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A Crumpled Red String Laced Around Our Throats - Chapter 7

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An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Words: 17940

Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,

“Did you hear about what happened to the Queen?”

“Such a tragedy… just when they were on their way to a meeting in Colluhira… do you think they made the trip to keep up appearances?”

“Perhaps. She hasn’t been in the public eye for years after all. I heard the castle is on lockdown. They haven’t even let the Liberora family leave.”

“No, you fool, that’s because the transportation station is undergoing maintenance.”

“If the worst truly comes to fruition, will Princess Hiumi be able to take over? The King has been absent recently as well…”

“She is going to have to. She has been taking her parents’ places in meetings as of late, such as the Liberora negotiation, so it isn’t out of the question. At least until the Prince becomes of soulmate age.”

“How many more years does he have anyways?”

“4 years I believe.”

“4 years, huh? To not have a mother and father during those crucial years… truly a tragedy, isn’t it?”

The words and chatter of the townspeople could be heard from every corner of the town, barely overshadowed by the laughter and play of unsupervised kids running across the paths. Occasionally, shop vendors yelled back some words of scorn, but the kids were already long gone past another building before they could hear it at all.

Funnily enough, those were the only two sounds that could be prominently heard, and the only two groups of people that continued their day normally. Besides them, silence permeated the air. Quick glances around from the townspeople showed their anxiety, and hushed whispers feigned empty concern. Their eyes could barely be seen, only directed either to the ground or to their conversation partner, who was likely family or their soulmate.

Bachira wondered for a moment if there was a need for him to be in disguise at all, since not a single person stared at him for longer than a second other than some vendors who did a double-take at an unfamiliar face. He grabbed the edges of his coat and covered part of his face with it.

At least the feeling of not being paid any attention was refreshing and allowed Bachira to freely move without concern and, in turn, express the worry that festered in his chest.

“Hyoma, wanna come with me to the town? I’ve been itching to get some fresh air.”

“No, I’m fine.”

“Are you sure? I’ll make sure we don’t get caught.”

“I told you, it’s fine. Just go on without me.”

Hyoma had said that, but he didn’t appear as calm as he pretended to. His fingers fumbled with the edges of his pillow while he read his book, and several times, he’d stare at a page for too long, turn to the next, then return and repeat the cycle.

“Was it really the right choice to leave him alone…?” Bachira mumbled to himself. A child brushed past his legs, giggling with blissful ignorance.

Maybe I should buy something for him…, he thought.

But just as he was considering what Hyoma would like, trying to recollect their conversations from the morning and staring at the rows of trinkets displayed in the booths lined up on either side of the busy market, another person brushed past him.

It was not a child, but a lady, just a few inches shorter than the disguise he had placed on himself, and she was covered in a cloak. Her pinkish red hair stuck out sorely from its dark color. Such a sight could be deemed suspicious by anyone if it weren’t for the infectious distraction that plagued the crowd. Even the guards weren’t fully focused, the few that were left after the order for nearly all of them to return to the castle was given.

Bachira looked back at the lady. She weaved through the middle of the crowd easily then went to the right edge of the path, consequently beside a booth with a significantly thicker crowd and a stressed vendor. Curious, Bachira walked a few steps forward to take a better look at her and, so quick that he hardly noticed, she stuck a hand out of her cloak, grabbed a fruit from the side of the vendor’s display, then tucked it back in. The next second, she was gone, disappearing into the dark alley between the buildings that the booths were stationed in front of.

No one noticed, and if she hadn’t brushed past him, he wouldn’t have either. Luckily, with so few guards, the chances of her getting caught are low. Guards are famously aggressive with thieves.

She’s probably trying to feed herself.

With that, Bachira decided to continue walking.

But doing so required him to discard the only interesting thing he encountered and be tossed back into the boring scene of the town. The suffocating attention of royal staff, guards, and enamoured townspeople was hard to stomach, but the atmosphere of the town felt even worse. It was difficult to ignore the passiveness of the people who walked the paths, not sparing a glance up, whose eyes averted when they saw a guard with yet another child, dragging them by the arm. Even among the crowds busy with people, an immeasurable distance was placed between everyone. This was a small town, relatively, but there was hardly a community.

There were simply swarms of people, trying to ignore the others’ existence.

Bachira looked up at the white sun cast directly overhead. It pressed weakly today.

It’s time to go back already…

“Hey you.”

Bachira felt a hand grab him. It was a guard. Luckily he was in disguise, so the guard didn’t recognize him as the prince. After all, he wasn’t even allowed to be out. The guard looked at him sternly.

“Soulmark, sir.”

“For what?”

“Routine inspection.”

“You’re not doing it to anyone else.” It was true. Bachira had seen this guard earlier in fact. He had felt his gaze. The guard was standing in his station, not moving in the slightest. He only moved to confront Bachira. Maybe he saw him following the woman. On that note, he looked back to see where she was but she was gone. Damn it.

Bachira also saw a few glances directed towards him. When he turned back, the soldier’s frown had only grown deeper.

“This is my last warning. Show me your soulmark or I will have to take you into custody.”

“Is that all? I would have thought a strong and big guard like yourself would have more than just a weak threat.”

Bachira gave the guard a grin that stretched from ear to ear.

“Maybe I’ll let you. If you take me in, would you let me see the sick Queen for myself?”

Anger flared in the guard’s eyes, clearly not appreciative of being mocked. Almost immediately, his hand went for his sword on his hip, the hand he had been holding Bachira’s shoulder with.

Bachira took advantage of his oversight and bolted into the crowd. He hunched over and ran under the sea of arms and heads intertwined in the mess. Some townspeople made a second glance but far too many of them were too distracted and too used to the running and playing of children in the square. At least for today. Bachira thanked the Gods for the guards’ impulsive resorts to violence, which went exactly as the rumors said. In the distance, the guard’s frustrated curses rang loudly but after just a few dozen feet, they faded into the commotion of noon.

Bachira laughed into the sky. This is what he loved. The wind pressing against his face and the destruction that proved his free will.

After running for a while and feeling himself run out of breath, he ducked into an alleyway to settle down. His heartbeat pulsed in his ears and adrenaline made his skin shiver in suspense. He took a few deep breaths then walked over to sit behind one of the town’s many abandoned buildings. The guards must be still far behind him, so he had a few minutes to savor.

However, just as he began to relax, a loud commotion erupted behind him. Then, an explosion followed.

“A monster!”

Bachira felt his blood run cold. A monster attack?, he thought. Today? At this hour? His ears, which still had adrenaline and his racing heartbeat pulsing inside it, were now filled with the screams of the townspeople, who knew this sight too well. Their desperate running shook the ground violently.

However, just as Bachira got up to help hold off the attack, his shoulders were seized again. A group of guards were with him now, but it might as well be copies of the same person. Stern eyes, shiny armor, big muscled body, and short/buzzed hair. At the same time, Bachira recognized the guard from before, the one he had mocked, standing amongst them, with the ghost of a smile on his face.

What the fuck are they doing? Why aren’t they helping defeat the monster?

Bachira wanted to run away but his feet stayed firmly on the ground. In fact, his whole body stayed stiff, frozen in the air. A freeze spell. Not a single guard took a glance back to the town roads and it was then that Bachira realized there were no more sounds of destruction, explosions, or roars from the monster itself. Only the screams and running of the townspeople.

There isn’t a monster. They set it all up, Bachira realized with a dry mouth. A child’s cry rippled through the air.

The guard from before started to walk towards him.

Then a thrash whipped through the air. The guard was gone and it was only when Bachira looked down that he saw his limp body on the ground. The other guards with him took a second to realize what happened before their stances went alert. They couldn’t spare a sympathetic glance for the fallen soldier. Their eyes snapped to dark spots behind the trees. All around them, they held their swords out to hold off the attacker.

“Come out before we-!”

Another thrash. Another limp body of a guard fell to the ground.

This time, though, the figure stayed in sight but a dark cloak covered them completely. They held a sword in their hand, dripping with the slightest amount of blood. Bachira realized they had stolen it from the first guard they attacked. A soft magic glow surrounded them.

The other guards had learned their lesson and charged towards the figure, but the figure was quicker. They impaled another guard, disappeared briefly, and went for another one.

Bachira, not able to move an inch, watched the figure zip across the air then disappear as if it was nothing.

A high-level invisibility spell. I can’t even sense them. This is the only kind of spell that royal family members can do. But this kingdom doesn’t have those kinds of demographics. I thought most people here have their soulmarks on their feet…?

In the blur of black the figure appears, a spot of pinkish red flashed for a brief second. A detail easy to miss except for those who had already seen it.

5 out of the 7 guards were down now, but just as the figure aimed for another, one took out a device. Bachira was not close enough to get a good look, but it seemed like the figure did. For as soon as it was pulled out, the figure vanished into thin air.

The two remaining guards, now having abandoned Bachira completely, looked up and down desperately for the figure. Both of their backs turned against him and it was then that a pair of hands grasped Bachira’s shoulders. His body was tugged away and the world went with it.

When Bachira opened his eyes, there was not a dark forest or two measly guards, but a lake. It was a large lake, colored a deep sky blue. Trees surrounded it, but they were not a wilted dead color like the ones near the town. These were the brightest green Bachira had ever seen, with foliage that merely grazed the sky. He reached to touch them and noticed the movement in his body that had been restored to him. He touched his hand, legs, arms, and head. Each movement was polished and new.

Bachira blinked and looked around. The person was with him and sure enough, it was the woman he had seen in town. Her hood was down, revealing her rose-colored hair that reached her neck. She was a few feet away, sat on a log, putting something away in her bag that rested in front of her.

The woman didn’t spare him a glance, but that didn’t stop Bachira from staring at her in awe. Guards in Colluhira were especially vicious, at least compared to the ones back home. Not many townspeople have the courage to fight back against one, nor the capabilities to do high-level magic. Yet she took them down like they were nothing. Bachira had never even heard of her.

What was her name? Where is her soulmark? How much more magic does she know? Bachira wanted to ask so many questions, enough to give him goosebumps, but when he opened his mouth, a shiver ran down his spine instead. The aura of this woman, he quickly realized, was not what he initially thought. It was dark, murky, and sticky. It was so foul that if he didn’t have the ability to protect himself from it, he would throw up on the spot. There was something wrong with this woman.

