By Zephyria Seiren cried until her eyes were swollen and raw.
“I… I was wrong. I should have paid attention to the other children, not just Mika. Michael too, Asdel, by my side… by my side.”
“You know it’s no one’s fault. He’ll be alright. The Duchy has over a dozen chief physicians, and there’s a Magic Tower too, so he’ll recover quickly. Let’s go quickly, see our son and daughter’s faces after so long, eat something delicious together. Then we’ll come back. Okay?”
“Sob, sob… I’m sorry, so sorry. I only… too much… for Michael.”
“Making the Second Prince the Emperor isn’t just for Mika. I know how hard you’ve worked, and the children all know it. Reni did nothing wrong. Okay?”
Though I tried my best to comfort her, my own eyes kept welling up with tears. We held each other like birds left in an empty nest. We had endured so much, so hard. Words like that were now of no use to us.
I whispered softly into my wife’s tearful ears.
“Yes, let’s take a break for a while. Okay? Forget about everything else for a moment, and let’s live with Michael and Asdel. Let’s go on a family trip. They say it’s a disease where Mana clumps excessively, so going south might be good. Then I can bake bread, and cook stew, just like I used to…”
“Sob, sob, sob, sob…”
“This time, there will be three mouths to feed, so it might be a bit busy, but I’ll do my best. Okay? It’s alright. Everything will be alright. Don’t worry too much.”
However, when we arrived at Duke Valentia’s estate, Asdel’s condition was far more serious than we could have imagined.
Asdel had seizures three to four times a day. He writhed in pain, and was constantly too cold or too hot. His body temperature would drop or rise to unbelievable levels. His lips, frozen and turned purple, would be pierced as if by a knife with every sip of water. Seeing him was like having my own insides gouged out with a knife.
Asdel’s nameless illness came from Mana.
The physician sent by the Imperial family said that an unknown, excessive power was roaming and disturbing the child’s internal organs. However, because it wasn’t a common Mana that people could utilize, it couldn’t be caught or eliminated by the existing wizards.
Asdel would regain consciousness about three times a day. Not fully awake, but awake from the unbearable pain. One day he said it felt like someone was hammering his stomach with a mallet, another day he asked if his neck had been severed. There were many nights I held his hands and blew warm air on them when he cried hysterically about losing his hands.
Even if we managed to feed him two spoonfuls of thin soup, he would vomit half of it within eight hours. Whenever his extremities turned black like a frostbitten person, we had no choice but to use a Healing Artifact. Then, Asdel would faint and vomit blood.
One day, Asdel thrashed about, banging his head against the corner of the bed, howling. As this repeated, I began to tie Asdel’s hands and feet to the bed corner every dawn. Even with soft cloth, he thrashed so much that his wrists and ankles were always covered in bruises that never faded.
Some said the youngest Young Lady of House Ernhardt was cursed. Michael beat up thugs who babbled that it was Divine Punishment for Michael’s attempt to seize god. Seeing Michael return with a split lip, Seiren cried breathlessly again.
I tried to comfort the child, and myself, by saying, “He’ll be better soon,” but it was no use. Whenever Asdel briefly regained consciousness, he repeatedly rewrote his will. We didn’t stop Asdel. Perhaps because we feared the child might truly die. We wanted to see even one more line written in his handwriting.
Asdel was only twelve years old. At such a young age, seeing him curl up, trying to endure the pain so as not to worry his family, was unbearable.
Even being cut into pieces while alive wouldn’t be this painful.
Though I tried my best to look after Michael with my scattered mind, the grown child no longer needed my comfort. Instead, Michael often visited his cousins. Sometimes, a pale blue Ranunculus would be perched on the child’s window.
It was Rubel.
It seemed that child was filling the role of an older brother that Michael couldn’t.
But I didn’t welcome it at all. As soon as Reni stopped handling social affairs, rumors began to circulate around Rubel Anti Sieron. The thought that the Second Prince, not content with Michael, was trying to snatch Michael away from my reach too, made me wake up in a rage even in my sleep.
I no longer wrote letters to Michael.
It was because I would have written more about how difficult things were than how much I missed him. I didn’t want to let anyone know how sick and pained I was now. The suffering I had to bear was already overflowing. Every day, I sought god. One day, I begged him to save my family, and on another, I inwardly cursed the damned god.
In the morning, I baked bread.
In the evening, I tied up my daughter.
Several months passed like this. Strangely and wonderfully, our family grew accustomed to this painful life. Seiren and Asdel no longer cried. They knew that crying drained their energy, making it harder. Instead, the two women and I often smiled. Whenever we had even a little strength, we tried to show each other smiling faces.
Now, the only one in our family who didn’t smile, the one who refused to let go of hope until the very end, was Michael.
The cruel winter, the sorrowful end, was approaching.
The Valentia family, who had been looking after the child, peered at us several times a week with worried and embarrassed faces. I took charge of entertaining guests in place of my distraught wife. But I was inherently awkward at dealing with people. Politely dealing with people with a boiling heart and acting friendly was slowly eating away at me.
So we went south.
To a place where I could protect my family in this harsh world.
Michael returned.
I didn’t recognize him at first as he entered the mansion, bathed in an ethereal radiance as if he had walked out of a dream, leading dozens of knights. Even though most of the knights behind him bore the Ernhardt crest. The young man with pale pink hair was too grown to be the son I had always dreamed of. I stared blankly at his lowered gaze, his deep blue eyes, now at a height that had suddenly risen.
Was it because I hadn’t seen him for too long?
