Lilianna had given her daughter an impossible task and a dangerous tool.

 Even hours later, she still worried that it’d serve as too strong of a crutch, and leave Lycoris unable to call upon or master her powers without it. If that was the case, she’d surely be demotivated having to start over with the basics…

 Her motive was unrelated to the spell itself, it was just a visible goal post. The art of blood conversion required one to master tapping into their natural flow of mana, being able to draw it out as well as return it to its source, and converting matter into a metaphysical state so that it could mingle with the mana already in one’s blood.

 They were all concepts beyond Lycoris’ immediate sphere of knowledge, and in that sense… Lilianna may have lied when she said she knew her daughter could succeed.

 But the point was to help Lycoris overcome her unnecessary fear of herself. In that sense, all she had to do was use the dagger’s power even just a single time and she’d naturally begin to understand and accept her body.

 The reason she’d chosen the Lunar Tear in particular wasn’t because she wished Lycoris to rely upon it every time, but to eventually realize that she didn’t need to. If she could just move past relying on hypnotic effects, Lilianna was certain her daughter would advance by leaps and bounds.

 As confident as she was in Lycoris, Lilianna still couldn’t shake her motherly concern that her daughter might misinterpret her intent, or worse still, wouldn’t be able to muster up the courage at all. She knew how hard on herself Lycoris could be…

 It was strange, though. The girl had brought out a softness in her that she’d long since forgotten existed, and Lilianna wasn’t yet sure if that was a good thing. There was no doubt that it posed a risk to the ruler, but… Was it not what she and her sister had quarreled over so many times?

 As she passed by the pair of guards stationed in front of her private halls, the two of them winced in unison and stiffened their posture ever so slightly—she must’ve been scowling more than usual.

 She waited just a second on the other side of the door, hearing them sigh in relief but say nothing to each other, before rushing toward her daughter’s room. Though she mastered herself enough to not run down the halls, she couldn’t deny the almost youthful exuberance welling up inside her at the thought of being able to see her daughter’s face, rather than the angry expressions of the Exalted Council as they quibbled over which families’ armies would be tasked with the Geolle issue.

 The mother in her would rather not plunge her daughter into the deep end immediately, but the matriarch couldn’t help but run the numbers on whether to push up the announcement of Lycoris as her Heir-Significate.

 It would lessen the impact of any news of Geolle sedition that’d inevitably leak out, but she wanted to protect the girl from politics for as long as possible. Especially because at least one of the Seven Families would expect her to play a major role in bringing the Geolle to heel, even if she was just a child.

 Lilianna knew all too well what those at the top of the Drimus Family—

 …Why is the maid standing in the hallway?

 A frown played across her face as she saw Athena standing beside the door to Lycoris’ room, hands over her apron as she restlessly fidgeted. Had the girl sent her out as a punishment, or for privacy, or… had something happened to her little flower?

 “Athena.”

 “Y-Y-Your Majesty!? Welcome back!” Without hesitation, the maid snapped to attention and bowed deeply as soon as Lilianna dragged her head back down from the clouds.

 “Is Lycoris alright?”

 “Um… well… I think so. I haven’t heard any screams or gasps of pain in the past several hours, but she shooed me out when I asked if she wanted to break for lunch… M-My apologies for such incompetence! I am fully aware that it is a maid’s duty to serve her mistress, even when she refuses—”

 “Nevermind that, step aside.”

 The maid visibly recoiled from her touch, as though afraid she might spontaneously explode because of some horrific spell at the Exaltare’s disposal. But Lilianna had more important things to do than humor her death wish.

 “Lycoris…?”

 She opened the door slowly, failing to mask the tension on her face as she peered inside at her daughter.

 Lycoris stood by the dresser, knife in hand and bloodstains splattered all over her dress. She turned slowly to Lilianna when called out to, a slightly vacant smile on her face as if she’d been interrupted in the middle of a conversation.

