And just like that, dinner came to an end.
Riersha had been so distracted she couldn’t tell whether the food had gone down her throat or up through her nose.
Why does Risideon oppa want to go back to the imperial palace?
No matter how hard she thought about it, she couldn’t find an answer.
There was no way for her to know what had happened to the family during those blank years before she turned ten — and not knowing was its own kind of agony.
She was still sitting at the dining table, sunk in gloom, when a sharp voice cut through the silence.
“This is all your fault.”
“Hey. Riscal.”
Riscal shoved back his chair and strode toward her, eyes blazing as he glared down at Riersha.
Ricador stepped between them in alarm, trying to block his path, but Riscal didn’t so much as glance at him.
“If it weren’t for you, Hyung never would have gone to the imperial palace in the first place — and he never would have said he’s going back!”
“Enough, Riscal.”
“Aren’t you angry, Hyung?!”
“If you keep this up, I’ll have no choice but to call Knight and have him take you out of here.”
Ricador’s voice came down like a blade.
Riscal’s chest heaved. He clenched his jaw, his expression twisting into something raw and wounded — the face of someone who couldn’t understand why anyone would take her side.
“Because she couldn’t awaken, we all had to live apart. All of us.”
“…”
“Mother. Father. Hyung Risideon. All of them!”
“I said that’s enough.”
“Why are you defending her?!”
Riscal’s cry rang out as if he simply could not accept it.
And in that moment, something struck Riersha like a blow to the back of the head, leaving her ears ringing.
Right. She hadn’t been the only one who had lost the family.
“I hate that something like you is my little sister. I refuse to accept it. The others can do what they want, but I never will.”
Riscal threw the words at her like stones, then turned on his heel and stormed out of the dining room.
Ricador exhaled slowly and pressed his fingers to his temple.
“Don’t take what he said too seriously. He has a habit of saying things without thinking.”
“No. I understand why Riscal oppa is angry.”
Why hadn’t she thought of it sooner?
Riscal, too, had lost his family in the span of a single day — sudden, without warning.
The hours he had spent alone had far outnumbered the hours he had spent with them.
Riersha hadn’t been the only one who had lived in solitude.
Everyone here had been a victim.
⁂
The office of the Young Marquess of Arachrene.
“You intend to return to the imperial palace?”
Pernoa asked directly. Risideon was silent for a long moment before he answered.
“Yes.”
“Your reason?”
“…I do not belong in Arachrene.”
Risideon lowered his gaze.
A long silence settled over the room.
“You do not belong in Arachrene.”
Pernoa quietly turned the words over and then fixed his eyes on Risideon.
Four years — short if you called it short, long if you called it long.
In that time, Risideon had changed beyond recognition.
The child who had been only ten years old was now fifteen, grown into someone else entirely.
Word of his swordsmanship had traveled all the way to the border, and when news reached Pernoa that Risideon had become the Crown Prince’s fencing instructor, he had finally set aside the worry he had been carrying.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have.
Pernoa’s red eyes grew still.
He had believed that Risideon had made his choices in order to protect the family — that through it all, the boy had grown stronger within himself, strong enough to bear the weight of his own decisions.
But it seemed that Risideon had been eating himself alive.
“Is it that you believe you are unworthy because you took the Empress’s hand? That you think you are the reason Arachrene’s order has crumbled?”
He had guessed correctly.
Risideon’s stomach burned so fiercely he couldn’t form a single word.
“Do you not wish to protect the people who are yours, Risideon? Then follow me. Become mine, and I will not let anything else touch you.”
Risideon had wavered before the Empress’s alluring offer.
He had been only thirteen at the time — still a child, and one whose spirit had already been worn thin.
In Pernoa’s absence, the elders had grown insufferably bold, their arrogance soaring without limit, and Arcmund — aged as he was — seemed to have spent every last drop of his energy simply holding the family together.
In the midst of all that, Risideon had not been able to refuse the Empress’s approach.
If only he had been a little stronger…
“I am not fit to be an heir. You already know that.”
“I find myself filled with regret.”
Pernoa said it simply, without adornment.
