Volume 2, Episode 17
While Airen had fallen silent, sunk deep in grim contemplation, Seherbian lay back and stared at the ceiling before finally speaking.
“Airen.”
“Hm.”
“Why did you do that?”
“...Huh?”
Airen, who had been lost in thought, belatedly lifted his head.
“About that child you saved, Airen.”
Those sunset-colored eyes, fixed blankly on the ceiling, held no expression at all.
“You said he was a slave—someone society wouldn’t even treat like a human being. Was there really any reason to risk your life saving him?”
Only then did Airen go, Oh—and remember the slave boy. He shot to his feet.
“Oh, right! Damn, how did I forget? Is he okay?”
“...Why don’t you check for yourself? He’s been waiting for you since earlier.”
Still lying down, Seherbian lifted only his staff and pointed toward the doorway.
Clink.
“He woke up after drying off and has been standing there by the door the whole time.”
Following the tip of the staff, Airen finally spotted the boy standing stiffly beside a flowerpot.
A Red Eye brand was seared into his body in scarlet. With his dark bangs hanging carelessly over his eyes, the boy stood motionless, like a finely carved statue.
“...!”
Airen went straight over to him. For all that he had supposedly been waiting, the moment Airen actually came close, he looked at him with wary eyes, like a hedgehog bristling with every last quill.
“Let’s see. Good thing you’re not badly hurt.”
“...”
“The waters of Soltis Sea are usually safe enough when the waves are low, but if you jump in bare-handed like that, you’ll die.”
Even while fussing over him, the black-haired boy still kept his guard up. Airen lowered himself slightly, bending his knees so he could meet the child’s dark eyes properly.
“What’s your name?”
“...”
“How old are you?”
The boy, who had remained still until then, lifted a finger and drew something in the air.
Two, three...? Airen’s eyes followed the movement of that finger, then he froze in confusion. The child looked no older than fifteen at most.
“Ah, haha. You mean thirteen?”
There had been enough shocking things that he could easily have made a mistake. His smile, forced as it was in an effort not to hurt the boy’s feelings, only looked awkward.
Shake, shake.
But despite Airen’s consideration, the slave boy shook his head. Once again, his finger traced 23 in the air. As Airen scratched his head, not knowing how to react, Seherbian suddenly cut in from behind.
“He’s twenty-three, yes.”
“What...? But he’s so small.”
“Because this child has mixed blood.”
Mixed blood?
Airen frowned, unable to make sense of it, and Seherbian’s languid voice continued at his ear.
“Dragon blood. You can tell from his hair color, can’t you? He’s a half-dragon favored by the Black Dragon.”
“No way.”
Dragon blood had once been a blessing, promising immortality and overwhelming power.
But when it flowed in the veins of a half-blood who had not been born a true dragon, that blessing quickly turned into a curse.
“Because he inherited the Black Dragon’s blood, this boy’s body functions evolved to a degree that can’t be compared to an ordinary human’s. You might not notice it much when they’re young, but the older they get, the tougher and stronger their bodies become. Eventually scales appear, and a mane grows along the spine. Their bodies gradually change to resemble the dragonfolk... and then...”
Only dragons could properly wield the magic that flowed through their blood.
For a half-breed born in a human body, that was an unbearable burden. Half-dragons who carried the dragon’s curse within them for life would gradually sicken and waste away.
“I heard that in the end, after they became something in-between—neither human nor dragonfolk—people hunted them down, or they took their own lives, and they were wiped out entirely.”
The nameless slave boy’s black eyes trembled faintly.
Thud!
Before anyone noticed, Seherbian had come close enough to lift his staff and tilt the boy’s chin up.
“Hmm. Looks like you’re a hybrid child who survived by luck. Or maybe not so lucky, if you ended up as a slave anyway?”
“Hey.”
The boy, forced to raise his chin as if being appraised, offered no resistance. He simply listened quietly to the story of his own birth.
Instead, Airen stepped in front of Seherbian.
“Hybrids usually have more flaws than ordinary humans when they’re young. It takes them longer to grow.”
“Priest Seherbian!”
“Still, that also means they live long. A fine slave, really—one who can serve a master for generations.”
Angry at Seherbian for refusing to stop with those cruel assessments, Airen seized his staff.
No, he tried to.
Bang!
The instant Airen touched it, a fierce wind laced with snow erupted from Mimir like a whirlwind.
All he had done was lay a hand on the staff, and yet Airen was sent skidding backward, toppling a wooden flowerpot and slamming into the opposite wall before sprawling there like an old shoe.
“Ghk! Cough, cough!”
“Ah, sorry. Mimir can’t stand it when strangers touch him.”
The white staff was still humming, exuding a bitter cold. The frost Mimir had unleashed painted the surroundings white. The wood over the flowerpot had frozen hard, rime settling over everything.
A cold that took life.
Winter Bell’s divine power?
Looking at the frozen flowerpot, Airen swallowed dryly.
As expected of a dragon who governed destruction and death, even its divine power felt far removed from life itself.
Airen got to his feet, staggering a little. He had only been exposed to the cold breeze for a moment, and yet the chill that had seeped into his body made him shiver all over.
“Why do you have to say it like that?” he asked, coughing.
“Like what?”
“Just because this kid’s a little different from others.”
Standing face-to-face with Seherbian, Airen laid a hand on the slave boy’s head.
“So what if he matures a little late? So what if he grows scales or a mane? What the hell does that matter?”