His sun-tanned skin looked even darker against his bright hair. His bangs, cut roughly to keep out of his eyes, were jagged as if gnawed by mice, and his back hair, grown to cover his nape, was also cut unevenly, as if he had done it himself. If not for that distinct pale pink hair color, I would have thought he was a beggar.
No, that wasn’t it. It wasn’t simply his shabby appearance.
…He looked inhuman.
No, no. What was I thinking? I flinched in surprise. Michael, without hesitation, leaped into the man’s embrace, and Michael, as always, hugged and soothed Michael, who was in his arms. The man’s lowered eyelashes were brimming with worry and concern.
Hmph. After exhaling a hot breath, I realized I was crying.
I didn’t have time to get a handkerchief. I roughly wiped my cheeks with my hand and forced a smile. Several unfamiliar figures stood behind Michael. Among them were individuals Felice Withrow had sent portraits of. Since they were guests accompanying my son, I simply greeted them and skipped the identity verification process.
Michael’s broad embrace still had room after pulling Michael and Seiren together. Hesitantly, I stepped closer and squeezed into his warm embrace, holding him tightly. My son. My throat tightened again as the certainty of Michael’s return sank in.
I wished Asdel were here too. Remembering Michael’s name, which was consistently written in the child’s will, made me ache with sorrow. I suppressed the urge to weep aloud.
But the real miracle came afterward.
The two men and women Michael called to Asdel’s room had a very bizarre appearance. It was hard to believe they had been among the crowd without noticing how strange they were. They seemed to walk a foot off the ground, like something not human, like a statue that could speak and walk.
The man called Gano Paquin was so emaciated he looked like he would topple over if poked. He wore large, round glasses perched on his nose, his shoulder blades protruded through his shirt, and there was space inside his tight vest. His shuffling gait was so unsteady that he looked like he would fall face-first with just a gust of wind.
And what about the woman called Peter? She didn’t seem to shine like this when she was among people, but alone, she glittered as if ten lamps had been turned on in the room, illuminating the dimly lit room. Her golden hair did, but her golden eyes, which shone eerily like a beast’s, were particularly striking. Just looking at her made one feel intimidated.
And Michael.
My son standing next to them… looked incredibly natural.
Gano Paquin entered the room and clicked his tongue as soon as he saw Asdel. Without hesitation, he rolled up his shirt to above his elbows. Even without unbuttoning the cuffs, his bare forearm, visible beneath the shirt that slid up past his elbows, filled me with dread, and I tightly grasped Seiren’s hand.
The tip of Reni’s index finger quietly traced patterns on my palm. The words she wrote with her finger were:
‘Is he a wizard? A great sage?’
I couldn’t answer. Did Reni see them as human? As I shook my head, Peter turned to look this way. She stared at me for a long time, clicked her tongue, and then turned her gaze back to Asdel.
Then, Gano Paquin’s arm ‘disappeared’.
Asdel was twelve years old. No matter how emaciated the man was, it was physically impossible for his fist to his elbow to fit into the child’s mouth. But Gano Paquin’s hand turned to smoke and entered the child’s nose and mouth. Michael and Peter stood by calmly, as if this were natural.
Reni squeezed my hand tightly. I held her trembling fingertips, but couldn’t tear my eyes away. My heels kept lifting as I felt the urge to push the man away. If Michael hadn’t been present, if he hadn’t spoken as if he knew something, I would have definitely yelled, “Take your hands off my daughter!” Years of nursing the sick had made me extremely sensitive. Too overwhelmed to pick up the hope I had lost in an instant…
How much time had passed?
Gano Paquin’s arm reappeared. From the elbow down, it slowly withdrew from Asdel’s mouth. In his gnarled hand, he held a blue lump the size of a child’s fist. Was I seeing this correctly? Whether I closed my eyes or opened them, the glittering piece I saw shone yet didn’t shine, was hot like fire yet cold enough to freeze. How could I possibly describe it?
I watched, holding my breath. The man, as if handling something very familiar, inserted the piece of light into a grotesque statue he took from his pocket. The light was twice as big as the sculpture, yet it rolled into the strangely shaped statue and disappeared.
Cough.* Asdel gave a short cough, and his expression softened.
“What happened?”
“…I don’t know. Since when has this child been like this?”
Michael asked Gano Paquin. I was briefly surprised by my son’s relaxed, everyday tone, and then quickly answered Gano Paquin’s subsequent question. I was afraid that if I acted inadequately, he might put the grotesque lump back into my daughter’s mouth.
“It was March 7th of this year. While training Circles near the upper reaches of the Saras River.”
“That’s impossible… This isn’t flesh… it’s that being. …It’s rare for them to tear themselves apart like this, as they don’t die on their own. Besides, she went up to find her sister.”
“Hmm.”
Gano Paquin omitted certain words, mindful of me and Reni. But I could guess from context. The beings my son brought were truly something other than human. He opened his mouth a few more times before saying something else. However, it was words that I considered more important.
“…For now, the child will slowly regain strength in about three days.”
Only three days?
This pain, which felt like it would never end… could it be resolved within three days?
“Three days?”
“It’s a wound where the soul was burned by divine power, not something else. There’s no other method than natural healing. Fortunately, the piece is small, and it’s from the Oasis, not some other entity, so the prognosis isn’t bad. Just accept it.”
Hearing that, Michael looked at me with a worried expression. At the gentle concern that filled my son’s eyes, I couldn’t help but smile. Only then did my heart feel at ease. I realized that my son hadn’t become someone else, but had simply grown to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with god.
…So the words about my son going to seize god were truly true.
Did I then offer my son’s life in exchange for my daughter’s?