14. Melting Point (10)
14. Melting Point (10)
The Monster Circus Troupe arrived at their new accommodations late that afternoon. Exhausted after hauling five freight cars' worth of luggage, the troupe members simply sprawled on the floor the moment they stepped inside, lying wherever they collapsed.
"We got to the station this morning, and now it's practically dinnertime."
"Is the train really supposed to be more comfortable? Feels more draining than traveling by wagon."
"It's definitely faster. We covered eighty kilometers in two and a half hours. A wagon winding around would've taken three days."
"Sure, but with wagons we didn't have to pack and unpack every single time. They doubled as our storage."
"This place is pretty far from the station, too. Makes it extra tiring."
Clara had informed them that every hotel near the station was fully booked, as if some major event were underway. Along the road, they'd witnessed rows of carriages bearing every imaginable crest lined up in front of the station. It looked as though every noble in the region had flocked there.
"What's going on, exactly?"
"Seems like some big shot is rolling through."
"Hmm. In that case, there's a good chance the show will sell out, right?"
"I doubt it. I think the opposite—not many will come."
As everyone tossed out their predictions for how the run would go, a heavy crack rang out, and the dust caked on the wooden floorboards shuddered with the impact. The noise came from the entrance. There, Minova and Umon were just hauling in the last of the baggage.
"Why the hell are we lugging this damn statue around?"
The thing they were carrying was the stone-frozen Merisa. Hearing Minova's grumbling, the monster members all traded uncomfortable glances.
Whenever Merisa's name came up, everyone lapsed into deliberate silence. No one wanted to risk shattering the cheerful mood by bringing it up.
"If that statue could just walk, it would make everything a lot easier...."
Ella glanced sidelong at Wonderstein and murmured under her breath. He pretended not to hear, looking pointedly elsewhere.
So far, he had consistently refused Ella's requests to free Merisa. It wasn't that he couldn't. The Member Management Window displaying her Trait [Curse — Petrification] clearly described the affliction's effects and exactly how to undo it.
But he had no intention of breaking the curse. She was far too dangerous.
She'd appeared in the original story, too. The petrification curse was one of her favorite spells. According to Ella, she had apparently tried to use it on Wonderstein during an argument, only to have it rebound and lock her into stone.
History didn't record exactly when the original Wonderstein had released her. But as he currently lacked the confidence to handle her, his only choice was to keep her bound in rock.
She wore the guise of a beautiful, benevolent woman. Yet from her scalp grew dozens of serpents in place of ordinary hair.
She had been the true power behind the Imperial Theater Troupe, the hidden hand guiding the court. She blinded the emperor's eyes and muffled his ears, styling herself his adviser while manipulating the empire's affairs—a treacherous official detested by every subject of the realm, regardless of their political allegiance. She had appeared as a boss in the Capital Stage of TT3.
Merisa Serpenti. More commonly known as the Snake Witch. She was one of the Three Witches—Wonderstein's friends and sworn sisters.
***
Nika considered himself a remarkably fortunate boy.
The first reason was the year of his birth.
Had he been born a few years earlier, he might well have shared the fate of his half-brother, who had opposed their father and been driven to his death. Born a few years later, he might have gratefully drunk the tea sent as a gift from his gentle new stepmother and followed that same brother directly into the grave.
In that light, he was thankful to be fifteen.
The second reason was that the Second Imperial Consort was his mother.
The First had been a passive, incompetent woman who lacked the political clout to save her son from being cornered and killed. The Third was a greedy, shallow creature who had attempted to assassinate the next Crown Prince with a cup of poisoned tea.
In that light, though his mother had been frail and died young, he was grateful to have been born to a woman who had spent her final years laying the groundwork for a faction inside the imperial court to protect her son.
The final reason was simply that he had been born the emperor's son.
It was true that his status as heir to the throne had forced him to survive several brushes with death at a young age. But in this frozen, unforgiving land, mortal danger lurked everywhere regardless of one's birth.
He was grateful, at the very least, that he didn't have to scavenge for coal scraps fallen from a hopper car just to buy a single day's bread—only to get caught by the guards and beaten within an inch of his life.
"Just let them go. Give them each a basket of bread."
Crown Prince Nikolai, standing at a third-floor window of the station office and watching the commotion unfolding by the tracks, addressed the knight beside him. The man accepted the order with crisp deference and hurried downstairs.
Moments later, as the sound of heavy footfalls on the staircase faded, Nika saw the middle-aged man climbing back up—his expression thoroughly displeased. In that instant, he realized the knight he'd just dispatched was far more tactless than he'd assumed. No matter how much his liege's closest confidant questioned him, blurting out the command verbatim was a mistake.
"I didn't realize Your Highness was watching that."
The man drew up beside the Crown Prince and looked down at the heartwarming scene of a righteous knight saving some grimy street urchins.
"A direct enactment of our principles, I see."
Nika caught his mentor's sardonic tone instantly. Of all the things Pelebin had repeated over the years, the most frequent was never to act personally.
"That guard looked ready to beat them to death."
Nika offered that as an excuse and fixed his gaze on the building's main entrance. There, nobles cleared by the Imperial Guard were trickling in one by one. Having identified the much-whispered-about train parked on the tracks, some looked astonished, some furrowed their brows, and a few nodded in apparent admiration.
Amid the spectrum of reactions—impossible to tell which were genuine and which were performed—Nika was certain that none of them felt true awe at the words inscribed on the train's exterior: Nikolai's Majesty.
"We already know who's coming. We'll see when we actually get there."
"Knowing in advance saves the time and effort of reacting. That is precisely why we parked that garish train in front of them—to gauge their intentions and observe. And yet Your Highness..."
"Fine. I was wrong. I'm sorry, Pelebin."
