Afterstory: The Warmest Winter in the World (5)
A bead of cold sweat crept down Ashley's temple.
She searched Raylin's face for some sign of a joke, but the little girl's red eyes held nothing except innocent excitement.
Oh, dear.
Ashley had just promised to help with whatever was troubling her. Yet she could hardly march up to Linea and announce that her daughter wanted to become the next Black Flame Witch.
She knew how Linea felt about her own years as a witch. The memories were painful enough that Linea avoided becoming entangled with witches whenever she could.
And now Raylin had chosen exactly that path as her cherished dream.
But why a witch, of all things?
There were so many things a child might want to be.
Surely she didn't come up with this entirely on her own.
Children were easily influenced by the stories they heard from adults. Someone must have been telling Raylin about the Black Flame Witch's legendary deeds.
Dremes or Pares.
Those were the two witches who visited the mansion.
Dremes was busy with guild affairs and seldom came by. Pares, on the other hand, often visited and spent time with the children.
And she admires the Black Flame Witch…
The more Ashley considered it, the more likely it seemed that Pares had been filling Raylin's head with heroic tales of Linea's past.
Perhaps the child didn't really want to become a witch. Perhaps she simply wanted to become the wonderful heroine of a story, the way children who heard tales of heroes defeating demon kings wanted to be heroes themselves.
Ashley wiped the sweat from her brow with a handkerchief and managed a smile.
“That's a wonderful ambition. But what did your mother say that upset you?”
“Ah…”
Raylin's face darkened.
“When I told her, she looked very serious. She didn't say anything for a long time. I thought I'd done something terrible. Then she suddenly…”
“Suddenly?”
Raylin narrowed her eyes and tried to imitate her mother's sternest voice.
“No.”
The imitation wasn't particularly accurate, but Ashley could imagine Linea saying that single word perfectly.
She covered her mouth, her shoulders shaking as she fought down a laugh.
“Oh, Raylin. You must have been disappointed.”
“Yes… I still don't know why Mother was upset.”
“I think I have an idea.”
Ashley wasn't sure whether a child who had inherited elven blood could even bear a witch's seal.
But if Raylin did receive one, the consequences were serious. Becoming a witch meant losing the ability to have children. Witchcraft could halt the visible signs of aging, too, but that was hardly a benefit to someone with elven blood. Elves kept their youthful appearance for an extraordinarily long time already.
No wonder Linea had objected. She must have heard her daughter's wish as a willingness to give up the possibility of having children over a long life.
Ashley understood her concern.
“Your mother said no because she was worried about you.”
“Mother was… worried about me?”
“Of course. Because…”
How could Ashley explain a witch's loss of fertility to a child who barely understood what that meant?
She considered the problem, then found another way to approach it.
“You love your father, don't you?”
“Yes! Very much.”
“Then how would you feel if you had to be away from him for a long time?”
Raylin went pale.
“…How many nights?”
“Perhaps ten. Or even a whole month.”
Tears gathered in the little girl's eyes.
“Wh-why?”
“Well…”
Ashley put on her most mournful expression, although her heart was beginning to ache at the child's distress.
“Because you said you wanted to become a witch.”
Raylin stared at her.
“You see, to become a witch, you'd first have to attend the Weaving Turbulence Witch Academy. You wouldn't get to see your father very often until you graduated. And after that, you'd have to travel for your training and work until you were no longer an apprentice. That's the life a witch must lead.”
Raylin bit her lip. A tear escaped down her cheek.
“That's why I worry about you,” Ashley continued softly. “Could you really bear being away from your beloved father for so long?”
The child's face crumpled.
At last she burst into tears, rubbing her eyes with both hands.
“No… I don't want to… I won't be a witch…!”
She cried until she hiccuped, making desperate little efforts to swallow her sobs.
For a child who loved her father so dearly, the thought of not seeing him for weeks must have been terrifying.
Ashley felt her resolve waver.
Did I go too far?
She had frightened Raylin badly, even if she believed the things she'd described were part of a witch's life.
“I'm sorry,” she said, opening her arms and drawing the girl close. “Perhaps I was too harsh.”
Raylin clung to her.
Ashley stroked her back and soothed her for a long time.
Late that evening, Linea lay alone beneath the covers, staring at the ceiling.
I can't sleep.
She and Theorad had returned to the mansion. Linea had gone first to check on Raylin, who had suddenly flung herself into her mother's arms and tearfully declared that she no longer wanted to become a witch.
Linea hadn't understood what had changed.
When she'd asked Ashley about it, Ashley had merely given an awkward smile. Since the result seemed to have settled the matter, Linea hadn't pressed.
