Episode Six
Kiaran narrowed her eyes, lifted her fingers from my jaw, and slowly straightened up.
“Got it in one. Didn’t think you’d figure it out, witch.”
“I was coming to check because I thought someone else had wandered in, and here it’s my beloved Black Witch. What a surprise.”
Her way of speaking was light, but the noise had left her voice. She looked exactly like the Kiaran I knew, and yet nothing about her felt like her. The wrongness of it made my head ache.
She traced a finger along the dusty desk, ran her hand over an empty bottle. Moving around the room with an air of mild boredom, she went on.
“I had a feeling something had me in its sights, but I didn’t know that was the name for it. Well, it’s not wrong, so it doesn’t matter.”
“I can’t live without absorbing mana from someone. It’s not like you, being able to top up with a potion or just by sleeping.”
A voice like something being spat out. The coldness that seeped into the look she turned on me from time to time — I knew that feeling. It was something close to anger.
“Kiaran.”
I drew a small breath. I probably didn’t have time to let my thoughts settle properly.
“I don’t really understand what you being a monster means. You look completely human to me.”
“But right now — I believe you.”
From where she stood watching me, there was not a trace of the killing intent you’d expect from a monster.
“I’m not here to kill you. I want you to come back to the capital with me.”
“Why? I’m a monster that attacks people. You know that, and you still want to bring me into the capital? Isn’t that a bit reckless?”
The corner of her mouth lifted in something like a sneer. She was listening, but she had no intention of simply going along with anything I said.
What to tell her, and how much. Hesitation moved through my mind one thought after another.
“I can’t explain it all here. I’m sorry.”
“But I need your strength. I promise it won’t go badly for you, and I won’t let it. So come with me.”
The fact that she attacks people is real — I knew that. I’d just walked right into her trap, after all.
But the person in front of me was that Kiaran. We’d fought side by side, laughed together. She would understand, I was sure of it.
A monster that truly hated humans couldn’t have laughed like that.
The sound of footsteps came closer, steady and measured. Looking up from where I was still crouched low, the corner of Kiaran’s mouth was faintly curved.
“Can’t really trust what humans say. You’ll probably just use me as a research subject, won’t you?”
“N-no, nothing like that. I’ll explain properly on the way back. Selene is here too, so the three of us together—”
The words research subject made my gaze waver for just a moment. She must have caught it, because she kept that half-smile on her face and closed the distance.
“Then let me absorb a little mana, and I’ll think about it.”
“It’s not very fair if only I have to do as I’m told, is it?”
Her voice, murmured close to my ear, seeped slowly through me like something spreading under the skin.
Something to say — I had to say something. My mouth opened and closed and opened again, and the right words wouldn’t come.
She toyed with my silence and continued.
“Don’t worry. I won’t drink until you die. I’ve never actually killed anyone, you know?”
My gaze, pulled from hers, settled on my own hands gripping the hem of my robe. Anxiety, or fear. My fingertips were trembling.
“I know you haven’t killed anyone. I’d wondered why, but now it makes sense.”
If her words were true, she hadn’t been attacking people for pleasure. She was absorbing mana to survive. Nothing more.
Whether to tell her about myself. The thought crossed my mind, but I couldn’t take the step.
“Later. When Selene comes, I’ll let you absorb from me then.”
I pressed my grip tighter on my robe and said it. She blinked once, then let her eyes close slowly, and when she opened her mouth she sounded bored.
“That won’t do. The White Witch will definitely get in the way.”
She sighed dramatically and tilted her face up toward the ceiling.
“I mean, she went and covered you in marks to stake her claim the second I got a little close. She’s way too into you, the Black Witch.”
My pulse lurched, and words snagged in my throat. The Kiaran who had been with us and this Kiaran in front of me now — it settled in me that they were the same person.
Keeping my breathing shallow, I opened my mouth again. I had no idea how thin and frail my voice sounded to her.
“I-it’s fine, really. I’ll explain to Selene myself. Trust me.”
As I said it I forced the corners of my mouth up as hard as I could.