 “Hmm…? Oh. Hello Mother. Is it that late already…?” She turned to look at the small digital clock on the bedside end table next to a bakery box. “…Why are Vampire clocks so hard to read time on,” she frowned.

 “Are you alright, dear?” Lilianna mastered her tone, stepping cautiously into the room while gesturing to Lycoris, “You appear to have made a bit of a mess.”

 “Hm? Oh, oh yes! Look, look!”

 Lilianna nodded and closed the door behind her—right on the face of the maid peering around the doorframe nervously—before taking a seat on the edge of the bed.

 Though the blood gave the girl an unsettling air, her high spirits and bright, innocent smile brought composure and relief to the ruler’s face.

 “‘Tis a surprise to see you in such high spirits, Lycoris. Should we assume that you’ve settled your feelings?”

 “Uh… um,” her smile faltered a little as she shyly looked away and poked her fingers together. “I’m not sure about all that, but…”

 She sat down at her vanity, turned around to face her mother, cleared her throat, and closed her eyes. Her hesitation and anxiety were still plainly obvious to Lilianna, as she could see the girl’s hands trembling, but she chose to not remark.

 Lilianna watched her perform her usual unnecessary ritual of slowly breathing in and out to relax herself. Just when she had half a mind to chide the girl for it, for the first time in two millennia, Lilianna’s eyes widened in shock as Lycoris swiftly cut the back of her hand and plunged the dagger into her own hand in a swift, decisive motion.

 Save for a trickle of blood left on her palm, the dagger was nowhere to be seen.

 Her technique clearly needed improvement, but the fact remained that she’d just performed a spell that the supposedly wisest figure in the world had assumed would be beyond impossible for her.

 “I did it! It’s pretty hard to do, but I can manage it maybe three in five times now. W-With the dagger’s power, at least. …I’m lucky this wasn’t one of the tries where I botched it… that would’ve been embarrassing.”

 Lycoris rambled on slightly, clearly attempting (and failing) to mask her excitement with humility. Though the enchantment should’ve lasted even after she stowed the dagger, her inner feelings had clearly overpowered it.

 “Honestly having an audience made me worried I wouldn’t be able to do it, but…”

 “We… you…”

 Lilianna stood up and embraced her daughter, picking her up and squeezing her close.

 “Uwah! M-Mom!?”

 A torrent of emotion washed over the Exaltare. She should have felt nothing but pride for her daughter’s outstanding accomplishment, but…

 Her heart tightened as she realized that she’d erred by giving her daughter that treasure. Not only had Lycoris taken the wrong lesson from the dagger’s power and failed to break free of the “humanity” that held her back, but she’d also clearly leaned far too heavily on it as a crutch. Which meant her daughter would need her help all the more.

 Still, she ought to reward her daughter’s efforts and accomplishments. It’d be unjust to scold Lycoris for something that wasn’t actually her fault.

 “You’ve truly surpassed our expectations, Lycoris. Truly.”

 “What do you mean?”

 “That you are able to perform so complicated a spell without a proper grasp of the fundamentals is a… miraculous achievement. True that any child of ours would boast great talent, and you had the assistance of an enchanted relic, but mastering it even to the extent you have in a single day is akin to having plucked the moon from the sky!”

 “But… I thought you said I’d be able to do it.”

 Lilianna sat back down on the bed, resting Lycoris atop her lap.

 “That is… Our objective was to help you overcome the fear and self-loathing engraved in your heart.” She gently held Lycoris’ hand, wiping the blood away with a finger. “Though, you’ve made undeniable progress on that front too.”

 “Oh…”

 Lycoris glanced away, clenching her other hand against her chest. She looked upset, but didn’t say why. Not that Lilianna couldn’t guess—she’d taken a risk and misled her daughter.

 She needed to prepare Lycoris to rule, and keeping her sequestered from the world would only grow harder with each passing day. If she couldn’t even accept herself, how could she win the acceptance of others?

