The Line Drawn in the Heart (1)
The next morning.
A day in the Kell household began the same way it always did.
Breakfast shared by everyone, and a little light chatter.
"Haaahm... I'll just have coffee. My stomach's acting up..."
"Noah. Did you stay up late again last night?"
"I was building the Gold Rush sales ledger... hehe."
Even for the family of a great merchant guild, family was still family.
It was the peaceful start of an ordinary day, no different from that of any commoner's household.
Well — with one small variation to the routine, that is.
"Mmmf, give me more. No — give me ALL of it!"
"Mmrrgh."
The table, once too large for just three people, was — for the first time in a very long while — filled to the brim with people.
Miriam looked around the room with eyes brimming with delight.
Seven mouths at the table in total.
Her son, home again after so long, and the three women he'd brought with him were weaving a welcome new melody into the unchanging rhythm of her days.
But in the very heart of that happiness, she sensed something off.
It was coming from her son, seated across from her.
She asked in a warm voice, "Nathan, you slept in your own room for the first time in four years — was it uncomfortable?"
"..."
"Son?"
"..."
No response.
The Nathan who, up until yesterday at least, had been laughing and sulking and looking embarrassed with a sound body and a sound mind was somehow... different.
Creeeak. Creeeak.
Like a soulless golem he sat staring into space, moving his spoon with mechanical repetition.
Worse, half of what he scooped spilled out before it ever reached his mouth — a sight worrisome beyond words.
And then she realized that exactly one person at the table was behaving in precisely the opposite manner.
"Hm-hm~ hm."
Erzena — who this very morning had risen right after Miriam and helped her make breakfast.
Corners of her mouth turned up, eyebrows raised, a tune humming out of her unbidden.
What on earth could have her so delighted?
Miriam stared at her in puzzlement. Sensing the gaze, Erzena smiled lightly.
"Shall I pour you more tea, Mother... oh — forgive me, madam?"
"...I'd love some."
"Of course~"
Sweet as sugar.
It wasn't only Miriam who felt the strangeness. Mnassil, who had just polished off her ninth piece of bread, tilted her head.
"Erzena. Has some good fortune befallen you? You seem unusually giddy today."
"Hm? Oh, no, it's nothing. It's just... vacation really is a wonderful thing, isn't it?"
She let the words slip by lightly.
But Miriam could feel it.
Something had most definitely changed.
"..."
Only Elaine showed no reaction at all, silently picking at her bread with a troubled expression.
Noah, too, caught that faint, subtle current in the air and pulled a flustered face.
"Oppa. Did something happen yesterday? What's wrong with you?"
"..."
Nathan, unresponsive, nonfunctional.
But Miriam saw his eyes shift — for the briefest of moments.
One second.
Her son's gaze met a pair of golden eyes.
"...Hee."
Erzena flinched, then whipped her head away, face burning red.
Miriam caught every bit of it.
...Oh my.
At the same moment, she recalled what Erzena had said yesterday.
— Nathan is protecting us by royal command and out of duty.
Miriam found herself smiling before she knew it.
Royal command and duty, my foot.
That was nothing more than the excuse on the surface.
From the way those three women looked at her son, Miriam had read their feelings with ridiculous ease.
It was the exact expression she herself used to wear, back when she was young, looking at Tillion Kell.
Which meant it was surely... something far more than simple goodwill.
I thought time would sort it out, so I made a point of not meddling.
She'd deliberately not pried, not wanting to interfere with her son's own bonds.
And yet — on the very first night of their vacation, and in her house no less, those two had clearly done... something.
Should I call it bold, or adorable?
Either way, she was happy about it.
It felt like one more piece of joyful news for the Kell family.
Miriam, wearing a smile much like Erzena's own, spoke up.
"Erzena, could you pass me another roll? I have a feeling today is going to be a very good day."
"Yes. A very good day indeed."
Today was a good day.
A wonderfully, gloriously good day.
And Nathan...
Slluuurp.