She sighed once more, and then without warning she pushed me down, covering me, pressing my back firmly into the floor. A muffled sound escaped me.
Burst…
The words of the spell I’d instinctively started to form broke off. At this distance, the magic would catch me too.
I had to do something. I turned my thoughts over frantically, but no answer came.
The room was dark and no light reached it, but the crimson of Kiaran’s eyes as she loomed over me seemed to glow with a strange brightness.
“You know what, witch? You’re really, truly too soft.”
She bound both my wrists with chains woven from mana and slipped the ring from my finger before I could resist.
No good, no good, no good, no good.
My heartbeat grew louder and louder and my eyes couldn’t focus.
Maybe I had trusted her too much.
I struggled desperately but with both hands out of use I couldn’t throw off Kiaran where she sat above me.
“You’re trying too hard. Getting a bit of mana drained isn’t that bad. I’ll bring you a potion after.”
“W-wait! Let’s talk properly. I trust you, Kiaran!”
I wrung the words out with a head that wouldn’t work. However much I struggled, I only ran out of breath, and the situation only worsened.
She ran her hands slowly over my body, as if deciding where to sink her teeth.
“If you do anything to me, you really will become a monster! If Uno knew about this — she’d be heartbroken!”
I said it loud and forceful, and for one moment her hands went still. When I tilted my face up carefully, I found wide-open eyes looking back at me. Deep in those eyes, something that looked like anger was burning.
“Don’t bring Uno into this right now.”
A small murmur, with no strength behind it.
“Witch, I’m already a monster. I was one when Uno and I came to Edelcia. I was one when we rode in that carriage with you.”
She pressed my shoulders down harder, face dropped low, and went on.
“It doesn’t kill you. You can put up with a little.”
With that she moved out of my line of sight, leaving nothing but the blank ceiling above me.
Without my magic, I was nothing but a powerless ordinary person. Gold hair grazed my cheek, and warm breath touched my neck. I couldn’t run, and could only brace my body against what was coming.
A sharp pain ran through my throat. Not the sensation of being torn apart — something more like a fine needle finding its place. But my vision slowly blurred, and the feeling in my body began to thin.
An unidentifiable wrongness welled up in my throat and spilled out as something close to a cry. The mana that had been moving through my whole body reversing, pouring out, draining away along with a deep nausea.
Painful, painful, painful, painful.
“Kiaran, stop, if I lose any more mana I’ll—”
The voice I’d pushed out with everything I had dissolved at the end to almost nothing. Had it even reached her?
“It’s fine, it’s fine, don’t worry—”
She murmured it over and over as though reassuring herself, pressing her nose against me, moving along my body.
“You know, I wonder—”
“Which part of a person’s mana tastes best.”
She ran her tongue once across where she had bitten, and spoke in a quiet, unhurried voice.
“Usually the throat. But maybe the arm, the side—?”
She was looking for the next place to sink her teeth as she said it.
I made the wrong choice.
There was so much I wanted to think about, but whatever rose in my mind had apparently dissolved away with the mana.
Not enough mana. Not enough air.
I watched the fading scene around me in a vague, distant haze. Kiaran seemed to be saying something, but I could barely hear it. I could hear it and yet my body had stopped trying to listen.
I wanted to apologise to Selene. I had been the one binding her all this time, and setting her free like this was far too selfish of me.
I had only just started to understand her.
Just as consciousness was slipping from my hands, dazzling light flooded the room.
The figure standing in the doorway — all I could make out through my blurred vision was their feet. But who it was came to me before I had even finished thinking.
The breath that had been stretched tight in me eased, just a little.
“If you don’t want to die, get away from Sion. Step back and I won’t kill you immediately.”
“Stay where you are and I’ll kill you.”
A voice sharp and cold as a blade rang through the quiet room.
A voice I knew and didn’t know. Even so, I had been waiting for her all along.
This feeling clinging to the last thread of my consciousness — was it fear, or was it joy? In that moment I couldn’t tell, but the one thing pressing against the breaking point inside me was the desperate need to reach her.