Resolve (Revised)
"...What do you mean by that?"
"...I beg your pardon, young master, but I have already done everything within my power—"
"What I asked was what you meant by that."
For one naked instant, genuine murderous intent surged up in me — and I barely managed to replace it with biting my lip until it split. The family physician, who only moments before had delivered his report to my face with perfect composure, went white at the sight of my expression and stumbled back a step.
Well, fair enough... I suppose that's only natural. For all I knew, my face at that moment made it plain enough that I could have killed a couple of people as casually as swatting flies.
"Y-young master?!"
But you can't do that. You — the family physician — can't give up on my mother. You can't deliver a death sentence in a voice that flat. Shouldn't you at least show us you'll fight for her, doing your very best until the very last breath?
"...!"
"Young master!! You mustn't!!"
"S-spare me, I beg you!! I was wrong, young master!!"
By the time I came back to myself, I was gripping him by the collar, and my other hand already held a knife, poised to bury it in him then and there. If Ella, at my side, had not seized my arm, I would have driven it straight through his throat. For that much, at least, I counted myself truly fortunate — though of course, that my mother lay in critical condition was a misfortune beyond all others.
"...You may go."
"Y-yes!!"
The instant permission left my lips, he bolted from the room like an arrow. Under any normal circumstance I would have screamed after him — save her, save my mother — but he had told me plainly: there was no hope for her. He had failed to save my mother, yes, but he was a physician still. Meaning that, at the very least, he was not the sort of man who gambled with other people's lives — and all the more so when the patient was the wife of the very duke he served.
...
"Young master..."
"...Ella. Could you bring in other doctors from around here?"
"...Young master, the man who just left is rumored far and wide to be the most skilled physician in this entire region."
...
"Which is why the family took him on as our physician..."
The more I heard, the darker the reality became, until at last I simply sank down where I stood. Not kneeling — just collapsing, plain and simple, onto the floor.
"Y-young master... are you all right..?" Ella asked, her voice breaking into sobs.
How the hell had I endured, keeping up that damn act all this time? Playing the delinquent I was never fated to be, soaking up the hostile stares of how many people? And every last bit of it — all of it — had been for my mother's sake...
"...If you're going to leave me behind like this, what am I supposed to do?"
In the sky I looked up at that day, I think a very great star quietly went dark.
And that evening, Lady Sariel Reinhardt — who until then had lain as though dead — slowly raised herself up. On a body already wasted to nothing but bone and frame.
...
Sariel's gaze drifted around her room. On the table set at the far end, dishes perfectly suited to restoring her strength sat in lavish array, and the bedding she had been lying in had, at some point, been replaced until it looked brand new, boasting a softness like clouds.
Treatment far too generous for a woman of commoner birth. And yet, even as she soaked in all of it with her whole body, she could not simply rejoice — 'What use is any of this to a woman about to die... honestly, these people...' — for she, too, had sensed it. That her life was nearly spent.
Just as the physician had said, her life now hung by a thread, a candle flame flickering in the wind. And the more she came to know that truth in her own flesh, the more regret blossomed in a corner of her heart — a lingering attachment to life, and worry for her son.
Her son — the boy she had never been able to give what he wanted, all because she was commoner-born. To leave him behind, to go first, felt unbearably shameful, and the more she thought it, the more she wanted to live just a little longer.
Besides, Jenison was terribly unsteady right now. Others might never notice, but she alone — his mother — could see it clearly. That Jenison was by no means truly unbothered by the eyes of other people.
He bore it all now as though he had grown used to it, but there was no telling how long that would hold. Perhaps, in the time after she was gone, he might break apart entirely.
'No... that mustn't happen... it mustn't...'
And yet there was nothing she could do about it. A woman who could scarcely hold up her own body — how could she offer her son even a single warm word of comfort? If he saw her in such a ruined state, she would count herself lucky if all it did was make him lose heart.
'So in the end, I couldn't even play the part of a proper mother, not once, right up to the very last...'
She was filled with regret — that she had never been able to give to her children freely and openly, the way the first wife did. A pitiable, pathetic woman, whose place in the family could only ever be narrow because of that one single stain: her commoner birth. For that was the objective verdict she passed upon herself.