...was still fully out of commission, drooling cream soup everywhere — the very soup he ordinarily loved so much.
*****
Ah.
Aaah.
Aaaaaaahhh.
"AAAAAAAHHHHHHH..."
By the time I came back to my senses, it was already night.
I was pressed against a wall of my room, banging my head against it and howling.
"Uuuuugghhhh..."
Where am I?
Who am I, when did I get here, and why am I doing this?
Countless questions swirled through my skull like a storm.
Chaos.
Confusion.
Clutter.
I could feel, in real time, my thought processes — gears that had always meshed and turned as precisely as clockwork — grinding apart.
And through all that wreckage, one memory burned crystal clear.
— I love you, Nathan. Truly.
The tear-soaked confession from Erzena, and the feel of her lips pressed against mine.
Thud.
Head, meet wall. Again.
"No, no, no, no. That can't happen. Nathan. Get a grip."
I had to erase this memory if it killed me.
"I can't make the same mistake twice. I could lose something again..."
My heart hammered like mad.
Replaying that moment, rewinding it, rewinding it again — etching it so deep I could never forget.
But I forced even that down, packing the feeling away with a long, hard exhale.
To steady myself. To stop the shaking. To keep it all bottled up where it couldn't reach me.
And then—
Click. Click.
Someone was turning the handle of my door.
Fortunately, I'd locked it out of habit, so my disgraceful head-banging went undetected.
Who could that be?
Nobody should be looking for me at this hour.
They probably just had the wrong room. This wasn't my house, after all — most likely they'd confused it with their own bedroom.
Just as I was about to sink back into the swirling vortex of chaos, confusion, and clutter—
Clickclickclickclickclickclick.
My uninvited guest kept twisting that handle with almost obsessive persistence.
Finally, my patience ran out and I flung the door wide open.
Click.
"I'm sorry, but I'm in no state to receive anyone right—"
"Oho. Someone was expecting a visitor, I see."
Instead of the sky-blue hair I'd expected, a mane of burning red filled my vision.
My eyes went wide, and I called out her name.
"...Lady Mnassil?"
"And our darling Kirba is here as well."
She lifted the egg, cradled in the tip of her tail, to show me.
After roughly two seconds of silence, she said, low and even, "You shouldn't be sneaking people in here, of all places."
"Why not? How is this place any different?"
"Because this isn't my home — it's my parents' house."
"Hmph. A nest is a nest, wherever it stands."
Absolute, shameless confidence.
Where did that self-assurance even come from?
Still holding that question, I lowered my gaze.
And immediately found my answer.
"Wh — why are your clothes like THAT?"
Mnassil was standing there with the pajamas my mother had given her hanging almost entirely open.
One tiny gust of wind, and every last inch of that lush body would have been on full display.
She shrugged.
"The clothes Miriam gave me were a bit tight. So I loosened things up to breathe."
"And as a result, this officer has nowhere to look."
"Which is to say, I come across as an alluring female, then."
With a thoroughly satisfied smile, she moved to loosen the garment even further.
"No — this is my parents' house, not my own home! Anyone who sees you like this is going to get entirely the wrong idea!"
"Aha. Look, Kirba. Your guardian is rejecting us."
"That's not — that's not what I'm saying at all. I'm simply saying this puts me in a difficult position."
My heart was already a tangled mess; if you piled on top of that, where was I supposed to find any peace of mind?
Seeing my face turn an immediate shade of dead black, Mnassil finally let out a chuckle.
"A jest, nothing more. I came because I wished to inspect your body, that's all."
"My body... you say?"
"No human has ever spoken a Dragon Word before. It seemed worth verifying."
"Ah. That's what this is about."
In that case, I had no reason to refuse.
"Come in, then. But for the love of all that is holy, please cover yourself first."
I stepped back a pace and ushered her inside.
Mnassil sat me down at the head of the bed, took hold of my right arm, and said, "You did seem to be moving rather stiffly earlier. Has the healing not fully taken?"
"It's not that bad. Just... a general achiness here and there, I suppose."