There was only one possibility he could think of, but the thought stifled the excitement in his throat.

“Are you a monster?” he asked.

The woman stopped. She had walked away and was already halfway to the forest line, but upon hearing Bachira’s words, she remained silent and still.

Bachira’s heartbeat quickened. The danger of what he just said dawned on him and immediately, he got into the position to defend himself. It was something his magic instructor had taught him just recently. In this stance, if she disappeared or stepped closer to him, he was prepared to fire a spell on the spot.

But as he did, his mind whirled with questions. After all, although he was the one who asked, it still made little sense to him. He had witnessed this woman do magic, and high-level magic at that. His gut was telling him this was a monster, but a monster shouldn’t be able to do magic. It was one of their defining characteristics. They lacked a soulmark, so they lacked magic. They were inhuman.

Yet this woman did a high-level spell multiple times, which is only possible for either royal family members or gifted specialists.

But the most unbelievable part of it all…

“Are you going to turn me in?” she asked. She turned around and held her bag, full of food, close to her side.

…was the fact that monsters were cruel and ruthless, yet this woman had saved him and had stolen food to feed herself.

Bachira, the normally talkative and cheerful child, remained silent for a moment. “No,” he finally said. “No, I’m not. I was also sneaking out. I’m not who I appear to be either.”

What gave Bachira confidence to not be afraid was not the fact that this woman had saved him nor that his hypothesis was inconsistent with basic knowledge about monsters. But rather, he knew that if this woman attacked him, despite her capabilities, he was more than powerful enough to utterly defeat her.

So he smiled at her nonchalantly.

Her eyes were stern, but not cold. They had an air of indifference. She looked him up and down and her expression softened. For a second, Bachira noticed inexplicable kindness in her eyes. He stayed on alert but allowed himself to speak freely once again.

“You stayed because you wanted to make sure I was safe, didn’t you?”

The woman did not say a word.

“I appreciate it,” he continued. “They had me cornered so there wasn’t much I could do. I didn’t expect them to stage a whole monster attack though just to catch me. They go to such lengths when their egos are hurt. What’s your name, again? I’d like to remember it to give you my eternal gratitude.”

The woman stayed quiet once again but this time, she looked up to look Bachira in the eyes. “You make yourself look older as a disguise, but you’re young, aren’t you?” she finally said. “You’re no older than a teenager.”

“...So?”

“Don’t put yourself in dangerous situations. It is the job of adults to protect you.”

Her words made Bachira stop. He wasn’t completely sure in his judgement of this woman, but hearing it be confirmed so firmly made him smile wider. He giggled a bit. A kind person really can never hide their kindness. Even if their care is misguided.

“Adults? You don’t have to worry about me, I can defend myself. I appreciate it though! Unlike everyone else, I can feel you really mean that.”

“It does not matter whether you can defend yourself. You still need adults to protect you.”

Admittedly, annoyance began to seep into him, but he kept his smile nonetheless. If anything, it was intriguing. He was hearing the same words spitted out to him for the thousandth time and each time, they made it sound like they were words of comfort, not condescension.

“If I can defend myself, why should adults need to protect me?”

“Because you are the child and they are the adult. Children should never be put in danger.”

“So if I wish to fight back, I should let adults do it for me? Should I stand by and do nothing at all?”

“You will have plenty of time to fight back at the proper age.”

Bachira’s hand twitched. “The proper age? And when is that? When I am 18, stuck with a soulmate for the rest of my life? When I am in the same position you and every other adult are in, compliant and fearful? Why should I trust adults who still live in nothing but fear? So you can tell me to sit quietly and accept that this is just the way things are? To only fight back against what I deem easy enough to fight so I can feel comfort in what I have no control over? Just because you adults have subjected yourself to your fate, you expect me to sit by and accept my own.”

Only when Bachira stopped to take a breath did he realize he was shaking, but he continued anyway.

“All of you are the same. You’re all cowards. If I have to live by any will other than my own, I’d rather die by my own hands.”

Bachira didn’t want to look at the eyes of the woman anymore. The kind eyes that were so ready to tell him to sit by and accept it, even if she was the one who saved him from the guards. If he did, he would spiral into hopelessness that so often marked the death of free will. He hated it. He despised it. These chains that bind him to the ground. He didn’t even want to go back to the castle anymore. There is nothing more he wished than to run far far away, from civilization, from judgement and conformity and order, from the comfort that only lies.

However, he did not get a chance to do anything at all. For before he could let out a breath, he felt himself hit the ground hard.

All of the air was sucked out of his lungs. His vision became dotted and splotchy and prominently, he felt a tightness squeeze around his neck. It took a second for him to realize it was hands and another second to recognize the dark blob above him as the face of the woman. She hardly looked human anymore. Her eyes, once warm, were filled with the ferocity of a beast, tearing into its prey.

His body was no longer his. It thrashed and banged the ground. It screamed for help in pain, but Bachira could not speak or move to help it. The taste of metal was too loud on his tongue and a ringing drenched his ears.

In a moment of desperation, he gasped for air, but nothing came in. Instead, a violent sound erupted from his throat.

The pressure on his neck ceased. All at once, air stormed into his lungs and Bachira coughed painfully. His heartbeat raced in his ears and his body shook violently where he sat, completely unwillingly.

“No.. No, I’m.. I-didn’t mean..”

The woman’s voice.

The ringing of his ears had departed and when Bachira looked up, his blurry vision focused on the woman standing in front of him. Her ferocity was gone, utterly gone. In its place, an expression contorted into disbelief and hopelessness took over, and when her eyes landed on him, it turned into earth-crashing guilt and horror.

“...Kunigami. I…”

The woman slammed her hand onto her mouth and her eyes were immensely wide.

She fled into the forest, pulling her hood over her head and grabbing the bag by the log. Bachira didn’t even have time to recover and call after her. She was gone in mere seconds. However, something had dropped from her bag. Something long, thin, and pointed.

Bachira coughed again and clutched his neck in pain as he moved to stand up. The imprint of her hands lingered still. Staggering, he went over to see what she had dropped.

It was a stick. The texture was soft and rubbery and it ran the length of his forearm. One end was thinner than the other and ran up to a dull point.

What is this? Bachira coughed again, but despite his daze, he clutched the stick close to him. He settled to return to the castle, not only because Yuu was probably waiting for him, but because he knew the libraries there were expansive. There must be something there that could tell him what this item was.

Bachira looked around at his location. He spotted a tower nearby, an abandoned guard tower. If he snuck to the top with his invisibility spell, he’d be able to find a path back to the castle with the bird’s eye view. But first, he needed to disguise the bruise that was likely present on his neck and to do so, he needed to gather his energy.

Bachira took a few steps forward, settling on the best walk pattern that wouldn’t drain even more energy out of him, and started his journey back.

However, his confrontation with the woman continued to linger in his mind and most importantly, the look in her eyes. It endlessly confused him and planted seeds of doubt into his previous knowledge. Admittedly, he was ready to discard his previous hypothesis that she was a disguised monster. Not only did it not make any sense, but the woman was so kind. It was more like he refused to believe it. Even if his gut told him otherwise.

But there was no doubt about it. Those eyes that were above him, choking him, they were inhuman. They were a monster’s eyes. But if that was the case, why did she save him? Why was she so insistent to change his mind and show him comfort and why, most importantly, did she become violent so quickly? It was like something in her snapped that dissipated all of the warmth she emulated.

Bachira didn’t know the answer and the more he thought, the more upset he became. So he aggressively shook his head and bit his lip hard.

But he couldn’t get the sight out of his head. Not of her beastly eyes, not of her dark figure that resembled that of a predator, not of the pressure he still faintly felt on his neck. But most importantly, he could not forget the sight of her afterwards.

For her hopeless horrified eyes were just as human as the townspeople’s screams those guards were so quick to utilize to their advantage.

~

When Bachira arrived at the castle, as suspected, guards swarmed the area. Their uniformity to behave like ants would be chilling if it wasn’t expected and amusing to the boy. Heads turned side to side then monotone marching in a line. It appeared oddly similar to the training done for the guard apprentices, which combined with the Queen’s state, Bachira wouldn’t be surprised if it was given as the excuse for this ordeal.

But he didn’t need to worry about the guards. Just the other day, during Hyoma’s tour, he spotted something curious in the garden’s fence. He snuck around the perimeter of the castle through the forest and after what felt like an eternity, he finally arrived at the bed of flowers and plants. In the far edge of the garden, the fence had a small, mouse-sized hole at the bottom of it.

Normally, teleportation into the castle would be child’s play, even with its weak magic barrier. He had even tested this the other day, when Hyoma was distracted. The castle of Colluhira wasn’t too different from the castle of Liberora. However, Bachira realized earlier that morning the barrier was stronger than usual. The castle lockdown restricted magic use inside significantly, even for royalty. The only people who could break through would likely be the one who had placed it.

So he was left with this option. The mouse-sized hole before him.

Bachira gathered a bit of magic in his hand. For him, he preferred to create a visual for his magic, even if it was not technically visible. Therefore, his favorite spell was by far were Illusio spells, or spells that manipulated one’s senses to create the illusion of something that was not there. It played with the eyes of humans and the nerves on their skin to create the sight and touch of something nonexistent. As a result, although magic was technically invisible and used the life energy of the user, in Bachira’s hands, his magic was sticky and a warm yellow and dripped in his hands.

He moved his magic in the air like a liquid and drenched himself in it. But he didn’t make it wet. The spell draped over him and the illusion of a disguise was created to transform him from a boy of average height to the size of a mouse. He had turned his magic from an illusio spell to a robur spell: robuata.

He snuck under the fence through the hole and kept his tiny form as he scurried over to the castle, through the ever so tiny crack of the entrance he left open. As expected, guards were still stationed in front of the door, but due to his illusio spell, they couldn’t see that the door was slightly ajar. It wasn’t until Bachira squirmed his way through and knocked the door closed behind him that he lifted the spell, and the two guards jolted in surprise at the bang of the heavy door closing. Bachira giggled.

He ran across the hallway, overrun with guards and officials, until he got to one of the servant’s passageways. He quickly snuck into the hidden space and undid the spell. It took him several minutes to catch his breath. Should’ve used an Illusio spell for the running part, he thought wearily to himself, Robuata always takes so much energy….

