could be as foolish as to miss your splendid beauty. Who are these cads who ignore you, that I might challenge them to duels to punish them for their blindness."
I demurred, but he pressed me, and I eventually relented and told him my opinions on Ryu Komaru, hoping that thus at least would allow me to regain my composure. And though is spared me his teasing for the moment, I should have known that my words would find me again.
Now the elders of my family seek to see me married to Ryu Komaru, whom the Touraine will then support as Crown Prince of the realm!
...
The succession battle between the Komaru has claimed its first casualty. Martin Komaru, my admirer of so many lifetimes ago, lost his brother Jerebin to his cousin Rianna's blade. Rianna supports Ryu. Some say she is his lover, but if she is, she seems to have no resistance to sharing me with him, for she has encouraged me to become his bride. (I expect this should be 'sharing him with me' - Komaru Takanobu, 227)
...
I am besieged now. More Komaru have died in duels, and the other families are circling like vultures. The Minamet have declared their support for Serafina, while the Sone have declared that they will back Yuu unless Serafina can unify her family behind her. I have spent many hours in Ryu's company, and while he is a charming and gracious man - and in other circumstances, one I would wish to know more intimately - my heart does not open for him, and I have no desire to trade imprisonment at the Castle of the Sea for imprisonment as his bride and mother of his children.
...
I have angered my family. I have refused Ryu Komaru in public, telling him that I would not come between him and his lady Rianna. He flushed at my words, and Rianna gasped in shock at my boldness. Then her actual lover - my poor, stupid Martin - shrieked at her that he had been betrayed, that she hungered for the throne more than his love, that she had taken his heart, his brother, everything he had and valued. He swore that she and everything she believed in was tainted and foul, and cursed Ryu Komaru's name.
Ryu was forced to kill him, and if his eyes could strip a life away, he would have taken mine as well.
...
Serafina Komaru will be the next Crown Princess.
Perhaps driven by the Sone family's challenge, Serafina Komaru dissolved her marriage with Touya Minamet, and has proposed to Ryu Komaru. He will be made Royal Consort, and she will ascend to the throne as Crown Princess. She has vowed to listen to Ryu's council, and to trust his wisdom to wipe away the youthful mistakes of her past. The Minamet are furious, and have sworn to repay her betrayal in kind. It is said that Touya Minamet has taken his own life, leaving behind only a poem.
With two wings, birds fly.
Breathing in the taste of clouds.
One wing has broken.
...
A year has passed, and Serafina yet reigns. The Minamet have grudgingly returned to their posts along the Eastern Furnace, and the raiders that have troubled Komaru have been crushed. Serafina is pregnant with Ryu's child, already promised to the Minamet family in marriage despite being unborn. For my part, I have struggled to recover the favor I have lost within my family. I am strong enough that they cannot bind me, but weak enough that my freedom is miserable without their love. I have had few or no visitors, and while this should give me time to pursue my long-neglected studies, in truth it only leaves me feeling excluded and alone. Where I once reveled in my freedom, now I find myself half-wishing I could surrender it just to be welcomed again. Yet I am not so far fallen to not see the trap in that.
At least, not yet.
...
Serafina Komaru has miscarried.
There is nothing here for me any more. I have decided to go home, to the Castle of the Sea.