Utsuwa doesn’t want to disappear─this was the first thought that came into Utsuwa’s mind when Danna Ryl spoke of the rite of rebirth.
The rite would begin with Utsuwa and Danna Ryl exchanging bodies. Then Danna Ryl, now in the younger body, would absorb the older one soul and all, reclaiming the mana left inside it. Thus would the two Danna Ryls be made one again.
Utsuwa had never looked fearfully upon the future that awaited her. She would live on within her mother, and since the two of them were one and the same to begin with, the rite would simply bring them together once more. But with the coming of the envoys from the Forbidden Land, whose potions could resolve her world’s mana shortage, Utsuwa had assumed the rite of rebirth would be called off and she would go on to become a grown-up within her own body─and she had begun to dream of all the things she would do with that newfound time. Suddenly, however, it seemed all that would be taken away again. She was originally supposed to live for fifteen years, and had only just turned ten. But now Danna Ryl had decided all on her own, with no regard for Utsuwa, that not only would the rite go ahead as planned, it would be moved up five years.
The preparations were set in motion without delay. Utsuwa was no longer allowed out of her room, iron bars were put on her window, and her door was locked at all times.
“I’m sorry for the inconvenience, but this is to protect you,” Zaza Ryl had said the one time he came to check on Utsuwa. He gently stroked her hair, then smiled and left her a sweet snack that was to be their little secret. But that did nothing to lift Utsuwa’s spirits.
Utsuwa doesn’t want to disappear.
The feeling grew stronger and stronger as the days and nights passed.
I want to keep being “Utsuwa”─to see things I’ve never seen before. To go to the Forbidden Land.
She regretted to no end that she hadn’t gone with Seth when he brought up the possibility.
“The Nurabehn… Are they this scared all the time…?”
Utsuwa hugged the stuffed gatekeeper Seth had given her. He had called it her good luck charm, said it would protect her─but the rite of rebirth was a blessing to be welcomed, not some danger to be avoided.
The gatekeepers protect the Exinov, but I doubt they’ll stop Utsuwa from becoming part of Danna Ryl. The thought made Utsuwa terribly angry, and she threw the doll hard against the wall of her room, on which hung the magnificent garment she was to wear for the rite the following morning.
“…Utsuwa doesn’t want to disappear.” It just slipped out, her thoughts spilling from her lips. “But Utsuwa can’t say it…”
The Nurabehn’s lives were, at that very moment, being converted into mana─to light the lamps for a city in which they would never get to live, to heat meals they would never get to taste.
Utsuwa had always believed, right up until today, that to offer up one’s life for an Exinov or an Ignas was something wonderful. It wasn’t dying, it was becoming part of someone else and beginning life anew.
But now she knew there were some dreams that could never come true─not if you became one with someone else.
─Lady Utsuwa, perhaps someday you will come to realize that you are not like Danna Ryl─you are one of us.
Seth could not possibly have predicted that the day of her realization would come so soon.
+++
The morning of the rite, Utsuwa awoke to a group of servants filing into the room to make her ready.
“Drink this. It will make you feel better.”
Utsuwa drank down the contents of the glass and indeed found herself feeling light and buoyant.
“It might be better to render her fully unconscious…” The voice was Zaza Ryl’s, coming from somewhere within the flock of servants.
One of the servants shook her head, however. “Lady Danna Ryl does not deem it necessary. She feels that the hearts of the populace will be moved precisely because Lady Utsuwa is offering up her body of her own free will.”
Utsuwa was led from her room and out into the tower square. Atop a stage erected so that the throngs of spectators could view the rite, Danna Ryl stood smiling gently at Utsuwa amid a panoply of flowers in full bloom. There was music playing and everything looked so beautiful, straight out of a storybook.
“Now then, come here.”
Utsuwa climbed onto the stage as instructed by her beloved mother. The deafening cheers from the crowd were like the droning of an enormous swarm of insects.
“Mother, Utsuwa is─”
“Shh… It’s quite all right,” Danna Ryl interrupted her. “It will all be over soon. Here, like this. You need only touch your horn to mine.”
At her mother’s insistence, Utsuwa raised her head. Danna Ryl touched her cheek, then brought her horn to Utsuwa’s. The moment they touched, the girl shuddered, as an unpleasant chill crept down her back.
“N-No…”
“Stop that now. You mustn’t move.”
“N-No, no…NO!”
