RAMHM Chapter 150

Bliea's Choice

She had poured out almost everything she had. Until she recovered, her body wouldn't listen.

Bliea shut herself in her room and drew a magic circle with hands that could barely, barely hold steady.

The magic circle rose vividly from the floor, then sank back into it.

Watching the circle disappear and return, Bliea wept until her cheeks were soaked through, then laughed like something had broken loose in her, then wept again.

In between, the maids knocked at the door to ask after her, but she didn't answer—she wrapped her own arms around herself.

'I've already gone and done it.'

Bliea felt it, instinctively—the sense that she and Adrienne were now connected.

Since the day she had come face to face with Adrienne, she had felt it: the unceasing sensation of something closing around her heart.

She could feel clearly, through her lungs, that Adrienne's breath was stopping.

'Sorry, Adrienne. You were the girl who was my sister.'

She understood, then, why that fragile face kept tearing through her mind.

It was guilt.

A feeling that was nothing to laugh at.

'This might be dangerous for you too, for a little while. But you'll come to understand as well—that it's better to die and live again and know the truth than to go on living without knowing it.'

Because she had seen herself in that girl's face—living like a fool, not knowing what was happening.

Because no one knew better than she did how wretched that kind of life was.

'I was a wretched sister. But forgive me for atoning this way, at least.'

Bliea felt the fading energy of Adrienne's consciousness.

The soul-exchange magic from the ancient magic texts she had worn thin at Rotsy's cabin.

Forbidden magic. Magic beyond forgiving.

There were many words used to describe it, but Bliea paid them no mind.

Her trembling hand moved toward the magic circle she had drawn in advance.

The circle rose from the floor, shimmering gold.

'I'm giving you a chance too.'

The chance to know the truth and be angry.

'You said you'd help me—with a body like that.'

Remembering the day she had faced Adrienne, the more Bliea thought about it the more absurd it was, and a breath of something almost a laugh escaped her.

"Help me once. Yourself. And me."

I'll give you the healthy body you must have wanted so much.

'Read it only for fun. A magic like that—done wrong—and you might die.'

Rotsy's voice brushed through her mind for a moment.

"You wretchedly, impossibly difficult ancient magic. Please—exchange our souls. Give Adrienne my body as a gift."

'You're smarter than me, so you'll be able to bring something to light. Perhaps even the fact that the body you'll have is that of your twin sister.'

Consciousness sinks into water with no bottom.

Olivia—the one she had always thought was a fool. Only as death came close did Bliea understand her.

'Olivia thought of me as her true daughter.'

That logic-defying feeling—the one that had let Olivia give up a better life simply because she had raised, with tenderness, someone who shared not a drop of her blood—Bliea felt it now for Adrienne.

She could feel, from a distance, the restless movement of her mana—which she had poured almost entirely into the mana stone coffin—now without anywhere to go.

Ah.

'I took something from you, too.'

The deeper into the water consciousness sank, the more certain Bliea became.

'The mana that overflowed beyond its proper measure—it was something that was always supposed to be shared between you and me.'

Bliea wept now.

'Oh, seriously. What if I——'

'I might die.'

She truly could not breathe. As though she had fallen into water with no bottom.

And yet, strangely, she could not stop.

Knowing she might die. She could not let go of this ancient magic business she had never tried before in her life.

'I want to save her.'

Sinking into water without a bottom.

She reached both hands out with all her strength, but no one reached back to take them.

Still, Bliea smiled.

Below the water, she saw her little sister Adrienne Pirreta. Crying out to be saved.

She reached for that hand without hesitation, and pulled her up above herself.

She was smiling.

"Isn't it funny. How little I know you—and yet. Someone I've never once been family with."

I gripped my trembling chest and barely managed to ask Bliea.

"Did you love Novian?"

Bliea laughed as if it were absurd.

"Thought I did. My heart pounded for him—I'd be lying if I said otherwise. But when I found out the bastard was trying to use me without so much as a word of discussion, my feelings for him just fell away. And seeing you wait like a fool for a man like that made me furious."

"……Was I pitiful?"

"Yes. Pitiful."

Bliea looked directly at me and said it.

"You didn't know anything, and that—that thing—Crown Prince or turd, whatever he is—thing was calling you his mistress one day and his wife the next, pulling every kind of stunt he could think of. And there you were, absolutely sure of Novian, that bastard, just waiting. The sight of you doing that was f***ing pitiful."

"What is it—the ancient magic? Our souls were exchanged?"

"Right. But it can only be done when one side's soul has strayed far enough from the body to be close to Abadhelia. When you were on the very edge of death. That was the moment I'd been hunting for."

At first Bliea kept glancing at Rotsy, then began rambling—explaining in great detail how hard her very stupid head had worked.

She said it had seemed like standing before her father would get her killed on the spot by one means or another; scheming in secret, her only training being in the art called sorcery, she had been unable to think of any other method.

"……If you had come to me. I would have helped you."

And at that single line, just for the briefest of instants, Bliea's sour expression broke and returned.

She stared at me fixedly, as if taking me in, then finally released the taut set of her mouth.

"That's the part I regret most. I'll admit it. I was really, genuinely stupid."

When I said nothing, Bliea added:

"I thought you'd be as difficult and moody as me—a real pain in the ass, like me—before I met you, I mean."

"……That's not wrong. I've got quite a temper on me too, it turns out."

Our eyes met in the air. The grave expressions on both our faces cracked—just for a moment—into a small, involuntary laugh, then settled back.

