The Breath of Death

The moment they passed through the gate, the air changed so completely it felt like a lie. What had been dark and clammy in the crown prince's palace turned warm and clear, and Roina realized all at once that it had never been the air at all. It had been mana. That black, unpleasant mana had sunk its roots through the whole of the palace and run through it the way blood runs through veins.

This place was different, filled with a presence as clear and refreshing as water. The scent of old books blended with warm sunlight, and bookshelves, magic circles, ink, and butterfly-like spirits crowded every corner. It had the air of a mysterious library beneath a soaring ceiling.

"…"

A man stood at the center of it.

Long black hair bound neatly down his back. Golden eyes.

Lutan.

For no reason she could name, tears welled in Roina's eyes. One drop fell, then another, and at last she began to sob.

Footsteps drew near.

She felt him coming toward her. He gently swept the hair back from her weeping face and quietly drew her into his arms.

At that single assurance, Roina wept aloud for the first time since she had crossed into this world.

Afterward, having cried until nothing was left in her and spent every last scrap of strength, Roina fainted. Only after sleeping through half the day did she wake again.

When her eyes opened, Mayli was grumbling without end before her.

"I was the one who risked my life going in to save you. So why are you clinging to that so-called Archmage and crying your eyes out?"

"Ah… I'm grateful to you as well, my lady…"

"Hmph! Grateful, my foot!"

Mayli whipped her head aside as if offended, the tips of her ears flushed red. She had tied her long hair high this time and wore riding clothes, and she looked far more natural, far more alive, than she had when she was decked out in the Imperial Palace.

One thing about her was not natural: the bandage wrapped around her left ankle. Roina watched in silence, then smiled with a quiet ache. It was the wound Mayli had taken the night before, saving her. It was the first time Roina had seen her with a sword in hand, and yet she had looked utterly at ease, brimming with life. She had plainly held a blade for a very long time.

For a knight who lived by the sword, an ankle was no small thing. There was no chance it did not hurt.

"Lady Mayli, even if it takes my whole life, I will—"

"Oh, enough!"

She had grumbled over why Roina had eyes only for the Archmage, and yet the moment Roina tried to apologize, Mayli flared. Roina had no idea what to do and simply looked at her. At that, Mayli shot her a sidelong glare, then, face blazing red, muttered something in a rush.

"Pardon?"

Of course she had not caught it. When Roina asked again, Mayli flushed darker still and shouted.

"Call me Mayli!"

"…Pardon?"

"Agh!"

Mayli sprang to her feet, then screamed, "Ow!" and dropped back down, clutching her ankle. She jerked her chin up, glared at Roina, and shouted.

"Call me Mayli, and drop that damned formal speech!"

"…Ah?"

Her whole face scarlet now, she squeezed her eyes shut.

"Let's be friends!!!"

The door flew open.

"Is the wound any bet—"

Lutan had opened it to ask after them at that very instant. He let out a single, flat "Ah," and shut the door again.

"I will return a little later."

That was all he left behind.

"…"

"…"

Roina thought she was witnessing, for the first time, the absolute limit of how red a human face could become.

"Aaaaaah!!!"

A moment later, Mayli's scream shook the room.

Lutan waited until Mayli had calmed, then came in and unwound the bandage to see the ankle beneath. Her left ankle had gone black, and along that black stain the skin had shriveled.

"This is…"

"Erosion."

He said it like a sigh, then worked a spell into the blue reagent he had brought and poured it over her ankle. With a hiss, the black stain flared violet for an instant and drank the reagent in. To Roina's eyes, black mana and blue mana seemed tangled together, fighting.

"That black mana… what is it, exactly?"

"…"

Lutan's mouth pressed shut. A line settled between his fine brows. After a short silence, he spoke.

"A full account would be long. This black mana is destructive. It withers life — a power close to death. Put simply, it may be regarded as the stuff of black magic."

"Death…"

Roina murmured it under her breath. Death. Ethan's face rose before her, the last thing she had seen as she fled the crown prince's palace. He had thrown his own body before the crown prince, been cut by his sword, and been swallowed by a black shadow.

