Shikigami Selection (3)
The Selection Ceremony was held at the main estate.
It was the first time I had set foot in the main house since being shut away in that corner room. Even from a distance, its scale was oppressive. The fact that the Eoryeong Family had reigned at the pinnacle for a thousand years seemed to seep from every single roof tile.
Cradled in my mother's arms, I was carried deep into the main estate.
...The energy is different here.
Even the servants passing through the corridors were of another caliber entirely. They bore no comparison to the indifferent wet nurse who had come and gone from the corner room. Through eyes that could see spirits, I caught the ranks of the shikigami hovering around each person in succession. Perhaps because they were those gathered at the main house, not a single one of them was to be taken lightly.
Before long we came to a stop before a massive set of doors—the entrance to the ceremonial hall where the Selection Ceremony would be held.
The doors opened, and every gaze inside fixed on me at once.
Not one of them was kind.
"…So that child is the one?"
"The defective product whose spiritual veins are said to be mutually hostile, yes."
"Tsk. Bringing something like that into the Selection Ceremony…"
Whispers rose from every side. Because I was young, I felt those sour emotions all the more sharply. My small body meant my view was nothing but adults' legs, but the contempt pouring down over my head was perfectly clear.
Well, I was used to it. I had heard "defective product" more than enough times in the corner room. And my body was not so soft that a few insults would shake it.
What came next, though, was different.
"What face does that mother even have, coming here?"
"For the lady of the house, of all people, to be unable to cast off a child who can't even use spirits… tsk."
"I hear she even bowed her head to an enemy family to buy that expensive Gye Family Incense. All while carving away her own standing."
"Mother and son, side by side, carrying the family's shame."
For an instant something twisted hard in my chest.
Insults aimed at me were fine. But the moment they put my mother on the chopping block, it was another matter entirely—especially since half of that contempt existed because of me.
That incense. The incense she had begged for from the enemy Gye Family, paid whatever price they named for, and secured no matter how many people told her to abandon me. That incense had cut her standing down. From the proper seat of a direct-line lady of the house, she had walked of her own will all the way down to this end place where everyone pointed fingers—just to keep me alive.
Because I was defective. Because without that incense, I would die.
……
My small fist clenched before I knew it.
"It's all right, Hwiun."
Just then my mother shifted her hold on me slightly and whispered against my ear. Even after hearing every one of those pointing fingers, her voice did not tremble.
"Just look at Mother. You don't need to mind anything else."
With her pale face, she smiled down at me—without a single word about what she herself had lost.
…How could this person be like this.
The churning in my chest slowly settled before that smile. In its place, something else rose up to fill it.
I wanted to prove it.
In front of them all, that I was not defective. That what my mother had carved herself down to protect was not something to be thrown away.
"We will now begin the Selection Ceremony."
At the officiant's voice, the hall fell into order.
A broad open space had been cleared at the center of the ceremonial hall. And into that empty place, one by one, shikigami began to be released.
These were the spirits the family had gathered over a thousand years. Some took the form of foxes, some wore wings like birds, some had the shape of beasts the size of wolves, some wavered like mist. Spirits of every rank lined up in the open space and settled into place.
The Selection Ceremony. A rite in which a bloodline child who had turned seven chose one among those shikigami.
Simply choosing one today did not mean they would command it at once. Only after their spiritual veins had matured could they subjugate a spirit; for now it was merely a place to mark, for the future, which spirit they would keep at their side. Yet the family held this ceremony in high regard for a reason of its own.
The rank of the shikigami chosen became a mirror of that child's vessel.
A high-ranking spirit could only be recognized and drawn by someone with a vessel to match. And so, which shikigami a child reached for already foreshadowed how far that bloodline would go. In other words, it was a place for measuring vessels—no different from the old custom of reading a child's future by what they grasped from the first-birthday table.
…Ah. I see.
With eyes that saw spirits, I weighed the rank of each shikigami in the line, one by one. Some were candle flames, some bonfires. The density of their light, the weight of their presence—all of it came into view. The higher the rank one picked out, the greater the vessel. The principle was simple.
"First, Lady Arin."
When the officiant called the first name, the air in the hall seemed to grow faintly heated.
A girl of about my age stepped lightly forward.
Even at a glance she was a child who drew the eye. Skin like white jade, hair black as lacquer. Features too composed for her age stood out with particular clarity in the dim ceremonial hall, and there was even a certain unapproachable dignity about her. So this was a direct-line true heir of the main house—her blood itself was different.
"She's the true heir of the main house, isn't she."
"Indeed. The legitimate daughter of this generation is that very child."
Envy colored the whispers. The same mouths that had mocked me and my mother moments ago turned markedly respectful before the child called Arin.
Arin walked slowly before the lined-up shikigami. Then she stopped in front of one.
It was a beast-form shikigami with a blue mane, resembling a wolf. Through eyes that saw spirits, its rank pressed in with solid weight. A light as dense as a bonfire. It was a Beast Spirit. Even among the shikigami released today, its rank stood near the top.
When Arin raised her hand before it, the wolf-shaped shikigami slowly bowed its head—as if it had recognized its master.
"Ohh!"
