The Countess's Prayer
The low, ceaseless drone of fly wings filled the village like a smothered scream.
Flies crawled across a small child's eyes as if exploring the hollows of the sockets. They settled, sticky and insistent, upon parched skin and began to suck. The child's body never stirred. Unfocused pupils drifted through empty air; the frame of bone and tight skin could scarcely be called living.
The mother who cradled him was little better—empty eyes, shoulders collapsed, clinging to the last frayed thread of life. Farther off, a murder of crows wheeled and tore at corpses. She watched the scene with helpless stillness. Despair and hunger lay over the entire village like a shroud.
A dry wind scraped across the cracked earth.
Then, from the edge of the village, a sound rose that did not belong: the heavy, measured clank of metal boots.
A faint light kindled for the first time in the mother's clouded gaze. Through the dust a small procession approached—a woman whose face was hidden by a veil, flanked by two powerful men. The mother braced herself with trembling hands, rose on unsteady legs, and staggered toward them. Before the veiled woman she collapsed to her knees.
"Please…"
Her voice was as dry as dead grass.
The older man in armor, white beard sweeping his chest, took a step forward to bar her path. The veiled woman lifted one hand and stopped him with a gesture heavier than any spoken command.
Emboldened, the mother stretched out the child she held.
"I beg you… at least take my child… please take him in…"
In the gesture there was less the will to live than the exhaustion of someone who could no longer endure. Beyond the veil the woman's eyes fixed on the boy—a faint breath, a life already half across the threshold. The mother's last hope for her son was to give him away.
The veiled woman exhaled a long, quiet breath. Hunger and despair had written every line of the world before her. The choice the mother made was desperate, and entirely understandable.
"…I am sorry."
At those words the final spark died in the mother's eyes. The woman motioned to her escorts. Without a word they set a bundle of bread and water at the mother's feet.
The place they returned to was Rodriguez County Castle. The veiled woman who had been touring her lands was none other than its lord: Illys Rodriguez.
Inside the castle she removed the veil. A cascade of golden hair spilled free.
"Haa…"
A sigh escaped the young countess. A dark shadow lay across her fine features.
Not long ago her parents and older brother had died in a sudden accident. The only remaining blood of the house had been her brother and herself; everyone had assumed the title would pass to him. So Illys had gone to the capital to study. She possessed real talent for magic and had been admitted to the White Tower. Years of training later, the news had arrived without warning: her parents and brother were gone.
Barely an adult, she had inherited the countship in a daze. Only then had she walked her own territory for the first time and seen the ruin with her own eyes. The prosperous county she remembered no longer existed. The mines were shuttered. Harvests had failed. The people were worn thin by hunger. On the road that very day a mother had tried to offer her child.
"Where did everything go wrong?"
Three years of drought—not confined to one region, but spanning the entire continent. The first year, even the second, people had managed somehow. The third year broke them.
"There is nowhere left to buy grain."
The drought was not Rodriguez land's alone. It gripped the whole continent.
"It feels as though something is happening to the entire land."
Some called it continental warming. Others whispered that someone in the shadows was engineering famine for profit. Still others spoke of black mages long thought vanished from history. The people's hearts were dark with rumor.
"Master will uncover the cause."
When Illys had left the capital to take up her title, the Tower Master of the White Tower had been charged with discovering the root of the continental drought and ending it.
She summoned her chief maid.
"Adeline."
"Yes, my lady."
Adeline and the maids already stood ready with her garments. They gathered the golden hair into a neat coil and lowered a delicate veil of silver thread. Light clung to the fabric, wrapping Illys in a soft radiance. One by one the pure-white robes of prayer were fastened about her; silver embroidery traced the cuffs, and a small petal motif—the emblem of her house—rested over her heart. When the modest sash was drawn tight at her waist, her bearing grew even more composed.
Dressed for devotion, Illys walked to the prayer chamber and paused before the door.
"Haa…"
She drew a deep breath, released it, and stepped inside. Candle flames burned low and steady, their light gently illuminating the many divine emblems painted upon the walls—gods of fire, of lightning, of the hammer.
Illys sank to her knees. The skirts of her robes spread across the floor; her fingertips met lightly before her. Her expression was still, yet within it a heavy, desperate prayer gathered.
"O Constellation."
This was a world of theocratic rule. Every noble house served its own god; a count's title, inherited from the king, also made one high priest of the domain. The Rodriguez line had once been blessed by the Constellation of the mines. That Constellation had departed, and the long drought had reduced the territory to poverty. Ore still existed, but years of failed harvests had driven food prices to impossible heights, and a land poor in farmland had been struck hardest of all.
"O Constellation…"
Her voice trembled. Behind closed lids old scenes flickered past: childhood miracles worked by the Constellation, her brother's face, the parents she had loved, the nameless children dying along the roadside. Why did every trial arrive at once? Why must such weight fall upon shoulders so young?
Yet Illys did not blame the departed god. She did not curse the heavens. She only bowed lower, as desperately as the mother who had offered her dying child—resignation, resolve, and despair braided into one plea.
