A Name Like a Flame
"Can I hug you? Just once?"
"…What?"
"Do you have any idea how long I've been waiting for this moment!"
The fire spirit suddenly spread both arms wide and came closer. Bayul instinctively took a step back at the wave of searing heat rolling off her.
"Do you… not like me?"
She had apparently mistaken his retreat for rejection. The moment her beaming face crumpled into a sulk, Bayul felt as though he had just committed some terrible crime.
"The others talked with you all the time, and you saw them plenty—but why did I never get seen, never get heard? Do you know how sad that made me?"
"…You couldn't be heard?"
"That's right! I tried talking to you so many times, and you never answered me once!"
Tears welled up in the spirit's red eyes in an instant. The sight of crimson tears was fascinating, but Bayul had no leisure to admire them. Apologizing came first.
"I-I'm sorry. I don't remember, but… I'm sure it was because I couldn't hear you. It was never on purpose, I swear."
All the misunderstandings had sprung from the fact that young Bayul used to talk to empty air when no one was around. He vaguely recalled being tormented by phantom voices, but the memory did not extend far enough to tell him exactly who those conversations had been with.
"Really?"
"Of course! I don't lie. Right, Innocent?"
Cornered by those clear, innocent eyes, Bayul found himself instinctively calling for backup.
"It's true. Bayul never lies."
Innocent, who had been keeping a respectable distance from the fire spirit, nodded along.
"I'll vouch for that too."
Thankfully, Tempesta stepped up as well. Just as Bayul was letting out a breath of relief, the fire spirit took another step toward him.
"So… will you hug me now?"
"…Huh?"
He exercised every ounce of patience he possessed to keep his feet from moving. If he backed away again, she might well burst into loud, sobbing tears. Hurting her feelings was the one thing he absolutely had to avoid.
"It feels like a dream. Talking with you like this."
"A dream…?"
"I always wished for it. You have no idea how jealous I was of them."
The look the fire spirit cast at Innocent and Tempesta was utterly sincere.
"Whenever you played with them, everyone looked so happy. I felt so left out. It made me so sad."
Even without reading her eyes, Bayul could feel it. For all her complaints, she held no resentment toward him at all. If anything, her heart was remarkably warm and kind. Sad and hurt as she was, she had never blamed him—and she had stayed quietly at his side all this time.
The moment he realized that, refusing her embrace became impossible. Bayul's arms reached out toward the fire spirit of their own accord.
"Ahhh, this is wonderful!"
A smile bloomed across her face once more. She wrapped her tiny arms tightly around his waist.
"…I'm glad to see you too."
The moment he hugged her back, all the awkwardness melted away. The heat radiating from her was exactly the same, and yet, strangely enough, his body and mind both settled into perfect ease.
Even if his mind couldn't remember, did his body remember something?
Though she wore the form of a small child, the fire spirit gave Bayul a peculiar sense of reassurance.
"Look at them, stuck together like that."
"That's exactly what I was going to say. Bayul, aren't you hot?"
"You should eat. Aren't you hungry?"
"Come over here and sit down already, will you?"
Perhaps the sight of the two of them didn't sit well with the others. Innocent and Tempesta stood side by side with their arms crossed, glowering at them and grumbling under their breath. He had always thought getting those two to agree on anything was like plucking stars from the sky—yet here they were, proving him wrong.
"Can you not hear us?"
"Because it's really unpleasant to watch?"
Under the relentless pressure of the pair, Bayul finally had no choice but to part from the fire spirit.
"Bayul."
All trace of hurt now gone from her voice, the fire spirit asked him a question.
"What's my name going to be?"
"Your name?"
"Yes. You'll give me one like theirs, right?"
"Of course I will."
"Yay!"
At his answer, the fire spirit looked up at him, her face radiant with anticipation. Hands folded neatly in front of her, she gazed up at him with such adorable sweetness that he almost felt it was a shame to be the only one seeing it.
His friends would never believe this.
It wasn't about her looks—when it came to cuteness and charm, Innocent and Tempesta were no slouches either. What Bayul meant was her personality.
Neither Bayul nor any of his friends had ever imagined that the fire spirit, the last to appear, would turn out to be so sociable and affectionate.
"Bayul, just pick something and be done with it."
"Is it really worth agonizing over a mere name?"
The two spirits were clearly peeved that Bayul's attention had turned entirely to the fire spirit. They were pretending to be nonchalant, but in truth they were worried he might give her an even prettier name than their own.
"Hmm, what would be a good name?"
He had never dreamed he would meet the fire spirit here, so nothing came to mind on the spot. He tried brainstorming things connected to fire, but nothing he came up with seemed fit to be called a name.
Those earrings…
Then his eyes fell on the earrings the fire spirit wore.
"Come to think of it, those earrings. The color is really pretty—what's the gemstone called?"
"This?"
"Yeah. Is it a ruby?"
Ruby was, in fact, the extent of Bayul's knowledge of red gemstones.
"I don't know."
