Kindred
Ferda dreamed.
Not some muddled, jumbled stream of nonsense, but a dream of recollection, built upon memory.
It was something that had happened to him once, long ago—so trivial he had left it abandoned on the far side of his mind.
That trivial landscape of memory began on a balcony.
Beyond the railing, black smoke rose from every corner inside the empire’s walls. The bombs the empire itself had nurtured had finally detonated, and the march of rebellion was erupting everywhere.
A woman stood watching it all.
She stood upon the balcony rail, staring down as if her soul had left her body—like a woman of tragic fate.
“The empire is burning. Burning so brightly…”
Ferda simply watched her.
“Are you happy now?”
The question was aimed at him, laced with resentment, as if all of this had happened because of Ferda.
He let out a contemptuous laugh at her sheer shamelessness.
“Those people are dying because of you, Olivia Arken. If you had never risen up, they would never have had to suffer like that.”
Olivia Arken.
The foremost beauty of the empire, a devout believer of Alte, called the very embodiment of purity—and the one who had driven a blade into the empire’s heart.
Had she not taken the lead, screams would never have echoed within those great walls.
“I thought I would succeed,” she said in a distant voice. “If I could seduce my little brother and raise the people… yes, it was something I could have done. Then the rebellion would have ended so easily.”
She turned her head.
Blue eyes, golden hair—Olivia Arken was smiling radiantly.
“But then… an impossible man like you came along and shattered the balance.”
Yet contrary to that bright smile, vivid red stains marked her face.
Blood.
It was not Olivia’s blood. It belonged to the First Prince, the master of this room, who lay dead on the bed with his trousers half-pulled down. He had met his end upon the dagger in her hand.
The First Prince had died by Olivia’s hand.
The Second Prince had become a traitor; if the rebellion failed, he would be publicly executed.
And Olivia…
would not die.
“Instead I’ll become His Majesty’s plaything. Put up for auction like cheap goods, my body held as hostage to buy loyalty.”
Just as my beloved sister once was.
Olivia murmured the words so softly they could not be heard.
“So I’ll make you an offer.”
She held out her hand. The silk gloves that clung to her skin were soaked past crimson, dripping bright red blood.
“Before I end up on that filthy auction block… won’t you take me in your arms?”
Ferda did not answer. It was not hesitation. It was simply not worth a reply.
After holding her hand out for a long while, Olivia gave up.
“As I thought… you hate me, don’t you?”
She was right. Ferda hated Olivia. He had felt it clearly the first time he saw her, and every time their eyes met thereafter.
“Why is that?”
The feeling was not something he had forced out of hatred, nor born of jealousy.
“You’re like me.”
It was revulsion born of kinship.
Ferda hated Rosnova for casting him out. And Olivia hated her own blood. Seeing a life so identical to his own filled him with disgust.
Perhaps from that moment on, Ferda had already been unconsciously aware that something in himself was wrong.
“I see. Because we’re alike, we’re doomed to run forever on parallel tracks?”
Olivia resigned herself. Even so, the smile settled on her face never faded. That smile was her mask—a thick one forged through far more years than Ferda had known, meant to hide the grudge and murderous intent beneath. A thing that would never crack, even in the moment of death.
“What a pity. I thought it might be all right if it were you.”
Her smile twisted with sorrow.
“Truly.”
Olivia’s body tipped backward. She cast herself down into the burning empire below.
When Ferda opened his eyes again, an unfamiliar, opulent ceiling greeted him. Tilting his head, he saw the imperial palace around him—and the Imperial Guard surrounding the walls, even a knight-commander among them.
“Oh my, you’re awake?”
A sweet voice welcomed him. The golden-haired woman closed the book she had been reading and smiled. Olivia Arken. True to her reputation as the empire’s greatest beauty, her mere smile seemed to wrap her in dozens of bouquets.
Ferda sat up and asked her,
“How long was I unconscious?”
“Hmm, about three hours.”
“Three hours…”
Strange. For having been out that long, his body felt far too refreshed. Even when Ruri had treated him, he had never felt anything like this.
“Is this your first time receiving treatment from our Alte Church?”
“Yes.”
“Hehe, I thought so. The priests within the palace are all of bishop rank. When they heal you by borrowing His light, you can move as if you’ve been given a new body.”
“I see.”
The reason for that wonder was simple: in his previous life, Ferda had never once entrusted his treatment to another person. He trusted no one. He would rather die than let someone lay hands on his body.
Now I understand why priestly healing is considered the best.
He found himself thinking it might not be a bad idea to station priests permanently at the castle as well.
“According to the rescue teams’ reports…”
Olivia steered the subject toward the sealed vault.
