An Awkward Seat
“What’s with you all? Why’s nobody saying anything?”
Shiron scowled. Peering around with just his head above the ice, he found not a single word of encouragement for the man who had finally made it out.
A little disappointing, honestly.
He hadn’t been expecting wild cheers or anything over the top, but having everyone stare down at him with those grave faces was more than a little uncomfortable for the person on the receiving end.
Lucia and Hugo’s grim expressions he could almost understand—but even Encia, who usually teased him without a second thought, had her face frozen stiff. The Encia he knew would have come running with a bright smile and a cup of cocoa by now.
“Haa… You’re making me feel awkward here.”
Ignoring their gazes, Shiron hauled himself fully onto the ice. The succession ceremony wasn’t truly over until he reached dry land. Just like on the way out, he half-expected the ice to give way beneath him, but no such mishap occurred. Nothing happened until he finally set foot on the sandy shore.
His body, though, felt thoroughly filthy. Every movement made grit scrape between wet clothes and skin. He wanted nothing more than to sink into a hot bath as soon as possible.
At last, he had crossed the lake and reached land. No one had called him out yet, which meant his little bit of cheating had gone unnoticed.
“Shiron. Are you okay?”
Just as he was savoring a pleasant sense of accomplishment, Lucia spoke up. He had figured the murmuring meant something was going on, but he still didn’t understand why she alone had stepped away from the group. Maybe the time they’d spent together made her worry about him.
Looking down at her, Shiron answered, “If you ask whether I’m okay, the answer’s pretty obvious. I’m freezing my ass off.”
“……Not that. Your hand.”
Lucia pointed with her eyes. Shiron followed her gaze downward.
“My hand…? What the hell is this?!”
At the end of his line of sight was a mangled hand. Blood-soaked, fingers and the back of the hand shredded as if something razor-sharp had raked across them—a ruin so grotesque he couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed until now.
What happened to my hand?
Perhaps because he was finally aware of the injury, the faint tingling began to heat up into real pain. This was no simple numbness from lingering too long in cold water.
The recoil from smashing ice that was no better than finely shattered glass. Thinking about it, of course. Ice that wouldn’t even crack under a full-powered punch had to be harder than glass.
Shiron swallowed hard as he stared at the wound. His soft, untrained body—still pathetic in durability, still without any protective Aura—began screaming frantic signals to his brain as if begging for mercy.
He clenched his teeth and tore his eyes away from the injury. The pain climbing his arm threatened to make him black out.
“Shiron. Does it hurt a lot?”
“Don’t… talk to me.”
Could she not see the agony written all over his contorted face? Shiron glared at Lucia with open resentment.
“Everyone has passed. Well done.”
The succession ceremony was over. Yuma looked at the three children as she spoke.
“And yet, for some reason, none of you look pleased. You would be perfectly free to show pure joy right now.”
Yuma already had a fair idea of the reason, but she addressed the children anyway.
“Forget it. Can we just go home already? You’re talking too much.”
Shiron, hands wrapped thickly in bandages, snapped irritably. At the moment she was Yuma the One-horned Castle Keeper rather than Head Maid Yuma, but Shiron had no room to care about such details. His hands burned as if branded with red-hot iron, and cold sweat kept trickling down his face.
He figured he had held out long enough waiting for Yuma to arrive. Now that he had reached his limit, his temper had turned foul on its own.
Because of that, Siriel standing beside him couldn’t even properly celebrate; she was too busy watching his mood.
“I want to rest soon too!”
“That’s right. Please treat big brother quickly.”
Lucia and Siriel rushed to speak to Yuma almost at the same time. In truth Siriel had wanted to throw her arms around her cousins and hop up and down with joy. Yet even with her chest tight from overwhelming emotion, she couldn’t bring herself to act on it. The blood-soaked fist that had punched through the ice still refused to leave her mind.
“Treatment has already been administered. Look carefully. Ointment has been applied and bandages wrapped, have they not? Anyone qualified to pass the succession ceremony possesses recovery far beyond that of ordinary humans. A few days of proper rest and you will be fine.”
“……I see.”
Siriel gave an awkward smile at Yuma’s answer. She could feel a sharp gaze stabbing into her from the side, as if scolding her for dragging things out with unnecessary words. She instantly regretted opening her mouth.
