The Deep Darkness Over House Phoenix (1)
"Aina von Frost. Mother."
"Oh my—Mother...?"
"...? Well, you're Free's mother, aren't you?"
"Ah. You meant it that way...?"
"???"
Aina tilted her head, her face a picture of genuine incomprehension.
Watching her—and his mother, who had been caught just as off guard—Free spoke up.
"By the way, Mother. Where is Reina?"
"Reina?"
It was Aina who echoed the name, not his mother.
"My little sister."
"You had a little sister...?"
"I do."
She sounded as though the existence of such a sibling had never once crossed her mind.
Then his mother answered.
"Reina went out to pick flowers."
"Flowers...?"
Had she gone to see Sophie? But that was not it at all.
"Big brotheeer!!!"
"Reina."
From the far side of the grounds a girl came running toward them, waving both hands high over her head, a yellow blossom tucked behind one ear. It was his little sister, Reina.
So she really had gone to pick flowers.
She crashed into him.
"Big brother! I missed you! Welcome home!!"
"I know, Reina. This brother of yours missed you terribly too."
He gathered the little girl who had flung herself into his arms and stroked her dark navy hair. A smile rose to his lips of its own accord.
Then, holding her, he sensed something faintly off.
"......!?"
"What's wrong, big brother?"
Reina drew back a little in his arms and tilted her head, her face as sweetly curious as ever. Free's gaze turned grave.
"You...... you've awakened to mana."
"Ah—yeah!"
The moment she understood, his little sister broke into a bright, unguarded smile and nodded.
Beside them, his mother—Lady Lena—smiled softly and spoke in a quiet voice.
"It turns out Reina has the aptitude and talent of a mage. Even this mother of yours only learned of it recently. We'd gone to the flower field to look at the blossoms, and wouldn't you know it—light began to swirl around her. I was truly startled, I can tell you."
"......"
He did not bother asking whether it was true. Lady Lena had not the slightest reason to lie to him.
"Hehe! Amazing, right? Now I can learn magic like you, big brother, and go to school too!"
The school Reina meant was not the academy, with its middle and higher divisions, but the elementary magic school—an institution for children under fourteen, which they could enter from the age of eight.
Even the eight-year-olds there had not, as a rule, already learned to sense mana. Families simply enrolled them at a certain age for the sake of an early mage's education, whether or not any talent had yet been confirmed. Of the children who actually attended, fewer than half had truly felt mana for themselves—had awakened, in their own skin and bone, to the knowledge that it existed. A child of ordinary magical aptitude, however gifted, rarely awakened before the age of ten, and more often closer to twelve.
Reina was five years younger than Free. He was fourteen; she would be nine this year. To have awakened at this point was no ordinary talent.
"......Mother. If I may ask—when exactly did Reina awaken to mana?"
Lady Lena thought back for a moment, then answered.
"Mm.... About three months ago, I should think?"
"......Three months ago."
It was the middle of July now. Three months back would have been around April—spring, when the pink cherry blossoms were in full bloom.
That's absurd...... Reina may have been born a daughter of this house, but she has never once received any prior education meant to bring a mage's talent into flower.
The little sister he knew had been given no early training in magic at all. In matters of the craft she had been as ignorant as any ordinary person. When he happened to show her magic, she would marvel at it the way any child seeing it for the first time might—but it was only a flicker of curiosity. She had never thrown herself at it, never asked of her own accord to be taught.
And yet.
...Is that even possible? At nine years old—with no effort, no foundation, not even any interest—she awakened to the existence of mana all on her own? And at the moment of that awakening, in a flower field, the mana gathered to her of its own accord?
A genius. Or a talent beyond even that.
A chill ran over his skin. It was the sort of thing one almost never heard of, no matter where one went.
From below, Reina peered up at her brother, whose expression had turned strangely grave, and asked in a face of perfect innocence,
"You've been acting weird since a while ago, big brother. Is something wrong?"
"...It's nothing. More importantly, I'm glad to see you've been well. You listened to Mother while I was away, didn't you?"
"Mm-hm. Reina listened to Mom. I'm so happy you're home again~"
"You little..."
Once more she buried her face against his chest, nuzzling there with all the guileless affection in the world.
"Then I'll go pay my respects to Father."
"Yes. Go on, dear."
"Let's go, Aina."
"Mm. We'll be back."
"Oh my? Hoho. Yes, run along."
To the very last, Aina clasped her hands before her and bowed with impeccable courtesy. Lady Lena covered her mouth with one hand and laughed, her eyes curving into a smile.
Free stepped into the main house with Aina at his back and made for the family head's office on the highest floor.
They walked the corridor until they reached the office at its center.
Knock, knock, knock.
"Come in."
After a brief pause, a familiar voice granted them entry—the voice of the family head.
"I'll go in and greet him first. Come in when I call you."
"Mm. I'll wait quietly."
"Good."