She had helped the chef prepare dinner afterward. Theorad had left after eating for his meeting with the president of Carastane Bank, and Ashley was working through papers in another room before returning to the castle the next day.
That left Linea alone in the enormous bed where the three of them usually slept.
No wonder she was restless.
Perhaps I should check on the children.
It was cold tonight.
She had closed the children's windows an hour earlier, but that didn't mean they'd remained shut. Roselia, in particular, seemed to run warm. She sometimes woke in the night and opened her window to cool herself, only to catch a cold by morning.
Hmm…
Linea was just putting on her slippers when someone knocked.
“Little Mother? Are you in there?”
It was Roselia's bright young voice.
“Weren't you asleep?”
No answer came.
Linea went to the door and opened it.
Roselia stood outside, clutching a swan-shaped doll to her chest. Her shoulders were trembling.
She had deep blue eyes like lapis lazuli, much like Ashley's. Her long black hair curled inward at the ends, and she wore a headband resembling the ones her mother favored.
“What's wrong?”
Roselia looked up, hugging the doll more tightly.
“I thought… a ghost might appear…”
“A ghost? Why?”
“I heard demons and ghosts roam about on nights with a full moon.”
She must have been reading another strange book.
There was a little truth hidden behind the story, but ghosts and demons didn't simply burst into the world whenever the moon was full.
And Linea certainly wasn't going to send away a frightened child.
She stroked Roselia's hair and stepped aside.
“Come in. You can sleep with me tonight. Sit at the table first.”
Roselia's face brightened.
“Yes!”
She hurried inside.
Linea fetched a bottle of milk and a glass from the shelf. She set the glass before Roselia, warmed the milk with a touch of magic, and poured it out.
Steam curled from the surface.
“Thank you. I'll drink it now.”
“Go ahead.”
Roselia lifted the glass and drank eagerly. When she lowered it, a little white froth clung to her upper lip.
“Was it good?”
“Yes. Delicious.”
Linea smiled and snapped her fingers. A tiny, damp breeze swept the milk from the girl's mouth.
“I'm surprised, Roselia. I didn't know you believed in superstitions.”
Roselia bristled.
“It's not superstition! I read it in a book!”
“Being written in a book doesn't make something true.”
“But…”
“On a full-moon night, the concentration of mana and magic rises. That does make it somewhat easier for demons to move about. But it doesn't mean they suddenly run wild outside their usual range.”
Roselia frowned, reluctantly admitting that she might have been mistaken.
The expression made Linea want to tease her.
“If you plan to rule Pelgaroin one day, you'll have to be less credulous than that.”
“Th-that was just one mistake.”
“Was it? You refused to eat jerky the other day because someone told you it contained demonic energy.”
“Two mistakes are fine!”
“Two?”
Roselia averted her eyes, sweating a little.
She had swallowed plenty of strange tales from the many books she read. Linea knew it was natural for children to believe what was written down before they understood much of the world, and she didn't truly intend to scold her.
“By the way, Roselia. Why do you want to become the ruler of Pelgaroin?”
Roselia turned back, surprised at the question.
“Because I'm Mother's daughter, of course. It's only natural that I want to be a good ruler like her.”
Linea was impressed.
It was rare to find such a sense of responsibility in someone so young.
How admirable.
“And after that?” Linea asked.
“After what?”
“After you become a good ruler. Your life won't end when you inherit Pelgaroin. Is there anything else you'd like to do?”
“Hmm…”
Roselia considered the question.
Then she blushed, cleared her throat and puffed out her chest with determination.
“I'll meet someone like Father and marry him!”
Such an earnest declaration was almost irresistible.
Linea leaned back, a mischievous smile creeping onto her face.
“Oh? And where do you think you'll find a man like Theorad?”
“If I search the county carefully, surely there's at least—”
“No.”
Roselia flinched.
“Then somewhere in the Empire…”
“No.”
“On the continent…?”
“No.”
Her shoulders drooped.
She clasped her hands, then looked up with a last flicker of hope.
“But if I look all around the world, there might be one, right?”
Linea hesitated.
She had spent years traveling among countless nations and talking to more people than she could remember.
She had never met anyone like Theorad.
Still, did she really have to crush the child's dream?
“If you searched the entire world,” Linea began, “perhaps there might be…”
“I knew it!”
Roselia's eyes shone so brightly that Linea couldn't bear to continue the comforting lie.
Why did a little joke become so serious?
She sighed.
“I'm sorry. No. Not even then…”
And so, for the first time in her young life, Roselia learned what utter disappointment felt like.