To Me, You Were Like the Sun (3)
Ermina opened her eyes on a blue meadow.
A plain that stretched endlessly, as if it would touch the snow-white sky where it met the horizon. A cool breeze drifted down, loose and unhurried, sweeping across the grassland in every direction — the way one might run a hand through a wolf's mane.
And there.
She witnessed a scene: a figure made of light walking slowly toward her, a child clutched in its hand.
This is…
Déjà vu. A scene she had seen before. In other words — a dream. The moment she recognized it as a dream, she understood when this scene was from.
Cariel?
A dream of conception. The figure of light that had walked toward her slowly held out the child — held out the very hand that gripped the child's hand — toward her.
"……"
Back then, she had received it in a daze, she seemed to recall. She had never seen the child's face. At the time, it had simply been a child — that much, and only that much, remained hazily in her memory.
But not now. Now it was unmistakable. That child was unmistakably Cariel, as he had been in childhood.
The child in snow-white clothes smiled brightly, looking up at her.
The wind rose.
A violent, raging gale — so fierce she could not see a hand's length before her, so fierce her eyelids squeezed shut of their own accord. The snow-white sky went dark. Even the meadow that had been so utterly blue turned, all of it, to ash.
Chills gave way to dread — a freezing dread that seized her spine — and the newly awakened Ermina searched instinctively for the child in her hands, as if by reflex.
He was gone. Not in her hands. Not around her. Nowhere.
"Mom."
"?!"
From far away. The snow-white clothes — when had they been dyed red? Across the white fabric ran crimson streaks, from the collar down to the chest. No — spreading and soaking through in real time. They were the traces of blood pouring down from above.
When she lifted her gaze, she stopped breathing.
From two empty eye sockets, red was streaming down, drip, drip, endlessly.
Her heartbeat quickened. Her heart had seemed to stop, yet what she felt was quite the opposite — blood surging hot into her head, and perhaps because of that, because the situation refused to cohere, her mind went blindingly white even as it drifted somewhere numb. Nothing but dizziness remained.
What is this. What is this.
What's happening? Why… why that child…
"Why… did you…"
abandon me?
Why did you cast me away?
"……?!"
Abandon you! I would never!
Why would I! Why would I ever abandon you!
Do you know how much I— how much I…!
"But I…"
The meadow, what had been a meadow, was soaking red before her eyes. The crimson plain deepened and deepened, until even the sky took the stain, until heaven and earth alike spread scarlet from edge to edge.
And even within it, Ermina remained strangely composed — as if sealed off from this world entirely.
The child, drenched and dripping red, retched at last and vomited blood from his mouth. Then he pressed both hands together and prayed.
"O God."
And then —
He collapsed to his knees, and the blood surged out across the crimson earth in a rush, as if it meant to fill the whole world.
"You were wrong."
"Hah—!"
Ermina, who had just opened her eyes, gasped for breath again, crushed beneath a heavy fatigue and a boneless weakness. The listlessness pressed down on her whole body, but she flailed a hand without thinking and murmured,
"C-Cariel?"
"Lady Ermina? What is the matter?"
A priestess in white robes clasped her hand in both of hers and asked, and Ermina gripped back desperately.
"Where… where is Cariel?"
"Your son? Lord Rueld went to the residence to fetch him. He will bring the boy back with him shortly."
"With him…?"
She thought she had glimpsed Rueld briefly, earlier. He had been making some boisterous noise, but she had been out of her mind, so she couldn't be sure. All she hazily remembered was an infant swaddled in cloth….
The child.
Why… did you abandon me?
Her chest seized up, tight and aching. But her mind was still a haze, and she could not fathom the reason at all. Even so, one thing she did know — though no one had told her, though nothing had whispered it into her ear. Ermina knew, with a certainty that came unbidden:
She would not be reuniting with Cariel. Not now. Not for a long time.
Her chest ached; it felt torn apart. The feelings that had soaked into some unnameable longing burst forth like a dam giving way. But for the woman she was now—
…there was nothing she could do.
"Take it."
Elhermina removed her own robe and held it out. "And in exchange, take this as well."
"…Is this really all right?"
"It's more than enough."
Cariel draped her robe over his shoulders with an expression somewhere between sheepish and bewildered — and as if by magic, the robe's color bled into black.
"It's a magic tool?"
"It will aid your concealment. It has practical functions built in as well, so you'll find use for it again and again."
"……"
She then draped her own black robe once more, over the black garb.
"This too."
By the time they had walked a little farther, close enough to hand over the gray horse tethered to one side—
"Did you mean to give me all of this from the start?"