The boy, who had been standing quietly like a puppet with no will of his own, flinched.
Airen’s face, as he looked up with those emotionless black eyes, was filled with anger.
“That’s no reason to make another human being into a slave.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes!”
Airen shouted, the words bursting out of him. He had gone to the trouble of getting angry, and Seherbian’s reaction was so lackluster that it almost made him feel wronged.
Regardless, Seherbian rested the white staff against his shoulder and looked between Airen and the slave boy with an indifferent expression.
“So that is what Airen thinks.”
His ever-languid sunset eyes took on a hint of interest.
“Even if the law of the Alferios Kingdom says human beings can be ranked and slaves bought and sold?”
“I...!”
Airen started to snap back automatically, then dragged a long sigh through his nose and rubbed a hand over his face.
When his tone, which had been heated a moment ago, finally settled, he could at last speak more like himself.
“We’re not citizens of the Alferios Kingdom, Priest.”
He, too, had once been part of Alferios.
But after learning the truth the king had kept hidden, everything changed.
His sword no longer served the king.
“We’re all Varzian, swords drawn for the Winter Dragon. So the laws set by the royal family...”
Airen bit out the words.
“...don’t matter.”
Of course, Winter Bell existed only in name, and had never once appeared in the hundreds of years since. So even if they were the Winter Knights, he was hardly a lord they truly followed.
From the beginning, Airen’s resolve had been firm. Whenever there was someone abandoned, he had reached out a hand; whenever there was someone sinking alone into despair, he had walked beside them.
With that same heart, he had even shown kindness to the priest Seherbian when he had left the temple. Seherbian, gazing at him in silence, answered readily enough.
“All right. I’ll help you.”
With that answer, the staff sliced through the air again.
Seeing the staff whip out in a stabbing motion, the slave boy startled and tried to twist away.
“...!”
But the boy stopped dead the instant he heard a voice sliding into his mind.
Shh, stay still.
Seherbian set Mimir atop the slave’s brand on the boy’s waist. As Mimir pecked lightly at the eye-shaped mark, like a bird’s beak tapping at grain, a glittering light flashed in that spot.
Airen had instinctively raised an arm to shield his eyes, thinking another blast of cold wind was coming, but when none did, he lowered his hand in a half-crouch.
“...Snow?”
A ship at sea.
Strangely enough, snowflakes were drifting softly through a room with both ceiling and windows sealed shut. Outside, meanwhile, summer sunlight still blazed down without mercy.
Swish—
In that instant, the red mark symbolizing slavery turned silver.
Dragon divine power stood above every kind of magic humans used. That was why it was so easy to break the spells laid upon the mark.
Like a spider that had painstakingly spun its web, only to have the whole thing crushed without resistance beneath the massive hoof of a bull.
The tracking magic and obedience magic that had bound the boy’s life and choked his breathing for so long shattered all at once.
Pop!
The boy realized his body had grown much lighter than usual and collapsed to the floor. Freedom, when unaccustomed, often felt heavier than shackles. It was much like a dog that had spent its whole life on a leash not immediately running off just because the tether had been removed.
“You are no longer a slave.”
The former slave’s eyes flew wide open.
“From here on out, what you do is your freedom.”
Freedom.
A word he had never once imagined.
Repeating that unfamiliar, strange word in his mouth, the black-haired boy touched the side of his waist.
The slave’s emblem, which had always burned so hot it hurt in the same spot, was gone. In its place, only a beautiful silver butterfly remained, shimmering with cold.
As snow fluttered down around him, Seherbian drew the staff back and smiled faintly.
“Walk toward where you want to go, and hold fast to what you want.”
* * *
“Good heavens.”
After spending a long while studying the silvered slave mark with great seriousness, beast tamer Casio Drake finally slapped his knee and let out an admiring exclamation.
“This is incredible! Even the slave’s brand can be purified!”
“It’s dragon divine power.”
“Ohhh, I’d heard Winter Bell’s specialty was dealing with curses, of course, but actually seeing a priest purify one is another matter altogether. This is truly amazing, Priest!”
“Yes... well...”
By the time Casio and the other companions arrived after being summoned, the slave-binding spells on the Red Eye had already been purified away, leaving nothing behind.
Casio burned with academic zeal, saying it was the first time he had ever seen a priest’s purification power in person, while Seherbian listened to the admiration with one ear and let it out the other.
Through their midst, Airen finally appeared, carrying their bags with a leisurely air and waving them all onward.
“That’s enough gawking. We should be moving soon, shouldn’t we? Sir Casi.”
“Yes, boss!”
“You’re making Jack uncomfortable.”
The boy who had been a slave until only a few days ago was now named Jack.
The name came from jackdaw, the black-feathered crow.
Slaves were originally given no names, but Airen had thought a name was only proper if Jack was going to live as part of the Varzian from now on, and after some consideration he had given him that one.
Even after receiving a name, Jack still couldn’t quite feel his freedom, but he did remember one thing clearly: Airen had thrown himself into the sea to save him.
The open sea.
To swim across the vast Soltis Sea and return to the continent where he had once lived was madness.
And yet it had to be done.
He was a Red Eye, a slave bound to his master until the moment he died.
Even so, neither the instincts of a lowly slave nor the sorcery branded into the Red Eye could erase the fear of death entirely. At the very last moment, when the waves swept him away and he reached out toward the warped sun, it was Airen who had taken his hand.
In a life used to abandonment, Airen had been the first person to value his life without measuring it, to treat him as an equal.