[313] The Wheel of Causality (5)
Eliza's venom froze.
"Your Majesty, I don't know what happened that day. All I saw was a knife lodged in my bloodied son's belly. I couldn't think of anything, and in the end I committed an unforgivable rudeness toward Your Majesty."
Eliza clenched the armrest of her chair until it creaked.
"Hah! How brazen. True, commoners might side with you—after all, all they have are emotions! But I think differently. You almost turned your son into a parricide!"
"If it was Shirone's choice, we must accept it."
"You must accept it? What a convenient way to think. No—cowardly. Shirone tried to kill me. And you tell me I have no right to criticize him?"
"Parents do not have that right."
Eliza ground her teeth and rose. She looked ready to hand down an execution at once.
Olina didn't flinch; she kept her gaze down and continued speaking.
"Parents only have the ten-odd years of a child's upbringing to teach them not to commit such acts."
Eliza's mind went blank. She wanted to think, but her thoughts turned white and empty; she slumped back into her chair.
"Your Majesty, I have been by Shirone's side for eighteen years. So now, whatever my son has done, it is entirely my failing. Please punish me."
Parents have no right to refuse their child's choices. But they are given those countless years to prevent them.
Tears welled in Eliza's eyes. That time—she no longer had it. The moment she abandoned her child, that precious span was gone as well.
The silence of the Grand Hall was broken by a guard's voice.
"Your Highness, Shirone requests an audience."
Olina turned to the door, surprised.
Orcamp had said he didn't know when Shirone's consciousness would return. He, who had been lost in thought, gave a stern command.
"Admit him."
Shirone entered along the red carpet, gaunt-faced. Amy, Reina, and Vincent followed. Vincent, seeing Olina unharmed, breathed a sigh of relief.
"Well, what is it? You look unwell. If it's not urgent, you could rest and tell me later."
Shirone held back his answer. He had rushed here the moment he woke and did not sound able to raise his voice.
He stepped as close to Orcamp as he could and spoke bluntly.
"I will leave the palace… right now."
Amy, Reina, and his parents turned to him in shock.
Even when he'd insisted on seeing Orcamp the instant he woke, none of them had expected him to announce his departure so quickly.
"There's something I realized while I was here. From this moment on, apart from the parents by my side, no one else is my parent."
It was a vow Shirone would stake his life on. It was also a declaration that he would sever every tie with Kazra.
Orcamp, who had been deep in thought, finally spoke.
"You have my permission."
All eyes turned to Orcamp.
He showed no particular emotion—perhaps he had already prepared himself. He simply met Shirone's gaze calmly.
"Reina, prepare the carriage. I'll go back to my room and pack."
Shirone left the Grand Hall without once looking back. It was clear how thoroughly he loathed this place.
Reina glanced at Eliza. With Orcamp's permission granted, she intended to let Olina's case slide as well.
She was about to turn with a sultry smile to take her leave when Eliza's cold voice stabbed her back.
"Where do you think you're going? I understand there are still matters to settle between us."
Olina frowned and turned. Her heart pounded, but she refused to show weakness now.
"The reason I called you was because I couldn't decide what punishment to impose. I intended to execute you, but I thought that wouldn't sate my anger. At first I considered gouging out your eyes to blind you, or cutting out your tongue to make you mute."
Vincent's face reddened. If they actually did that, he was ready to flee with Olina even if he had to bury his bones here.
"But even that didn't feel enough. Then, after much thought, an idea struck me—the perfect punishment. I would…"
Everyone swallowed, waiting for the rest. Eliza, eyes heavy as if drowsy, gauged their reactions and continued.
"I would simply send you away."
"…What?"
Amy blurted it out before she meant to. The others looked puzzled as well.
"If I harmed you, Shirone would fix his gaze on you and you alone for the rest of his life. That would have troubled me. So I decided to send you away—let him spend his life weighing you against his birth mother, the queen of a nation. Let him envy and resent you to his dying day."
They were left speechless. Whatever the severity of the punishment, the mindset was vicious.
The murderous glare Eliza had been giving faltered into a hollow expression as she rummaged in her bosom.
"But just in case—though it's unlikely—if you could persuade me otherwise, I thought I might give you this. And… you've won."
A crumpled paper slipped from Eliza's hand and fluttered to the floor.
Olina picked it up and unfolded it slowly. It was the official document with the results of the parentage test between Orcamp and Shirone. Having taught Shirone to read, she could follow most of it aside from the technical terms.
She skimmed past the complex experimental details and fixed on the crucial result. Everyone leaned toward the document, impatient.
Blood samples from Client 1 and Client 2 were dissolved in Oxtamine and stored in a vacuum for three days; no changes in color, concentration, or sediment were observed. Therefore, based on the Oxtamine negative reaction, Client 1 (Orcamp) and Client 2 (Shirone) are not biologically father and son.
