Found You
"U-um... young master...?"
"...What is it, Ella."
"After the banquet... I couldn't help wondering... whether something unpleasant had happened to you..."
...
Her worried voice lingered at my ears, but my expression showed no sign of softening. One cheek was bunched upward, my brows crumpled low — the unmistakable face of a man thoroughly irritated. I knew it perfectly well myself, and yet my face refused to move as I willed it; even with the thought that I mustn't worry her, the sullen scowl held its ground.
"...It's nothing."
And yet I wanted to set her at ease — even if the words were nothing more than a hollow shell.
Nothing had been confirmed yet. There was no certainty that anything had actually happened to Aria. This was the girl who had once wrung a ferocious, almost monstrous torrent of mana from that small frame of hers. She was not someone who would fall easily to anyone, no matter where she was.
...Please. Let that be true.
Leaning on that single fact alone made me look utterly pathetic, but there was nothing for it. If even that hope were stripped away, the Emperor's authority and everything else be damned, I would have bolted from this room on the spot.
Besides, House Charlotte had promised to step in personally — which meant that, in practical terms, my one extra pair of hands would not find her any faster. If a single additional searcher could have made the difference, word would surely have reached us by now.
All I could do was keep bouncing my leg, gnawed by dread, and wait for them to bring me news.
"If that's so... then I'm relieved, but... young master, if something is weighing on you... you could always unburden it all to me, at least..."
She had been studying my face the whole while, and now she let her own words trail off and bowed her head — like someone with no confidence whatsoever. I could see straight through her. She must be thinking it far too presumptuous for a mere maid to pry into her master's troubles — without even knowing what it was that troubled me.
"U-um... w-well, that's..."
"...Haah."
Watching her still fidgeting, unable to coax the words out, I heaved a long sigh and slowly crossed the room to her.
"Y-young master?"
"Ella."
The moment I laid a hand calmly on her shoulder, her head shot up at once. Her eyes flitted this way and that, trembling — telling me exactly how startled she was. Was my hand on her shoulder really so shocking?
"I'm truly grateful that you worry for me... but I'm really all right. You can stop now."
The gratitude was true. The I'm fine was a lie. Every sentence had been built with a single purpose: to put her at ease.
...My little sister has been kidnapped. There is no world in which I could stay calm.
"I... I'm..."
But alas — it seemed the words hadn't quite taken. Perhaps she had sensed that they were stitched half of truth and half of lie; she was not so easily convinced. All she let into her voice was sorrow.
"I'm... I'm worried about you too, young master..."
From her lips came nothing but that same refrain — that she was worried about me — her head bowed low once more, just as it had been before.
How should I put it. She looked like a deflated little puppy. If she'd had ears, they would surely have been pinned flat against her head; if she'd had a tail, I could all but see it sweeping the floor.
At the sight of her, my hand rose without my thinking to rest on the crown of her head.
"Y-young master?!"
...
Swish, swish — her hair slipped between my fingers, brushing past, grazing, soft against my skin. Those beautiful silver strands, felt one by one, and as they tangled beneath my hand—
"Hnn... nngh..."
...?
Something beneath my palm suddenly began to make a low, pained sound, and startled, I hurriedly looked down—
"...Ella?"
"I-it's because of you, young master...!"
There she was, face buried tight in both hands, the tips of her ears dyed scarlet. For a moment there I had actually worried she was hurting somewhere. So it had been nothing but embarrassment all along.
"Ella."
"...!"
I lifted my hand from her head and brought my eyes level with her downcast gaze. Her face somehow looked redder than ever — but if you wanted to set someone's heart at ease, meeting their eyes as you spoke was still the surest way to do it.
"It's fine. Nothing is going to happen."
"...Really?"
"Yeah. I'm fine. Truly, nothing will happen."
Perhaps it was the steadiness in my eyes, but only then did she seem to relax a little. So it was true, after all — a small lie now and then goes a long way toward getting through this world.
...I hadn't wanted to lie to her. But there was no help for it.
"Hehe... Young master, I've already laid out your bedding for you!"
