Mizuki Nomura - Book girl and the Undine Who Bore a Moonflower.

PrologueMakiFirefly
Nightfall/The Princess Speaks

I saw a god enraged.

The source of my grandfathers anger was unknown to me.

Mitsukuni Himekura was supposed to be a man who governed information, a man who wielded his power and issued orders however he wished, an arrogant man in absolute control.

As far as I was concerned, my grandfather was a god who would allow no contradiction. He was well over halfway through his seventies, but there wasnt the slightest hint that his physical or mental capacities had been compromised, and he gave off the impression that he had ruled the world since hundreds of years ago and that he would go on living into eternity.

Despite that, my grandfathers face was twisted hideously with humiliation, his one eye grew red and bloodshot, and his shoulders shook with rage.

Feeding the koi fish at the edge of a pond on a moonlit night, my grandfathers movements were violent and he looked as if he was venting his anger. Each time he cast a handful of food, the surface of the pond threw up rough waves that reflected the moonlight, and the koi fish that were my grandfathers pride felt their masters displeasure and twitched their red fins and swarmed away in suspicion.

I listened, holding my breath behind a pine tree, to the vengeful wail that spilled from his cracked lips.

That blasted Shirayukithe promiseis still going?

Shirayuki? And what promise?

Ignorant of it all, I felt something move deep in my chest like the dark surface of the water.

My grandfather fell into silence after that and continued throwing food to the fish. My skin prickling with tension, I left that place as silently as possible.

That happened during the summer when I was about to turn eighteen.

One night several days later, I turned eighteen and we held the kind of ostentatious party my grandfather loved on the grounds of the estate.

Most of the guests whod come to the vast and garishly lit garden were company people much older than myself, and it was obvious that they had come not to celebrate my birthday, but to pay their respects to my grandfather. It was dismal keeping my smile in place and responding to the people I was meeting for the first time who told me, Happy birthday, so courteously. Because they could carry out their duty by being friendly to the little girl just once, but I had to act cordial and repeat, Thank you, over and over until the party ended.

And when a lot of people got together, I started to hear things I didnt want to.

For example, how my mom had cast off her husband and child and gone back to her native England.

What it might mean for the Himekura family if the child of a woman like that took charge.

That Mitsukuni Himekura, who was obsessed with bloodlines, had made a fine bungle of things by approving the marriage of his only son to a woman of foreign ancestry and a common family, or that no, she was an evil woman who had duped the heir of the Himekuras by getting pregnant, then forcing the marriage. That theyd heard she had demanded alimony even though she was the one whod left.

I mean, seriously, you get tired of hearing the same things for years on end.

But even if thats what Im thinking, I cant show it on my face, and I have to pretend that I cant hear what theyre saying. Putting on a lofty smile, untroubled, unshaken by anything, like the noble young lady of a good family. Thats what my grandfather and the people around me expect of meMaki Himekura.

So I must clothe myself in a shiny silk dress and smile more beautifully and bewitchingly than anyone else here.

Maki, Ive heard that youre the conductor of your high schools orchestra.

Yes, at my grandfathers request. Its tradition for a member of the Himekura family to act as conductor in the orchestra.