"My goodness…"
Orcamp and Shirone were not father and son. Biologically, they were complete strangers.
Amy looked at Orcamp. She finally understood why he'd been so indifferent from the start.
"How can this be?"
"I don't know. There's no need to know. The possibility of manipulation is zero, so be at ease. In any case, he's not my son—take the document. You may need it."
Eliza added, "Shirone doesn't know yet. Whether you tell him the truth is up to you. Given his rudeness two days ago, I'd like to remain his birth mother forever out of spite, but since you did what needed to be done, I'll forgive you this once."
Olina lifted her head in surprise.
Perhaps she imagined it, but for a moment Eliza seemed to smile.
"Now go. Shirone is your son."
* * *
The third basement of Kazra Castle was the underground prison where countless political prisoners had been dragged during the unrest that threw the government into chaos. They had not seen sunlight for decades, and they never would again.
Some nobles married the people who had tortured them. Gender didn't matter. To them it was a love that transcended class barriers—a pure union between living beings, at least in their eyes.
What's wrong with that? For them, the world ended at the prison wall. This place had become another society, perfectly sealed off from the world above.
Uorin walked across the dirt floor reeking of pus. Underground creatures parted left and right with each step she took; they were the daily food of the isolated ones.
Strange sounds leaked from every cell door—sometimes like pain, sometimes like pleasure. They sounded like cries, and yet somehow like laughter.
Kazra had neglected this place for five years.
Though these people had been reduced to useless lives, someone among them might have endured torture and held explosive, dangerous knowledge, waiting for the right moment. There was no point in pulling them out and picking at scabs. Better to leave them to rot.
Uorin recalled a novel the previous ruler had read eighty years ago.
In it, the protagonist had been born in a prison sealed for seventy years.
The novel described the underground prison like an ant colony. Women were prized for bearing children, and when a boy was born he was used for food or made into a slave, condemned to a lifetime of labor.
The protagonist had been born as Food No. 141. Yet, with the help of the oldest man in the prison, he managed to avoid becoming a slave.
The old man had been the highest noble seventy years earlier and the only one who knew the outside world. Knowing his life was almost over, he passed on all his knowledge to the protagonist.
When the protagonist turned fifteen, a rebellion broke out. The underground prison opened after eighty-five years; the protagonist escaped, quelled the unrest, and became king.
Uorin smiled faintly.
It was only a novel, but who knew? Maybe a miracle like that could happen for Jion and he might get out of here.
When Jion had been found in the food storage, he had been surviving thanks to Armand's recovery program.
If she had left him, he would have died. And perhaps that would have been the happier fate.
Jion would never know who saved him. He would not know who ordered the tortures once he regained consciousness. He would not know who had thrown him into the underground cell the moment he confessed what occurred inside Shirone's mind.
Jion sat slumped in his wooden, crudely woven cell.
He knew how wretched this place was. His eyes were swollen from crying through the night, and his face wore the vacant look of someone who'd lost his mind.
At the sound of footsteps he instinctively drew his limbs in. Then he saw Uorin's face in the weak torchlight and brightened, clinging to the bars.
"Uorin! Here, here! Get me out! Where the hell have you been? Some weird bastards tortured me and put me in here!"
Even as Jion whimpered like a child wanting milk, Uorin felt no trace of maternal tenderness.
Teraje's power did not manifest in her son. To her—an entity that existed by self-replication—the son was merely a shell that resembled his appearance.
Jion's tortured face was a ruin. Dried blood crusted the struck areas, his eyes were deeply bruised, and his ribs had been broken and bound in bandages.
Despite his weakness, he raged—clearly terrified of the underground prison.
"What a sight. How did my once-successful brother end up like this?"
Jion's eyes lit when he saw the sword at Uorin's hip.
Though sheathed, the hilt was unmistakably the Demon Sword Armand. It was obvious she'd brought it to break him out.
"Damn it! That bastard won't get away with this. Shirone'll still be at the castle, right? No matter—I'll go and kill him myself."
Jion reached out past the bars to grab Armand.
Uorin stepped back. When Jion stared, puzzled, she smiled slightly and showed him the cell key.
"What? I've already been granted release? You should've told me sooner."
When the lock clicked, Jion kicked at the grate as if he'd been waiting for it and stepped out. At that moment Uorin grabbed his throat and shoved him back into the cell.
"Guh—!"
Jion smashed the back of his head against the wall and slid down. Uorin kept her hand on his throat and leaned in close.
"Still haven't grasped the situation, you pathetic fool?"
"U-Uorin…! Why…!"
"Do you know why I didn't kill you?"
Jion was one of the few who had reached Shirone's Deep Level 1. He had already told her many things, and he might still be useful someday.
"What you saw, heard, and experienced—you must not reveal any of it. If you recall anything, I will ruin your brain. If you try to do anything, I will mangle your limbs."
From Uorin's icily calm tone, Jion understood. It was like hearing his mother's cold voice.