As Alice and Sylvaria walked the familiar road, the projection dimmed around them. The experiment room, once a sterile mix of white and black, bled of its colors entirely. Light flickered but did not brighten, stuttering like a dying pulse.
You again.
The words were not just in her head. The spell dragged every thought outward, audible to anyone still watching the projection.
It slithered into her fragile mind. Guilt seeped through her heart, crawling through every unseen seam until she could barely breathe. It tightened, sharper and sharper, for she knew the truth: the only reason her mother could not avenge her father was because of her.
Usually, people would have already discarded a useless child like you, you know.
Alice fought to deny it, but her body betrayed her. Even her own heartbeat seemed to agree with the voice. How she wished someone could rewrite her very fabric, so she would no longer reek of the uselessness clinging to her soul.
If one day your mother decides to abandon you, or if she cannot keep loving you, do not blame her. No one in this wretched world would—or should—love you.
Alice nodded to the voice. She surrendered. Because in the end, it was her own voice, speaking the truth she had always denied.
Good. Finally, you understand. Now be useful and keep your mouth shut. Do not cry. Do not ever cry. Tears from you would only soil the ground they fall on. Nothing in this world should be stained by you.
“…Yes.”
As Lina heard the voice from the projection, tears slipped out against her will. They leaked like a cracked glass, draining her soul drop by drop. She turned to Vierna. The smile was still there, her eyes unflinching, even as her exposed brain pulsed faintly under the needle’s influence.
Lina pressed her trembling hands together. I have to protect her. No matter what. I have to be there for her too.
The projection refocused. Alice walked beside Sylvaria through a pale marbled town, its white houses suffocating in their colorlessness.
“Did you say something, dear?” Sylvaria’s voice pulled her back.
“Nothing, Mom.”
“Alice.” Her mother’s tone was gentle but cutting. “What did I tell you about pretending to be strong for me?”
Alice forced a laugh. “Hehe… but it’s nothing, Mom. Don’t worry. I just… I don’t want to weigh you down anymore.”
Sylvaria did not press on. The clash with Hilda still lingered in her chest like a wound that refused to close.
They walked on in silence, past narrow shops and pale stone houses. The county was small, and rumors traveled faster than wind. Eyes followed them at every corner. Alice heard the whispers, sharp and careless: murderer, bastard. As if repetition could make the words true.
Sylvaria ignored them, though the tremor in her arms and the dull flicker in her eyes betrayed her weariness. She no longer had the will to change what people believed.
After a while she bought bread for herself and Alice. Alice heard the sigh the moment her mother opened her purse, a breath escaping like a soul loosening its burden.
They found a bench and sat, shoulders slumping as though it was the first rest they had taken in hours. Sylvaria broke her bread and took a slow bite.
“Alice, I need to tell you something.”
“Yes, Mom.” Alice kept staring at her piece, untouched.
“Our house is mortgaged. We owe the loaner every month.”
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“…”
“I would love to keep it,” Sylvaria continued quietly, “but I think it would be wiser to move. To somewhere simpler.”
“Okay, Mom.” However the dimming light in the projection room clearly shows that the suggestion saddened Alice.
Sylvaria saw it in her daughter’s face: the hollow grief, wide and gaping. She could not even hold on to the home she grew up in. She had lost her father, been rejected again and again by her grandmother. Shouldn’t she at least have something left?
Her lips bent into a smile that never reached her eyes. “Ah, now that I think of it, I probably can work something out hehe.” The laugh was brittle, like porcelain about to crack.
Alice’s eyes widened. The word was a rope thrown into her abyss. It was not just hope. It was air after drowning, warmth after frost. A word so ordinary, yet it filled her chest like a miracle.
“Really, Mom?”
“Yes,” Sylvaria said firmly, as if conviction alone could make it true.
“Hehe, okay.” As she said it, the room which people were watching her memory brighten again.
