A Phoenix Does Not Sleep on Fallen Phoenix Slope
"...This is all of it, then?"
"That should be more than enough to buy the salves you'll need for those burns — at least for a while."
Faced with that glacial reply and the money laid out on the table, Dana's expression crumbled into something hollow.
"So simply because my appearance has changed, your heart turns just like that. How easily it bends."
"I won't argue the point — though if I recall, you were the one playing with my feelings in the first place, weren't you, Dana? You may have only humored me on the surface, but I was sincere, at least. That's precisely why, despite my mother and father's objections, I'm still looking after you like this."
With that, the man drew a single contract from inside his coat and held it out to her.
Reading through its contents, Dana curled her lips into a scornful smile and rose from her seat.
"I have no wish to remain a mere long-term piece on your family's board."
"And what other choice do you have? I'd say the compensation is fair. Your talent — I've always acknowledged it fully."
"...You simply find it a waste to let me go to someone else. That's all this is."
"Does pride put food on the table? You'd be hard pressed to find anywhere willing to take you in. If you change your mind, bring that contract back whenever you like."
"That will never happen."
Right where she stood, Dana crumpled the contract in her fist, turned on her heel, and walked out of the room.
Dana Ruel Demere.
Daughter of the House of Count Demere — once one of the central pillars of treason alongside Duke Alteir.
With the family's territory seized in its entirety, the name Demere no longer meant a thing. She was, in every sense of the word, a fallen noble.
As she strode down the corridor, Dana's fist clenched tight.
When her father had been executed for treason, she had felt nothing at all. She had simply watched her father meet his end — a rat whose tail had finally been stepped on — and thought him pathetic, nothing more.
There was not a single thread of affection between father and daughter. In that house, she had never been a human being — only a beast, a tool, and nothing beyond that. The moment she showed even the slightest merit superior to her older brother's, praise never came; only crushing rebukes flew at her, snarling that she should know her place. Rather than the pursuit of knowledge, she was forced to study etiquette, and how to please a man.
Had she been without talent, without aptitude, perhaps she would have bowed her head and obeyed.
But because she had at least a dim awareness of her own capabilities, Dana did not want that. She had wanted, just once, to hold the reins of her own life and let her talent bloom in full.
After the family's fall, her older brother — blessed with a gift for magistery — could afford to believe he need only graduate from the Knight Department, while she alone set out onto ground where she was little better than a hostage, and began gathering practical experience and funds on her own.
And so the abandoned daughter used the very womanhood that had always held her back, going to Viscount Bern and placing herself under the family's care.
The eldest son there had harbored feelings for her from the start, so securing room, board, and support proved no great trial. Winning his heart completely came quickly as well — and if she could marry him and become a Viscountess, it would amount to building her foundations anew from the ground up.
That said, a marriage between the daughter of a traitor's house and the heir would have saddled Viscount Bern with no small political disadvantage. What saved the arrangement was that the Bern family had backed Duke Alteir from the beginning, and had always possessed a narrow political footing anyway. So long as she could secure her own position, the situation was far from bad.
Then, as if heaven itself had lent a hand, several years later the nobles of the Neutral Faction came knocking on the barons and viscounts of the Alteir Dukedom territory with an offer: Prince Rohen would be appointed to the Alteir Dukedom to accrue experience before ascending the throne, so you will likely be swept out in the changeover — take this goodwill payment and withdraw quickly, why don't you.
Even the sum handed over in advance was substantial, and most of the viscounts and barons accepted.
But Dana talked Viscount Bern around with her own reasoning and made certain the house refused the deal.
The result, naturally, was that Viscount Bern rode out the headwind unscathed.
Having won their unshakable trust in that moment, she had thought the voyage would sail on nothing but fair winds from then on...
...only to run aground on the reef called her own brother, and sink.
...The family who share my blood have been nothing but stumbling blocks in my life.
Her older brother — the one she had all but severed ties with — had come to see her a month ago. Word was that his mana would climb no further; his road ahead had run dead.
