Mom

"A d-death sentence? What on earth are you saying!"

My half-sister Aria shot up from her seat, panic written across her face.

"Mother would never do such a thing!"

"Y-Your Majesty... this is clearly slander! You're committing this atrocity against me by invoking the death of your own mother!"

"My power contains not a shred of deception. If you doubt it, we can proceed with a formal verification."

In the breakfast hall, now reduced to utter chaos, Father rose from his seat with a cold, unforgiving expression.

"I know that Rohen possesses the same Dragon Tongue as the First Emperor."

"The Dragon Tongue?! That is nothing but superstition from legend! And the child of a lowborn commoner could never— absolutely never—possess such a thing!"

"You call commoners base?"

Father shot the Empress a look of barely contained fury.

"My people are base? We do not reign above them—we are their voice!"

"But Your Majesty—"

"The fact that we know more, that we enjoy greater comforts—those are things we hold in exchange for leading this empire on their behalf!"

With a long sigh, Father dragged a hand down his face.

"What revolting arrogance. Empress. At the very least, you should never have let it show."

Then he slammed his fist against the table—bang!—and summoned the knights waiting outside.

"Imprison the Empress."

"Your Majesty!"

"If she is innocent, she will be released. And if this entire spectacle is nothing more than Rohen's wicked scheme, then naturally he will be stripped of his succession. But if every word of this affair is true—then all who took part in this treason will face immediate execution."

Faced with that frigid demeanor, the Empress could not manage a single word.

That was the majesty of an Emperor who had finally seized a righteous justification—and the crushing pressure radiating from him made even breathing feel difficult.

It was an overwhelming presence, one that made it impossible to so much as lift one's head in his direction.

"What are you standing there for? Take her away!"

"Yes, Your Majesty!"

At a single word, the knights dragged the Empress from the hall.

"F-Father...! My mother would never do such a thing!"

"Aria. Be silent for now, and go back to your chambers."

"Father!"

Caught in the middle of it all, Aria was shedding tears of sheer disbelief.

It was only natural, I supposed—the mother who had only just begun to show her kindness had now been imprisoned on charges of treason.

I pitied her, truly. But displaying that pity would itself be hypocrisy, so I quietly decided that my work here was done and turned to leave.

No—the moment I tried, Aria seized me and forced me to a stop.

"Wait! This is your doing! Take responsibility and argue for my mother's innocence!"

"It's true that the Empress took part in the treason."

"Where's your proof?! You clearly used some kind of trickery!"

"Then I simply have to prove it going forward. Whether it was trickery, or truly the Dragon Tongue."

I pried Aria's fingers from my arm, wordlessly asking with my eyes whether that was all she had to say.

Was there more?

She rolled her eyes frantically, sweat beading on her brow as she clenched and unclenched her small hands.

"Y-your mother won't be happy about this either, you know! If you kill my mother over a frame-up like this, you'll be a criminal in the end! Your mother up in heaven would surely grieve too! Even if it were all true, you didn't have to stain your own hands with blood!"

At her words, I felt a rage beyond description.

Did she have any idea how hypocritical the words spilling from her mouth were?

No—of course she didn't.

It was nothing more than petty logic, cobbled together with half-baked knowledge and spat out with great effort.

Even if she hadn't done it herself in this life—what must my mother have felt, wrongly sentenced to death for crimes she never committed?

And Aria, standing before me, would never understand even one percent of what I felt watching it happen.

"Do you know the term 'equivalent exchange'?"

"E-equivalent exchange?"

"It means the exchange of two things of identical value."

At my words, Aria nodded quickly.

"W-what do you want?"

"I want nothing. I simply intend to watch—whether you can forgive me, when you find yourself in the very same position I was in."

If the words she had spoken so earnestly were not hypocrisy.

Then I was willing to step back one pace, and tolerate everything short of the Empress's deposition.

"So—what will you do?"

At my gaze, Aria flinched in fear and clenched her fists tight.

"...Fine."

The moment those words left her mouth, I began to walk, slowly and deliberately.

"Wh-where are you going?"

Ignoring her, I came to a stop in front of a young maidservant.

"Freeze."

"Mary!"

The maidservant before me—Mary—was Aria's wet nurse.

Having never received her mother's love all these years, Mary was, for all intents and purposes, the mother who had raised her.

