Chapter 198

Ancient relics lay beside Elise’s pillow, artifacts Rezette had wrested from the king of Ugel.

Rezette picked up a mineral no larger than his palm and pressed it into Elise’s hand. This would pull her back from death to life. It had to. He prayed with everything he had, trusting that the gods were listening.

“Please… come back soon,” he murmured.

Even a day sooner. An hour. A single minute, before his mind finally broke.

Rezette knew where Elise was wandering.

From the region of her waist, where she lay as still as a corpse, he sensed a familiar current of magic. As she always had, she was drifting through a realm he could never reach, the unconscious world.

The bridge that bound the twins, within that shared dream.

She dreamed. It was so deep and distant that time lost all meaning. A cozy darkness wrapped Elise in its arms, the sort of darkness that made eternal sleep feel tempting.

Then, abruptly, she opened her eyes.

Something small and warm rested in her palm.

Sensation crept back into her body, followed by a strange vitality. She felt light for the first time in ages, as if she might lift off the ground. When Elise fully opened her eyes, the darkness fled in an instant. The world blazed with brightness, like perpetual daylight. Drawn as if by a magnet, she pushed herself upright, her body tugged toward something unseen.

Only then did she glance down at herself.

Wait… this is…

The pitch-black expanse that had enveloped her had shrunk to a thin thread. One end of that thread was anchored at the small of her back.

Elise bolted upright, recalling the magic circle etched into her skin.

If that spell was still active, then the other end of this thread had to lead to her other half.

Turning her back on the light, Elise followed the black thread into the dark. She pushed forward through the fading unconscious world. The thread trembled, as if it might snap at any moment.

No, no…

It cannot disappear.

Desperate, Elise searched her memory. Not long after she had begun living in Rotiara, she had used a mirror to trace the magic circle on her back, copying it again and again. It was the bridge between twins that Andrei had once brought into being.

Clinging to the earnest desperation she had felt back then, Elise failed several times before finally completing the formula. Mana poured in. The circle flared to life.

The black thread, on the verge of vanishing, suddenly thickened. Revived darkness swallowed her whole once more.

It worked.

Elise ran.

Andrei would be waiting at the end of this path.

Strangely, she did not grow short of breath. The molten headache that had felt like lava melting her brain was gone. Even the dull ache between her lower abdomen and thighs had vanished. With every step, her body felt lighter, cleaner, more alive.

Yet no matter how long she ran, the darkness did not end.

Why? I should see Andrei by now.

Then understanding struck her.

This passage was a bridge between dreams, a corridor linking her unconscious to Andrei’s.

If she could not reach him no matter how far she ran, it meant his consciousness had already drifted somewhere she could no longer follow.

Then what lay at the end of this road?

Death.

Only then did Elise understand what the light behind her and the darkness ahead truly meant.

Even knowing this, her legs would not stop. She was no longer running by choice. She was being pulled forward, accelerating toward death.

I have to turn back now. Rezette is waiting.

Panting, Elise spun around. The path she had come through had narrowed to the size of a needle’s eye.

She clenched her teeth and faced forward again.

Far ahead, a light no larger than a fingernail flickered.

The more Elise ran, the farther away it seemed. Instinct told her what it was. Her brother’s soul, fading.

I have to catch it.

“Andrei!” she shouted.

It was already too late to turn back. Elise ran with everything she had. Slowly, agonizingly slowly, the light drew closer. She was throwing herself toward it faster than Andrei was drifting away.

Her outstretched hand struck something with a dull thud. Fingers closed around a wrist, faintly warm with lingering life. Elise seized it with all her strength and yanked it toward her.

“Hah… hah…”

She had him.

Forcing her eyes open, Elise stared at the person she had caught.

“Andrei.”

The brown-haired young man stumbled as he turned around, eyes widening.

“Sister?”

She knew instantly. This was not Sameshita wearing her brother’s shell. This was Andrei. Truly Andrei.

He stammered, disbelief plain on his face. “How are you here? This place… you shouldn’t be able to enter anymore.”

“You—!”

Her hand moved before her words. Elise grabbed him with one hand and slapped him across the face with the other. The sharp crack echoed. Andrei coughed and staggered back half a step, eyes blown wide.

“What are you doing out of nowhere—”

“Don’t exaggerate. I know that didn’t hurt at all.”

You cannot feel pain in dreams. Still furious, Elise kicked him hard in the shin.

“You insufferable idiot. You decided everything on your own again. You didn’t tell me a single word and just went and died like that. How could you do that? You absolute—”

“Barnon explained everything—”

“You stubborn fool. This is the second time. When Argan fell, you stayed behind on your own too. How could you make me go through that twice?”

Andrei, flustered until now, twitched at the word stubborn.

“Then did you consult me even once when you decided to kill yourself?” he shot back.

“What?”

“It’s the same thing. Why are you so angry?”

He looked genuinely wronged. Elise bit her lip, then punched his shoulder instead.

“So because you did it, I can do it too? You think we’re the same? You never told me how much you were hurting, where it hurt, why you were exhausted, why you were depressed. You just kept saying you were fine. Then one day you were cold and gone.”

“I said I’m sorry for that,” Elise snapped. “But this time you went too far. I was right next to you in Riosa and I had no idea you were sick. You should have at least given me time to prepare myself.”

Fueled by stubbornness, the twins continued shouting at each other for a long while. Elise had only raised her voice like this with Andrei once before, after he had learned of her pregnancy.

Andrei sulked like a child. “So that’s why you chased me all the way here? Do you even know where this is?”

“There’s nowhere I can’t go. If you can go there, so can I.”

“Did your husband really just let you come here? What about the baby—”

“I don’t know. This is all your fault anyway. You’re coming back with me. Right now.” Fuming, Elise grabbed his hand. “I’m taking you back. Twins are supposed to be two halves of one whole. I’m not dead yet, so where do you think you’re going?”

“It’s useless,” Andrei said. “My body has already fused with Sameshita—”

He stopped mid-sentence.

Something strange was happening.

Through the hand his sister was gripping, a refreshing energy flowed into him. It was power on a level higher than draconic mana.

Forgetting what he had been about to say, Andrei asked, “Elise, what’s that around your neck, and what are you holding in your other hand?”

“Don’t change the subject. What…?”

Only then did Elise look at the objects she had been carrying all along.

Hanging below her chest was a sand-colored fragment shaped like a bull’s horn. In her other hand was an ugly black mineral with a hole running through it.

Andrei carefully touched the horn-shaped piece. “That’s a symbol of the king of Ugel. Sandstone.”

“Oh. Right.”

The bull’s horn was Ugel’s emblem. Realization dawned instantly, and Elise burst into laughter, bright as a flower bud suddenly blooming.

Rezette succeeded. Yes. He had hung it around her neck the moment he returned. He had told her not to ask about the king’s face because it was unsightly. A severed head was filthy to boot, so there was nothing worth seeing.

Her knight had kept his promise.

Then this must be from Rezette too.

Elise looked down at the mineral in her left hand. A faint vibration hummed within its uneven surface. This was the source of the force that had been pulling her backward all this time.

This place was the boundary between life and death. Death lay ahead. Life was behind her.

Andrei reached the same conclusion. He spoke quietly. “Take it with you, Elise. I don’t know exactly what it is, but it looks like it’s meant to send you back to the living.”