Khhak—khhak!!
The moment blood came up with the cough, she knew in her bones that the time left to her was truly short. And in that instant, only a single thought flashed through her mind. She wanted to see her precious son. She wanted, at the very least, to say her last farewell.
"E..Ella, are you out there..?!"
...
"Ella..!!"
"M-Madam?! You're coughing?!"
"Go... bring Jenison to me..."
Right now.
"Mother... she... really called for me..?!" I sobbed.
"Yes..!! You have to run, quickly..!!"
I didn't stay to hear the rest. Right now, the only thing that mattered was that my mother had risen. And that the moment she woke, she had called for me.
Badabada—
In the dead hours before dawn, that sudden clatter of footsteps rang through the entire manor — but regrettably, this was no situation in which I could spare a thought for the people I was waking. No — anyone, anyone at all, would have done exactly as I did. Because this was about no one less than my own mother.
Before I knew it, Ella had fallen far behind, and I left her there and made straight for my mother's room. At once came her voice — Young master, you mustn't just barge in like that..! — but I did not stop. I flung my mother's door wide open.
"...You came."
...
The moment the door swung open, a fishy scent of blood washed over me. It was one of the smells I knew far, far too well. The reek given off by a person on the verge of death — blood rotted clean through, closer to the stench of pus than anything else.
...
"...What kind of face is that? Come here and sit with me, dear."
Pat, pat—
My mother patted the bed beside her, and her face was the brightest I had ever seen it. But I had caught that scent of blood only moments before, and there was nothing I could fail to notice now. That my mother was dying, at this very moment. And that she was forcing that brightness with everything she had, desperate to hide it.
"...Yes."
But I did not call it out. Because I truly did not want to accept it. My whole chest burned to hoist my mother onto my back that very instant and set out in search of every doctor in the world — but I believed that crushing a mother's wish to look composed before her child was something no child had the right to do.
I walked over quietly, sank down onto the spot beside her, and before she could say a single word, I buried myself in her arms. Like a newborn babe clamoring to be held.
"Oh my... Jenison, how old are you now, that you'd still do this..?"
That was what she said, all the same — but she did not dislike it either, for soon enough her hand began to stroke my hair, soft and gentle, and before long I had soaked her clothes through with my tears.
...
"...Jenison."
"...I'm not going to listen."
Perhaps she felt those tears of mine, for the hand stroking my hair went still, and she seemed about to say something — but I had no intention of hearing it. Because I did not want to acknowledge my mother's death. Not ever.
In seven lives, she had been the very first person to give me warmth. The one who, even as she endured the envy and jealousy of everyone around her, never once gave up on raising me. That such a person should die like this — I refused to accept it. Absolutely.
I was desperate — desperate enough that I could have prayed even to the gods I had cursed with everything in me. Even if the wheel of lives turned for me yet again, even if I had to live and die all over — I prayed, please, just let my mother live.
"...Jenison."
"...I'm not going to listen. Not ever."
"You must listen, Jenison."
And still — as ever — the god was not at my side. It only laughed at me from the heavens.
I lifted my head and looked at my mother, and the face I finally saw, truly saw, was ravaged beyond anything it had ever been. The black hair that had once gleamed like flowing silk hung dry and brittle, and her beautiful, fair skin was covered in red blotches. There were moments she looked almost like a leper. And at the sight of her like that, I pulled her close and held her tight all over again — like a lost child wailing, please, don't go anywhere and leave me behind.
"Jenison, this mother of yours loved you — truly, so very much."
...
"I may not know much else, but I want you to know at least that much."
...
I didn't want to answer. Because if I answered those words, I felt my mother would truly let go of life.
"...Do you know why I named you Jenison?"
...
"Zenith... that is the wish your name was born from..."
...
"Please... whatever kind of person you become, someday..."
...
"I hope you reach that zenith, and make yourself shine."
...
"I love you, Jenison. Please don't hate me too much."
"..I... love... you... too..."
With those words, my mother slipped into a deep sleep — without ever properly hearing, from me, even that one ordinary phrase: I love you.
I laid my head against her stomach and wept, muffling every sound. They were the first tears I had shed in a very long time — warm, and aching all the way through.