“So this is how you’ve been sneaking off.”

Bachira jumped in surprise.

He turned around to find Yuu standing right behind him, leaning against the wall. She had a disapproving look on her face and her hair was tied up behind her. She wore an unfamiliar dress, likely one she had to borrow from the extensive guest wardrobe. “We’re leaving later this afternoon,” she said, closing her eyes with a sigh. “So do not get yourself in any more trouble.”

“They fixed the station already?” Bachira blurted out.

“The damage was minor. You’re lucky your stunt didn’t ruin it any further.”

Ah, she figured me out.

However, instead of responding with anger, Yuu simply sighed again. She stepped closer to place a hand on Bachira’s head and ruffled his hair. “You know, you could have just told me you wanted to stay longer.” Her hand moved down to rest on his shoulder and her thumb rubbed in circles.

Bachira quickly realized how tired he truly was and moved to lean against her. Her body was warm and comforting, like a sun trapped in a blanket. “I know,” he said.

Yuu stayed silent for a moment.

“I know the world feels unfair,” she finally said. “But it would be easier if you let us help you. You’re not alone, Meguru. If you ever need anything, I’m right here, okay?”

A pressure squeezed itself into Bachira’s throat. Tension wrapped around his chest. His mind returned to the sight of just an hour ago, the woman in the cloak whose words didn’t match her expression and eyes changed appearances. His own words, while freeing before, only manifested as a pit in the bottom of his stomach. He couldn’t look Yuu in the eyes, so he shifted his eyes down, and nodded silently.

But the weight didn’t ease. He caught sight of Yuu’s soulmark, located on the base of her neck, and the chain that disappeared to her back as it connected it to the soulmark of her soulmate. Although the sight of it was unavoidable, Bachira had never liked looking at it.

Because his soulmark was in the same spot and most likely, he would have the same drawing of that chain magically appear the day of his soul ceremony. It was a reminder of the future that has been laid out for him, an unavoidable fate in which he’d have to fight the world itself to defeat.

He pressed his head against it.

If I wanted to go against the world, would you help me?

Those were the words Bachira wanted more than anything to say. He would have blurted it out, if it weren’t for the lump trapped in his throat.

Suddenly, the secret door to the servants’ passageway creaked open. A young servant boy entered, but as soon as he spotted Yuu and Bachira, his face went red. He quickly scurried behind them, throwing words of apologies under his breath.

“Well,” Yuu said, clearing away the tension in the air, “how was it? Did you have fun with the Chigiri prince yesterday? Hyoma, I believe his name was?”

Finally, Bachira drew a chuckle. “Yeah.. He’s fun! Different from the kids back home. He showed me all around the castle, and even to a garden just like the one back home. He was even able to get along with Isagi! Isn’t that crazy?”

“The guard boy? Ah, he is always serious, isn’t he? I’m still skeptical that this ‘radiant laugh’ you claim he has is actually real, I have never seen the boy so much as smile.”

“He does! I’ll make him laugh next time you see him, just wait.”

“Hehe, alright, alright. Just don’t make fun of him, okay?”

“Now why would I do that~”

Yuu laughed and she patted Bachira on the head once more. She leaned her weight against him. Although she is normally more relaxed and carefree than the heads of many other royal families, it is only with her family that she’d show this side of herself. Her love was infectious, and although she loved her soulmate very much, her greatest pride rested in her son. “Smile, my Meguru,” she said. “Life is too wonderful not to.” It was a saying of hers she loved to say.

So, Bachira smiled and laughed with her.

“I’m happy you had fun,” Yuu said. “Don’t forget to thank Hyoma for being with you before we leave, okay? I’m going to go to a meeting so please, stay in Hyoma’s room. Or the guest bedroom. Or just anywhere that is not the halls.”

“Can’t make any promises~”

“Well, you better.” She kissed Bachira on the forehead and exited the passageway out of the servants’ door.

“....’kay.” Bachira finally said. The woman’s stick was still hidden under his shirt, poking into his ribs. Right, he realized. That was what I was doing…

He pondered over his options. Maybe he should do what Yuu said and go back to Hyoma’s room. He could find some books about magic items there on his bookshelf. He knew the castle had a library, but from what Hyoma told him, it was not accessible through the servants’ passageway he was in now.

Plus, he felt the need to check up on Hyoma, just to see how he was doing.

He turned around away from the servants’ secret door and faced the endless halls of where the servants snuck about. It looked like a labyrinth, in which the few servants’ that were allowed out of their rooms tiptoed quickly on their way.

Bachira instinctively gathered some magic in his hand to perform a spell that would help him navigate his way through the passageways, but found that nothing appeared. Ah, right, the magic barrier, he thought. So he resigned himself to simply finding his way on his own. However, when he was about to turn his first corner, a head of pink hair obstructed his vision. The figure yelped.

Bachira stumbled back, then rubbed his eyes to clear his vision. “Hyocchi?”

Hyoma was standing by one of the passageways, just hidden away from his sight a few minutes ago. The bags under his eyes were more pronounced and his posture made him seem smaller, although Bachira didn’t know if that was just his own eyes tricking him. But what stood out to him the most was the desolate murkiness in Hyoma’s aura, one that dripped to the ground and wholly new. It was so sad, Bachira felt like he was going to cry. But the aura disappeared almost as soon as he noticed it and Chigiri stood up straighter like it never existed.

“Ah, Meguru…”

“Woah, I didn’t see you there at all, sorry! Were you planning on sneaking out too?”

Chigiri shook his head. He was quiet and his movements were off. It didn’t take a genius magic user to see it. But Bachira kept his mouth shut and smiled, opting instead to observe closely. It was not his place to comment on it. Yet, he couldn’t shake off a question that popped into his head, one that lingered even after Chigiri offered to show him the way back and kept the murkiness he sensed earlier at the forefront of his mind.

How long had he been standing there…?

When they arrived, Bachira plopped down on the rug. His own bedroom back home was much bigger, but Hyoma’s had a homier atmosphere. It was very well-kept and organized, whereas his was constantly littered from top to bottom. In the middle of the room, where the bed, drawers, and desk were pushed to the walls, a huge rug with an intricate design of the kingdom’s seal laid across the floor. It was as soft as a blanket, so Bachira laid back on it, only to be reminded of the stick that poked painfully into his stomach.

He sat back up and looked around. Chigiri had sat back on his bed, the same position that Bachira had seen him before he left, and picked up the book he was reading from his nightstand. In front of the bed, next to where Bachira was sitting, a wide bookshelf stood tall with many books from different topics. But the one Bachira was the most concerned with, and the one that was coincidentally right at eye-level, was the section on magic items.

He shuffled over and picked out a leather book with gold-colored lettering on its spine titled “Spell Tools: A Centrubian Guide on Soul-Enhancing Equipment”. He began to gloss over the table of contents.

I sense a magic aura from this stick, so it must be a magic item. But I’ve never heard of an item that a monster could use. It must function without a soulmark. There are only a few categories of items capable of that, so it must be one of-

“Meguru, are you planning on getting your soulmate?”

Bachira, who was moving his fingers across the spines of the books, stopped. For a few seconds, the room stayed deathly still until Bachira chuckled softly. “What are you talking about, Hyocchi? Everyone already has a soulmate.”

“You know that’s not what I mean.”

“Then what do you mean?”

“I’m asking you. Are you going to accept your soulmate?”

“That’s like asking if I can accept that the sun will rise and fall in the evening. Even if I don't, it will happen anyway.”

“And you’ll let it?”

“Do you know of a better alternative?”

Chigiri didn’t have a response. Bachira kept his eyes on the book but shifted them upwards ever so slightly to see Chigiri’s expression. Like most royalty, it was as guarded as ever. So he decided to push a little further.

“How about you, Hyocchi? Do you want to get a soulmate?”

Not expecting an immediate response, Bachira began to read through the first category he chose. Obice items. The word was taken right from the category of obice spells, spells involving barriers. They are typically used by young kids whose soulmarks are not yet fully formed, so they require very little magic energy.

But as soon as he began to skim the page, to his surprise, Chigiri spoke.

“I don’t know. I don’t know if I have a choice in the end. If our emotions are created by our souls and our souls bind us to our soulmate, they say that whether we like it or not, love will blossom at our soul ceremony. It doesn’t matter if I hate it right now… I’ll forget it all once the time comes. If that’s true, then does anything I feel or think right now truly matter in the end…? Why did the Gods give us free will if the meaning of turning 18 is to give up our desires and feelings for what he has planned for us…? Is my only choice to live and accept that this is just the way things are? If love can only exist in this way… I wish to never experience it…”

Chigiri trailed off, and Bachira couldn’t find any words to respond. Silence draped over the room as Chigiri’s words lingered in the air, the danger of which wouldn’t be realized by him for a couple more seconds. The only sounds present were the chirping of birds the wind carried and the tapping of water droplets left by the rain of the previous night.

Through the glass door of the balcony, sun rays which were previously blocked by the cloudy sky streamed into the room. A part of it hit the side of Chigiri’s face, as he continued staring at his book, his eyes faraway and misty. Bachira watched it, the way the sun reflected off him, because he knew that it was the Gods’ way of responding to his statement.

Finally, the realization caught up to Chigiri and his cheeks grew a deep red blush. He buried himself deeper into the bed, blocking Bachira’s sight with his book. Now, only his soulmark was in view because of the low-rim collar: a pink bird trapped in his skin.

“Ah, sorry, I got carried away,” he mumbled. “Forget what I said.”

Bachira tightened his hands around his book.

“Are you scared, Hyoma?”

Chigiri didn’t say anything for a minute before he shrugged and lowered the book slightly, revealing his gaze to be directed at the wall. “Was it that obvious?”

Once again, Bachira noticed the smallness of Chigiri’s expression, its vulnerability, and he was taken again to that moment in the forest earlier that day, of the expression the woman in the cloak held. When she saved him, she had a similar face. Only now, Bachira recognized it as fear.

It is the job of adults to protect you. Such words were spoken by someone who was afraid, but it was because of their fear that they said it. How many adults had this feeling engraved in their soul and voice and he hadn’t noticed it? How often had he felt it himself? Yet, in every instance he thought back on, from the woman in the cloak saying an unknown name to the tension he experienced himself to Yuu holding him close, they all had a common denominator.