"A Beast Spirit, at once!"
"As expected of a true heir. This generation of the Eoryeong Family will be secure as well!"
Applause poured through the hall. Even amid that acclaim, Arin did not let a single expression slip; she simply kept the chosen shikigami at her side and quietly returned to her place. That composed back only deepened the admiration around her.
…A Beast Spirit.
I watched the scene in silence.
The higher a shikigami's rank, the sooner it answered those with greater vessels. The child called Arin had drawn out a Beast Spirit in a single motion. At seven years old, that much meant she was more than fit to be counted among the vessels of the Eoryeong Family's next generation.
After her, the children stepped forward one by one. Some chose Wild Spirits, some things lesser still. From the way people cheered or went lukewarm according to rank alone, the workings of the ceremony became clear at a glance.
The rank of the shikigami chosen was the vessel. Simple, and clear.
And last of all.
"…Finally, Young Master Hwiun."
The officiant's voice dropped a beat, as if he would rather not have called the name at all.
The mockery in the hall thickened openly.
My mother carried me out into the center of the empty space.
Only then did I properly face the shikigami still lined up. The good ones had already been chosen and taken by the children ahead of me. What remained were only a few of low rank. Not that anything fine would have come around to a defective product anyway.
…What am I supposed to choose.
Subjugation was still a long way off. For now I only had to mark one, so there was no danger of my spiritual veins rupturing. The problem was not that—it was that whatever I chose here would be read at once as my vessel. With nothing left but the bottom of the barrel, "as expected of a defective product" would follow no matter what I picked.
It was while I was scanning the remaining shikigami that I saw it.
Over in that far corner. A small thing crouched a step apart even from the other shikigami.
An unimpressive form, neither quite rat nor weasel. Almost no light to it, like a dying ash of a coal. By any measure the very bottom among the lowliest of lesser spirits—the most pathetic shikigami released today.
Of course no one had given it a second look. I would have walked right past it myself.
If eyes that saw spirits had not caught what they caught.
……Huh?
I put force into my eyes.
Deep inside that unimpressive lesser spirit's body, something was contained.
It was not a rank that belonged among the shikigami here. Something hard and condensed of an entirely different grain—pressed tight as if forced into that small frame, lying still and asleep. If not for eyes that saw spirits—no, if not for these eyes that could pierce through rank—I would never have seen it…
……This is.
My heart dropped hard in my chest.
Even I could not say what it was. Neither its name nor its identity. But the eyes that read rank screamed by instinct. That it was of another dimension. That every shikigami released into this ceremonial hall—even the Beast Spirit Arin had just drawn out—was no more than a candle flame before this thing.
Even while it slept. The tightly compressed energy, as if sealed, was enough while merely lying still to send a chill down my spine. If that thing ever woke, I could not even begin to gauge what rank it would become.
The rank was different. Simply, everything was different.
And that ash-like lesser spirit had swallowed such a thing and crouched unnoticed in a corner of the ceremonial hall.
Outwardly the bottom. Within, something beyond measure.
…So it was that.
To other eyes it was simply the most pathetic shikigami. A last-place choice perfectly suited to a defective product with a bottom-tier vessel. But my eyes could see what was held inside it. Not the shell—the core.
There was no reason to hesitate.
I stretched my small hand toward that lesser spirit.
The hall stirred.
"…Th-that child is…"
"What is he choosing?"
"Of all things, that lesser spirit…? The bottom one stuck at the very end?"
And then the laughter burst.
"Hah, to choose something like that!"
"I thought only his spiritual veins were defective—his eye for things is defective too."
"He managed to pick out the most pathetic one of all. At least he knows his place."
Contempt filled the ceremonial hall. A blood-smeared infant whose spiritual veins were already mutually hostile, who had now chosen the lowest-ranking shikigami at the Selection Ceremony. In their eyes, another stamp had simply been pressed onto the brand of defective product.
I felt my mother's arms tighten ever so slightly. Another moment of her child becoming a laughingstock.
I let the mockery wash past me in silence.
Above the dais.
There was a man who, since the Selection Ceremony began, had not changed a single word or a single expression.
It was the Family Head.
The current pinnacle of the Eoryeong Family. From a seat higher than anyone else's in the ceremonial hall, he had been looking down indifferently upon the children's selections.
Whether a direct-line child chose a high-ranking shikigami or a collateral one chose something mediocre, there was no particular stir in those eyes. They were the jaded eyes of a pinnacle merely watching an event that was always held as a matter of course.
Those eyes of his—
the moment the blood-smeared infant called a defective product stretched a hand toward the bottom-rung lesser spirit…
narrowed for the first time.
In the very midst of a hall boiling with mockery, the Family Head did not laugh. Instead he stared fixedly at that lesser spirit—more precisely, at the something crouched inside it.
Because the eyes that had risen to the pinnacle of the Eoryeong Family could see it.
That immeasurable something sleeping within the ash-like shell.
And, harder still to believe than that—
the fact that this blood-smeared infant had seen it, and reached out his hand.
……That child.
The Family Head's lips moved, very slowly. Low enough that no one in the hall could hear.
"…So he can see it, then."