Whether Shiron silently reproached his cousins or not made no difference to Yuma. She simply smiled at the children she was so proud of. Completing the succession ceremony without a single dropout was something that had happened only a handful of times in the past five hundred years.
“Then, the carriage is ready. Please come this way.”
“Nice and convenient. Do they normally prepare a carriage like this?”
“No. An exception was made because an injury that should never have occurred has appeared. Ah. Perhaps Young Master Shiron has set a precedent, and from now on children will deliberately injure themselves just to return in comfort.”
Yuma beamed at him, but Shiron did not smile back.
“This is the last succession ceremony.”
“……I see. I shall engrave that deeply in my heart.”
“As long as you know.”
Shiron walked past Yuma, who had placed a hand over her chest and was smiling. Lucia and Siriel were already inside the carriage. The two of them sat facing the same direction; opposite them, three cushions had been stacked for Shiron.
A dry laugh escaped him at their kindness.
“When did you even prepare all this? If you’re going to do it, do it properly. Lucia. Grab those cushions.”
“……Why? Should I take them away?”
Was he rejecting the consideration she had gone out of her way to show? Lucia pouted even as she pulled the cushions into her lap.
Shiron dropped heavily into the seat and raised both arms.
“Stuff them under here.”
“Got it.”
With his hands thickly bandaged he couldn’t fold his arms or rest them normally, so he intended to use the cushions as padding under his armpits. Lucia understood his intent at once.
He’s only this nice because he’s hurt.
The jostling of the carriage made him a little queasy, but Shiron was able to look at Lucia with a satisfied smile. Her face was full of worry. The pain still hadn’t faded, yet seeing her so restless somehow improved his mood.
“……Are you feeling a little better now?”
Perhaps because Shiron’s expression had softened somewhat, Lucia finally managed to speak. She hadn’t taken her eyes off his hands the entire time.
“No, I’m not better. It hurts like hell.”
“That much?”
“Yeah. I’ve never hurt this bad in my life.”
“Then why are you smiling?”
Siriel, who had been watching their exchange, asked the question. At his young cousin’s words Shiron realized he had indeed been smiling.
“……Ahem. We passed the succession ceremony, didn’t we? After all that suffering, of course I’d smile.”
He bit his tongue and wiped the amusement from his face. He could hardly admit that watching Lucia’s fretting was entertaining, so he improvised a suitable excuse.
“Hey.”
Perhaps reassured by the easing of Shiron’s expression, Siriel leaned forward with sparkling eyes.
“Can I ask just one thing? I’ve been curious for a while.”
“……What is it?”
Shiron regarded her through half-lidded eyes.
Is she going to ask how I got out?
It wasn’t as if he had no answer prepared. He steeled himself, ready for whatever question she threw at him.
“Are you two really siblings?”
What came out of Siriel’s mouth was something completely unexpected.
“……Why would you think that?”
“No reason. Just…”
Siriel laced her fingers together and looked back and forth between Lucia and Shiron.
“You two don’t look alike at all. Look—Lucia has red hair, but big brother Shiron has black hair. Even your eye colors are completely different: black and gold.”
“Th-that’s—!”
Lucia cut in, flustered. The conversation had suddenly turned heavy. It was a reasonable question for a child to have, but the timing was terrible.
As far as Lucia knew, Shiron’s mother had died when he was very young. She didn’t want to kill the mood by bringing up a dead mother—especially when the atmosphere had only just begun to lighten…
“Lucia and I have different mothers.”
While she was still turning it over in her head, Shiron answered first.
“Ah! So that’s why you don’t call her big sister!”
“…….”
“I thought something felt weird! Because the two wives were rivals. Yeah, that makes sense!”
Siriel nodded with an understanding smile. She had no way of knowing that both of their mothers were already dead and gone from this world.
Lucia wanted to clap a hand over Siriel’s mouth for saying something that might hurt Shiron. She stole a glance at his face, fretting that the words might have wounded him.
Sure enough, Shiron narrowed his eyes and glared at Siriel.
“What kind of misunderstanding are you having? My mother’s dead.”
Not to be outdone, Lucia turned on Siriel as well.
“M-mine too! My mother’s dead!”