“The magic investigator, Master Yuren, is dead, and Your Grace the Regent was gravely injured.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know the full circumstances, but they say the Ice Ring Art tome was found in Yuren’s hands, and that he showed the skin discoloration that appears in those who contract with Marbas. Did he fall to a demon’s temptation?”
Ferda nodded.
“He did.”
“I see… To think an investigator would succumb to a demon’s whispering… How fortunate you survived.”
With a lingering gaze, Olivia lightly laid her hand over Ferda’s. He glanced down at it. His own hands were small for a scion of a knightly house; hers were even more slender and delicate.
“As you said, the magic investigator Yuren fell and attacked me.”
Ferda lifted his eyes to meet hers.
“But the causality is wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
“He did not attack me because he fell. He had intended to kill me from the beginning, and he did not hesitate to fall in order to do so.”
“Ah… so he meant to kill Your Grace from the start?”
Her eyes flickered with feigned difficulty. But Ferda knew. She already understood the entire situation. Because she was the only one who had wanted it this way.
“Yes. He brought me into the sealed vault specifically to attack me.”
“Why?”
“To kill me. To create the excuse that I had to die because I failed to resist the vault’s temptation.”
Olivia’s eyes went round.
“To murder someone… How could anyone commit such cruelty? What could he possibly gain by killing Your Grace?”
“Who knows.”
Ferda smiled gently as he asked her,
“Would you be so kind as to tell me?”
Olivia’s face stiffened for an instant. Their blue eyes locked and held for a long time—not merely meeting, but probing each other’s intent in a silent contest of wills.
After that long silence of mutual scrutiny, Olivia raised her hand.
“Commander.”
“Yes.”
“May I speak privately for a moment? I would like the two of us alone.”
“Alone… you say?”
“Yes. Just the two of us.”
The knight-commander looked troubled. Olivia turned moist eyes upon him.
“Please?”
Caught by that gaze, the commander flushed as if entranced and nodded.
“As Your Highness wishes.”
“Thank you. Truly…”
The guards stationed in the room filed out in a rush. The blue eyes that had been so dewy when looking at the commander blinked once.
In that instant, the flower of the empire, the embodiment of purity, vanished completely.
“So you…”
Olivia’s floating, airy voice dropped so abruptly it was startling. Even Ferda felt a reflexive chill at how completely the person before him had changed.
“believe I put Yuren up to assassinating Your Grace, don’t you?”
She was quick. Not merely a creature of reputation and prejudice—she was genuinely exceptional. Ferda had expected her to squirm and deflect. Instead, in a situation with the fuse already lit, she had given him the optimal answer. For a man who had intended to pin blame and overturn everything, it was like taking a counterpunch.
“You’re the first person I’ve ever spoken with like this. Especially among men.”
“So will you tell me, Your Highness?”
Ferda laid heavy, mocking stress on the title. Olivia no longer smiled like a fool.
“It is true I had a connection to Yuren. He did a great deal for me.”
A magic investigator could come and go from the sealed vault. Forbidden magic, black magic, and dangerous intelligence were stored there—some of it capable of becoming the empire’s shame, its weaknesses.
“But if I said Yuren’s actions were merely the excess of overzealous loyalty… would you believe me?”
“I nearly died not long ago.”
Would I believe that?
Olivia nodded calmly.
“I spoke with him once. About what could deal a serious blow to this empire—more precisely, what could shake the emperor’s authority. About how…”
She smiled softly, like a girl cradling a long-held dream. The expression rose from pure emotion.
“…we might kill the emperor.”
An ordinary person would have felt a chill at that twisted display of feeling. Ferda, however, understood her. His mouth tasted bitter.
“Using the Duke of Gong was, yes, one of the scenarios I had in mind. He was deeply disappointed in the Arken family once already, wasn’t he? If he were disappointed a second time, even the emperor bowing his head wouldn’t be enough for him to survive.”
“Then my death would have made it perfect.”
“Hardly.”
She leaned her face a little closer. A faint, unobtrusive perfume drifted from her like a natural scent.
“And even in this moment of facing you, I’m only more certain that plan was wrong.”
“How so?”
“Because Your Grace hates me.”
Insight gleamed blue beneath the soft flesh under her eyes.
“I can feel it. Deep down, you loathe me. From the very first moment we met. Not the childish kind of dislike where you just don’t want to show your feelings—you truly hate me…”
She smiled faintly.
“Perhaps pure girls just aren’t your type? The slightly empty-headed kind who can’t do anything on their own. Men always seemed to fall for that sort.”
Ferda did not answer. Olivia drew her face back as if she had not particularly wanted one.
“Plenty of people would give me their liver and gallbladder. But no one actually sees me.”