"When you hear what I did to those 'bastards'—you might even be frightened of me."

"Oh? Then hear this—when you find out how I prepared Count Acacia to wreck Novian's plans, you'll be the one who's surprised. Oh—Count Acacia! Is that old man even alive? That poor old man——"

"He's alive."

Just then.

I'd been watching Bliea confirm whether Count Acacia was alive or dead, and I finally pulled out the question that had been lodged in my chest like a splinter.

"But you——"

Bliea raised an eyebrow.

"Were you planning to die?"

I couldn't keep the tremor from my voice as I snapped it at her.

Bliea, who had been deep in sentiment for a moment, frowned slightly.

"When I tried to exchange our souls? Why would I die for you? I just—I won't say the thought didn't cross my mind, that I might die doing this. But I didn't stop."

"You said you were supposed to die originally."

"Rotsy's warning about how filthy-difficult that magic was came back to me a little late. But whatever—it was already done. Maybe because we're twins with the same mana, even though the magic was clumsy, I managed to keep my life?"

Bliea shrugged.

Watching that, Rotsy's hand came down on Bliea's back without a moment's hesitation.

She had been holding herself back all through Bliea's explanation—the marks of her own teeth were pressed livid into her lower lip.

"I! I knew it! I knew something like this was going on! No wonder the bookshelf! Was missing books!"

"Ow! Ow! I was investigating that Crown Prince bastard—his record was rotten, I could smell it—and I took a few books trying to find out why he was so obsessed with mana stone coffins! And it worked out for you too in the end, didn't it, Rotsy?"

"I—I thought you were——"

Rotsy stopped hitting her. She pulled Bliea into her arms and began to sob.

And in that moment—

"Is all of this true?"

The air in the room went cold in an instant.

Everyone's gaze turned toward the door that had opened without a sound.

"Gregory——!"

Gregory. Bianca. And Olivia.

"……Is it all right to let him go like that?"

"It was a story he needed to hear eventually, our brother."

Gregory had gasped out 'How could something like this have happened'……" like a lament, then shook as I began to speak, and as Olivia and Bianca added their voices.

His face was full of wounded reproach—how could something this enormous have happened without a word to him.

He muttered that there was no way their father had simply discarded Bliea out of grief over their mother's death.

Gregory wore an expression of something taking shape in his mind for a long while after that, then disappeared, saying he was going to find their father.

"A brother, huh. A brother……"

Bliea watched, a little sulky, as the trace of the brother who looked just like her disappeared.

It seemed to give her a headache almost at once—she pressed her fingers to her forehead and said she wanted to rest, that everyone should leave.

"No. The one who should leave is you, Bliea."

"?"

I started pulling off the white priest's robe I had been wearing.

Rhodness, who was standing beside me, caught my outer garment without thinking.

"What is this? What the hell? Why are you stripping all of a sudden?"

"We need to switch back. The two of us."

"!"

Only then did Bliea pick up the fabric of the clothes she was wearing and look at them.

It was the cream-colored dress I had changed her into in Bardenaldo's underground chamber.

"The one lying in that bed should be 'Adrienne.'"

"This suddenly? I've only just picked up bits and pieces of what you've been doing in my body. I don't have your memory—I'll forget things quickly."

"Yona knows our situation well enough. For the time being, just act like me, more or less. The title of Bliea, Countess Acacia, is still that of a lady-in-waiting to the Crown Princess—and she was also an aide to the late Crown Prince, so the situation is different from before."

"What does a lady-in-waiting to a Crown Princess who's about to stand trial and die matter——"

Bliea stumbled up without quite meaning to, getting into position to change her clothes, and Rhodness finally stepped out of the room. Bliea's gaze flicked to him for a moment, and a mischievous smile played at her mouth.

"Then your lover too, I get to——"

"Don't even dream of it."

"Just look at her. Look how vicious. That's not my little sister, I'm telling you."

Bliea grumbled, and in a moment was standing in only her underclothes.

I handed over the priest's robe, also down to my underclothes.

"Things will be very different from before."

"Yeah, sure. Different."

"Now—with your changed standing, get your revenge on Father properly. Do the things you want to do freely. Just keep the cursing to a minimum. I've put in the work to rebuild that image, after all."

"This—telling your own older sister what to do and what not to——"

Knock knock.

The moment Bliea started bristling, pulling on the priest's robe—a polite knock.

I dove quickly into the bed and shut my eyes. Through slitted lids I watched Bliea flounder for a moment, then straighten her back with clumsy effort.

The door flew open.

Grand Prelate Telrn strode in leading a crowd of priests, eyes alight.

Without a shred of doubt, Telrn crossed toward Bliea—standing there in the priest's robe—and seized both her hands.

"I will personally ensure that not only the Grand Duchess, but you too, madam, are permitted to bear the name of saint!"

"What the hell is this, you son of a——"

"Having received such precise oracles on so many occasions, you are more than deserving of the title of saint, madam! Am I not your witness? And Marquess Winster and Prince Epero saw it themselves!"

Bliea's head swiveled stiffly toward me where I lay, eyes barely open.

"It shall be recorded that you are the greatest saint in all of history! This Telrn will stand at your side!"

Bliea's lips—still pale—silently shaped something very foul at me.

I shut my eyes tight, as if I had seen nothing at all.

And I heard the sound of Bliea's footsteps as she was practically dragged out of the room amid the priests' cheering.