So he told Aina, then took the handle and opened the door.
Click.
He shut it behind him.
"It has been some time, Family Head."
The head of House Phoenix—Count Sunlight—had been at work among his stacks of documents. He lifted his gaze from the papers and looked to Free, standing before the door.
"So it has. It's been a while."
"......"
That was all. For a moment, the conversation between them simply ended there.
After some deliberation, Free was the one to speak first.
"I've come home for the summer holiday, and I've brought a friend who attends the same academy."
"A friend?"
"She's waiting outside at this moment, hoping to pay her respects to you."
"......Hmph."
Why, Free could not have said. At the word friend, Count Sunlight's expression became something unreadable. He set down even the documents in his hand, leaned back against his chair, and regarded Free standing by the door in silence.
"Very well. We shouldn't keep a guest who came all this way waiting. Tell her to come in."
"Yes."
Permission granted, Free returned to the door and opened it. At his nod, Aina, who had been waiting outside, stepped into the office.
"I present my greetings. I am Aina von Frost, eldest daughter of House Frost, which holds and protects the northern territories of the Orwen Empire."
"House Frost?"
For some reason, at her family name and introduction, the Count rested a hand beneath his chin and seemed to ponder something at length.
Then he lowered his hand.
"Don't tell me... you mean the northern Grand Ducal House of Frost?"
"...!"
"Yes. That's correct."
At that answer he let out a small breath of astonishment. Free, who had more or less guessed at Aina's standing when he first heard it, still looked a little taken aback.
"And why would the daughter of an Orwen Empire Grand Ducal house go out of her way to follow my son all the way here? Have you some business with me?"
The Count had guessed in an entirely different direction. He could not quite believe that Free had simply brought her along. A house of that stature—the Grand Ducal family of the North—might well have had some separate matter with him, and used his son as the occasion to visit.
It was a misconception, and nothing more.
"No. I only came along with him on a brief personal trip."
"What...? Is that truly so?"
"Yes."
"......"
As she spoke, the gaze she used to indicate her meaning fell on none other than Free, standing quietly at her side.
Count Sunlight reacted as a man might who had already been astonished several times over in a single day.
"Well, I'll be. I can hardly believe it even hearing it. A strange day, this. I was already quite surprised, at first, to hear that boy had brought someone he called a friend. And now the daughter of the Northern Grand Duke of the Orwen Empire has come along for no other reason than to follow my son."
"......"
At the Count's referring to him as his son, Free flinched.
Son...
Free had no good memories of his father. Not in his previous life, and not in this one.
That was why, when he spoke of the man who was his father in House Phoenix, he had always used the title of family head—never the word one used for a parent.
Even alone, even in the privacy of his own thoughts, Free had never once called Count Sunlight his father.
He had known that about himself for a long time.
Ridiculous. Nobles are all the same. One look at the likes of Alcas or Recas is enough to make that plain. Even if he is the one who sired me, biologically speaking, it would be no different. And yet...
Why, then, did his heart feel so unsettled—so confused?
The faces that rose next in his mind were those of people who had treated him well, or whom he could not quite bring himself to believe otherwise of, for all that they were nobles: his mother and his little sister. Albert, third son of House Phoenix. Aura von Aust, whom he had met as a child at the Aust Ducal Estate. And Aina von Frost, standing even now at his side.
......Is it really true? That thought of mine—that nobles are all the same in the end?
No. He already knew. He had known, and pretended not to—looked away, refused to see, averted his eyes to the last from the truth sitting plain in front of him.
Then Count Sunlight spoke.
"...Very well. I understand. If you've nothing further, you may go. As you can see, I have a great deal of work."
"Yes. Then we shall take our leave."
"......"
It was Aina who answered, not Free.
This time Free only bowed his head briefly, turned, and made to leave the room. He did not open his mouth.
It was hardly the bearing or the courtesy one owed the head of a house, but the Count did not trouble himself over it. He let it pass without remark. Indeed, from the moment he had finished speaking, his gaze had already returned to the documents piled on his desk.
Then, just as Free and Aina were fully on their way out—through the narrowing gap of the door Free was pulling shut—something caught at the edge of his sight.
On the desk where the Count sat at his work, beside the stacks of papers, there rested a potion of distinctly luxurious make. Its contents were already gone.
......
A moment later the door closed completely in his hand.
Behind him, Aina saw something odd in his manner, tilted her head once, and asked,
"Free, what's wrong?"
"......It's nothing. Let's go."
"Mm."
He dismissed it as nothing, and let it pass.
Yes.
Until that happened.
Not long after, the head of House Phoenix collapsed.
He lost consciousness without warning—and for days he did not wake, sunk in a coma whose cause no one could name, a cause no one could find at all.
An untimely, deepening darkness had settled over House Phoenix.
Thunder cracked across the sky.
The rainy season had begun.
Wind and rain came with it, a storm beyond all containing, rolling in on the heels of the thunder...