 “We know it was underhanded, but we meant it for your benefit! We didn’t wish to push it on you if you weren’t willing to accept. We felt your frustrations with being unable to study on your own, we wanted to help.”

 “Y…Yeah. I understand. Even though I can’t always follow your logic, I know that you… care. Not that I really get why but, yeah. It’s okay.” Lycoris flashed a sheepish smile, her eyes still betraying a hint of concern. “By the way, do you… need this thing back?”

 The young vampire stood back up, pointing at her palm with a hint of trepidation.

 “Like I said, it’s… um, a lot harder to take it back out. Probably since the enchantment fades as soon as it leaves my hand.”

 Against her better judgment, Lilianna shook her head. “No, you may keep it. Consider it your reward for surpassing our expectations. However… do not rely on relics overmuch, lest you allow them to lead you into a pitfall. Though I suppose you already know that, as you can’t use the Lunar Tear to take itself out, after all.”

 Lilianna followed her daughter up to her feet, placing a hand atop her head and tousling her hair.

 “Now then, no doubt you’re quite exhausted after that breakthrough, how about we clean you up and celebrate your accomplishment?”

 “I can do that on my own,” her daughter grumbled. “But I am pretty famished… I was so focused on this spell that I forgot— Athena! Where’d she go? I think she brought something…”

 The girl wriggled away from her mother’s clutches once more, moving over to pick up a pale white box that’d been neglected on her bedside table.

 “I feel a bit bad for shooing her out, is it alright if we share this with her? …I wonder what’s even inside.”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

 “But of course, she is your servant, after all.” Lilianna chuckled demurely and went over to sit at the table near the balcony. “We shall wait here while you fetch her.”

 “Er… Right.”

 She watched her daughter poke her head into the hall, still holding onto the large pastry box—

 “Athena…? Hm, where did she go?”

 —but the maid had already disappeared.

 ＊　＊　＊

 The next morning, Lycoris finished his morning ritual and sat on his bed, looking around somewhat awkwardly. Normally Athena would’ve barged in and forced him into some intricate overdesigned outfit covered in ribbons and frills by now…

 She certainly wasn’t someone who seemed reckless enough to be tardy, the very thought of that would probably drive her to beg Lilianna for a swift death.

 “She does seem sort of emotionally delicate… But would she actually skip work over something like that?”

 Yeah right. She’d sooner swallow poison than risk disappointing Mom or myself.

 The guilt over dispassionately kicking her out of the room was only brought into starker relief by the lack of her sunny presence. It felt odd to think of a vampire as “sunny” but, despite her incessant deathwish, Athena was decidedly one of the most cheerful people Lycoris had ever met, barring maybe the Princess.

 And while he may have been in a trance, that didn’t excuse his behavior. Even someone suffering from a curse still owned their actions once freed of it.

 That’s what he believed.

 He wandered over to the vanity and plopped onto the stool, staring at his frumpy bed-headed self and pouting. As annoying and embarrassing as it was to have someone else constantly dote on him, she did really know how to bring out his charm; she was a master of coordinating his clothing with seemingly no effort; she could do up his hair how he liked twice as fast as he could; she even knew how to make his face positively glow, while he had no idea which cosmetics were even which.

 …Wait, what am I thinking about!?

 Lycoris sighed and picked up the brush, starting the arduous process of taming his flowing tresses.

 ＊　＊　＊

 “Lycoris?”

 “Y…yes, mother?”

 “Did you perhaps… handle your own makeup, today?”

 “Guh… I-It’s not what it looks like! I was just… curious, since Athena made it sound pretty important.”

 “And what did she have to say about this?”

 In one of the halls near his room, Lycoris stood awkwardly in front of his mother, hands scrunching the hem of his skirt as he was forced to confront the abhorrent truth of his life choices.

 “I haven’t seen her all day. I was hoping you might know where she was… you’re the only person who’d be able to order her around after all.”

