As the spirit spoke, the chain around her neck began to fade, shimmering into a thousand golden sparks that drifted into the air, as if joining the stars conjured above the flase sky. The spirit locked her gaze on Arkmarschall Leopold, searching his face for any hint of inconsistency, anything that might let her cling once more to the belief that her mother had truly loved her.
For a moment, they stood frozen in time. Their eyes didn’t blink, their hands hung limp at their sides, and neither made a single movement. For a moment, Lina couldn’t tell whether she was looking at two living beings or a painting.
She saw the spirit’s expression, half convinced, half in doubt, as if even all the spells and manipulation Leopold had woven weren’t enough to make her truly believe that her mother had never loved her.
Despite the pain still searing through her veins like molten fire, and her ears half-deaf from the bleeding, Lina couldn’t stand it, couldn’t bear to watch an innocent spirit being rewritten by someone else.
“No…”
The word came weakly at first, more breath than sound. The silence that followed was suffocating. Every instinct screamed for her to stay quiet, to remember the hundred lessons drilled into her spine since childhood: Never contradict the Arkmarschall.
But the sight before her—the chains fading, the trembling of a child’s soul—shattered every obedience left in her bones. Fear churned in her stomach, cold and alive, but something stronger rose to meet it: conviction.
“No,” she whispered again, firmer this time. Her voice trembled not from fear, but from the weight of everything she was about to lose. She knew the risk. To defy the Reich’s authority was to court death itself, yet silence felt like a greater betrayal.
She drew a breath, gathering her will like shards of a fractured moon, forcing them together until they formed something whole.
“Vierna, I—”
The spirit snapped out of the frozen moment. Its eyes turned toward Lina—innocent and teary—and the sight of her dear friend seemed to warm its heart completely. It began to walk toward her, slowly, unsteadily, as if limping from a battle against itself. The gaping wounds it had sustained from hastily patching its rejection with half-truths and ancient spells made it impossible for her to run.
Seeing Vierna’s spirit walking toward Lina, Leopold locked his gaze on the girl. His expression remained calm, carved from marble, unchanged in the slightest—as if he had expected her to contradict him. Then, the Eye of Harmansians flared with brilliant violet light. Cold flooded Lina’s chest as something almost transparent tore free from the eye.
In an instant, the entire scenery turned gray. Everyone stopped moving. Only Leopold and Lina could still move. Whether time had frozen or something else was at work, Lina couldn’t tell.
The air thickened. Even the sound of her own heartbeat dimmed, swallowed by the gray. The light had no source, the shadows no depth. Everything existed only as outlines—souls drawn in ash. Her breath came out short. She felt like she had been erased, not alive but remembered by the world in a faded sketch.
She looked around at the world drained of color, but when her eyes searched for Leopold, he was gone. Slowly, her senses began to fade—touch, smell, even the faint ache in her limbs. Numbness spread through her body. The whole Other Place had become an achromatic void. Now, she could only hear and speak.
Suddenly, a shadow manifested before her, coalescing into a single form. Then the silhouette spoke.
“Hello, Lina…”
The voice sounded like the Arkmarschall’s—but it wasn’t his. It belonged to something else entirely.
He stood with the poise of one long practiced in command. White hair, sharp and unruly, framed a face cut with precision: high cheekbones, a proud jawline, and an expression that revealed nothing he did not intend. One eye, pale and cold as steel, saw everything. The other was hidden behind a black leather patch stitched with the design of a coiled serpent. He looked like the Arkmarschall she knew, but younger, almost her age.
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Her lips trembled. She had known this was coming, but being dragged into a world without color still caught her off guard. Yet she steeled her resolve. “Arkmarschall…”
“Do you think I lied when I said Vierna’s mother never loved her?”
“…”
“Speak freely,” the figure said.
Being given a chance, her courage solidified, she had to give him a piece of the truth. A truth that she always kept.
“Yes,” Lina said, “Parental love was always there. It always exists. No matter what you say, no matter how you try to convince her, parents love their children. Even if they are weak, even if they fail, even if they do not know how to show it, that love is still there.”