“Do you have someone you love?” Bachira asked.

Chigiri jolted and looked up. The expression, that fear, expanded tenfold, and suddenly Bachira felt the need to clarify what he meant.

“Is it your family? Friends?”

His expression only loosened slightly. Chigiri closed his book and set it on his nightstand. He sat up.

“Why does that matter?”

“You can only be afraid if you have something to lose.”

“Then tell me yours. If you tell me who you love, I’ll tell you mine.”

“That’s easy, I love Yuu, my dad, Isagi, the townspeople here, the townspeople back home, those servants who are clumsy but try their best, the flowers in the garden, the sky, the wind..”

“You love things too easily.”

“If I can choose who I love now, why wouldn’t I choose to love everything?”

The sun rays disappeared under the clouds again. Chigiri only looked bewildered, as if he was told something he had never thought of before. Or something he couldn’t believe. Now with his newfound knowledge, Bachira recognized sadness, fear and, to his surprise., a tinge of envy in his soul.

“So tell me, Hyocchi, how about you? I already told you mine.”

“...not telling.”

“What? But you promised!”

“Yeah, well I lied. It’s your fault for trusting me. Do you regret it?”

Bachira groaned and leaned back on the wall. “No, of course I don’t. If you don’t want to say, that’s fine. But…” He gave a mischievous smile. “In exchange, you have to help me sneak back into the garden.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because if you don’t, I’ll tell your sister that you hid a forbidden book on your shelves.”

“How did you-?!”

Bachira stood up and waved the book in his hands in the air. Chigiri got up and lunged for it, but Bachira danced around to successfully keep it out of his reach. He laughed at his struggles.

“All books with any mention of Anima spells are forbidden from the 12 kingdoms, did you know? I’m assuming you did, based on your reaction. But don’t worry, I won’t say a thing.” Chigiri reached for it one more time but Bachira swerved around, leaving Chigiri to fall to the floor.

He let out a heavy sigh and scratched his head, “Fine, I’ll do it, just hide it away and don’t tell anyone, also…” He looked up at Bachira. “You know what Anima spells are?”

“Huh? Well, yeah? My teacher knows everything you can imagine about magic and he showed me everything he knew. Though, I guess I don’t blame you, since they’ve done a real good job of hiding these types of spells. You were researching it?”

Chigiri nodded. “Ages ago. But this book didn’t tell me much, only that some weapons were made with Anima spells and they were forbidden as a result.”

Bachira hummed. “Well, that’s because they’re soul spells. Only the most skilled magic users can do them and they have caused many tragedies because of how they can mess with your soul and soulmark. One wrong move and you can even sever your tie with your soulmate forever and turn into a monster.” He opened the book and flipped through it. “That’s what they say at least.”

“Right…” Chigiri said in a low voice.

“Anyways, mind if I keep this?”

“No, it’s the only book about it I have.”

“Come on, please? I can show you where to find more.”

Chigiri's eyes widened. “...Really?”

“Yeah, there are many underground markets where you can find books and items like these in. I’ll tell you my secrets, but first, you have to fulfill your end of the deal.” He waved the book around teasingly.

“...Alright.”

“Great! Now let’s go!” He held the book close to his chest, resolved to shrink it and put it in his pocket once he was outside in the garden. After all, the magic barrier only prevented new spells from being casted, not existing ones.

Bachira grabbed Chigiri's arm to lift him from the ground and went to the door. But as he did, Chigiri stopped. He turned back around, confused.

“Hyocchi?”

“Oh, um, it’s nothing. Sorry.”

Bachira wanted to push further, but kept his mouth enough. He had already pestered him enough. But as the two exited his bedroom and entered the servant’s door that was right next to it, he couldn’t help but notice Chigiri gaze being focused elsewhere. On the hall that stretched to the left. A brigade of guards turned away from them stood in place by a distant door.

It must be the Queen’s door, Bachira realized. The one who’s…

He looked again at Chigiri. His face was hidden away, but when Bachira squeezed his hand, Chigiri squeezed it back.

~

Tei tightened her grip on her left side.

She staggered forward and eventually limped against a nearby tree, only now starting to feel the effects of the fatigue on her body from over an hour of running. Her breaths came out cold as if they were desperately trying to escape her. Fatigue had become unfamiliar to her in her many years as a monster, but the sense of humanity it instilled onto her served as nothing more than a taunt. She had run as hard as she could, but it was no use. The face of that boy, whose youth shone even through his disguise of an older man, was etched into her mind, no matter how much she tried to claw it out.

Her own reaction puzzled her. She was not unfamiliar with terrified gazes. It occurred all the time when she first died and turned into a monster, back when she was still unable to control her form. But now, another memory has taken over the sight.

For she saw nothing else but Kunigami’s terrified face over 7 years ago upon their first meeting, innocent and bare. The memory invoked guilt and debilitated her, making her knees weak and stealing her rationality as she instinctually did all she could to dissipate it. Desperation made its home at the end of her last rope to humanity. The terrified gazes she’d collected only fueled it.

Yet guilt and desperation could only carry so many tears before their exit was exhausted and their only option became to bubble up inside her chest. Until they became a crashing river smashing the sides of her veins, pulling the tide of her mind along with it. This sensation was what she knew intimately as anger.

Anger at the lies allowed to fester, anger at the soldiers who deny those deemed beneath them their personhood, at the townspeople who claim virtue while turning a blind eye. The waves rumbled in her stomach until her body trembled with its undirected stream. Her journey into the town to search for information only further proved to her the mistake her existence was and the tears that continued to well her mind dripped into a vision of red swallowing her sight.

She looked down. It had been well over an hour, and her hands were still shaking. The sensation of the boy’s neck being wrung had stained her palms and fingers. Everyone must be able to see it. They were stains that could never be washed off.

Tei’s breath grew colder.

“Stand back!”

In her daze, she perked up. Soldiers. More terrified gazes.

No, not terrified. They were sadistic. Small devils the Gods could not hold at bay. Devils with spears and skins of red, stain-filled, and wings of eyes they’ve collected for display. She was deemed a monster, yet these creatures were allowed to roam free. It did not matter those they hurt; human they remained. Let off the hook so easily, only subjected to averted gazes. If they killed, it would be deemed a mistake. None of them were subject to the same scrutiny, the same punishment, the same death of a life.

Even for the one who had killed her, it was she who now reaped the punishment.

The devils scurried towards her. So small, she thought. Her breaths grew colder and deeper. The land the tides of her river smashed against grew three times the size. The devils scrambled, throwing their spears upwards towards her only for it to result in a pinch on her skin. The wind grazed her back beneath the scornful sun.

All of the stormy waves that had welled up inside thrashed in the movement of her arms. Tearing against the trees and tiny devils poking her legs. Her breath which was once trapped in her throat could be let out easily now, into a roar that carried its own winds. Even the beat of the blood in her veins calmed. She could breathe and in doing so, she realized that she never knew how clearly she could see in a sea of red.

The squirming of the devils slowed, their spears exhausted. Their red skin painted the ground. A sense of relief blossomed in her chest and she laughed heartily. The hateful sun could not reach her face down. She surveyed the ground again, picking apart little devils whose lesson had not yet been learned, until a strange color appeared in her vision.

Among the sea of red, she saw a head of orange. The head was looking at her, eyes wide, their mouth moving. She took a step closer to take a better look, but the figure stepped back. Their wide eyes were enveloped in fear. Yet, their movements remained so kind.

It is you, she realized. Why… Why is it always with you that I…?

Immediately, all of her strength left her body and along with it, her tear-dropped sight. The devils turned back into humans and Tei could see the ground return beneath her. There were pieces of monster sludge left around her; she had turned into her monster form without even realizing it.

And sure enough, there was Kunigami, a few feet away, running towards her. Her body couldn’t even stand. So she allowed herself to fall and waited for Kunigam to swiftly catch her. When he did, she found his heartbeat and relaxed to its racing tune.

“Tei?! What happened, are you okay?!” He shook her slightly but kept his grip on her shoulders tight. “Are you hurt?”

As he examined her, Tei looked around. Soldiers littered the ground. There must be almost a dozen of them, turning the dirt crimson around them. All of them mangled beyond recognition. But Tei didn’t feel her blood run cold at the sight of them. Her breath remained calm.

“Was it me.. who killed them all?” She asked, but she knew the answer. She looked up to see Kunigami’s expression, which was twisted into an unrecognizable and unknown emotion.

“I’m sure… you had a good reason for it… they must've threatened you right? All you did was protect yourself, so…” His eyes didn’t meet hers, nor the sight of the soldiers. Tei wondered if he was disgusted at her at this moment, but she brushed away the thought. Kunigami was kind and honest at heart. He was trying to protect her, both from his judgement and herself.

“You are a good boy, Kunigami,” she mumbled. “Always trying to save everyone.”

Tei took a step back, away from Kunigami’s grip, only for her to stumble backwards. Kunigami rushed to catch her, but she held her arm up between them. Then the severity of his kindness struck her and she crumbled into her hands.

“I don’t know what is wrong with me…. This world.. It has poisoned me,” she then looked up and grabbed Kunigami’s hand. “But you, you must stay kind, Kunigami. You must make this all right.”

His gaze wavered on her, shaking. He didn’t say anything. She could only feel his squirming hand beneath her rough grasp.

“Please… Stay pure for the two of us.”

“Tei-”

“And if you find someone you love, let that be the start of your life. At least let it be you…” Her eyes drifted down to her hands holding his and upon seeing his pale fingers, she quickly let go. Her breath quickened, but she forced her mouth shut.

“No, no I shouldn’t put this all on you. Oh god, what am I doing? Please forgive me, Kunigami. I truly am horrible, putting this on your shoulders. None of this is your fault. All I ask is that you are happy, but I’m poisoning you. I’m sorry… Forgive me, Kunigami, please forgive me.” Tei said nothing now and simply held her hands close to her chest, refusing to look up. She was painfully aware of how pitiful she looked, how laughable it would be to call her a responsible adult whilst crying to a child. Her mind was taken back to the boy from the town and how she wished she could take back everything she said. He was right; she was no better.

