The Vein of Love
"Rohen. The reason I've called you here is none other than this."
"Yes, Father."
"You're the one who brought the neutral faction nobles over to your side, so you already know this, I trust?"
At my father's words, I nodded. It had been my own choice to make the neutral faction nobles my base of support, after all.
"Once you graduate from the Academy, I had intended to seat you in what was once the Altair Dukedom territory and have you govern it as acting lord. You'll need to accumulate experience before becoming Emperor. To that end, the neutral faction nobles had their trading companies establish footholds near the Altair Dukedom ahead of time — but I'm told those companies keep suffering periodic raids."
I tilted my head at that. "If this is happening near the Altair Dukedom, isn't the culprit rather obvious?"
The Altair Dukedom had been annexed as direct imperial territory, but the barons and viscounts who belonged to it had remained in place. And among them, who else would have the motive to strike at the neutral faction's nobles?
"Hmm. The problem is that things aren't so one-sided — that's precisely why I've called you here. It isn't only the neutral faction's trading companies being attacked, you see. The trading companies belonging to the barons and viscounts under the Altair Dukedom have been raided as well."
"With that kind of frequency, haven't they already caught someone?"
"Of course — reports have come in saying arrests were made, but the attacks simply haven't stopped."
My father rapped his knuckles against the table as he continued. "According to the investigation, there is one strange detail. Whenever the neutral faction's trade caravans are struck, it's always a caravan carrying regional specialties from around the borderlands — goods that cannot be obtained in the capital."
That was more than strange enough. No — with that single remark, a rather plausible picture assembled itself in my mind.
"In other words, they only raid the one commodity that could actually compete with the companies already established there. Anything they can acquire themselves in abundance wouldn't worry them, since their positions are already secured. Could it be that prices on certain goods have been dropping?"
If every trading company dropped their prices uniformly, it would be too conspicuous. So the more likely scenario was that each company was absorbing a certain amount of loss and setting slightly different prices — deliberately driving themselves into the red to keep the neutral faction's companies from gaining a foothold. And no matter how they tried to disguise it, the common denominator would always be pricing below the market average.
My father nodded. Trading Company A had lowered prices across the board while keeping a single specific item priced higher than everyone else's. Trading Company B had done exactly the same — lower prices overall, one specific item set conspicuously higher.
Too neat to call coincidence. Unless this was a script they'd rehearsed together, it simply couldn't happen by chance.
The truly pitiable ones, though, weren't the nobles' companies at all — it was the ordinary folk of the region, self-made merchants who had built their trade houses from nothing. With the vast majority of companies slashing prices, they too would be forced to swallow the loss and follow suit. When whales fight, it's the shrimp whose backs get broken.
"The real problem is that every one of the raiders has been an ordinary commoner. Their common trait is poverty. From their standpoint the motive is more than sufficient, and they themselves claim they committed the crimes to escape destitution — so there's no getting at the true story behind it."
Something reeked here. "Their motive may be sufficient, but how would ordinary commoners possibly know what goods a caravan is carrying?"
That was the blind spot. Poor people indiscriminately raiding trade caravans might, viewed one way, be nothing more than simple crime — but how would commoners know precisely which caravans carried the neutral faction's specialties, and strike only those? This was something orchestrated — someone behind the scenes feeding them information and giving the orders they carried out.
"The heart of the matter, then, is to have your written words carry the power of your Kotodama and uncover the truth. That's what you're saying, isn't it?"
"That is indeed the request. So I'll attach the Imperial Palace's knights to you. I'd like you to disguise yourselves as a neutral faction trading company and set off as though on a merchant journey."
"Understood."
"Think of it as gaining experience."
With those words, I took my leave of my father's chambers.
Unless a trading company was of considerable size, it kept no knights. Strictly speaking, even the men the large companies employed weren't true knights — merely graduates of the Academy's Knight Department. After all, not every company could find a noble willing to receive them and hold an investiture ceremony. Even so, such men were hardly cheap, so small and mid-sized companies mostly hired mercenaries instead. Or, failing that, they paid a fee to travel under the escort of a major company whenever one was on the move.