A talent for magistery is innate, but the vessel that holds one's mana is likewise fixed at birth. A gift for mana did not mean everyone could reach the realm of an Aura Master. As mana was spent and spent again, the vessel holding it would slowly widen — and her brother, unfortunately, had not been blessed with the kind of vessel that matures late.
So when he came crawling to latch onto her, Dana refused him as a matter of course — and the instant his refusal landed, her brother set the building ablaze and killed himself.
If he wanted to die, he could have died alone. That final sight — dragging her down with him by choice — how could it have been anything but revolting?
Of course, on her own two feet, Dana had survived that fire. But half her body lay pinned beneath the burning structure, and the beauty she had been born with was preserved only in half.
...And the consequence of that was the scene just now.
If life were a game of chess, the pieces she held numbered exactly three.
A flawless face. The savvy to wring profit from any hand dealt to her. And the strategic wit to earn a place in the Military Department.
And now, every last one of them is worthless.
With her beauty gone, the seat of Viscountess had sailed clean across the water. With no backing to her name, her talent for wringing profit had nowhere left to be spent. Even if she graduated the Academy, who would hire a woman trailing nothing but infamy as a military strategist? The current holder of real power — the Prince — would be watching.
"...What a worthless life this is."
She had clawed and squirmed with the three pieces she possessed, but it was checkmate now. The Dragon Words that had healed Duke Asis's daughter could easily have erased burns as horrific as hers — but why on earth would the Prince lift a finger to heal the daughter of a traitor?
And so not even a single ray of hope remained to Dana.
Atop a building that looked out over the wide-open sky, she stopped at its very edge. Taking the far-off sunset into her eyes for one brief moment, she threw herself forward into the air.
After using Millennium Encounter, I had spent the day circling the grounds around the Academy.
The more people I crossed paths with, the likelier I was to meet someone bearing the talent to aid a king that much sooner — or so I had reasoned.
But the sun had begun to set. This was the hour when the Academy closed its gates against outsiders, and I had no choice but to return to the dormitory before long.
...Is today not the day, then?
Millennium Encounter kept no fixed schedule; when the time came, we would simply meet. Turning back with that thought, I let out a sigh I couldn't quite suppress — the long, aimless walk felt suddenly wasted, and the disappointment of it refused to stay hidden.
But that was the moment.
In this place empty of a single soul, a distinct human presence made itself known. What my instincts seized on, sharp and sensory, was above my head — the open sky itself.
I flinched and looked up — and I could do nothing but stare, genuinely stunned.
They say a bond found through Millennium Encounter announces itself to instinct, don't they?
A girl with hair of burning crimson — red enough to swallow the very sunset — was falling through the air.
In the memories of my past life, there had been a fair few figures throughout history called talents to aid a king. And among them all, the one whose image rose unbidden against this very moment was a single man.
Fengchu.
The strategist who rivaled the Sleeping Dragon himself — slain and laid to rest at Fallen Phoenix Slope, the slope named for where the phoenix bird falls.
So this was your Fallen Phoenix Slope, then.
Thinking that never before had a person come down from the sky in place of rain, I reached out both hands.
A solid thud.
Careful not to strain anything, I settled into the proper stance and cleanly absorbed the impact.
Even so, the worry wouldn't lift, and with my shallow store of knowledge I checked her complexion and her breathing.
So she's simply unconscious.
Had fate run its original course, she would surely have died right here.
But this was an opportunity one might meet but once in a thousand years. Through Millennium Encounter, she and I forged our bond in this very place.
The bandage wrapped half around her face came loose on its own, baring the grotesque ruin beneath — but I didn't care in the slightest. I might have walked past pretending not to see, or never met her at all; that much I could understand. But now that I had her within my grasp, I had no intention whatsoever of letting go.
Come, welcome. My Fengchu.
You fell — and I will help you fly again.
The place where you sleep will be at my side, not some bitter, lonely spot like this.
And therefore — the phoenix does not sleep on Fallen Phoenix Slope.