I thanked my stars that she hadn't seen through my lie. I had no wish to stain that innocent smile with worry.
She was a fragile one as it was. I couldn't have her agonizing over every little thing like this.
"Oh, and as for you, young master—"
...All I could do was pray the news came soon.
The rest of that sentence — that Aria had to come home unharmed — I buried deep in my chest, primed like a charge. So that if word ever came that something had happened to her, I could let it detonate that very instant. So that no matter who stood across from me, I could kick off from where I stood and be on them.
Of course, nothing happening at all would have been, by far, the best outcome for everyone involved.
...
"Lady Aria, for today's meal—"
"I don't need it. Please leave."
A beautiful woman's voice rang out inside a beautiful room — a chamber lined, even to the most casual glance, with luxurious furniture that an ordinary person could never dream of owning in a lifetime.
"...My lady, you have already skipped three meals... if you skip any more, it will begin to take a toll on your health—"
"That's enough. I asked you to leave."
That cold order to go, so at odds with the elegance of the room, echoed off its walls, and only then did an elderly servant slowly back out through the door — both arms still laden with dishes that gleamed with rich, glossy sauces.
"...I never imagined you would lock me up in a place like this and still serve me three meals a day without fail..."
Suddenly left alone in the spacious room, the woman let her gaze drift slowly around it. Every glass window was layered, fold upon fold, with high-order magic circles, and the black box perched atop the distant bookshelf recorded her every movement.
This luxurious place was, in the truest sense, a prison without bars — and its name was that of the place which had once been the most comfortable and cherished of all: the estate of House Reinhardt, where she had once lived.
"...What could they possibly want with me, keeping me penned up like this? The rumors have long since spread as far as they can spread."
However often she murmured to herself, no one in that room existed to answer her. A desolate silence, quiet and lonely to an excruciating degree. Before it could seep into her bones, she tried to move her body freely — and even that was denied her.
Clank—
Because of the long iron chain locked around her ankle.
"...And with a mana seal fitted on top of it all, no less..."
Today of all days, her own helplessness felt unbearably galling. Her past self — the girl who had buried herself in nothing but magic while everyone else took up the sword — had become just a little bit resentful to her.
"My lady, I believe you really must complete your swordsmanship lesson today..."
"...I have no talent for the sword. I have no intention of investing in something hopeless."
"...Very well, my lady. If that is your wish..."
Her old self rose before her eyes — the girl who had trusted in talent alone and poured everything into that talent and nothing else. If only, back then, she had picked up a sword even once and built some strength into her arms.
What good was deep mana? What good was flawless control of it? What use was magic that towered far above her peers'? Hers was a body that turned to dead weight the instant it could no longer spend its power. Clenching her fist now, as tight as she could, changed nothing at all.
With these slender hands, thin as fern shoots, that looked as though they couldn't properly snap a tree branch — never mind a sword — there was nothing she could do without mana. Nothing but remain trapped here, like a fish in a bowl. That was the only thing she was still capable of.
Pathetic. She was pathetic, like this.
Only days ago she had been tearing through every lead, determined to clear her brother's name of the injustice done to him. She had even mapped out in advance exactly what choice the family would make once she exposed their sins with her own hands. And then — one split second's mistake — she had lost consciousness, been carried off, and woken in a cage like this one.
She couldn't bear it. This helpless creature wearing her face.
And that was why he seemed so extraordinary to her now. Why she missed him so much. Him — the man who had run from one end to the other without ever giving up, on nothing but a worthless scrap of talent. Today of all days, he looked more remarkable, and more dear, than ever.
...What is my brother doing right now...? Does he even know I'm gone...?
Did he know she had vanished? Or did he not even know that much? Or — no — did he know, and simply choose not to look for her? Every manner of thought began to creep across her mind and take hold, until, unable to endure it any longer, she breathed out a single word.
"...Big brother."
A voice too small and fragile for anyone to hear drifted into the empty air. But the darkness had always kept specialists whose sole trade was hunting down exactly such voices.