Then Ethan, by now…

Pain lanced through her heart. Roina pressed a hand gently to her chest, and guilt settled over her, heavy.

"Fortunately, she was not in contact with that mana for long, so her life is not in danger. The ankle, too, should be fit for use again before long."

Lutan said it while removing the glasses he had worn only briefly to mix the reagent, and polishing them. Roina thought she caught him murmuring something like a good sample…, but the words were too small for her to be certain.

A sample for researching some new medicine?

She tilted her head, just slightly. He had spoken so quietly that it seemed a mutter to himself, and not especially important. Mayli, whether she had heard him properly or not, was staring at Lutan with both eyes blazing.

"And…"

A cool, clear hand came to rest against Roina's brow. Fingers brushed her bangs aside with a soft rustle and touched her forehead, cool and gentle past believing.

That alone made the corners of her eyes sting again.

"In truth, the most serious case is you, Roina."

"What?"

Roina blinked at him.

"What are you saying? Roina's perfectly fine."

Mayli pressed him, and Lutan shook his head, heavy.

"That is only the surface. Roina has been exposed to this black mana — no. It sits ill with me to call it mana. In the sense of an energy of death, I will provisionally call it death-breath. She has been exposed to death-breath for a very long time. Ten years at the least, and longer than that, I should think. Part of Roina is already made of death-breath."

"What?!"

Mayli jerked upright again. Remembering the pain from moments ago, she did not actually rise from where she sat.

"Wh-what does that mean, then? Is Roina going to die?"

Fright crossed her face in an instant. Roina found something fresh in her. So the Mayli who had been so maddening was, in truth, this simple. This endearing.

"Ordinarily, yes. Death would be the natural end."

Lutan went on, his expression sunk low. Grief, anger, and a loathing turned upon himself passed across his face and were gone.

"But whether it is fortune or misfortune, Roina is not like other people. She has the talent of an Archmage. She is one who bears a star within her body."

"…!"

"…!!"

As he said it, he glanced at Mayli. From the look of it, there was something he was withholding because she was there.

"I cannot give you the details, and you would not understand them if I did. Put simply, Roina appears to possess an innate ability to reconstitute mana by her own power."

Mayli decided that putting it simply had been the right choice. He had called it simple, and already her head ached.

"So her body would first have taken the death-breath in, then answered by expelling it — by coughing blood, and by other such means. But as that grew more frequent, and went on too long, it would no longer have been enough."

Lutan looked as though the words cost him. The mention of coughing blood struck something in both Mayli and Roina, and they said nothing.

"And so, most likely, she came to use the death-breath rather than cast it out. At present, death-breath and mana lie mingled in her body in a strange harmony. If we try to drive the death-breath out in haste, it will only turn to poison."

"Mm."

The talk had come far enough that someone rose in Mayli's mind, and she swallowed the sound.

"Do ordinary people cough blood too? People who have nothing to do with the star's talent?"

"They likely would. In that case, however, it would be a true sign that their life is being worn away. Their span of years would shorten, and sharply."

Lutan said it without particular feeling. Mayli seemed to fall into thought.

Roina felt her breath stop short. The crown prince's black mana, sickening even to remember, had become part of her own body. The wish rose in her to find it, scrape it out, cut it away.

Then, with a hot surge, that familiar heat climbed the inside of her throat.

"Urk."

"Ah. Oh, dear."

Dismay crossed the Archmage's face. With a light spell he called a bowl into being and set it beneath her chin. Roina did not refuse. She brought blood up into it.

"Roina, please do not. Your body cannot bear it just now. I understand how you feel, but if you try to reject the death-breath, it will only do you harm."

"Hrk. Ugh…"

A hand larger than she had expected moved slowly over her back.

Mayli's face had gone dark. She took Roina's hand and held it tight. Roina smiled bitterly. She had felt such relief, believing she had finally gotten free, and it was almost absurd to be told she still had not.

"Even so, it was because your body became this way that you were able to overcome it in the final moment."

"What?"

"What?"

Lutan let the next words out like a sigh.

"I was watching that final moment from here as well. I had not yet fully seized the barrier of the crown prince's palace, and still, from within it, I felt a power that shook every working of magic on a vast scale."