The Iron-Blooded Empress (4)
Darin kept linking arms with her child, clinging to her with shameless affection. Unlike her son Kael, her daughter Piel shared no distance with her at all. The simple phrase just us girls made nearly every kind of physical closeness permissible.
The violent softness of those two mountain ranges, so ill-suited to Darin's small frame, pressed down on Piel's forearm until her mind went blank. She knew she shouldn't feel this way, and yet her chest began to tingle without rest, and her head grew hot.
Our Piel is a good girl. She'll be able to look out for other people, too.
The faith her mother had just spoken of slaughtered the little devil lodged in Piel's mind. In her mother's eyes, she had to be a good daughter.
It didn't matter if the rest of the world judged her a foul-tempered shrew with the personality of a street dog. She could not disappoint the Queen of Bayorn.
Her mother's embrace was warm, but time was not infinite. Watching the sky darken by degrees, Piel slowly came to understand that she had to go.
"Mom, I think I need to leave now."
"Already!? We barely even talked!"
"…Mom, do you know how long your daughter has been standing in front of this carriage?"
"I-I don't know. An hour?"
"Three hours, Mom. At this rate I'm going to be late."
"Really? Oh no. What do I do, Piel!?"
The mother who had been smiling so brightly only moments before began to flail in a full-blown panic. She simply wasn't ready to let her daughter go.
The woman stamped her tiny feet in helpless circles, fretting over what to do. And yet it was only natural. Piel occupied nearly half of everything Darin was. The other half belonged to Kael.
Piel, too, seemed unwilling to part from her mother; dew began to gather at the corners of her eyes. No matter how hard she pretended to be strong, no matter how carefully she mimicked composure, she was still only a little girl who had just turned thirteen.
But if her daughter looked miserable, her mother would cry as well. The white-haired girl forced strength into the corners of her eyes and resisted the sorrow.
"What do I do? What do I do?"
While her daughter clung to her dignity, the tiny woman began circling her in a daze, committing one foolish little act after another.
She rubbed her cheek against her motionless daughter's chin. She pressed a kiss to her nose. And still the longing would not fade, so she buried her face against her daughter's neck and tried to memorize the scent of her own flesh and blood.
"Uh, Mom. That tickles."
Her daughter could only flush and exercise superhuman patience. Even so, she did not push the affection away. Piel knew it instinctively: once this carriage left, it would be she, not her mother, who would drown in the missing.
Despite her daughter's mild scolding, Darin only held her grown child tighter. After several minutes of this, she managed at least to soothe the grief rising in her throat.
"Piel, just a moment?"
Releasing her daughter, Darin drew out a pure white flower she had kept hidden between her breasts.
"Isn't it pretty?"
What Darin showed Piel was nothing more than an ordinary accessory refined through magitech craftsmanship. Still, its glittering beauty was genuine, and it belonged to a rather expensive class of goods.
"What is this, Mom?"
"A gift for my daughter."
With that, the woman rose onto her tiptoes with a little grunt of effort and gently arranged it in her daughter's hair. Piel found it strange that her mother would give a flower accessory to a girl who didn't even like flowers—but she lowered her head all the same. She didn't want to watch her mother struggle.
"What kind of gift is this supposed to be? It's that kind of meaning again, right? Live like a pure maiden. Live like a proper young noble lady."
It was the same lecture her unladylike daughter had always heard. And so Piel never doubted that the white flower hairpin her mother had given her carried exactly that message.
"That's not it."
Her mother did not affirm her daughter's expectation. This time, it truly wasn't that.
"This white flower is an artifact. If Piel is badly hurt, the petals turn red."
"Me, get hurt? In the whole territory, even the Huscarls can't touch me—except for Father."
Darin shook her head. As if she didn't already know how strong her daughter was for her age.
That was what it meant to be a mother. No matter how much a child grew, no matter how strong she became, a mother was a foolish creature who could only worry.
"Even so, Mom can't help being so worried about you."
"Ugh, you're hopeless. Fine! So what happens when it turns red?"
At her daughter's question, Darin tapped the white flower fixed to her own hairpin.
"When the flower you're wearing turns red, Mom's white flower turns red too."
"Huh? That's all?"
"Mm-hm."
She had expected some grand function from an artifact, but the effect was genuinely underwhelming. And yet the mother who had given the gift stood with remarkable pride. Gazing at her treasure, she delivered her declaration to her daughter.
"If Piel's flower turns red, Mom's heart will hurt just as much as yours. So you really have to take care of yourself, all right?"
It was a razor-edged threat, coming from a mother who had always been nothing but kind.
But Darin wanted her daughter to remember that she was not invincible—and to be careful. However gifted her child might be, she was still a tender flower that had not finished growing.
Her mother's solemn manner was enough to move even a daughter who had only been responding with indifference. Piel nodded and took the words to heart.
"…All right."
Still, a mischievous curiosity prompted one more question.
"But what if I really am careful and I still get hurt?"
Hearing her daughter's words, her mother blinked several times, then raised her adorable little arms and began throwing the feeblest of punches.
"Shook-shook!"
And that was the sound coming from Darin's mouth.
"If anyone hurts my little girl, Mom will never, ever let them get away with it!"