Kunigami, the kind soul he was, placed a hand on her back and grabbed her hand to keep her steady.

“Let’s go back,” he said quietly.

Tei only nodded, trying to ignore how his voice cracked at the very end.

Before they left, Kunigami insisted on burying the fallen soldiers. Tei watched as, after she dug out the holes in her monster form, he lowered the bodies carefully and covered them up, then placed flowers on top. For exactly 3 minutes, he sat in front of the makeshift graves, his eyes closed and hands together in front of him. Tei watched how the sun perfectly hit his face and hands.

It only took an hour or so to arrive back at the trunk. The sun was still at its same place on top of the sky, beating cruelly down on the grassy area. The serenity of the clearing had always served as a safe haven, yet now, its silence only reminded Tei of much she didn’t belong there. The leaves of the trees dropped down around the exterior, some grazing her back as she stepped forward. The warmth of Kunigami’s hand also felt familiar. It reminded her of the warmth of a newborn child.

Tei went over to the trunk and sat down on the grass. She leaned her head back against the bark and faced upward to watch the sky. Only midday, but the sun was already tired. It turned away from her, shuffled over to hide above the clouds, and Tei could only smile in response. She was acutely aware of Kunigami’s concerned stare, so she closed her eyes as the wind blew in her face.

“I’ll be fine here, Kunigami. Just taking some time to breathe. Go off, go play. You don’t have to watch me like I’m about to die.”

She kept her eyes close and as she expected, the sounds of footsteps going away from her never arose. Still, a part of her hoped that he’d have changed even if it were for this single moment.

“I’m not a child,” he said. “So… you can tell me if there’s anything wrong.”

A kind invitation. He opened a path in front of her, one he invited her to take but didn’t grab her hand to force her into. However, the kindness only made Tei take another step back.

She shook her head. “I was just tired. My fatigue got the better of me, so I was not thinking straight. Do not worry about me, all is fine now.”

Kunigami's expression showed that he still didn’t believe her and although Tei recognized his hesitance, she truly thought, for just a moment, that he truly would let her be. That he would leave her to be alone to forge his own life and like that, love would escape her again. She was ready to accept it as well, which is why she closed her eyes and laid her hand on her ankle before trailing her fingertips up to her thigh. The place where her soulmark used to be so many years ago. In those brief seconds, Tei wondered if her soulmate was dead already and if she would join them next. The thought made her realize how much she truly wished she would.

However, instead of hearing footsteps walk away from her, she felt a weight lean against the tree trunk. Kunigami had sat next to her and although he kept his distance, his gaze forward stayed steady and confident.

“I’ll stay with you,” he said. No shakiness, no nervousness, no cracks. Just a heavy voice, rolling over the horizon. “It’s lonely… when you don’t have anyone else around.”

Tei’s mind took her back to the boy of that morning, his disguise melting into his tiny body beneath her and his throat that she could cup easily with one hand. He must’ve been no older than Kunigami and because of that, she thought of him as a mere child. But that fear and desperation that defined the 7-year old she first met years ago is no longer anywhere to be seen in the boy in front of her now. How foolish she was, Tei realized, for equating the two to be the same.

She stared at him. For how long, she didn’t know. It was like she was waiting for time to catch up and for a stranger to appear before her. However, Kunigami stayed in the same spot, watching the sky, his arms folded on top of his legs, close to chest, his hand squeezing his upper arm.

If Tei hadn’t known any better, she would have been surprised that Kunigami had grown up so quickly before her eyes. But the truth was, her eyes have not been on him. She had pretended they were so that she could forgive herself for turning the other way and wallowing in her own pity, her own hatred. Because of her isolation, she didn’t have a chance to see Kunigami grow up. But now that he was before her, the weight of all those missed years began to pile on her body, on her shoulders, on her mind. It entangled in her throat until she felt a lump through which she couldn’t speak.

The two sat in silence while hundreds of heartbeats passed.

Tei was the first to break it.

“Why do you think monsters exist?”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Kunigami’s head make a sharp turn in her direction. Her hands fiddled with the overgrown grass by her thigh.

“I think,” she continued. “The Gods kept us alive as punishment. A reminder of their control over us. No matter how much we try, we can not escape the fate they’ve decided. Either we return to our soulmate to pass peacefully or…” She turned to Kunigami. His gaze wavered on her until he noticed and his eyes trailed down her face. A part of her cheek had turned into sludge. “We live to become hideous beasts.”

“Tei-”

“It’s fine. I just feel tired, so this form is harder to keep. That is what happens when you stubbornly stay alive as long as I did.” She laughed softly and raised her hand to her cheek. In a few seconds, it returned back to normal.

She returned her gaze to the sky, to where the clouds painted white into blue. A gust of wind passed through, hitting harshly against her face.

Kunigami finally spoke.

“How did you..die?” He said the final word quietly, as if he was afraid of it.

“...I had a soulmate,” Tei replied. “But he was nothing everyone said a soulmate would be. He couldn’t have cared less about me, yet I foolishly stayed, hoping and praying there was something there. That the Gods were right.

“Then a soldier killed me. While I was shopping in the market. My body was thrown into the forest. When I woke up, it took me weeks to find the village again. But when I returned, everyone had already forgotten. My soulmate had already thrown all my belongings away. It was like I was never there at all.”

“What about your family?” Kunigami asked.

“...When your soulmate is revealed, you are no longer a child. Family then becomes no longer a right.”

“Oh…”

Feeling the tense atmosphere, Tei reached over for her bag. She shuffled through the contents until she reached the very bottom, where a particular food had been stored with the most protection. It was an orange.

Kunigami, who had been watching her, stared at the orange while Tei smiled. She handed it out towards him. “It reminded me of you. Funny, right?”

She kept her hand out until Kunigami, with hesitance, reached out to hold it in his hands. He moved to bite into it.

“Not like that.” She reached over and, while keeping the fruit in his hands, dug her fingernails into the skin of the orange. As it peeled off, the contents and juice shone underneath. She tore a slice from the section she touched. “You peel it. Here, try it.”

Kunigami grabbed the slice from her hands and placed it in his mouth. As he chewed, he turned away slightly, his ears marked pink. “It’s good.”

Tei giggled. “Right?”

Kunigami clumsily tried to peel the rest of the skin off but then stopped halfway. He turned it around in his hands. “You know,” he said. “When I saw my mom last year?”

Tei smiled. “How could I forget? When you told me, that was the first time I saw true joy on your face.”

“I’ve been thinking… she is my mom and she raised me until I was 7 years old. I love her like any son would. I wouldn’t trade her for anything. The same thing goes for my sisters and my father. But the only one who has been with me during my most difficult times has been you, Tei. We don’t share the same blood and yet, here you have been, watching over me for all this time. Protecting and assuring me that I am okay.”

As he spoke, Tei couldn’t help but think about how shaky his voice would have been just a year ago. But while she made his words out through his clear determined voice, she felt herself freeze. The world slipped away from her for mere seconds but it felt like an entirety. Kunigami, all the while, kept going, as if he was determined to make her heart stop completely.

“I can’t help but think…isn’t that a type of family?”

Kunigami kept eating his orange slices but for Tei, time had stopped. Reality turned into fantasy. Somewhere in the distance, she heard a little girl’s sobbing carried with the wind.

“Yeah…Maybe you’re right,” she whispered. “Maybe you’re right.”

After a few more minutes, Tei told Kunigami she would rest in the trunk and sleep for a little while. Kunigami nodded and told her he’d be right back. He had matters to take care of.

Yet when he ran off into the forest, she kept sitting at the trunk, watching the clouds move across. She stayed there until she opened her eyes to be greeted with nightfall. Half the day had passed while she fell asleep where she sat.

Tei rubbed her eyes and got up. She looked into the trunk, by the lake, and the surrounding area. Kunigami had still not returned. The possibility of him simply returning and leaving while she was asleep crossed her mind, but she disregarded the possibility. If that were so, he would have seen her asleep sitting up and would have carried her over inside the trunk. That was the type of person he was.

While worry seeped into her, her trust overshadowed it. She settled on simply creating a fire for when he comes back. That way, he had a warm place to sit by.

Sure enough, just a while later, while Tei was finishing up gathering sticks to throw into the growing fire, she heard leaves crunch from beyond the forest line. Footsteps approached her and she saw a familiar head of orange walking in, slowly moving until it stopped just a few feet away. Tei threw the last of her sticks into the fire and sat down one of the logs she had carried over from the lake.

“Welcome back. You’ve been gone for a while.”

Kunigami just stood still, watching the fire crackled before him. He eventually walked over and sat down in front of it, on the opposite side of Tei. “I’m sorry,” he said. “That I was gone for so long.”

Tei shook her head. She moved one of the sticks she had situated upon the small fire, speared through a piece of meat halfway cooked. “I slept longer than expected.”

The two made small talk as their meat cooked. Tei couldn’t remember the last time she had sat down with Kunigami like this, talking without a care in the world. She wondered if she should be fearful of the serenity that surrounded them, for it gave her one more thing to be fearful that it would get taken away. However, the time to be afraid would come regardless. So she kept talking and laughing.

However, she was not blind. She saw the nervous movements of Kunigami before her and his eye’s flicking to the night sky. He was concerned about something, in a way she had never seen before. She prayed the Gods would give her caution and tact.

“When I went into town,” she said, biting off a piece of her meat that was halfway between raw and cooked. “I overheard the townspeople talking about the royal family. They just love to pass around rumors.”

Kunigami never got the privilege of going into the public. She had sheltered him from the scenery of the town and while he is safer because of it, she still felt guilty for what has been stripped away from him. Even if she knew, reasonably, it was not her fault.

Therefore, she liked to discuss with him what she had overheard from the townspeople when she came back from her trips in hopes of bringing over some of the same liveliness to him.

But this time, the question of their safety served as another reason for bringing the topic up.

“Apparently, the Queen had fallen into a coma. She had always been ill, but now, the possibility of her death is all the more apparent. The soldiers are more alert. They will use that as an excuse to be more vicious. Just be careful roaming through the forest. Don’t get too close to any towns.”

She herself was planning on decreasing her number and length of trips. They had always needed to be aware but this time, Tei had a feeling the state of the kingdom right now was going to last far longer than just a few months.