"No." She shook her head. "This one was Seras's idea."
"Seras?"
"I wagered with her that I would be the one to bring you back." He did not bother to ask who had won the bet.
"Take this as well."
"……"
A arming sword.
"Isn't your sword in a dreadful state by now?"
"Well… yes."
The edge had gone entirely, and it had bent besides. A common, worn iron sword against a famed blade wielded by no less than the Imperial Princess. The difference in performance was beyond question.
"Are you not unaccustomed to wielding a blade one-handed?"
"It doesn't matter." He wielded the sword; the sword did not wield him. A blade was merely a tool.
"……I am still anxious, you know. Whether letting you go like this is truly the right thing." She heaved a sigh. "What I meant to do was crush your spirit — instead I seem to have handed you a pretext you never asked for. It aches. I can hardly recall a more painful blunder."
"…I was lucky."
Honestly, even now, Cariel had no real sense of what he had actually done. At this rate, he would simply have to press the Demon King for answers.
"I will explain things properly to the others."
"It's fine. I left a letter behind."
Though if he had written it now, the contents would have turned out rather different.
"Just smooth things over however suits you."
"I'll handle it to taste."
And so—
"Are you truly certain there is nothing you wish to do? Nothing you would intervene in?"
"There isn't."
If vengeance was to be had, it was his and his alone. The threads tangled around him, the chains binding him — to unbind them or to sever them, both were now entirely his to decide.
"You say outright that you hold a grudge against the Empire, and yet you barely chide me at all?"
"I consider it self-inflicted."
The malice that called itself the public. The injustice that called itself opinion. The hostility that called itself the crowd. All of it had been cruel to him uniquely, ruthless to him uniquely.
"I trust that you will keep to some measure of restraint — and I trust, too, that you will adjust that measure as it needs to be adjusted."
"……"
She had a gift for leaving him without words.
"If we count the Grand Martial Tournament as your return, then even at the fastest, sixty days; at the latest, eighty."
"If the schedule doesn't slip."
To retrieve Grandeus's Magic Armor. And in the midst of it, to right a body whose balance had been thrown askew. …A very, very tight timetable.
"Do not forget that you will not be blessed with luck as you were this time. Engrave it into yourself."
"You know it as well as I do, don't you?"
They lived in the same world. One step from death. Two steps from life. In truth, they stood upon the crossing point of life and death. From the moment one stepped onto that ground, there was no returning to the past. This was a scar — but not the kind carved into flesh. It was carved into the heart, into the mind. …Carved into the soul.
And so they knew well: that the whereabouts of their soul could be bent to their own will. And so they knew, too: that they would forever have to meet hardship head-on.
"If, by some chance—"
There Cariel stopped. He had been about to mount his horse, and at her words he turned his head.
"—if someone more captivating to you than I appears from beyond, bring them back. As many as you like; I permit it. If they aid you. If they comfort you." And then, at the very last: "Only return to me. Your body need not remain faithful. Promise me only that."
"…It's not as if we're marching off to war. And besides… you do realize you're genuinely strange, right? You don't look like someone without possessiveness, so why on earth…"
"I am telling you not to burden yourself on my account." I want to give you freedom. "I do not seek to bind you to fill my own satisfaction. My heart does prefer it, I confess — but if it cannot be your happiness, then I will gladly fold it away and keep it."
And therefore—
"Keep in mind what I said earlier, as well."
"…What did you say earlier?"
"Seras."
"……"
"She claims to have seized her chance — and indeed, she does not let her eyes be clouded by petty gain. Nor does she have any reason to neglect a promise made in advance."
With that, Elhermina cast an idle glance toward the black horse the woman had left behind.
"Go. There's been a commotion; reactions will start arriving soon enough."
"…Isn't that far too late, for something like that?"
"How foolish. Do you forget who I am?"
With that single line, the answer was complete.
Between the trees, through the deep shadow pooled beneath their canopy, everything faded gradually away — everything but the sound of hooves.
How long had she stood there?
At last, Elhermina approached her own mount and undid its tether, asking as she did:
"So. Your impressions, having watched all of that — Seras Esdina."
-……
The horse's eyes turned a faint blue, and from its mouth came a voice that no equine anatomy should have permitted.
-Honestly, what amazes me more is that you two didn't touch a single thing around you while all of that was happening.
"…Is that so?"
-Fine, whatever, you're one thing. But Cariel… he's different, isn't he?