They walked on, through a city thick with prejudice and gossip. Every step home was shadowed by whispers and sidelong glances. Alice tried to pretend she did not hear them, but each murmur clawed at her skin.
At last, they arrived home. Sylvaria left Alice and headed toward her room, her steps trembling, shoulders slumped.
You useless little thing. You do realize Mom only said she had savings because of your stupid face, because you could not bear to let this house go?
The voice returned, relentless, chewing at her soul. It was not just sound. It was claws scraping her ribs, hot breath at her ear. Her own soul, turned against itself.
Alice slumped against her parents’ bedroom door. She did not cover her ears. Why should she? The voice was only telling the truth. So she let it guide her like a kind counsel.
What should I do?
Of course you had to tell Mother you were okay with leaving this house.
But… didn’t we love the house?
We did. But after you killed Father? This place does not deserve your stench.
But…
But?! You selfish little girl. You really are nothing but a bother. Now say goodbye to this place. And when Mother wakes up, you had better be packed and ready to go.
“…”
She stood and walked through the house. The hollowed hall, once filled with footsteps too loud for its size and the excited rush of her father’s presence, was now silent. The only sound came from a sorrowful drip from her parents’ room. Even grief seemed to cling to the air as Alice moved through the corridor that had become unfamiliar.
She entered the dining room, where the stain of Harmus’s presence still choked every memory. This was where she used to tell her father about her day—what she’d learned at school, how a boy had glanced her way. He would rise, half-serious, swearing he ought to “meet” the boy’s parents for daring to look at his daughter.
Now those memories no longer warmed her heart. They only left behind the cold echo of absence, a hollow grief that bit like frost. A grim, macabre reminder that the one who had always protected her—sometimes to the edge of overprotection—was gone, leaving only the jagged ache of longing in his place.
She went to the living room where she had spent countless hours with her books. Every corner whispered farewell, as if a child were being forced to say goodbye to her only sanctuary.
Here no one had ever whispered against her. Here someone had truly wanted her to stay. When the world rejected her and stared with a chill that could freeze the fiercest fire, the house wrapped her in a warmth that even permafrost could not break. And it was the last resting place of her father, the true Golden Eagle, now soaring beyond the veil of heaven and watching over her still.
Finally she stepped outside, into a cradle of dirt and earth—the resting place of the Golden Eagle. It was adorned with Silverveil blooms, an unmistakable mark of the selfishness that had sent her father through the veil that divides life from fate. She wanted to say goodbye, yet the thought that this might be her last visit was enough to bring her to her knees. Tears fell, staining the sacred bed of her father. She lay down in the dirt, as if by doing so she could lie once more in her father’s embrace, just like the good old times.
She did not realize how long she had lain there until a shadow fell across her vision.
She sat down, quickly wiping away her tears and forcing a smile, as if that could hide her aching sorrow. Her mother stood before her, then cupped Alice’s face in her hands.
Sylvaria looked into Alice’s eyes, compassion flooding her gaze. “Alice, his death wasn’t your fault. You’re my moon, and your face was never made for tears.”
Alice couldn’t help but cry. She had thought she was ready to be the mature one—to ease her mother’s burden, not add to it. “I’m sorry… but you’re right. Living somewhere simpler is better.”
“No. After all we went through, we deserve a bit something for ourselves.” her mother said. “Besides, I really do have a little bit of savings. Probably enough until I finally get a job.”
Alice spoke no word. She held her mother as if release would doom her to fade, like a sun consumed by eternal night. Sylvaria’s arms closed around her, and at once the projection bloomed—the gray husk broke, and life returned in color and soul.
“Mom…You’re My Sun.”
Outside the memory, Vierna whispered as she watched the scene. “My Sun…?” Tears started to flow down.
The Arkmarschall looked at Vierna as her tears pierce the Achromatische Seele
He recast the spell, and Vierna returned to the smiling puppet she had been before, her eyes fixed on the memory as the projection continued.
Leave the home or stay?