She took another bite of the meat.

She waited for Kunigami to give a response but only silence followed. It was only when her gaze trailed upwards that she saw him looking at the floor, wide-eyed, gripping the stick in his hand. He was turned to the fire, yet his eyes were anywhere but.

“Kunigami..?”

His stick fell to the floor. He quickly got up.

“I have to go.”

“Huh? What-?”

That was all he said before he ran off into the forest, the same direction from which he came from. He ran quicker than Tei had ever seen him.

“Kunigami!” She yelled after him, but it was no use. In just a few seconds, he had disappeared beyond the trees and the darkness of the night.

Tei’s head spun in circles. Why did he react like that? Where is he running off to? What does it matter to him that the Queen is ill? A part of her was tempted to run after him but she quickly realized it was too late. Kunigami has long since surpassed her in speed and with the amount of time that has passed, there is no way for her to know in which way he has gone.

So instead she thought.

Kunigami had appeared nervous when he returned and he was gone for far longer than he suggested earlier. He must have gone somewhere specific where he had to take care of something. However, it did not go as planned. Either a mishap or delay. She was willing to bet the latter as Kunigami did not appear physically attacked. Maybe it was a complication.

She combed through her memories until she suddenly realized that this was far from the first time Kunigami had run off on his own somewhere. She had been gone so often she had neglected to remember. In fact, this was not the first time he had returned from that same direction in the forest. It must be a consistent spot he visits, a meeting place of sorts.

Then, she made a discovery. A memory resurfaced, and her blood ran cold.

”Visiting a friend, huh?”

4 years ago, an eternity away, she had woken up to Kunigami sneaking away. When she said those words, Kunigami’s face became red.

All this time, Kunigami had been visiting someone. Deep down, she knew. However, she avoided thinking about it as a compromise between her worry for his safety and her worry for his happiness. That must be why he left when he did.

But why panic at the news of the Queen?

Tei rushed over to her bag that was sitting by the trunk before quickly remembering the lost wand she had dropped that morning. She cursed loudly to herself. Her sights then set to her backup wand, which she scrambled to quickly find.

However, as she did, she saw a ball deep in the darkness. The only reason she could see it was a subtle pink glow that surrounded it, just bright enough to be seen only when everything else was dark.

An item covered in magic aura? She thought. I’ve never brought this… and Kunigami can’t do magic at all… Someone else must have given it to him. It’s pink. That’s the color of…

Tei became deathly still. Deep in her thoughts, the silence blared louder than ever before.

“Kunigami…” she mumbled. “What have you gotten yourself into?”

~

Kunigami barely had time to think as he ran. Dodging trees, low-end branches, and bushes in the dark required his entire attention and even then, he’d occasionally trip and stumble to the ground. Still, he’d get up and without tending his wounds, he’d run again at the same velocity. He tore through the still air that created small gusts of winds hitting his face, some occasionally slipping into his mouth until his throat was dried and torn.

Fatigue engulfed his body. A dull pain became a constant pressing across every inch, yet he had to keep running.

He just couldn’t let Chigiri be alone.

Even while he ran until his lungs screamed, the thought of Chigiri’s face and mannerisms of the previous day made Kunigami bite his cheek hard enough to draw blood. He was careless. There Kunigami was, talking mindlessly about his own family and mother, oblivious to Chigiri’s own reactions that should have been a clear sign something was wrong. Yet when he recognized it, he did nothing. He told himself he should not meddle, that he knew nothing, and excused himself from it.

But in doing so, he was only protecting himself from his own scrutiny. In settling to not blame himself, he has come to ignore his own mistakes rather than accepting them. He had been foolish and naive.

However, lingering on the fact did nothing. He can not help what has been done but now, his current actions dictate its effects.

And he, more than anyone, knew what Chigiri was doing. With what Chigiri told him, it is likely that the state of his mom is being kept a secret from him. That, or the extremity of it. Chigiri himself was never one to speak of his own family, especially his parents. He was dealing to himself the same self-isolation that Kunigami did when his own guilt overtook him.

Kunigami ran for 30 minutes but to him, it felt like hours. He had avoided using his monster form because although his head is filled with worries, he could still remember Tei’s warning of the soldier’s increased alertness. In addition, with it being night time, this was the prime time for more soldiers to be stationed and on guard.

He had no plan. All he could hope was that one would come to him while he grit his teeth and kept his legs moving.

In the darkness he spotted a torch. Its flickering flames danced in the night, reaching desperately from itself towards the stars peppered beyond the foliage of the trees. Upon its sight, he recognized their clearing where he had waited the entire day, where Chigiri had never shown. Chigiri himself had set the torch up just a few weeks ago. For just a moment, subconsciously, Kunigami came to a halt. Chigiri’s excited words echoed beyond the crackling of the fire.

“Be there early!”

Just 10 minutes away from the castle. He had 10 minutes left to go.

Leaves crunched in the distance. Kunigami’s breath escaped him and dissipated into the night air.

Before his mind could catch up, his feet took him to hide behind one of the neighboring trees. He crouched with a hand over his mouth. He didn’t realize how much he dreaded the anticipation of the sound until it happened again, then twice more. His heartbeat pounded in his ears. The familiar clanking of metal armor and swords by the hip nearly disguised the murmur of soldiers talking casually amongst themselves. Although Kunigami hadn’t doubted her before, Tei’s words of the soldiers being more thorough suddenly became a harsh reality.

After a few minutes, the clanking withdrew into the night, as did the footsteps stamping the shriveled leaves. However, Kunigami didn’t release his hand from his mouth for another dozen heartbeats.

He was lucky. The tree he hid behind was the one of the few nearby wide enough to completely cover his stature, but there was no guarantee that the closer he went to the castle, another convenient hiding place would appear close enough to hide by again. He looked down at his body, its build which he’d been honing for years now, while biting his lip. A disguise would be best, but he didn’t have magic like Chigiri nor the plethora of spell items at his disposal like Tei.

He tightened his grip on his face and as he contemplated, a word Tei had used before sprung up in his mind. “Shapeshifter.” That was how she described their abilities before and the reason they could switch between monster and human form without any scars or dirtiness left on either one. They could shapeshift into the form they were imagining

If that’s the case, Kunigami thought, can’t I change traits about either form? And make one smaller or larger?

Kunigami looked down at his body again and then, while counting his heartbeats again, he closed his eyes and picture a smaller him. Maybe a child. If he could disguise himself as a child, he could feign innocence once he actually entered. He could pretend he was one of the servant children.

As Kunigami kept his eyes closed, he focused on the low-hanging branch of the tree behind him touching the top of head. He imagined himself shrinking further away from it, the branch’s touch lifting itself off of him. Several heartbeats more passed.

When he opened his eyes, the branch’s touch was completely gone. He looked up and saw the branch roughly a foot and a half above him. Everything that was below him earlier was now at eye-level for him to see.

He looked down and was surprised to see that his clothes had changed as well. A tunic and trousers in an earthy-brown color. He remembered them vividly as the clothes he always wore when he was younger, the ones his parents meticulously cared for so they wouldn’t get dirty. Kunigami tore off a strand of hair and found it was still orange. He had turned back into how he appeared as a child, including the clothes he had most commonly worn.

He smiled briefly at the reminder of his family but quickly focused back on the task at hand. The soldiers were gone now and another glance back gave him certainty that, for a couple of minutes longer, he was free from their scrutiny. He took a deep breath, then bolted.

This child version of him can not run nearly as fast and after 5 minutes, he could already feel the fatigue pressing on his body. But he can hear the mass sounds of footsteps on the solemn grass grow louder as he runs, which was enough to give him the motivation to keep going. When he arrived at where the trees ended, he stopped several feet short and watched the scene carefully.

Many soldiers were surrounding the premises, marching in a line. Kunigami looked around and up at the size of the castle. It towered before him. But that must mean its perimeter was large as well. Surely there must be a spot without fewer soldiers around.

As quietly as he could, he stepped several more feet back, to where the soldiers couldn’t hear him but he could still see the castle walls, and started running along its perimeter. He hardly watched where he was going and stopped a few inches short of hitting a tree several times, but he kept his gaze steady at the lines of soldiers, waiting for it to end. After several minutes, the number of soldiers finally began to dwindle. He ran and ran until he lost track of time but eventually, he found it.

A large section of the surrounding area completely enclosed by a fence, marking a garden that stretched several yards. Only a handful of soldiers were watching the surrounding area, but they were taking loops. It was only every several minutes that they turned to look at the garden.

Kunigami carefully approached the fence and looked around for an opening. Feeling the pressure of the time tighten around him, he glanced quickly up at the size of the fence. It was several feet taller than him, but Kunigami remembered the times when he’d climb forest trees by his home’s backyard, before his parents could pull him away from it. He had always been a good climber. With a smaller body, he had a better chance.

He looked back again at the soldiers, who were turned away from him at this moment. Then, without a minute’s hesitation, he found spots for his feet to grip to and pulled himself towards the top. It was surprisingly easier than he imagined, likely because of the muscle memory that this child version of himself retained.

Once he reached the top of the fence, he jumped down, all 7 feet, to the ground. To avoid making a sound when he landed, he turned into his monster form, a smaller version of it, for just a few seconds as soon as he hit the ground. However, the sound of something plopping still carried over the soldiers and when they turned around, Kunigami had a mere split-second to press himself to the ground, hiding beneath the bushes of flowers and berries. Footsteps grew louder as they walked to the fence but a couple terrifying seconds later, it died down as when they went around for another loop. Kunigami could breathe again.

He was almost there. Just a few more feet left to go.

And then what? Lie and say he was a servant child? Would they let him into the prince’s bedroom with that excuse? He wasn’t even wearing the servant uniform. What if they suspect he is a monster and ask for a soulmark? What if they kill him on the spot?

The worries piled on top of him faster than he could sort them but the desperation of reaching Chigiri was far heavier. Just enter the castle, he repeated to himself. A mantra, circling in his head. He began to run forward once he saw the coast was clear. Figure it all out later. You’re already here.

Just… don’t let him be alon-

A hand grabbed his shoulder. Kunigami nearly yelped before another hand grabbed his mouth. Feeling the panic set in, he pushed back against the figure pressing his back and heard a “shhh” in the dark. He stopped. The clanking of metal armor echoed in the distance. It took several more seconds than usual for it to grow quieter once again.

