Silbaerin (1)
Birdsong tapping at the window, and a wash of lemon-bright morning sun, tickled Ishilla's eyelids.
"Mmm... nnh!"
She woke clear-headed and sat up. A long, easy stretch, and then, out of habit, she set her mana circulating.
The circulation's going far too well.
It wasn't the ordinary feeling of a good day. The flow was smooth to an almost uncanny degree.
Just as knights loosened their bodies with warm-ups before training, mages practiced mana circulation. You sent a handful of mana on a single circuit through the body, and judged your skill by how intact that mana remained when it returned to where it had begun. Lose not a single grain, and you stood at the level of an archmage. Preserve more than half, and you were already counted a capable mage.
Ishilla was of the Silbaerin bloodline, steeped in nature's mana, and her talent for magic was exceptional. By that lineage she had recorded a circulation rate of seventy percent even as an academy student — a genius. And now she could feel that rate climbing. The gain was slight, but she had been stuck on a plateau of late, so the joy came without a shred of regret.
But... why all of a sudden?
Breaking through a stall out of nowhere was strange. Still, a good thing was a good thing. She decided it was simply the fruit of the training she had kept up all along, and finished dressing.
From outside came the cries of the horses she had brought as far as the shop the night before. The coachman must have gone out to tend them.
When she came down to the first floor, the master was already cooking.
"Ah, good morning. I hope the bed wasn't too uncomfortable?"
"Good morning. I slept wonderfully!"
After the light exchange, Ishilla took a seat at the bar table directly in front of the kitchen.
Unlike the restaurants of the city or the academy, this one was built so the kitchen stood wide open to view. Cooks, she had heard, guarded their recipes fiercely and loathed letting anyone watch them work. The master here simply went on cooking, unbothered. Confidence that you could look all you liked and still never copy him?
Before she knew it, Ishilla was lost in the movement of his hands.
Come to think of it... I don't even know his name.
It struck her, all at once, that she didn't know the master's name at all.
"Master, may I ask your name?"
"Kang Jinwoo. And you?"
"Ishilla, of House Silbaerin."
The belated introduction left her faintly uneasy. Once he knew her house, his manner was sure to change.
His eyes were sharp as a well-honed blade, and yet the scars crowding his forearms, and the calluses on his hands, felt strangely warm.
"Ah — so you're the young lady of Silbaerin. Forgive me for not recognizing you. I'm an outsider, and I don't know the city's affairs..."
Sure enough, the moment Master Kang Jinwoo learned her house, he apologized at once.
Even as a child in Silbaerin she had often slipped away to play in the commoners' quarter, and the weight of rank had worn thin on her. His easy, unguarded warmth had been a comfort — and now it was going to end like this after all. She couldn't hide her disappointment.
"No, please. You even fed me something delicious I'd never tasted in my life... I'm truly fine. If anything, I'd rather you kept treating me as you were..."
Anyone with skill could enter the academy, so commoners were plentiful there. She had grown close to a few of them, but no matter how she asked them to relax around her, they only waved the request away.
He'll refuse too, of course. He won't have a choice.
"Oh, really? Whew — that's a relief. Thank you. You've a warm heart, my lady!"
"Eh— y-yes! I... I suppose I do!"
His answer blew straight past every expectation, and Ishilla flustered.
He called me warm...?
At the academy they called her the eternal snow of the north, the coldest flower of winter. There was her house, her luminous silver hair, her snow-white looks — and a temperament that shied so badly from strangers she had ended up wearing an aloof air she had never meant to claim. She was used to gazes that were not quite disgust and not quite admiration either, closer to fear than to longing.
To the master, it was probably nothing more than a passing compliment. To Ishilla, it sank deeper than any praise she had ever heard at the academy.
Thump!
For some reason, her heartbeat quickened. He couldn't possibly hear it, of course, but the embarrassment made her raise her voice all the same.
"Ah, ahaha! The weather's lovely today!!"
"Hm? Yes... it is. Ah — here's breakfast. I made a clear broth with yesterday's leftover boiled chicken as the base."