"Please… take us in…"
Tears fell and darkened the temple floor.
A soft gleam answered. The altar brightened. A low, resonant hum filled the air.
"Ah—!"
The Holy Relic was vibrating. A mirror no larger than thirty centimeters across. Letters began to form upon its surface.
The Constellation has established communication.
"Kyaa! Adeline! Nanny!"
Adeline was chief maid, personal attendant, and the woman who had raised her. Alone before the relic, Illys called out in panic. Adeline hurried in, took one look, and understood at once. Until ten years ago the territory had still enjoyed the Constellation's patronage; to a veteran like Adeline the stir of relic and god was not wholly unfamiliar. But the newly made countess, who had only ever watched such things from afar as a child, was completely flustered.
Adeline signaled her to breathe.
"Haa…"
Illys steadied herself and faced the Holy Relic.
"C-Constellation…?"
Adeline lowered both palms in a calming motion. Only then did Illys collect herself fully.
"Thank you. Truly, thank you."
She meant every word. The sudden inheritance, the strangeness of the count's seat after years of tower study, the sight of people so starved they would offer their own children—what was she supposed to do for them? One or two she might somehow save. A hundred? A thousand? She was a 4-Circle Mage, yet that power could not feed a starving domain. So she had prayed with every shred of sincerity she possessed. And the Constellation had answered.
Um…
The Constellation spoke. Illys straightened at once—perfect posture for a god. She listened with absolute attention while the Constellation talked of this and that.
"Ah…"
Unfortunately, the Constellation had not chosen Rodriguez land for any special reason. The connection was random.
"Constellation!"
She tried to hold on. The link cut off.
"Ah…"
After ten full years of silence the Constellation had finally answered—only for the connection to vanish as if it had never been. Illys had never intended to become countess. She had simply arrived at this place by chance, and the weight of it pressed all the heavier for that. No parents, no brother to lean on. Within the territory she stood highest; every eye looked to her, and she had no one. For a moment a powerful backer—an actual Constellation who could decide the rise or fall of the entire domain—had been within reach.
"At last… at last the Constellation answered, and yet…"
She turned trembling eyes toward Adeline.
"Adeline… was I too scattered when I introduced the territory?"
Emotion surged. A randomly connected Constellation had to be seized. Ten years. In their brief exchange the presence had not seemed cruel or demanding. She had tried her hardest to present herself well—and still she had been discarded.
"Hic… Adeline… it's my fault."
Adeline shook her head.
"It is not, Countess. None of this is your fault."
"Hic! After ten years a Constellation finally took interest, and I couldn't even speak properly."
"No. You did everything you could."
"But… there was no interest left."
Illys's hands hit the floor. Adeline moved to her side and drew the girl into her arms.
"My poor young countess."
Illys began to cry in earnest.
"Hic… Nanny!"
She clung to her chief maid. Adeline stroked her back and, in a low voice, began an old story.
"My lady, do you remember the day you wept because your mana would not awaken?"
Illys looked up at her.
"Did I… cry then?"
"You sobbed as if your heart would break. That quiet little miss buried her face in my chest the moment I held her and wailed, 'Why is it only me who can't do it!'"
Illys sniffled and watched Adeline's face.
"But in the end you succeeded. While everyone else slept, you trained alone in secret… and one day you made a tiny flower of mana bloom. Do you remember that little red flower?"
Illys nodded.
"…Yes. I remember."
Adeline smiled quietly and stroked her hair.
"It is the same now. Only this time the weight is not mana, but the responsibility of the territory pressing down on you."
"Sniff… Can I really do this?"
"Of course. This is the season for roots. You cannot see them yet, but beneath the soil things far stronger than flowers are already growing."
"But I just let a Constellation who finally appeared after ten years slip away. It hurts so much."
"No. The very moment you became countess, the Constellation took notice. Good things will surely come."
"Sniff! Do you truly think so?"
"I do."
At that instant the Holy Relic began to hum again. The mirror set upon the altar—the vessel that rendered a Constellation's will into written words—shuddered. Illys started.
"The Constellation again?!"
A brilliant golden vortex bloomed at the center of the glass. Letters finished forming.
The Constellation's sponsorship has arrived.
The sponsored item is large in size. Please designate a location in which to place it.
"Kyaa! Sponsorship! What do we do?!"
Illys's tear-streaked face lit up as she cried out.
"Sponsorship! Adeline! It's a sponsorship from the Constellation!"
Adeline rose at once. For a Constellation simply to answer a prayer was already a major event. Now there was a sponsorship—something that would shake the entire territory. What a novice countess needed in this moment was experienced retainers.
"Countess! I will summon the vassals at once."
"Yes!"
Adeline started to run, then glanced back.
"My lady! You are still in prayer robes. Change into formal council attire!"
With that she was gone. Prayer robes for the prayer chamber, council dress for meetings, inspection garments for touring the land—changing according to purpose was the etiquette of nobility here.
Left alone, Illys smiled through the drying tears on her cheeks.
"Heh. Always nattering."