Which meant the danger to us probably wouldn't be all that high.
「 Where's Aria? 」
"She's returned to her room."
When I got back to my own chambers, Aria was nowhere to be seen. It had taken quite a while, after all.
「 Lapis will be heading straight down to the Asis Duchy, I suppose? 」
"Yes. She needs to see her father and mother."
「 Then let's go together in a few days. I have business as well, and our route overlaps partway. 」
"Really?"
At my nod, Lapis rose from her seat and beamed, pulling me into an embrace. For someone like Lapis, who had lived her whole life by this world's values, such open physical affection toward a man couldn't have come easily. It was proof of just how close a distance the existence called "me" had come to occupy in her heart.
She squeezed tighter. The fullness pressing against my chest was impossibly soft.
In response, I gently stroked that ocean-blue hair, cradling the back of her head as I lowered my own. She didn't pull away in the slightest. My height had surpassed hers by now, and there was something so achingly lovely about the way she rose on tiptoe to meet me, like a welcome come out to greet its guest.
"Mm......"
When I hesitantly, tentatively pressed my lips to hers — like a pair of green lovers gingerly finding each other's hands — a faint moan escaped Lapis. I traced my tongue along her lips, and the lingering scent and taste of black tea drifted faintly across them.
"Hah...... nn!"
Then I pushed my tongue between those lips, and Lapis stiffened in mild panic, the hands clasped around my back tightening their hold. Entwining her clumsy little tongue with mine, dyeing her bit by bit in my color — the sense of it granted me no small satisfaction.
My body gave a jolt. Perhaps mixing with Bathory had left its mark on me.
Absorbed in savoring Lapis's lips, I had quite naturally slid one hand upward and seized her breast. She jerked back with a start, face scarlet, glancing this way and that before speaking in a trembling voice.
"I-I'm sorry...... I wasn't trying to refuse you. I was just a little startled...... I-it's just the two of us right now, so it's all right."
Lapis waved her hands about, at a loss for where to put them, before finally lowering them meekly and beginning to gaze up at me. Then, as if apologetic for making things awkward, she took my hand and placed it on her breast herself.
That uncharacteristically bold gesture made me falter for an instant — but when the full, soft sensation seeped into my sword-calloused palm like melting snow, I found myself closing my fingers around her without thinking, kneading that softness.
"Ah...... ah......"
Letting out a heated moan, Lapis squeezed her eyes shut and shivered. Those large breasts that deformed so readily under pressure — why were they so maddeningly stimulating? Especially the sensation at the very center of my palm, that shy little bud swelling up like a bashful flower — I swallowed hard and carefully pinched it.
"Hyaah......!"
With a risqué cry, Lapis flailed in confusion, stretching her slender arms out to pry my fingers from her captured nipple. Even the fingers clutching my wrist — how could they be so frail? That endearing sight stirred my protective instincts to their limit, and I withdrew my hand and gathered her into a tight embrace instead.
The closeness was exquisite. The faint body scent wafting up from her was seducing me to the point of eroding my reason. Again and again I breathed out silent, burning sighs, pressing the throbbing of my arousal against the soft give of her lower belly. And Lapis, utterly flustered, slipped her hips back and ran her hands soothingly down my back, as if to calm me.
"H-here...... going any further — please, give me some time too."
Despite her plea, desire had seized reason by the collar and was slamming it to the floor, grinding it underfoot...... but I barely managed to steady myself and quell the fever.
「 I'm sorry. I showed you...... an unsightly side of myself. 」
When I took a shallow breath, sat down, and showed her my written words, Lapis shook her head vigorously and clutched at my collar. "N-no, not at all. If anything, knowing that Rohen desires me...... for a woman, that's joy enough."
That bashful smile was so very angelic that I realized what a fortunate man I truly was.
Thus, one week later, I set out for the Altair Dukedom with the knights assigned to me. Lapis was riding in the carriage with us, but there was nothing sweet in the air — because the woman seated beside me, Aria, was making her displeasure conspicuously plain.