Kunigami’s heart pounded loudly. But more importantly, he turned slightly upward to see who the figure was, for what he heard just now was a woman’s voice. In response, a strand of long dark pink hair fell into his face.

The woman finally let go of his mouth. In the dark, he saw a band of red and all at the once, the sounds of the night ceased. Kunigami immediately separated himself from her.

He took several steps back and only then did he grab a proper look at her. She was wearing a royal dress, her hair neatly tied back into a bun. Her soulmark prominently glowed in the dark by her collarbone.

This must be… the princess of the kingdom… Kunigami realized. Princess Hiumi, or Chigiri’s sister.

Unlike Chigiri, who’s eyes were always bright and shining, this woman’s expression had a shadow casted over it, like dark clouds about to rain hovered over it. For the first few seconds, her gaze held contempt. However, as she looked him up and down, her eyes widened slightly for a brief, nearly forgettable, second before settling back into a stern gaze.

“Who are you? I have not seen your face before here.” She spoke in a regular speaking voice, which made Kunigami panic. But when he looked around, the soldiers who had circled back again did not glance at either of them. The two were close to the castle’s entrance, which, hidden by their pillars, made their presence easy to overlook. As for their sounds, he noticed how the world had a reddish tint around him, all except for the Princess standing before him. A sound-proof barrier.

Kunigami, still nervous, stammered a response. “I-I’m one of the servants.. I was out here tending the garden when the castle locked down…” He picked the nails on his fingers. The gaze of the Princess weighed heavily above him. It didn’t take a genius to know that she was contemplating on whether to believe him but after a few seconds, she merely sighed. Her eyes flipped down to his anxious hands.

“That’s a lie. We had locked down last night and multiple guards have been checking the garden all day.”

Kunigami could feel the ground below him grow further away as his breath grew cold. He had to think of something else, an excuse, something to save him. He couldn’t die here-

“But you don’t look like you’re planning any trouble. Tell me, are you here to see Prince Hyoma?”

He stopped. Confusion quickly replaced his panic and he looked up at her with both questions and awe swirling in his mind. His stance became increasingly more cautious. “How could you have…?”

“I’m not oblivious to what my brother does. I know he has been visiting a boy in the forest. How else would he have been able to keep it a secret for so many years?” Princess Hiumi, seemingly sensing Kunigami’s nervousness at her knowledge, stepped closer to press a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to turn you in.”

Now that Kunigami thought about it, it did seem odd that Chigiri and him had been able to meet all this time in secret. Soldiers did frequent their meeting place, but conveniently they never went during the day. The widespread searches for Chigiri had also died down during the past couple of years. All of that wouldn’t have been possible if it had been solely Chigiri sneaking off on his own. However, if Hiumi had really been protecting them all this time, did that mean she trusted Kunigami? And if she did, was it as a monster or a normal human?

He attempted to decode the emotions she had in her expression, but all of it was covered up completely by an invisible wall meticulously placed between them. Her gaze was stern but nothing else. Even her pupils were as dark as the night itself.

No matter how he viewed it, there was no way for her to truly know if he was a monster or not all this time. For years, she had aided them and seemingly, she simply took Chigiri’s word at Kunigami’s trustworthiness.

But now, she had a perfect opportunity to check for herself. She could ask for his soulmark. And once she realized he had none, she could test for herself whether he was a monster or a child that had simply lost their soulmark. Royalty has all kinds of special devices to carefully check every individual.

And yet, she made no movement to do so. Instead she stood silent and watched him carefully, while making no move to report him. Kunigami wondered if she was afraid of finding out the truth herself, of finding reason not to believe in Chigiri’s trust.

Finally, her eyes softened and she spoke.

“Why do you wish to see him so desperately? He’s not your family. You have no obligation to come here. Why do you care so much to risk your safety to see him?”

Her words are harsh, but she spoke them quietly. Her low voice carried a tone of pity.

“I just…” Kunigami tightened his fist, trying to gather his thoughts together. “I don’t want him to be alone. I don’t want him to be hurt with no one to help him.”

In truth, there was a bit of resentment Kunigami had when he looked at Princess Hiumi. Because she is here instead of with Chigiri. But at the same time, there is so much he didn’t know, about their family, about their relationship. So much Chigiri didn’t tell him.

However, he did not stay with that feeling for long because when he looked again, Princess Hiumi’s eyes had widened. Her gaze was no longer neutral, but swirling with emotion. She looked away quickly, but Kunigami could see her biting her lower lip.

“If you go into the castle, you will undoubtedly find a guard who will ask you what you are doing. Did it occur to you that you may get caught?”

“...It did. I’ve known for years.”

Another stretch of silence.

“I’ll transport you to him,” she finally said. “The halls are being patrolled by guards, so I’ll take you directly to his room. You might feel a little nauseous.”

Hearing her words was such a shock that Kunigami had to blink twice to make sure she wouldn’t disappear in front of him. That she wasn’t a hallucination evoked by his stress. It wasn’t just her kindness that surprised him, but rather the defiance in her actions. How quick she was to ignore the risk of him being a monster due to her trust in her brother.

He could only pray the Gods would forgive him for betraying them.

Princess Hiumi took a couple of steps closer to him and placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Think of this as a favor,” she said. “In return…”

She lowered herself slightly to be eye level with him. Up close, she truly was beautiful. Despite her perfectly combed hair, a few strands found its way to hang over her face, sticking to her skin. In more ways than one, Chigiri resembled her closely.

“Promise you’ll always be there for him.”

They both had unwavering conviction in her eyes.

Kunigami nodded. With a glance to the fences and one hand still on his shoulder, she held her other hand out by her side and mumbled a spell under her breath. He could only catch a speck of red appear before the world pulled away from him, taking everything with it apart from the night sky speckled with stars.

It was all he could see for the split-second he was nowhere at all, until the ground returned beneath him and the frame around the stars had its stone-cold pillars replaced by curtains swaying in the breeze. He was staring at a balcony, in a room with tan-colored walls and soft floors. The exit to the balcony neighbored a bed similarly drenched in curtains and a desk lit by candles. Directly to his sides were several bookshelves and behind him, he saw the door to the hallway which muffled the sounds of heavy metal hitting the ground.

When he turned to look at the balcony again, he focused this time on the pink hair flowing in the wind. He took a step forward, only to cringe at the floor creaking beneath him.

“...Huh?”

Chigiri turned around. When their gazes met, his eyes grew wide and stood up straight from where he had been leaning against the railing before.

“Kunigami? What are you doing here? How did you-? Why-?”

“I came here to find you. You haven’t been at our meeting place… um..so I got worried…” Kunigami realized he was stammering and bit his tongue. A feeling of frustration at his inability to say what he meant crept up to him but he quickly swatted it away. He took a deep breath and rubbed his neck. Just a few feet away from him, Chigiri stared at him speechless, a rare sight.

On another day, he would have found an opportunity to tease him for it. However, he could barely acknowledge that observation when all he saw were the bags under Chigiri’s eyes and the faint blotches of red on his skin. Instead, a lump formed in Kunigami’s throat, followed by a deep ache in his heart.

It took everything he could not to run over and embrace him right there.

“So you… risked yourself to come find me?” Chigiri said in a low voice. Now that he heard it, Kunigami realized how similar he and his sister sounded as well. “Ha.. actually, of course you did, why did I even ask?”

Chigiri gave a weak smile.

He turned back around, towards the night sky beyond the castle. His messy head of hair facing him, Kunigami waited for his racing heartbeats to pass to step closer to him and reach out to untangle it. However, he stopped inches short and let his hand fall back to his side. Instead he stood next to Chigiri and placed an arm on the railing. Chigiri didn’t spare him a glance. He was staring up at the stars and when Kunigami looked up with him, he noticed that he was looking at the moon.

The stars seemed so tiny by comparison.

“Hiumi transported you here, right?”

“How did you know?”

“You still have her red glow.”

“Oh.”

“...So she cared enough to let you in but not enough to tell me…Whatever.”

“...Have you been here by yourself this entire time?”

“No, the prince of the Liberora Kingdom left earlier. He stayed here because well… you must’ve seen how everything else is.”

“Are you okay?”

“Me? Ha, you should ask Hiumi that. She has always been closer to... Anyways now, she’s been given a whole lot more work. Meetings, paperwork. She’s been busy the entire day. She hasn’t even had time to… And it’s not just her either, everyone else has been-”

“I’m not asking about them. I’m asking about you.”

“...what do you care, it doesn’t even matter-”

“It does, I can tell you are-”

“Really? You think you can tell? You hardly know anything about this, how could you tell?”

“I don’t know anything because you haven’t told me anything.”

“And why should I? This is a dumb problem, a dumb thing to be upset over, don’t you think? To be like this over someone I’ve never even met? Over a stranger?”

“How is she a stranger, she’s your-!?”

“She might as well be. It’s so stupid. I can’t even remember her face, but I see her in everything. She haunts me. In the night sky, in the moon, everything. I hear her when Hiumi is hiding another secret, when I walk by the townspeople, by the royal officials who only see my soulmark. Do you know what that's like? What I hear and see all the damn time?”

“....”

“Silence. Nothingness. Honestly, I would have preferred if I never knew she existed at all… See? Isn’t that terrible? Aren’t I terrible?”

“... I don’t think so.”

“You wouldn’t think I’m terrible even if I killed a thousand babies in front of you. That doesn’t mean it isn’t true. ”

“Still, that is just a part of loving someone, isn’t it? In that sense, it is terrible. You wouldn’t feel this way if you didn’t love her.”

“...What right do I have to love her? I lost it a long time ago.”

“Did someone tell you that?”

“It’s reality. I never had a choice in the first place. Just like how my soulmate isn’t my choice.”

“Your soulmate? But that’s-”

“Different? Ha, how could you possibly know if it’s any different? Do you know what it’s like to listen to people tell you the same things over and over? ‘Don’t worry about any stresses right now because you’ll lose them when you get your soulmate!’ Being told that as if it's a consolation? ‘It’s okay, don't worry you end up loving them anyways?!’ Do you know what it’s like to not even be able to grieve over your own fucking mom because all you can hear are those people saying you might even forget her in 4 years?”