"Pwahaha!"
At her mother's adorable display of bravado, Piel burst into a thoroughly unladylike laugh. Who was protecting whom, exactly? The one raised like a hothouse flower wasn't her—it was her mother.
"Wh-why are you laughing, Piel? Mom is being serious…"
"…Aaah, heh, sorry."
Once she swallowed the laughter, a quiet calm settled over Piel's face. She touched the white flower her mother had given her, fond of it. Somehow, just doing this seemed to ease the ache of parting, and she liked that.
"Thank you, Mom."
At her daughter's long-overdue, sincere words of gratitude, the Viscountess's pupils widened. Then she smiled softly and gathered her child into her arms.
"I believe in my daughter. Piel has a strong character—unlike me."
"That's right, Mom. Just two hours ago you were bawling your eyes out because I was leaving."
Her daughter scolded her, but the mother felt no shame. What mother, forced to put distance between herself and her child, would not shed tears? Remaining dry-eyed would have been the shameful thing.
"You're right. But Mom loves Piel so, so much."
"You're still making too big a deal out of it, Mom. It's not even a real goodbye."
"You're the strange one, Piel. You won't be able to see Mom for a while either—how can you not shed a single tear? It feels like I'm the only one who's sad."
"I don't know. Maybe it's because Mom's a proper lady and I take after Father—the barbarian."
"That's not what I meant."
"I know. It's just that your daughter doesn't have a silver tongue like her brilliant older brother."
"It's all right. Just by existing, Piel is Mom's miracle. And you're a prodigy in ways your brother isn't. Bayorn's one and only mage."
"……"
"Mom is truly proud of you, Piel."
Piel's words caught in her throat.
This woman always said the same thing. You and your brother are the two angels who came into my life.
As far as Piel was concerned, neither she nor her brother had ever become the kind of people who deserved to be called angels.
The real angel was the mother who kept offering kindness even to a snappish, difficult daughter.
Piel's gaze turned toward the setting sun. The darkening night sky seemed to scold her for delaying any longer.
The white-haired girl held her mother in silence and murmured inwardly. I'm sorry I couldn't be an honest daughter for you.
Did her mother sense, by instinct, that this was the final embrace?
"Piel, Piel…"
The mother who had sworn she would not cry at the end called her daughter's name and broke into tears. For thirteen years, this tiny little thing had stayed by her side. The feeling of half of herself being torn away was agony enough to rip her apart.
"…My lady. Young miss. I'm truly sorry, but time is up."
Darin wanted to hold onto the moment of parting a little longer, but at the coachman's firm words she had no choice but to release her daughter. After that last embrace, her daughter looked far calmer than she did.
How nice for you. You inherited Bayorn blood, so you can look so unbothered.
But that was a mercy, too.
Piel wouldn't have to suffer the way she did.
Piel climbed the carriage steps with a steady bearing. She did not have the mountain-like bulk of her brother or her father, but a comparable reliability radiated from her all the same.
In the carriage window, Piel's face looked nothing like her mother's, who was streaming with tears. She only smiled and waved.
"Hyah!"
Cruelly, the coachman showed no hesitation in cracking the whip. The white horses cried out under the lash, and the carriage set off at once.
And then—
"Piel! Pieeel!!!"
The Viscountess, who had never known how to keep her dignity, could not simply let the carriage go. She hiked up her trailing dress and sprinted with everything she had. Her frame was small and her breath came short, so she couldn't even match her daughter's walking pace—but she was giving it everything she had.
"I love you! I love you, Piel!"
The desperate mother strained her throat until the veins stood out, confessing her heart to her daughter. Watching her, Piel's face twisted into something almost angry.
As if I don't already know you love your foolish daughter. Why do you have to go running yourself ragged over something so obvious?
Especially when you already suffer from constant shortness of breath—because you gave one of your lungs to that damned eldest son.
And regrettably, the carriage left the Bayorn estate in an instant, turning its back on the mother who was still crying out in longing.
"……"
For quite some time, Piel maintained a noble composure befitting a direct descendant of Bayorn. The girl staring into the empty carriage was cold as ice.
"…Ah."
Then, all at once, it felt as though half her heart had been cut away, and a sound escaped her lips. Belatedly, she turned her head toward the window.
Only moments ago, beyond that glass, a vermilion-haired woman had been calling for her so desperately. Now there was nothing left of her warmth on the cold ground blanketed in white snow.
The moment she faced it, the girl's eyes began to tremble. A vast anxiety and loneliness she could not name—or rather, that she had been refusing to name—tore through her heart.
The Viscountess who had been weeping before her flickered behind her eyelids. Leaving her alone with that oppressive older brother sat poorly with her, and she worried that her father would torment her mother too much.
The men of this house really are unreliable. Even a tomboy like me ought to be the one comforting Mother. What am I supposed to do?
"…Kh."
Unlike her mother, Piel was not a fragile girl who would burst into loud sobs.
That stubbornness was still palpable even now. She clenched her teeth hard enough to grind them, holding the tears back.
But the waterfall that began to pour from the girl's eyes—
"Mom…"
—far outstripped the tears the vermilion-haired woman had shed.