Acknowledging he was still far too clumsy to deflect his mentor's scolding gracefully, Nika turned his attention instead to the knight carrying out his order. The man was just now handing a basket of bread to each child.
"Sir Vincent shall be confined to quarters for half a day for his crime of tactlessness."
"Sir Vincent is a loyal knight. And as for being tactless... I do believe that's accurate."
The scene that unfolded next made Nika fully sympathize with Pelebin's remark.
"Long live!"
"Long live His Highness, the Crown Prince!"
"May God bless His Highness!"
The knight had the children bellowing praises for the Crown Prince's benevolence at the top of their lungs. In an instant, the eyes of every noble waiting in line swiveled toward them. Nika felt his face flush hot as he clicked his tongue.
"Well, it fits the plan, doesn't it? Making people see me as a political novice pandering to popularity."
"Very good. And never forget—there is always a silver lining to be seized, even out of a blunder. That aside, what do you intend to do next, Your Highness?"
Nika understood this wasn't a question but rather a check to see that he'd absorbed the strategy.
"First, I'll rub elbows with them for a few days. Weed out the promising ones and the spies and send them packing, then sail off with just a ship full of fools. Carouse with them and do something loudly stupid, then move on to the next province and repeat the whole thing for two or three months."
Pelebin nodded with satisfaction.
"Excellent. Now prepare to relocate to the banquet hall. Would a day's confinement be sufficient for Sir Vincent, do you think?"
Watching the knight return with a proud look on his face, clearly satisfied with how well he'd carried out his lord's command, Nika shook his head.
"Three days."
"Understood."
Pelebin, already on his way out while imagining the crestfallen expression of the loyal knight, halted and turned, realizing he'd neglected the most essential question.
"So, where do you envision taking the first leg of the journey?"
This one was a real question. It wasn't a critical enough matter, so Pelebin had left the decision to his pupil as a kind of test. The Crown Prince glanced briefly at the railway route map before answering with a question of his own.
"Pelebin, do you like baths?"
***
A naked man and woman pressed against each other inside a narrow bath. The man leaned back against the edge of the tub. The woman faced him, straddling his lower body.
"Ahh... ah, Dad... hurry... do that thing... do it now...."
Though she was the one clinging to him, he was the one moving with purpose. He gave a single nod, then buried his face against her body and dragged his tongue downward along her skin.
Lick.
"Hng...!"
The instant his tongue touched her, she clutched him tight and let out a broken moan. She wrapped both arms around his neck and clamped her legs around his waist. Her nails sank sharply into his back.
Yet he didn't stop moving his tongue. He started at her throat and worked his way down across her breasts, her nipples, the hollows of her underarms. Every time his tongue swept over a patch of her skin, a shrill, threadbare cry slipped through her white teeth.
"Ah, i-it hurts... haa—ngn!"
As he gradually traced the curves of her body with his mouth, his hands kneaded every place his tongue had just passed. Froth bloomed from the contact, releasing a heady, intoxicating fragrance that saturated the steam-filled tub.
"Haaah..."
Inhaling it, Reina's mouth drifted open as she let out a searing breath.
His saliva contained a compound that absorbed through the skin and delivered profound mental bliss. The scent alone drained every ounce of strength from her body. Where his tongue had directly lapped, the mere brush of his hair against her afterwards was enough to make her shudder, her hips bucking as that patch of skin responded with hypersensitive pleasure.
"Stand up, Reina."
"Yes... yes...."
She obeyed with the docility of a child. By now, they'd done this so many times she knew exactly what came next. Just as a dog salivates at the clink of its bowl, a colorless, translucent liquid—pure, untouched by the iridescence of the bath additives—trickled down between her legs.
Wonderstein guided her to sit perched on the edge of the tub, her back against the wall. He cupped her pillowy breasts with both hands, lifting them, and licked downward along the lower contours that the angle had left untouched before. Then, the tip of his tongue glided like a blade across her beautifully defined navel.
"Ha-ah... haa—ng!"
Her hips jerked savagely. A heavy swell of water sloshed over the rim of the tub as it churned. As though he'd anticipated it, he smoothly gripped her waist with both hands to steady her.
It wasn't that her navel was particularly sensitive. The issue was absorption: the substances in his saliva penetrated this spot, where her umbilical cord had once been, several times more effectively than anywhere else.
With her waist secured firmly in his grip, he traveled down the smooth curve of her lower belly and buried his face between her legs. Her bare white mound, without a single trace of hair, was spread open, its wrinkled pink interior exposed outward like the lining of an unstitched pocket.
His tongue drove inside without hesitation.
"Ah, aah, mmn... ah, Dad...!"
Her hands seized fistfuls of his hair and wildly tousled them, as though she meant to tear them out.
Experience had taught him it was easiest to make her lose consciousness quickly. So he deployed both tongue and hands in tandem, deliberately pushing her over the edge again and again.
The face he showed her was smiling, but his mind was utterly serene. The only emotion he harbored toward her right now was worry.
The Shadow of a 4-Year-Old that dominated her heart was growing stronger by the day.
At first, the effect had mostly felt like she was mimicking the behavioral patterns of a four-year-old. Even after removing the mask, she'd been visibly embarrassed to show that side of herself to others. As soon as her business was done, she'd hurried to put the mask back on.
But the more often she was stripped of the Persona, the more the shadow clamored to reveal itself to the world. She'd half-seriously suggested telling the other troupe members about their relationship. And just last week, she'd stubbornly refused his hand when he tried to fit the mask back over her face.
After the mask was replaced, of course, she'd regained her senses. And she'd been horrified to realize what she had done while it was off.
The shadow refused to wear the Persona.
She was growing more and more terrified of removing the mask, dreading the thought that the shadow might seize control of her forever.