 “She is your servant, dear. You have just as much authority over her as we do. How odd, she’s nothing if not punctual. For her to miss an entire day of labor… Perhaps she sent notice of an emergency, though our imagination fails to conjure up anything that would demand greater attention than our darling little flower.”

 Lilianna reached for her phone, the ever-curious Lycoris subtly circling around and arching up on tippy-toe to sneak a peek at the screen. His mother had shown him her phone on a couple of occasions, but she’d never really gone over its function.

 All he knew was that it was a device capable of accessing the repository of all vampiric knowledge, and could serve as a long distance communication device. That alone already made it a miraculous object, so he’d been reticent to even ask to lay his hands upon it.

 “If our daughter’s taken such a personal interest in cosmetics, then we shall have to make time to teach you the basics. ‘Tis a shame that the maid happened to disappoint the moment we began to trust her.”

 “Why are you writing her off like she’s already dead!?”

 “Either she faces a situation that threatens her very life, or she will face our wroth the moment she dares show herself to us once more.”

 “Ghk!”

 The sudden intensity behind his mother’s words reminded him of just what exactly her position was. As he willed his trembling arms to cease shivering, Lycoris felt truly grateful that they were on the same side…

 What happened to her being my enemy? He wondered, looking up at the woman frowning down at her phone. She tapped away at it with a thumb, humming thoughtfully to herself.

 “The second floor of the Volpini Building, specifically their realty office. Could a maid of her caliber truly be abducted so easily? We doubt that she would visit such a location willingly, given our geas upon her.”

 “How did you find out where she is?” Unable to bear it any longer, Lycoris finally asked about her phone. “Is that one of the enchantments on your artifact?”

 “Ah, right. Our apologies, dear Lycoris. Here, look at this.”

 She held the phone out to him, showing the surface which had a rather colorful depiction of… some sort of abstract painting. There were gray squares, yellow lines, and a green and blue square right nearby, along with a pulsing blue dot and several dull reddish brown ones.

 And there was a lot of text.

 With his brow furrowed in confusion, Lycoris turned from the device back to his mother’s compassionately smiling face.

 “Um, it’s very pretty but… What am I looking at?”

 “A map of the city.”

 “…Oh! It’s so colorful, I didn’t even realize… so then these are the roads, and buildings, and these green areas would be…”

 “Those are parks. The little red dots are all our hand-picked staff, and the blue one is Athena, whose location we’re currently investigating.”

 “I’ve never even heard of magic of this scale. Is this some legendary artifact you uncovered?” he asked quietly, unable to hide the child-like awe in his voice.

 The longer he stared at it, the more details became apparent to him, and he even saw some of the little reddish dots moving around. It was downright miraculous… and a little terrifying that she could so casually track all those beneath her with such precision.

 Lilianna’s lips curled in unabashed amusement at his amazement. “Hmhm, in a manner of speaking, perhaps. But this is extremely mundane, as far as modern society is concerned. ‘Tis simply tracking a small device implanted under the skin. Through that, we know where every member of our staff is at any given moment.”

 A somewhat troubling thought occurred to Lycoris as she explained, and he resisted the urge to pat himself down or check for any scars—not that there’d be any. While struggling with the sensation of ants crawling under his skin, he nervously voiced the question he wasn’t sure he even wanted answered.

 “Do… I have one of those things too?”

 “Of course not!” She sounded slightly offended. “You are our beloved child, we would never do such a thing!”

 “…what if I tried to run away though?”

 “Why on Earth would you ever want to do that?”

 “Er, because you’re the—”

 He paused, realizing how little conviction he felt in his words.

 Enemy of humanity? Cruel and wicked tyrant?

 Sure, she could certainly behave… callously. Both Athena’s fearful overreactions and the moments when Lilianna’s calm facade cracked were in line with how he envisioned the Tyrant to be. But Lycoris had never been the target of any mistreatment; she was nothing but caring to him. At times, she could be a little rough… in particular while sparring, but if anything, she was a little too over-protective.