And now that woman was trapped within a shell of ice.

As time passed, the air inside that sealed prison would run thin, and Mary would suffocate.

"What are you doing! What are you doing! Why?! Why are you doing this to Mary?!"

Screaming and wailing, Aria clutched at my clothes, utterly at a loss.

"I told you, didn't I."

As I wrote, I watched Mary.

A small pocket of air, deliberately left inside the ice.

Even the sealed air within it seemed to be thinning at an alarming rate—no doubt because Mary, panicked by her situation, was breathing faster and faster.

Clutching at her own throat, gasping and retching, Mary let out pitiful moans of pain.

And when she could no longer draw breath at all, her body went limp like a corpse's, and her head drooped.

She was not yet fully dead.

She had simply slipped into a temporary ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠state of suspended animation from the asphyxiation.

So long as she was treated within the golden window, Mary would not die. There would be no aftereffects, either.

But Aria wouldn't know that.

With hollow eyes, she only stared back and forth between Mary and me.

It was the exact same look I had worn at the moment I confirmed my mother's execution.

"So, sister—can you forgive me?"

"..."

"Could you truly forgive someone like me? Though if you killed me for it, you'd become exactly the same kind of person."

Dead Mary wouldn't be happy about it, either.

Adding those words, I quietly observed Aria.

She repeated something under her breath, over and over, too faint for even her own ears to catch—then violently threw her head back.

The emotion trapped in her eyes was unmistakably rage.

"I'll kill you!!!"

Gifted as she was in magistery, she had already begun casting the spells she'd learned, straight at me.

Carved runes and magic circles bloomed one after another—astonishingly high-speed casting.

And then the massed flames hurtled toward me, raw and vicious.

"Incinerate."

But those burning masses were swallowed whole by my Incineration, vanishing without a trace.

Perhaps it was the residual heat of the spreading flames—my skin stung faintly.

But paying it no mind, I released the Freeze and cast Heal over Mary, who lay suspended in that brief state between life and death.

When I checked her breathing with my fingers, she had—thankfully—returned to normal.

Aria, meanwhile, had collapsed to the floor, her hands trembling violently, perhaps in shock at the realization that she had just unleashed lethal magic on a living person.

"See?"

Picking up the paper I had set down nearby, I wrote on.

"Put in the same position, you'd have done exactly the same thing."

Aria dropped her head low, unable to meet my cold gaze.

"That's what a hypocrite is, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠sister."

It didn't feel cathartic. Not in the slightest.

Only sour. Only hollow.

"Rohen."

"I'm fine. It doesn't hurt at all. No—it shouldn't hurt at all."

With that answer to Father's summons, I left the hall.

After the Empress's imprisonment, the very first thing Father did was convene a council of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠nobles.

Everyone of count or higher—in a word, from the great lords on up.

The letters stated, naturally, that the empire would be rooting out every noble who had taken part in the treason. And to that, he added that the Empress had already confessed her crimes and been imprisoned.

Of course, before that, he had her own maidservant send word to Duke Alteir that his daughter had been subjected to brutal torture.

The primary purpose of the letters was, above all, the purging.

The traitorous nobles likely believed they left no clear evidence behind.

After all, if clear evidence existed, there would be no need to "root out" anyone—one could simply arrest them outright.

And in truth, there really was no clear evidence.

They would confess their crimes with their own mouths, that was all.

Besides, Duke Alteir had heard that his own daughter had been grievously tortured. That gave him ample grounds to argue that any confession she made was extracted against her will, merely to survive the torment.

He would likely see this as the perfect moment to drag down both my claim to the throne and Father's authority.

Either way, they would all judge this situation an opportunity rather than a crisis.

And the moment they showed themselves openly, I intended to swallow every last one of them whole.

"Young Master Rohen, the Princess has come to see you."

I was busy preparing to head for the capital when Mary's words drew a sigh out of me.

"Send her away."

"I tried that once already, but she refuses to leave."

"Then tell her to stand there for all eternity."

I flung open the window at the side of my room.

The door was not the only way out of this chamber.

"Freeze."

Freezing the moisture in the air, I laid a road of ice from the window sill all the way down.

If I'd figured out this method sooner, I wouldn't have had to leap and grit my teeth through the pain.

'Then again, back then I wasn't in any state to think of something like that.'