"What? I'm truly grateful, but... is it all right if I eat?"
"Please do. I'd feel worse sending you off without a meal."
A delicious smell had been climbing all the way to the second floor since the moment she opened her eyes, so she couldn't honestly claim she hadn't been hoping. Even so, it might only have been preparation for the day's business, and she already felt she had imposed by staying the night. Breakfast, she had decided, would be shameless. To be offered it first left her overwhelmed with gratitude.
"Then I'll eat well, Master."
"Enjoy."
She said it with her whole heart. The master let out a short laugh, as if to ask why she was stating the obvious.
He called the dish chicken gomtang — lighter than the boiled chicken, yet carrying that same peculiar restorative vigor. Hot broth and hearty chicken together made a meal that was perfect for morning.
When Ishilla finished, the coachman, with excellent timing, announced that they were ready to leave.
"My lady, we may depart whenever you wish."
"All right. Master... thank you. Truly."
"If you're that grateful, spread the word for me. Not that I expect anyone to come all the way out here."
He laughed lightly, talking nonsense. His easy mood made her own steps lighter as she left.
"Hehe. Just you wait. I'll talk this place up until the shop is packed."
She said it playfully, but she meant every word. The cooks of the academy, and the cooks of her own house, were hardly lacking in skill. Even so, the master's cooking shattered everything she thought she knew about flavor.
Not knowing a taste like this is half a life wasted... no. All of it.
The carriage drew steadily nearer the city, but the thrill of seeing her family had already fallen away. All Ishilla could think of was the master's cooking. Remembering the rapture of that first taste, she felt her body grow hot all over again.
Hnn... haa...
For some reason, the closer the carriage came to the city, the more stiflingly warm it grew inside, all the way to the moment they arrived.
Kailan Silbaerin, head of House Silbaerin, sat in his office as he always did, working through documents.
Silbaerin lay at the northernmost reach of the Empire, yet it was nothing like the barren north people usually pictured. The weather was cold, of course. But the harvests, and the quantity and quality of what could be drawn from the land itself, were markedly higher. The reason was that Silbaerin stood on the front line facing Nuardel, realm of the elves. The wondrous vitality pouring from the elves' divine World Tree reached even here, producing the strange sight of a cold climate rich in resources.
Even so, a front line was a front line. The work a lord and head of house had to handle grew in direct proportion to the city's prosperity.
"Why does the work never end..."
Kailan, who had been at the papers all morning, pressed his fingers hard to the corners of his eyes and worked the stiffness out of them. Beyond the window, the eternal snow of the Kalian Mountain Range lived up to its name and held fast — and yet spring was in the smell of the air, and in the earth gone soft underfoot.
Ishilla. Are you doing well?
The academy would reopen soon, and he wondered how his only daughter was getting on. He thought of last year's Ishilla, who had dug in her heels and refused to go even with the entrance ceremony already upon her, and let out a dry laugh. She had been a clingy girl who hated being parted from her family, and last year Kailan had worried a great deal. Still, the news that reached him now and then said she was adapting well enough, and he had set that one worry down.
"I suppose I won't see our girl until summer break."
He drank a cup of water and shook the heaviness from his body. He was just about to sink back into the work when a knock came.
"My lord. I have something urgent to report!"
The urgent voice belonged to Fred, elderly head butler of House Silbaerin. He had served the house so long that he had weathered nearly every sudden crisis a retainer could face, and it was rare for him to hurry like this. Puzzled, Kailan answered readily all the same.
"Come in."
At his leave, Fred entered the office, apologized first for the discourtesy, and then spoke.
"It is... Lady Ishilla has arrived. Word only just reached me, so I believe some fifteen minutes have passed since she came through the city gate."
"What?"
Kailan was thrown by his daughter's sudden appearance. The academy reopened next week — and she was visiting now? The gatekeepers, and Fred, were hardly likely to be lying.
"I'll go out myself. Fred, see that everything is ready to receive Ishilla."
"Yes, my lord."
He was glad to see his daughter's face before the term began...
And yet Kailan could not quite shake a dazed, unsettled feeling.