Seras had a fair measure of insight into Elhermina's abilities. That was why, even when the woman had poured out flame hot enough to burn the surroundings to nothing, she had felt nothing in particular. Still terrifying. Still an absurd, unreasonable woman. That was the extent of it.
And if that much had been shown on purpose — then perhaps Cariel would either yield gracefully, or, refusing to yield, be soundly broken and bound and dragged back by that insufferably arrogant princess. She had not entirely given up on that hope.
By the point Seras had accepted Elhermina's proposal — with the feeling of swallowing poison — the two of them had, absurdly, become partners bound to a shared fate.
…Though of course, for that arrangement to survive, Cariel would have to come back.
-So? How does it feel, getting dumped by your fiancé?
"What a foolish question."
Elhermina snorted. "It never ceases to amaze me, that you can dare to mock me with the premise that I could ever be rejected — when I have never once given up."
-You really are…
Who exactly was being arrogant here, and to whose face were they saying it? Seras remained, as ever, a woman she could not bring herself to like.
It had been that way since childhood. The one who caught the branch that came swinging down in a flash of gold — that had been Elhermina. Back then, Seras had asked for the chance too, but there had been nothing to it. And what was it Cariel had said at the time?
-…He said, without a doubt, that he would become my knight.
"I regret to inform you that he does not seem to remember. So give it up."
-Hah.
Truly. She was a damned woman, with no room in her for sentiment.
"Either way, because of Eras… you'll have to go through something far harsher than I will."
-……
"Every time I look at you, I will see that child, after all."
The first act of merciless betrayal in Cariel's life — the first hand to carry it out.
"…And you would do well never to forget that I have wanted to cut that child down, root and branch, since long ago. We all know everything, after all."
"This truth will become the leash around your family's neck. House Esdina crossed the line, decisively. If Cariel had been in my hands… I could have made puppets of you all with the greatest of ease."
Elhermina loved him. She yearned for him, revered him. To her, he was the sun. The one and only. A singular existence.
It had been that way since childhood; she had always believed it so. But even that affection and admiration were not so complete as to exclude political advantage — wrapped as neatly as a gift. She could not help it. That was how she had been raised.
If she had truly been capable of throwing responsibility and duty to the wind — of offering him everything, of laying her whole self at his feet and leaving it there — she would have joined this journey long ago.
But just as Cariel's wounds could never close by ordinary means, so too were the wounds she had carried and collected nothing so easily healed or resolved.
I have given much.
And so I will exercise my greed, as is only natural. I will have all of it.
For what I desire. For the dream he desires.
The Empire must become firmer still — firmer than it is even now.
"What's the matter with this brat, taking this long? Don't tell me he went off to nap somewhere."
"Hmm."
As Bariel grumbled, digging a finger into his enormous ear, the Emperor shook his head calmly. "Shall I go and check?"
"……"
"Hm? And here I thought even dragons came when called by name."
Then Bariel spotted Rueld stepping into the entrance of the great cathedral. "Eh? Hey! I told you to bring the kid — why'd you show up alone?!"
……
"What's wrong with him?"
The way he walked was deeply, profoundly wrong. As if his soul had drained out of him somewhere, he moved without strength, unsteady beyond words — a man who might collapse at any moment.
"L-Lady Ermina! You mustn't—!"
"……"
On the other side of the hall, a woman whose complexion had gone past pale into cold sweat — a woman who looked in terrible condition — had been scanning the room when her eyes found Rueld, and she began staggering toward him.
"W-wait! Ermina? What's the matter?"
It was only thanks to the Empress catching her just as she was about to fall that she didn't collapse outright.
"……"
She didn't know the reason. And yet, through that incomprehensible dread alone, she found herself forcing her battered body upright. She knew she only had to wait. But she could not, could not endure even that brief moment of waiting.
"Rueld…?"
"……"
Rueld, who had only just caught sight of Ermina, was slow to react — several seconds of dead air — before he finally managed:
"Where is… Cariel?"
"……"
His lips moved again and again, as if trying to say something, but no words ever came. All he did was clench the paper clutched in his hand a little tighter. Then, silently, he simply embraced Ermina, who stood staring at him with empty eyes.
"Rueld? Why? You said you'd come back with Cariel. Where's our son? Where is he?"
"…I'm sorry."
He didn't know what to say. Not an apology, not even penance — right now, Rueld felt that even those would be inadequate. He could not bring himself… to say even that one word properly.
Outside, celebratory cheers still rose intermittently, festivity rippling on in waves, bright and ceaseless. But in one corner of the great cathedral's interior, an atmosphere of crushing, unbearable weight had settled — together with the silence.