I lowered myself onto the icy path and slid down it like a child on a slide.

Even so, from the third floor the ice lent me considerable acceleration, and by the time I reached the end I couldn't beat the momentum—I tumbled across the ground in a spectacular roll.

Surveying the fresh scrapes newly carved into my body, I cast Heal and set off at once.

"Sir Brand, might I ask you to accompany me to the capital?"

Father had ordered that I was no longer to go into the capital alone—always with Sir Brand. So I sought him out and asked.

And Sir Brand readily granted my request.

"Far more pleasant to get out to the capital than to sit around idle in the palace, after all."

Apparently he'd been itching to shirk his duties.

And so I began going out to the capital with ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Sir Brand—visiting my mother, and devoting myself to mastering consonants and vowels.

Father had sent letters to convene the noble council, but it would take considerable time for nobles from every corner of the empire to arrive.

In the meantime, I resolved to devote myself to strengthening my own power.

The mastery of consonants and vowels was made far simpler by the fact that I wasn't working alone—Sir Brand was helping.

Because his looks were so strikingly handsome, winning over women's hearts was laughably easy for him.

The quests I received, naturally, were all tied to Sir Brand as well.

'Looks rule the world in every life—past and present alike.'

Shaking my head at the absurdity of it, I looked over the consonants and vowels I had gathered today.

An enormous haul.

Put another way, it was proof of just how many women's hearts Sir Brand had captured.

"Your talent for stealing women's hearts is even greater than I imagined."

"Most women try to win my favor and fall in line around me, you see."

He was so shameless about it that I simply turned my gaze away.

Now—what words could I assemble from these consonants and vowels?

'Huh...?'

Studying them intently, a thought struck me all at once, and I hurried to combine them.

Faced with an absurdity I should have seen coming, I could only curse under my breath.

Come to think of it, I had accepted my inability to speak as simply the way things were.

If I acquired the word Dialogue and imbued it with the power of the Kotodama... I might finally be able to speak.

"Dialogue."

It wasn't merely conversation.

Any sentient living being—meaning that beasts and animals counted too, not only humans.

The notice floating at the bottom of my vision was, presumably, a time limit.

"Sir Brand."

"Yes. Er... yes?"

Hearing my voice so naturally, Sir Brand answered at once—then belatedly put on a look of complete bewilderment.

But now that I could hold a free conversation, there was something I desperately wanted to say to my mother. So I climbed into his arms and urged him onward—not that he needed much urging—and we set off.

"Please wait here for just a moment."

The inn where my mother was staying for the time being.

In front of it, I climbed down from Sir Brand's arms and walked to her door, where I knocked softly and waited.

Click.

She already knew I always came by before I headed back, so my mother opened the door with evident joy to greet me.

"Heading back now?"

"Yes."

"...Rohen?"

Startled, she called my name.

She too had been told about my power, and knew that I could only speak specific words.

But now she was staring at me—me, who had just answered her quite naturally—wondering if her ears had deceived her.

"For one day—though only ten minutes at a time... I can speak freely."

"Oh..."

As her lips trembled, I steadied my own breath, and my trembling lips moved as well.

The words I had wanted—needed—to say.

"Mom."

A sound I had never once made in my life. That name.

"Rohen?"

"Mom."

"Rohen!"

"Mom..."

With eyes brimming with emotion, my mother pulled me into her arms.

It had been seven years.

Seven years since I'd last called anyone Mom.

Seven years since she had heard that word from my mouth.

...Like a small child, she sobbed—hicc-up, hicc-up—as she wept and wept.

I reached up, wiped the tears from her eyes, and smiled brightly.

"I love you."

"...Hck! Hnngh!"

"Thank you for giving birth to me."

She was a woman who had always carried guilt over bearing me as her prince, always blaming herself for all the things she couldn't give me.

"Before long, when we return to the palace together—let's have a wonderful meal with Dad."

"...Yes! Yes—absolutely! Let's do that."

She looked smaller than I remembered.

She was surely taller than me.

It felt less like she was embracing me, and more like I was the one holding her.

Yes—from now on, I wanted this woman never to be slighted by anyone, never to be hurt by anything, ever again.

I wanted all her misfortunes to pass like winter, and all her happiness to bud like spring.

I would be her breakwater.