The words landed like a stone thrown into still water. Risideon’s red eyes shook with the impact.
“Before I left the estate, I gave you something to hold onto.”
Risideon remembered that day.
Pernoa’s parting words — to protect his siblings, no matter what.
And then…
“I had intended to praise you when you returned. Now I find that intention has gone.”
“…What did you just say?”
Risideon stared at him with an expression that said he couldn’t believe his own ears. His voice trembled almost imperceptibly.
Pernoa let himself think of the Risideon who had still been a child.
Now that he considered it — Risideon had always been more tenderhearted than anyone. Even Arcmund, who seldom let concern show on his face, had quietly fretted over him.
He had always been the kind of child who shared what was his with his younger siblings without a second thought.
“To think you’d be sitting here with the foolish notion that because you once knelt before the Empress, you’ve forfeited your right to belong here.”
“…I set a precedent. And because of that, it would be more practical to cut me loose rather than carry the burden of—”
“No. You did nothing wrong. Risideon. You did everything you could.”
Risideon’s face went blank.
He had known, all along, that quiet fractures had been forming within Arachrene. He had felt it, even from a distance. And every time he had, he had swallowed the anguish alone.
What if it was because of me? What if my wrong choice gave the imperial family something to sink its teeth into?
How would I ever face Grandfather?
Father?
My brothers and sisters?
That was why he had severed every thread of contact — every go-between, every channel that might have connected him back to Arachrene.
Risideon had never intended to return. Not from the very beginning.
But that resolve was crumbling now.
“You’ve carried a great deal for a long time. I know it. Risideon.”
Something hot surged up from deep inside Risideon’s chest. His throat tightened. The backs of his eyes burned.
“Father, I…”
“The banquet celebrating the Crown Prince’s investiture is being held in one week’s time. I plan to attend.”
Pernoa produced an invitation bearing the imperial crest — the very same one Risideon already knew well, for the Crown Prince had extended the invitation to him as well.
“We will go together. Whether you return from the imperial palace afterward or not — that choice will be yours to make, Risideon.”
⁂
“Nghhh — whoa, it’s huge!”
Riersha threw her arms up in triumph at the sight of the enormous transparent bubble she had conjured.
She had been training in the separate pavilion’s garden for nearly two weeks now.
She puffed out her chest with satisfaction.
There were things she had learned about her ability through all this practice, and among them, the most important discovery was—
“It’s pretty!”
…It was pretty.
Beyond that, she had nothing to show for her efforts.
Every ability had a core keyword at its heart.
Ricador’s ability, for instance, was fire — not the ordinary fire of this world, but fire given form through magical energy, an attribute he had simply been born with.
In the same way, every ability possessed what was called a characteristic.
And though she had never witnessed it herself, she had been told that Arcmund’s was spatial separation, while Pernoa’s was toxicity.
What her other brothers could do, she had no idea. That information was kept in absolute secrecy.
Details about the heirs of Arachrene were treated as classified.
The exceptions were figures like Pernoa and Arcmund, who had appeared on battlefields and whose abilities had long since become known.
The Arachrene family was said to assign each heir a specialist tutor and spare no resources in supporting their development, all according to the nature of each child’s magical characteristic.
But Riersha was not yet at that stage.
Because she still hadn’t managed to identify the core of her ability — its characteristic.
“I wonder what it is.”
After turning the question over for a while longer, Riersha gave up and got to her feet. It was time to work on her assignments.
“Miss Riersha, it’s time for your studies. Come inside, please.”
“Okay!”
“Did you work hard again today?”
Sona came over and tidied Riersha’s tangled hair. When she noticed how dirty the little girl’s clothes had gotten, she laughed the fond, helpless laugh of someone who had long since given up trying to keep up.
Riersha giggled and wrapped both hands around Sona’s arm, and when Sona wasn’t looking, she let out a long, quiet sigh.
The truth was, there was a reason Riersha had been throwing herself into training with such single-minded urgency.
What am I going to do? I need to be able to use my ability soon — otherwise I won’t be able to go to the imperial palace with everyone.
Riersha thought back to the promise she had made with Pernoa just a few days ago.