She swallowed, eyes fixed on Leopold’s clone.
“You speak as if Sylvaria never loved her,” she continued. “But if that were true, then she would have abandoned Vierna long before Sieg, especially when Hilda offered her what she desired most. She left because of shame, because she misunderstood the situation. She thought Vierna had sold her body just like she had. She was failing her daughter, and she knew it. It ate away at her, leaving her like that. She must have thought that leaving Vierna alone would be better for her, which means she never stopped loving her daughter!”
“That’s a lot of assumption coming from you, Lina, but it is understandable; you are still young. Tell me, when Sylvaria said Alice was no longer her daughter, did you see even a trace of remorse on her face?”
“I… I—” Lina’s words caught in her throat. She remembered Sylvaria’s face then—pale, drained of all warmth, her eyes empty, her voice soft yet lifeless, like something that only remembered how to sound human. And she realized it… there was nothing… just like how Leopold’s face was right now.
The scenery pulsed as she finished her argument, the quiet bite deeper than the fear. The figure’s expression didn’t change the slightest. No anger, no irritation just a youth observing his debate opponent speaking her peace.
“Lina, what is the strongest emotion?” The figure said as it stared directly into Lina’s soul, as if finding something there.
“Love. It is definitely love.”
“Then answer this,” the figure said. “Even if you were right—that her mother abandoned her out of shame—why did love lose to shame?”
The question struck like a blade, simple yet merciless. Lina’s breath caught. Shame—it always came back to that. The same sickness that poisoned families, that made people turn away rather than reach out.
“…It doesn’t mean that…” she stammered, her words trembling against the void.
“If love is the strongest emotion,” the figure continued, “then it shouldn’t lose against shame.”
The logic was cold, merciless in its precision. Each word rang like a chisel striking stone. Lina felt herself shrinking beneath it. Part of her wanted to scream that love wasn’t arithmetic, that people were flawed—but every argument that came to mind wilted before it could form.
“No, that’s not true,” she managed at last, her voice small but burning. “Even if her mother stopped showing it, that doesn’t mean her love—”
“Love is reciprocated,” the figure interrupted. His voice was not loud, yet it filled the gray space like judgment itself. “Receiving all the love but never returning it is selfishness.”
Lina’s throat tightened. She wanted to shout that love wasn’t a transaction, that it didn’t need to be earned—but the words clung to her tongue and refused to leave. The silence stretched. The gray world seemed to hold its breath. Somewhere far off, a single drop fell and echoed like a clock. Lina’s hands shook.
“Lina, do you love Vierna?”
The question took her by surprise. “What? I… I don’t… I don’t know…”
“Then, if Vierna did things to please you, would you do what her mother did—let Vierna keep bleeding love until she was hollowed?
“No, I would show her that I love her too.”
“That’s exactly what I’m talking about Lina,” the clone said. “Reciprocated.”
Lina still wanted to fight, still wanted to defend what she knew to be true, yet the serpent of doubt coiled around her throat, choking her, keeping any words from coming out.
“What her mother had wasn’t love, Lina. Never has been, never will be.”
Lina didn’t answer. She didn’t know how to refute the argument. The figure observed her for a moment, then turned its gaze toward Vierna’s unconscious body—frozen in time, still strapped to the chair she had been brought in with.
“Lina, I will not punish you if you contradict me. I am not one to force people to do anything they do not believe. But hear me: if you tell Vierna that her mother always loved her, that she never stopped even after she left, you will fill her spirit with questions you cannot answer. Those questions will grind her down to nothing. At best, she will live hollow; at worst, her spirit will vanish.”
“…”
He pointed his cane at Lina, his eyes sharp—as if granting her the authority to choose while binding her choice to his will. “You are the one who will decide how Vierna sees love.”
The figure walked toward Vierna’s real body. He looked at her lying there, brain half-exposed, eyes serenely closed. Then he looked back at Lina.
“Her life is in your hands.”
Was Leopold right or not?
