Reunion with an Old Friend and a Rewound Mother
I couldn't refuse Opia's invitation to her room after our reunion as old friends. I followed her and let her lead me inside.
Though it lay outside the imperial capital's walls, the room still belonged to the daughter of a wealthy merchant family. It felt spacious and comforting. It lacked the opulence of Zophy's quarters, yet it was a tidy space equipped with every tool a mage might need for research.
At a small table meant for three, Opia and I sat facing each other with cups of freshly brewed tea steaming between us.
“Kaira, what on earth happened? I was overjoyed when I heard you'd become the hero, but then suddenly you're this witch who committed something terrible. And on top of that...”
Opia couldn't finish. Her gaze drifted to the vivid red lines on my shawl, then to the sandals that served no real purpose beyond leaving my bare feet and calves exposed in a way that invited men.
“To think you've been through... something like this...”
I laughed without strength, the sound slipping out of me.
“Ehet... That's how it turned out.”
After a brief hesitation, I told her everything. The sun climbed from the horizon to its highest point while I explained, step by step, over a long stretch of time.
The events within the hero's party, how I had gone mad after slaying the Demon King, and even the days I spent kidnapped by Zophy. I kept my previous life to myself.
“Rewinding... time.”
Opia was a mage herself; she would understand better than anyone how immense such magic truly was.
“Yes.”
I placed my hand on the teacup that had gone cold without a single sip. Steam rose once more as it returned to the state of fresh brewing.
“By the gods...”
“It was a talent the professors discovered during my entrance interview at the Magic Academy. They trained me throughout my time there... After all, I was never particularly skilled at magic. The only reason someone like me could become a hero was because of this.”
“I see. Still...”
Opia hesitated, then continued.
“You didn't have to do those things in Zophy's house, Kaira... You frighten me...”
I had been honest with her about losing my family and the massacre I committed in that house. Opia's face had gone pale, her body trembling faintly.
Unlike the duchess, who dabbled in politics and brushed against cruelty, Opia was simply a horse merchant's daughter. The story must have been almost unbearable for her.
“I know. So I won't resent you if you call the guards right now. I deserve it. But...”
I offered a lonely smile.
“I still want to live a little longer. That is, if you'll forgive me and look the other way.”
Opia let out a deep sigh and said nothing for a long time.
Only the chirping of birds beyond the window and the faint whistle of wind through the door cracks broke the silence. At last, my friend spoke first.
“What about my family?”
“...I heard my mother is here.”
Opia drew in a sharp breath.
“Ah, no way... Pirel...?”
“So it really was true. I heard it from a street performer and thought it might be a mistake.”
Opia nodded firmly.
“It was my idea to suggest to Father that we bring the child home.”
She continued her explanation.
After graduating from the academy, she had returned straight home. She helped with household affairs by applying various magical reinforcements to horseshoes, saddles, and feed purchased from the eastern market street. Business flourished because she could transform ordinary horses into prized steeds.
While living that way, about a year ago.
In a chilly morning market alley she had visited with her father, she spotted a girl of twelve or thirteen shivering beneath a single ragged mat, begging. When she looked closer, the girl's face overlapped with one she found achingly familiar.
My face.
Opia couldn't ignore it. She asked her father to bring the child home, give her simple tasks, and take her in. Her kind-hearted father agreed.
The girl's memories were badly jumbled, she said. She had lived in the western district inside the capital, but her recollections suddenly grew hazy and she was sold to a brothel.
Yet because she was small and underdeveloped—appearing far younger than her real age—the establishments decided feeding her wouldn't be worth the cost. She was shuffled from one brothel to another until she was cast onto the street without ever selling her body. That was Pirel's story.
Afterward she lived as something like a maid, cleaning stables and running errands within the capital walls.
They made her work but gave her no wages. In exchange, she received a bedroom and meals on the same level as Opia's family, and whenever time allowed, Opia tutored her. I felt nothing but gratitude that my mother had been spared from suffering or selling herself.
“To rewind a person's time... and turn an adult into a child like that. You really are frightening, Kaira... It's hard to even look at you.”
“I'm sorry. For scaring you.”
Opia fell silent for a moment, then spoke with a strained smile.
“So she really was your mother. Though she doesn't carry that oat-porridge scent you used to have.”
That was true. To Opia, my smell had always registered as the oat porridge fed to horses rather than fresh bread. Perhaps because she was a horse merchant's daughter, that scent felt most familiar to her.
I smiled softly.
“...Anyway. I want to take Pirel—my mother—with me.”
“And do what with her afterward?”
Opia asked pointedly.
“You're engaged in that kind of work right now. Even if you take her, you can't live together.”
I offered no reply. Opia pressed on.
“Even if her memories are gone, Pirel is living decently here. I don't know if she's happy, but at least she doesn't have to do the things you do. Father plans to find her a marriage partner once she's of age.”
“......”
“Or will you quit that line of work?”