"You don't know?"
She shook her head back and forth, her face the picture of innocence.
That's strange.
Wearing accessories at all set her apart from the others—and now she didn't even know the name of the gem she wore? Something about it didn't add up.
Am I being paranoid?
The earrings had nagged at him from the moment he first laid eyes on her, in some odd, indefinable way. They sparkled unusually brightly, and his gaze kept drifting back to them.
He couldn't say why. It was simply a feeling.
Spinel…
"Shame?"
Shame, who by all rights should have been resting somewhere deep beneath the earth by now, popped up in front of Bayul without any warning at all.
"Your body can't have recovered yet—why have you come out? It should take a great deal of time to heal…"
Face to face, Shame certainly did look depleted. His white hair and beard were as they had been, but his skin had turned far darker and grayer than before. The wrinkles seemed deeper too, and his eyes lacked their old vitality. An unnecessary guilt seized Bayul all over again.
That gemstone…
Shame raised a hand and pointed at the fire spirit's ear.
The name of that gem… is spinel.
"Ah, I see."
Only then did Bayul understand why Shame had appeared. Just as he had once taught him the names of herbs, Shame had wished to tell him the name of the stone as well.
Gems belonged, broadly speaking, to the family of minerals and stone. Shame was the spirit of earth, encompassing trees, rocks, and grass alike—the whole domain of the land. That he would know the names of gemstones was, in a way, only natural.
It means… flame.
"Flame…?"
Flame was the very image that had come to mind the instant he first saw the fire spirit. And if spinel meant flame, then surely no name could suit her better.
"Spinel."
Bayul gazed down at the fire spirit and murmured in a low voice.
"From now on, your name is Spinel. I like it—what about you?"
"Spinel…?"
The fire spirit slowly tasted the name. Then an incomparably brighter smile than any before it spread across her face.
"I love it! I absolutely love it! I love it so much!"
The fire spirit—no, Spinel—cheered and threw her arms up in celebration.
Whoosh!
At that instant her small body erupted into a great burst of flame, as if someone had doused her in oil. Bayul flinched involuntarily, but he felt only a faint warmth—no burns, no harm of any kind.
"Why is she that happy? It's a way worse name than ours."
"You think so too?"
"Obviously. Just compare. Ours are longer. You really think this is a fair comparison?"
"Ohhh, you're right. Hah, Bayul, honestly."
Had Bayul heard that, he would have corrected them on the spot—but fortunately or unfortunately, his entire attention was still fixed on Spinel. Puffed up with pride, the two spirits looked at her as though she were a pitiable creature.
"By the way, Innocent—then what does that make Shame?"
"What about Shame?"
"Shame's name is even shorter than Spinel's. He's going to be so disappointed."
By their logic, that was indeed how it would go. There was no telling how Shame would react later, but for now he was descending once more into the deep earth to recover.
"We should be a bit nicer to Shame from now on."
"Agreed."
Thus the two spirits arrived at their strange (?) little conclusion.
Knock, knock.
"Young Master Bayul, Father Juan has arrived."
It was just as Bayul, chatting away with Spinel, was finishing his meal. Amon's familiar voice drifted in from outside.
Glancing at the clock, he saw that just over five hours had passed since they'd reached the estate. Earlier than expected—it was clear the old priest had pushed himself hard to get here.
"What if you'd made yourself ill on the way…"
Bayul hurriedly readied himself and went out to greet the priest. But the only ones waiting for him were Ian and the Death brothers.
"When he heard there was a patient in critical condition, he departed at once. He instructed us to tell you that he has gone directly to the sickroom, my lord."
Any other nobleman would have flown into a rage at being left without so much as a greeting, but Bayul considered it entirely natural. Two gravely ill people lay waiting. Going to tend them as quickly as possible was simply the right thing to do.
"Then let's hurry as well."
He wanted to see the patients recover with his own eyes. Only then would the uneasiness coiled in his chest loosen even a little. Bayul's pace quickened as he headed toward the sickrooms.
"Hyah! Hyah!"
Just then, at the mouth of the road, the sound of furious hoofbeats thundered toward them, and a carriage barreled up before halting in their path. With a click, the door swung open and a burly man leapt down.
"…Derek? Is that you?"
The man was someone Bayul knew well—the son of his uncle, making him a nephew to Duke Randert and a cousin to Bayul himself.
"No way… Bayul?"
Derek's face twisted, as though he had never once imagined Bayul would be here. It should have been a joyful reunion with a cousin he hadn't seen in ages, yet somehow the air between them turned distinctly unpleasant.
"L-Lord Derek, you've arrived!"
Just then Belgovsky, the man in charge of the mine, came sprinting out, breathless and disheveled.
Hm?
Or was it merely Bayul's imagination?
The man's pupils were shaking as if an earthquake had struck. The anxious way his eyes darted back and forth between Bayul and Derek made him look like a man guilty of some enormous transgression.
Something's going on here.
That was the only thought Bayul could muster in that moment.