Utsuwa’s voice rose to a scream, and she pushed Danna Ryl away. The music stopped. The square fell silent, save for a murmur spreading through the crowd. Utsuwa’s head was still so fuzzy, she couldn’t really think properly.
But there are so many people here. Surely one of them will─
“Help me…” She leaned out from the stage, stretching her hands toward the crowd. “Please, somebody…! Help me!”
“Enough! How unseemly!”
“Utsuwa doesn’t want to die…! Utsuwa doesn’t want to die! Utsuwa doesn’t want to die!”
Danna Ryl turned white as a sheet and grasped the girl by the arm. Even that was more than Utsuwa could bear, and she began writhing violently, trying to get free.
Utsuwa was still only ten years old. If Danna Ryl had waited until she was fifteen, slowly and carefully breaking down her resistance over those five additional years─perhaps then Utsuwa would not have cried and wailed, pathetically begging for help from the crowd as she did.
A stream of servants rushed onto the stage to help get Utsuwa under control.
Whatever happened, there was no salvaging the rite.
“Mother, please…”
Utsuwa looked at Danna Ryl, but she could find not a hint of her mother’s usual deep affection reflected in her eyes. The older woman looked as if she were staring down at a cockroach, a worm.
“I have spent all these years carefully nurturing only the memories of an innocent young girl… To think that now I must incorporate this outburst, on the very day of the rite of rebirth, into my recollections…” She heaved a great sigh of self-pity.
─Perhaps someday you will come to realize…
Utsuwa had brought those words to mind so many times since Seth had spoken them. She’d thought he was talking about the fear and pain of losing one’s life. But now Utsuwa thought she knew what his words had really meant.
─You are not like Lady Danna Ryl─you are one of us.
Danna Ryl doesn’t think Utsuwa is human. Utsuwa is a vessel─a thing. Mother never expected Utsuwa to have a will of her own. It’s just the same as how the Exinov and Ignas treat the Nurabehn as something different from themselves. Their lives aren’t taken with dignity, the Nurabehn are simply harvested. And the ones doing the harvesting don’t even feel as if they’re depriving anyone of anything.
All the strength suddenly flooded out of her, and Utsuwa fell to her knees.
It was then that a powerful gust of wind sprang up, scattering the flowers from the stage. The crowd looked up at the sky and people began shouting and screaming.
Utsuwa couldn’t even bring herself to raise her head─not until the silver dragon let out a roar fit to split the heavens in two, diving toward the earth from high among the clouds. It was the same dragon the messengers from the Forbidden Land had brought with them.
“Lady Danna Ryl! Lady Utsuwa! This way!” the servants cried, insisting that the stage was too dangerous. They picked Utsuwa up and tried to carry her off, but the person standing on the dragon’s back managed to wound a number of them with a volley of shots from a wizard gun and they fled, leaving Utsuwa lying on the stage.
She smelled the stifling odor of rust, and then in the blink of an eye the dragon was there, hovering above her at arm’s length. Someone descended from the creature’s back onto the stage─someone Utsuwa knew.
“Har Bell!”
The commanding wizard with her long rabbit ears took Utsuwa in one arm, then gave a short cry: “Take us up!” Her other hand was clutching a rope tied around the dragon’s body. The dragon, who had flown as low as he could, now soared into the air once more, yanking his passengers up after him.
“Don’t let them get away! Shoot them down! But aim for the dragon─don’t hit Lady Utsuwa!”
At Zaza Ryl’s orders, a dozen or so guards rushed onto the stage and began firing their wizard guns at the dragon, red blood welling up from each point of impact. The dragon moaned, and for a moment began to list.
“Kudo! Focus on healing his wings!” came the dragon-rider’s booming voice. “He can handle the rest of the pain!”
“All right, all right, settle down! I’m already on it!”
A warm light accompanied this angry outburst, enveloping the dragon’s body. The great beast regained his strength, flapping his wings as hard as ever and soaring away from the guards on the ground far below.
“Amazing… We’re so high up, and going so fast…”
“Yup. No thaumatherium could ever catch a dragon.” Har Bell’s kind, reassuring voice was so calm that somehow none of what had been happening felt real to Utsuwa.
As to why Har Bell had come for her, and where the dragon was going, Utsuwa had no idea. All she knew was that she had wished not to die, and her wish had come true.
Was it Seth gift watching over me? she wondered, as the tower of Kuravanuluox grew ever smaller in the distance.