“I will quit.”
I answered curtly.
“I only started it in the first place because Zophy sold my mother to a brothel in the capital.”
Half of me had also wanted to roll in the mud.
“Now that I've found her, there's no reason to stay. I owe no debts, so I'll leave that brothel without hesitation.”
Opia gave a small, dry laugh.
“You think it'll be that simple? Pimps aren't going to release a woman so easily.”
“If they won't let me go...”
I clenched and unclenched my fists as I continued.
“Then I'll break free by force if I must.”
“I see.”
Opia turned away as though she could no longer face me, her expression thoughtful. While I waited for her answer and let my gaze wander around the room, she rose and went somewhere.
“Wait here a moment,” she said.
I watched as she rummaged through a drawer beside the bed, retrieved something, and returned. She set the object down in front of me.
“Do you know what this is?”
“A pendant... right?”
“Yes. A locket pendant meant to hold a picture. Would you open it?”
I carefully picked up the rather worn pendant and gently pried it open. Inside lay something smeared and unrecognizable, the paint having bled together. An extremely old painting, not only blurred but badly faded.
It could not have looked so abstract from the start.
It must have been a portrait once.
“This is...”
When I trailed off hesitantly, Opia answered in a quiet voice.
“My mother.”
She continued.
“She died right after giving birth to me, they say. A street painter in the capital left behind one portrait, but it smeared before I was even born and ended up like this. Kaira, by any chance...”
Opia's innocent eyes sparkled as she asked.
“Could you... rewind this as well?”
Her mother's portrait as the price for taking my mother. A fair trade, I thought. Very much like a merchant's daughter.
For me it was possible. Twenty or thirty years would have been easy. If not, my mother would never have ended up shoveling horse dung in a place like this.
“...I'll try.”
I lightly grasped the pendant and closed my eyes.
I had no clock to help me concentrate and trace the object's history in fine detail.
But I had already glimpsed the sensation once, when I restored the bed at Arun's house. The feeling of peering into an object's past without a clock.
With my right hand on the pendant, I curled the palm of my left as though gripping a timepiece.
Waves rolling in and out, the moon waxing and waning, the sun rising and setting, hourglasses and hands...
Then, as if floating before my eyes, I saw it—the moment the pendant Opia had shown me had sparkled like new, and the picture inside it still held clear, sharp lines.
“Huu...”
Rewind.
With my sigh, light returned to the old silver pendant.
And to the picture held within it.
I carefully handed the pendant back to Opia.
“...It's done.”
She did not say thank you. She could not.
Because she had already burst into tears.
“...Be careful not to let tears touch the pendant.”
Having said only that, I let Opia cry as much as she needed. While I sipped the tea I had rewound to piping hot—still warm—I thought,
It's warm...
In the room Opia had left, I waited for her in silence.
After finally stemming her tears, she hugged me tightly, placed the pendant back in the drawer with great care, and immediately left the room to go somewhere.
There was no need to wonder why. It meant the person Opia could summon at once was somewhere in the house.
Mother...
All I had to do was sit here quietly and wait for her return.
What would my rewound mother look like? She would not remember me. After I took her from the brothel, where should we go? How should we live...
While such thoughts ran through my mind, while I took another sip of the still-warm tea and nervously tapped my feet, the door opened with a soft sound.
“Here she is. The guest who very much wanted to see you is right here...”
Following Opia's words came another voice.
“I still don't quite understand the situation, miss. Has he finally come? Rajail?”
The tone had shifted into that of a young girl, yet the shadow of a familiar voice lingered.
With that voice, she was calling the name I had longed to forget for so long.
Father...
But
I simply could not
find the courage...
I had no confidence I wouldn't collapse the moment I saw her. I lacked the strength to look straight into my mother's face.
I had to face her. I had to see clearly what I had done. Yet I didn't have the strength...
Please be at ease, Mom.
A gentle voice rang inside my head. I had completely forgotten that Rin was nestled within my mind.
It's the grandmother you've been searching for so desperately. You've finally met her. This is a happy moment. There's no need to be afraid.
I... quietly thanked my daughter.
Thank you, Rin...
Thanks to the adorable magical creature I had given birth to, I found the will to continue. I turned toward the doorway with resolve.
She was there.
A girl smaller than me, who looked no older than fifteen. A girl with lovely light-brown hair tucked beneath a cape for ease of work, wearing a rough but comfortable dress that seemed to bear traces of horse feed.
Curious red eyes were studying me from head to toe.
I had never seen a girl with this face, yet I had known someone who possessed it my entire life.
My lips trembled as I barely managed to speak the word.
“...M... Mom...”
Then I collapsed from the chair onto the floor, crumpling into a seated position and bursting into tears.
Leaving Pirel—my mother—standing bewildered at the doorway at the sudden sight of an unfamiliar woman sobbing, Opia hurried over, helped me to my feet, sat me on her bed, and stayed with me until I had calmed down.