Father...... this is far too uncomfortable for me.
Mages were, by their nature, better at subduing people than knights. Since real combat experience couldn't be gained at the Academy, Father seemed to have brought Aria along precisely to give her some. The reason was the same as mine — and perhaps, having been apart so long, he also hoped the siblings might at least mend some fences along the way.
It feels like sitting on a cushion of thorns.
It would have eased my mind if Aria and Lapis got along, but one look was enough to tell they didn't. Had something happened between them? Or had they simply never had the chance to grow close? Hadn't the Moonglow Bond at the coming-of-age ceremony surely planted some positive feelings between them?
Aria resting her chin on the windowsill, watching only the scenery pass by. Lapis leaning on my arm, carefully closing her eyes. It was taboo for a man to clumsily insert himself into the relations between women. Since we'd be parting ways partway through anyway, I decided I would simply endure it for now.
◆◇◇◆◇◇◇
Four days into the journey, at the fork where the road to the Altair Dukedom split from the road to the Asis Duchy, I parted ways with Lapis. With her gone, only Aria and I remained in the carriage, and the awkward tension in the air dissolved, leaving me feeling rather at ease.
「 Weren't things too awkward with Lapis for you? 」
"Did you want me to give up my seat?"
「 How does that follow? 」
"Because if it's just the two of us, clearly you're planning something indecent."
At that, I flinched and addressed her. 「 Even alone together, I did nothing. 」
Aria snatched the paper I'd written on and curled her lips up at me. Her eyes weren't smiling — I knew that smile didn't come from any pleasure.
"Did you forget that night?"
"......"
"Getting hard in front of your big sister, of all people."
"......"
"My, how docile a lamb you become when you're alone with your fiancée."
It was an undeniable fact — but I still had ground to stand on. So I put the power of my Kotodama into my written words and opened my mouth.
"I told you — that was because of the Moonglow Bond you cast on me that night."
"And yet that night, didn't all the other men react to me rather differently than you did?"
"Every one of them had a fox of a wife and rabbit-like children at home. They were simply exercising the last shred of restraint they possessed."
"The ones who came on to me were mostly heirs of noble houses who hadn't married yet."
"......"
"And you too — no rabbit-like children, but you do have a fox of a fiancée waiting at home, don't you?"
Aria turned toward me, kicked off her shoes, stretched out those slender legs, and jabbed me in the side.
"By that measure, you're truly the worst."
"......"
"If you'd been born in the old days, when incestuous marriage was the norm, you'd have taken me to your bed without a moment's hesitation — and then some."
In the days of the First Emperor, it was said that unions between members of the imperial family had been considered only natural — anything to pass the power of the Dragon Tongue down through the generations. Should the Demonic Tree bloom and rise again, that power would become a military asset of immense worth.
......There's no winning this.
Somehow I'd never been able to beat her in a battle of words, so I steeled myself and answered.
"Maybe."
"What?"
"I said maybe I would have."
Aria went rigid, hastily withdrew her outstretched legs, and subtly edged away from me. And when she began closing that distance again — pushing at my chest with her hand to shove me back — I caught that hand and didn't let go.
"Did you know?"
"L-let go!"
"They say the ring finger of the left hand carries a vein called the Vena Amoris, running straight to the heart."
"Get it away!"
"And when you press the ring fingers of the left hands together, they say no force of your own can pull them apart."
I held her small left hand, pressed her ring finger against mine, and gave it a light bite.
"Ow!"
The moment I released her, Aria glared at me with a face scarlet to the ears.
"And that, they say, is why a wedding ring goes on the ring finger of the left hand."
Pointing to the neat little tooth mark, I smiled without a word.
"You...... every single thing you do is the absolute bottom of the barrel."
"It only means I'm that consistent."
"That's sophistry and you know it!"
Aria sprang up from her seat, moved to the bench across from me, and clutched the bitten finger tightly in her other hand. Watching her like that, I figured she'd stay quiet for a while — and so I surrendered myself peacefully to the sway of the carriage.