Chapter 360
Chapter 360
"Why?"
The Pleroma are looking for me? Not just anyone—the leadership?
Mecklenburg said nothing to the words I'd muttered like a soliloquy. Was there anyone who didn't know why my name had come up? Mecklenburg was watching me with eyes unlike his usual self. Gone was the arrogant, leisurely smile he'd cultivated over a lifetime as an elite, gone was the stiffness that crept into his cheeks from inferiority, gone was the tense expression he'd occasionally worn before Nicolaus. He watched me in silence, lips firmly sealed, with a dry sort of compassion.
"......"
The haze in my head cleared instantly because of that expression. His compassion forced me to confront my position as a Pleroma. Even to the frigid gaze that formed involuntarily from layers of fatigue—a coldness misdirected—he showed no particular reaction. An attitude that said he understood, that I had every right to feel that way. I turned my head away. Mecklenburg's voice reached me.
"Even so, you won't be the negotiating party. The Imperial government has no intention of selling you out, either. Since they can't send you alone, I and Her Excellency Albertina Hohenzollern will also participate."
"If I'm not the negotiating party, then?"
"You'll attend as an observer."