“No..No I wouldn’t know…”

“Of course you wouldn’t.”

“....”

“...I’m sorry. Sorry, sorry, fuck, I didn’t think-”

“Do people really tell you that?”

“...Huh?”

“Is that what you’ve been thinking about this entire time? Is that all they’ve told you since the news of your mom?”

“...Yeah, it is. Even family comes after soulmates here. If I don’t have a choice in loving my soulmate, how can I have a choice in loving my mom? Especially since blood ties are invisible, but I didn’t even grow up with her. .”

“But you still feel guilty.”

“That’s- um-”

“Hey, you want to know something? I remembered recently a story my mom used to tell me before I went to sleep, that the first people to step into this world came from the stars. When they arrived, the world was empty and barren. They tried to give it life but eventually they gave up. Everyone except for one person, who stayed and kept trying. The travelers went back to the stars but this person stayed behind and kept going anyway. When they returned, centuries later, the person had long since been dead, but the land had successfully been given life, all as a result of his love for this world. Some people say that’s the reason why we have our soulmarks now. His love is the reason we all exist.”

“...Wasn’t the tale that it was the Gods who grew life on this land for those travelers?”

“There are many versions of the story, but that’s the one she told me. I had always loved that story so I’m kind of mad at myself for forgetting it all this time. Do you know the reason why I remembered it? It’s because you took me to see her. Now, I love her even more. I wouldn’t have ever known if you didn’t force me to try.

“....”

“Isn’t that guilt proof that you regret not trying? You can only try if you have a choice.”

“...what if I do try and she rejects it? What if she never wanted to see me in the first place?”

“How can you know if you never try?”

“But I haven’t tried. All this time, I could have seen her, snuck in and talked with her, but I didn’t. I was just a spoiled brat causing troubles for everybody. I’ve never tried in the first place.”

“That doesn’t mean you can’t start.”

“...And what if you’re wrong and they’re right? Love only exists with soulmates, you know. Not with family, not with anything else.”

“Still, it’s important.”

“And who decides that?”

“You.”

“...”

“That’s what she would’ve wanted, isn’t it? Maybe that’s why she never asked to see you. She wanted you to make the choice yourself.”

“...trying, huh? When you have nothing, that’s all you have left right? Here I am, complaining, when you never even got a chance to- I’m sorry, Kunigami. Augh, I’m so stupid, I never should’ve said-”

“It’s fine. You know what somebody told me? You shouldn’t put yourself down. Let people care about you.”

“Heh, you’re taking my words?”

“They’re wise words.”

“...Hey, Kunigami? What do I do if she doesn’t love me?”

“...Would you regret trying?”

“Maybe.”

“I’d never forgive her. But even more so, I’d feel hurt. You think I only tried to get here to get something from you? Even if we hadn’t talked, I wouldn’t have regretted it. Even if you hated me, I would never stop trying. I would never forgive her for making you think everyone making an effort is doing it for your love in return.”

“Hehe..”

“You’re laughing now?”

“You never change, do you? Okay, I get it. Trying is love, right? So that’s what he wanted to say. ‘If I can choose who I love now, why wouldn’t I choose to love everything?’ ‘You can only try if you have a choice.’ It’s so obvious. Hehe…”

“Did someone say that?”

“I’ll go see her. Even if Hiumi and the rest tell me otherwise, I’ll make sure I see her.”

“Yeah that’s good…That’s good.”

“Hey, Kunigami, do you know who I love?”

“...Who?”

Chigiri turned and looked directly at Kunigami. He smiled.

“Everything the Gods can’t give me.”

~

Hiumi walked into his room not long after Kunigami and Chigiri had fallen silent. They were simply watching the night sky. With a nod from Chigiri, she transported Kunigami back into the forest.

Once she did, the two were alone, accompanied only by the moonlight pooling into the large room. Chigiri, still looking out the balcony, studied the moon above him. Its presence was so large amongst all of the stars. The sight of it was a reminder of how much heavier his heart felt now after Kunigami’s leave.

Hiumi fidgeted with her jewelry behind him, like she always did when she had something to say.

“You’re lucky, you know. To have someone like that in your life.” She had never sounded so sincere.

Chigiri looked back and turned his sight to the entrance of the balcony, the closest thing beside her eyes. His voice came out blunt and straightforward. “You didn’t check his soulmark.”

“What use would it have been if I did? Worst case scenario, you might run away into the forest with not a single glance back.” Chigiri considered refuting her for the sake of argument but his own pride kept his mouth shut. She was absolutely right. It annoyed him how well she knew him. Kunigami words weighed heavier on him, piling, like there was a flood inside of him waiting to break.

“How is she?” he asked.

“Alive. Awake, finally. She’s talking like the end isn’t near now.”

“...I want to see her. Would you let me?”

Hiumi fell silent. Chigiri turned around to look at her expression, trying to gauge her emotions, but to his surprise, her face was unreadable. She tightened her fists.

Hiumi was wearing a white dress. Her hair, tied up nicely, and her shoulders and arms bare from the sleeveless outfit. On any other day, she would appear like she is attending her own wedding. Instead, her beauty stayed trapped in the scarce light of the darkest night.

Without letting a single emotion slip from her face, she looked up above him. “If it’s your choice, I won’t stop you. Even if I did, you wouldn’t listen, would you?”

Chigiri stayed silent.

“Of course you wouldn’t. You’re not the little kid I can protect anymore… Okay. She should be resting in her room. Your dad just left a few minutes ago.”

After he walked past her, he went out into the hallway and got a few feet away before he heard his name called from behind him.

“Hyoma.”

In the hallway, Hiumi stood by his door. This time, she held a sad smile on her face. “Just…don’t be disappointed, okay?”

There was no way Chigiri could have known what she meant. Not until he disregarded her words to arrive at the end of the hallway and enter valiantly, pass the brigade of guards, into his mother’s room. The one furthest away from his.

The first thing he noticed was how dark the room was. Only a dim candle, nearly burnt out, provided light where the windows had been sealed off with curtains and heavy blankets. The door loudly creaked open. Even the air weighed differently. It entered deeply into his lungs, thick and heavy.

There was a single bed in the entire room. No drawers, no bookshelves, no desk. Only a nightstand, where the candle sat, and a lone chair by it. The room itself was tiny, as if it were a closet being accommodated. Therefore, when he opened the door, the first thing he came face to face with was the end of the bed, vertically placed towards him. He didn’t open the door far before it hit the wall and he saw the face of the person facing towards him, sitting upright, barely lit.

The ghostly face broke into a weak smile at his entrance. Chigiri realized immediately how similar she appeared to Hiumi, yet their smiles couldn’t be more different. Where Hiumi’s was soft and understanding, hers seemed frighteningly unnatural. As if it were carved onto her face.

“This is really the end, isn’t it?” Her voice came out in a whisper. Hoarse, fragile, broken into pieces.

Those were the first words Chigiri ever heard from his mother.

Their conversation lasted as long as Chigiri could stand the atmosphere which, despite being a surprising while, was consistently challenged by how sparse the topics felt. Vulnerability had slipped through her initial words but didn’t appear again afterwards. Every laugh and soft reassurance felt tight and suffocating. She asked about the weather, the state of the castle, the training of the servants. At one point, she even asked if Chigiri liked his wardrobe.

“I had picked every outfit,” she said. “When you were born, I told the tailor the standard outfits they should design for when you turn the proper age and height for them. When I recognized that, given time, I would not be there for you, I wished to give you a part of me so you may always feel my presence.”

Then she smiled. A wide smile that poked into her hollow cheeks. Despite how fragile she looked, from her frail bones to her deathly pale skin, there was restlessness in her every movement, every action. Chigiri, halfway in, finally noticed the desperation in her rambling, across every word that crashed into one another while she asked about his future.

His mouth felt dry.

He said, “Hiumi has been helping me and showing me new duties to learn. She has been really good at taking care of the castle and all its staff. I learn well with her.”

“Don’t be led on by her. She is still a young and weak girl. She pretends to be responsible, but she hasn’t aged a year from her rebellious phase. She has not learned much.”

For the first time in their conversation, her tone reached a spike. Her expression, now mostly hidden by the room’s newfound darkness, could be scarcely seen in the peppered dying candle light stretched along it. What Chigiri could see, however, was the tension present in her features and the slight twitching of her lips.

“If I were healthy, you would never disappoint me. You would be a proper son, is that not right?” Another hoarse laugh. Chigiri’s body never before had felt more like it was stone, stuck in place. Everything about her was contagious. Her judgement, her anxiety, her facade.

He had imagined this conversation thousands of times before, with his own fantasy of how his mother would be like. The stark differences felt enough to give him whiplash as the absence of “how are you,” “I’m sorry,” and “I love you” hit harder than the sight of her. Chigiri finally recognized the source of the uneasiness that had been creeping up on him since he entered the room.

She did not speak like a mother. She spoke like a ghost.

By the end, his own desperation got the better of him and he began to say his partings, lest his soul die too in that room with her.

Yet, as soon as he got a chance to stand up, she spoke from the darkness. Chigiri couldn’t even see her face anymore, but he could hear the amusement in her voice.

“I regret it everyday, you know.”

His heart skipped a beat.

“I should have ruined the world before it stole my life. I should have died decades ago. This delay is the punishment for my obedience.”

She gave one last haunting smile before Chigiri shut the door closed. He did so stronger than he realized he did. The sounds of it ricocheted in his ears. He was breathing heavily and rapidly.

The footsteps of the guards echoed beyond the hall, a spiral of sound. It circled around him and tightened around his lungs. The night sky beyond the windows encompassed an array of colors with its stars, luring him close until he was ready to fall into it. That was before a hand touched his back and pulled him back into reality. Hiumi stood tall beside him. A ball stayed wedged in his throat.

“Crying is not proving her right,” she said softly. “It can also be defiance. She can never succeed in making you regret loving her.”

More footsteps echoed across the hall. Hiumi patted his back once more.

Only then did his tears fall.

King and Queen pronounced DEAD. Prince Chigiri granted the title of King, to go in effect on XX day of XXX year, formally recognized as the 18th Soul Day; Princess Hiumi declared temporary placeholder.

[End of Age 14]

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