 When compared to the King who paid mere lip service to the Goddess, who kept his own daughter locked within the castle walls, who refused to even give her the freedom of seeing anyone that he didn’t personally approve of, who only cared about cementing his own legacy and building up his accomplishments…

 Shouldn’t he be the one Lycoris directed his ire toward? Wasn’t he the despicable one, here?

 “Lycoris?”

 “Ah! Huh?”

 “Did we upset you? You trailed off and began to scowl.”

 “No, sorry. I got lost in thought about something unpleasant. Um… what’s going to happen to Athena?”

 “Hmm… a good question.” His mother looked at her phone as she began to walk down the hallway. “The simplest solution may be best. We need do nothing, our geas on her remains and if they attempt to remove it, she will perish. As it stands, she will simply be discarded for being useless to them.”

 “Isn't she supposed to be my servant? Why not go rescue her!?”

 “Lycoris, we know she is your first servant, but this is a lesson you must learn eventually: their lives will always be worth less than yours. We speak not just of you as our daughter, or your life, but your appearance, position, and conduct. We speak as a ruler, who must always carry oneself with dignity and grace, who must always present oneself as powerful and above such matters. To risk resources and personnel on a single compromised servant sends a dangerous message to all those watching us.”

 “That’s…”

 Unbelievable, it's absolutely unconscionable! thought Lycoris. A life was a life, to sacrifice someone for the sake of some greater purpose… He immediately pictured the bloodstained Elham, holding a hand to the gaping wound on his hip. The boy had put his faith in the two of them, and chosen to sacrifice himself to lead their pursuers astray.

 His wound hadn’t been that bad, they could have saved him. If only Lycoris had been able to use magic back then, if only Mizar had been willing to—no, that wasn’t fair. They couldn’t spare the time on Elham at that point anyways. The priest made the decision himself.

 But an unpleasant taste lingered in Lycoris’ mouth. He had no doubt Athena would also choose to sacrifice herself for his sake, but that didn’t make it right. He didn’t want to see any more lives given up for his sake.

 He pulled the locket out and gazed down at it. “Is one life really worth more than another?”

 “Not just anyone can lead a country, or an army.”

 Debatable, given that he’d been in charge at one point.

 “And no life is more valuable than that of our daughter’s. We would move Heaven and Earth if it were your life in danger,” her mother answered resolutely.

 “O…Oh.” Her complete lack of hesitation left him speechless.

 Once more he felt at odds with how much his mother cared for him. There was nothing that made him special, aside from his resolve to help anyone he could. In that sense, saving Athena was the best choice he could make. Not to mention, if she was actually kidnapped, it obviously was his fault she became entangled in this.

 There was no way he’d be able to live with the guilt of knowing that she’d lost her life because of his existence. Though, he didn’t know what condition she was actually in, or if she was even in any actual danger…

 “Is there any way we can cheer our little flower up?”

 “Are you sure rescuing Athena is off the table?”

 “We think it best for you to learn to accept necessary losses, Lycoris.” The woman gently placed her hand atop his head. “Our apologies.”

 “…” he grumbled wordlessly to himself, the gears in his brain beginning to turn. “How about teaching me how to use that… uh, what’d you call it?”

 He pointed at the phone in Lilianna’s hand, looking up at her with an innocent smile.

 “Hmm, are you sure you would rather not learn to apply cosmetics properly?” she gave him a wry grin.

 Fresh embarrassment spread across his cheeks. “Buegh, I already forgot… M-Maybe we can do that later? I’m really curious about that artifact.”

 “Very well then, but we should still clean up your face before going over smartphone usage and safety.”

 “Y… Yeah. That sounds good.”

 In the back of Lycoris’ mind, a reckless scheme was taking shape.