"Hm."
She pressed her fingers along my arm, reading my pulse from point to point.
"You're close to a full recovery — there's no need to worry so much."
At my attempt at reassurance, she shook her head.
"However potent Erzena's divine power was in dragging me back from death's door, a Dragon Word runs on a different track entirely. Better to have it seen through a dragon's eyes."
Erzena.
At that name, yesterday's events went sweeping through my head all over again.
— I love you, Nathan. Truly.
Our pressed lips together, and her eyelashes trembling ever so gently against my skin.
It still felt vivid. Painfully so.
"..."
My mind began to tangle itself up all over again.
And then—
Mnassil, who had been carefully taking my pulse, asked in a remarkably level voice:
"...Did you mate with Erzena yesterday?"
"Hk — kehhk! Koff!"
I choked on my own spit. Loudly.
"No — koff! What kind of — kehhk! — what kind of nonsense is that!?"
It was a question that had never once entered my calculations.
"What on earth do you think about on a daily basis to arrive at THAT conclusion!?"
"Well, your scent was on Erzena, and hers was on you."
She shrugged, as though she'd asked something utterly trivial.
"Besides, did I not see it with my own eyes today? Her careful courtesies and formalities cracking right open, the female beneath showing through."
Aaah. Vulgar. Utterly shameless.
This person — no, this dragon — simply operated on a different axis of thought than we did.
Just as I was thinking that, Mnassil released the arm she'd been holding.
"In truth, that was not my only reason for coming to you today."
"Pardon?"
My body, she couldn't possibly mean—
I hurriedly clutched my shirt closed.
"I KNEW it!"
"...Sometimes you truly are a strange one."
At my reaction, Mnassil gave an exasperated huff and slapped her tail against the floor, then gathered Kirba's egg into her arms.
"I owe you this second life of mine. And beyond that, Kirba's life as well. That alone would be reason more than enough to offer you everything I have."
"I must say again — this officer never did any of that with such things in mind—"
"Silence. Be still and listen."
For the first time, the playfulness drained from her face.
"I did not choose you because you were special."
"...Pardon?"
"Not because luck favored you. Not because you were unique. Not because you held a power no one else possessed."
Mnassil lowered the egg to the floor, slowly.
"Do not measure my meaning by such things, Nathan Kell. Of all people, you — you will hear my words exactly as they are spoken."
And now there was nothing left between us at all.
Barely a meter of distance.
"Greed you refused. Lust you refused. Even the hunger for glory."
"That is precisely why I found myself so drawn to you. Not as to nature — but as one intelligent being to another."
"Even had there been no Dragon Word, my heart was already decided. The oath merely drove in the final nail."
Her voice was trembling.
"Do you still not understand? Or... do you simply pretend not to?"
A question with the 'what' left conspicuously missing.
"Nathan."
She spoke my name and took one step closer.
"When you collapsed, I swore to my old kin, long vanished into sky and sea."
Another step.
"That I would spend my second life at your side."
She took my hand and laid it against her chest.
Thump. Thump.
Not the thunderous pulse of a dragon's heart — something small, faint, and yet unmistakably distinct.
"But now, more than that vow... it is my heart that pulls me toward you."
Mnassil laid her feelings bare, simply and without ceremony.
There was no mischief in it.
Nor any trace of her usual bright, easy manner.
She simply stood before me, calm and quiet, like a small fire burning low and steady.
She reached out slowly and took both my cheeks in her hands.
Then, pressing her forehead to mine, she whispered in a low voice:
"Hallek Diark, hallek Paharbe. (My guardian. My mate.)"
It was the tongue of dragons.
But it was not a Dragon Word.
It was nothing more — nothing more at all — than a tiny confession, breathed from the heart of a powerless dragon wearing the shape of a person.
"Rias Morte. (Let it be forever.)"
That was all.
— Jolt.
As if in answer, Kirba's egg, resting between us, trembled.
And the line drawn deep in my heart was crossed, one more time.