Ferda hated her. That was why he did not fall for her gestures or rhetoric, and instead saw her exactly as she was.
“I need someone like that. Not a slave—a partner.”
“A slave would be more convenient.”
“Yuren was a slave to me. A slave’s excessive loyalty always causes problems. They often race ahead to please me with things I never ordered.”
Olivia sighed as if it gave her a headache.
“One provincial noble sold everything he owned and brought me a million roses just to prove himself.”
A romanticist for the ages.
“Who was that?”
“I don’t know. I had him executed before I even asked his name.”
And the most pitiful fool of all.
“I don’t want men who sell my name and sell their own people into slavery just because they desire me. They’re useless to my ultimate goal.”
On the surface she spoke as if for the common folk. But Ferda knew. Olivia would raise a rebellion that left many dead and wounded.
“And yet you tried to raise the empire’s black mages?”
“My, you suspected me of that too?”
She covered her mouth and blinked. Of course. She was someone who wished for the empire’s collapse.
“Hmm… hearing you say that makes me a little sad. Well then, I suppose I have no choice. I simply need to show you how sincere I am, don’t I?”
She bowed her head over the hand she had laid on Ferda’s. Mana stirred through Olivia’s body, gathering skillfully along her right arm.
In that moment, something astonishing occurred. Ferda saw the proof with perfect clarity. A white-glowing pattern was etched into the back of her hand.
“Do you know what this is?”
“……A Holy Stigma.”
A divine stigma. When a believer of the church makes an absolute vow, the god bestows this blessing, granting the bearer great power. Because it confers such strength, it is never given lightly; it is granted only on the foundation of intense desire and worthiness.
“This is the mark called the Vow of Vengeance. According to Alte’s doctrine, vengeance must not be turned upon those who live beneath the light, but upon those who fill their private greed and act against the light’s will.”
Those she meant to protect were the common people. Those she meant to avenge herself upon were the emperor and her brothers. In other words, it was also proof she had nothing to do with black mages. Had she drawn black mages in, the stigma could never have shone so brightly.
“There are so many agitators these days who get branded as black mages that the essence of it has grown cloudy, but black mages are vermin. I have no desire even to use them.”
“I see.”
“And if I truly wished for the imperial house to fall, I would never resort to something as cheap as black mages. All they do is harm the citizens, and when the citizens are harmed, only the emperor’s power grows stronger.”
Olivia toyed with her lip as she laid out her conjecture.
“If there’s someone who benefits from black mages coming in… it would have to be my little brother.”
“The Second Prince.”
“Yes. He’s the one who most wants the military strengthened. The reason he goes out on campaigns is to gather even more military force. Even if he only raises the necessity of bringing outside forces in, it will become impossible to keep the connections he’s built from being brought inside.”
Listening to Olivia, Ferda could not help but admire how deep her thinking ran—even knowing she was not the fool she appeared to be. He was also certain that if he had not been hovering around the empire, she really would have killed the emperor.
“At any rate, as proof of that, I will use my influence so that no responsibility for Yuren’s death is laid upon you. I’ll also take care of the books that were destroyed in the struggle. Going forward, shouldn’t it be enough for me simply to keep proving myself?”
As expected, this woman already knew. She knew that Ferda, too, had approached the sealed vault with a purpose of his own.
“A bearer of a Holy Stigma is simply going to let someone who could become a black mage walk free?”
“Oh my? The god of light, Alte, prefers certainty over suspicion. We don’t even know by what path it leaked out. Carelessly suspecting a regent who devotes himself to the faithful would go against doctrine.”
In other words: if they simply did not dig, it was fine.
“So then… will you continue to cooperate with me?”
Olivia Arken made her proposal.
“I know the provincial lords are unhappy with the emperor’s actions. Among them, the neglected Far East is especially deep in resentment. I believe Your Grace feels the same. If you cooperate, I, Olivia Arken, will put my strength behind support and a voice for the Far East.”
Pressure entered the hands she had layered over his. Color deepened on her face.
“I’m certain we could become excellent partners… or perhaps something more.”
The light of temptation thickened. Ferda understood a little better why men could not move when faced with a woman. Even knowing the calculation behind it, she naturally drew out a man’s instinct.
“Very well. Then this time, I will be the one to use my strength.”
“Thank you. But… use your strength?”
At the same moment as Olivia’s question, the corridor erupted into noise.
“Intruder! Level One alert! All units, assume wartime readiness!”
They had come quickly.
Ferda withdrew his hand from Olivia’s and rose from the bed. Something occurred to him, and he asked her,
“You said I dislike pure people, didn’t you?”
“Hm? Ah, yes.”
“I like them. Pure people.”
Leaving those words behind, Ferda walked out.