Volume 1, Episode 5
The child they had brought to the Winter Dragon Temple did not open her eyes until a full day had passed. All the while, Seherbian had cleaned out the brazier, swept away the half-burned charcoal, and warmed the place through, then simmered a pot of soup she could actually eat on an empty stomach.
As one holy devotee after another departed, the winter temple—long since abandoned by all who once used it—slowly filled with warmth again.
It smells good.
The girl, Kisha, stirred beneath her heavy eyelids, drawn upward by the savory scent of soup.
Crackle, crackle.
The sound of fire breathing in the hearth brought with it a strange sense of safety. Kisha, who kept wriggling even after she woke because the blanket over her shoulders felt so comfortable, suddenly came fully to herself.
“Ah!”
She jerked upright so abruptly that the blanket slipped softly from her body. Too flustered to even reach down and pick it back up, Kisha hurriedly looked around her.
Old murals, stained glass set into the windows in shimmering colors, little candles glittering in a row along the wall.
The warm light and the rich scent felt oddly out of place, but there was no mistaking it: this was the inside of the Winter Dragon Temple she had searched for so desperately. Kisha stared blankly up at the stained glass depicting an angel and thought,
Did I… die?
In truth, the Winter Dragon Temple had been a deserted ruin no one had visited for more than ten years. In a place where no warmth should have existed, light and the smell of food? Kisha shivered a little and drew her shoulders in.
For someone who had gone hungry for days, she was not painfully starving, and her frostbitten body felt perfectly fine. In fact, she even had quite a bit of strength back. Not knowing that it was all thanks to the spring sun bundle, Kisha could only blink in bewilderment.
Then, all at once, a strange voice popped up behind her.
“You’re awake?”
“Eek!”
“……”
Startled half to death, Kisha cried out and toppled backward.
The blanket, kicked into the air by her foot, fell back down in a heroic swoop and covered her toes, and her flailing hand caught the cold floor. Only then did Kisha realize she had been sleeping right in the middle of the temple with appalling comfort. It had been soft enough, certainly, but her thoughts were a mess.
…Right, yes! I came here to pray!
She had come into the frozen snowfield, clasped her hands together, and begged for help with all her heart.
I thought I met the dragon… was that a dream?
Right before she had fainted, she felt as if she had met a silver dragon, but for some reason, she could not quite remember that moment properly.
Rising uncertainly to her feet, Kisha asked in a frightened voice, “I’m sorry, I… I was so startled I was rude. Who are you?”
Ring.
Soft light spilled across a long shadow.
A neat priest’s robe, and a white staff that looked as though it had been carved from eternal snow, were the first things she saw.
Then the one in priest’s robes spoke.
“Mm. The owner of this place…?”
He was leaning against the wall with the staff hugged to his chest, looking as though everything in the world was far too much trouble. Even so, with the hood of his robe pulled low, his face could not be seen clearly.
Kisha, still staring at him in surprise, suddenly brightened. “Could you be a priest, perhaps?”
She did not hear a clear yes or no, but for some reason, she felt relieved.
“I heard there was no one left in the Winter Dragon Temple anymore, so I suppose it was just a rumor.”
Those sunset-colored eyes turned blankly toward the girl.
Kisha muttered under her breath, “I’m glad there’s still a priest here…”
“Is that so.”
The answer came back flatly.
It was not quite the sort of voice one expected from the priest guarding the Winter Dragon Temple. But before the girl could dwell on it, the priest who had come close to her suddenly held something out.
A steaming cup of tea.
“Drink this, Kisha. It’ll warm you up.”
“Ah.”
She took the cup on instinct. It smelled of fragrant herbs.
“The Winter Dragon Temple is always cold, after all.”
It was as warm as the kindness she felt in her hands. Kisha looked up at the priest, her eyes round.
…He’s beautiful.
Now that he was closer, the face hidden beneath the hood came into view. The firelight from the lamp caught in his eyes, making them glow with a sunset hue so lovely it seemed almost unreal.
Not only his eyes, but every part of him from head to toe was beautiful, like a work of art carved from ice. Dragonkind instinctively awakened awe in every other race—with their gaze, their scent, even their voice. Born with forms beloved by the gods, they were creatures one could not help but love.
Kisha did not know that, but she did think that the reddish yet cool-looking crimson hair suited that impossibly beautiful priest perfectly.
She had been staring at him, dazed, when a moment later she came to herself with a soft gasp.
The priest saved me.
Realizing that the priest before her must have been the one who rescued her, Kisha gripped the cup tightly and bowed her head.
“Thank you very much, priest.”
“Think nothing of it.”
“Um, I was almost dead, wasn’t I?”
The priest gazed silently at the girl. It was a wordless affirmation, but there was neither rebuke nor pity in it.
“Actually, I left home without telling anyone. If I’d said I was coming to the Winter Dragon Temple, the adults would have stopped me for sure.”
Perhaps because he was listening so quietly, Kisha confessed everything honestly, even though he had not asked.
“As soon as I entered the snowfield, it was cold and dark, so I was scared. There were no human tracks in the white snow, and the ground was frozen and slippery…”
The reason she had stayed, even though she had been so frightened, and had not gone back home until the moment she lost consciousness, was simple.
“I came here to meet the dragon.”
The priest, who had been silent all this time, finally reacted.
“The dragon?”
“Yes! Winter Bell, the guardian dragon. And the offering I brought for the dragon was…”
Usually, when one came to a temple, one offered up something treasured—carefully tended grain, livestock raised with care, or something equally precious. Even young Kisha knew that an “offering” was required.
“It was me.”
“What?”
Seherbian, forgetting even the priestly act he had been pretending at, blurted out a question before he could stop himself. Interpreting his surprise somehow, Kisha smiled bashfully.
“Um, I heard that the dragon also accepts living offerings. I thought that if I became the offering, maybe he would accept me…”
Children sometimes imagined things with appalling cruelty, and then proceeded to carry them out just as quickly.
A child trying to offer herself as a sacrifice.
Kisha was only twelve years old.
Seherbian, suddenly curious what had driven such a fragile girl toward death, listened carefully to the rest of her story.
“But I don’t think the dragon liked the offering I prepared.”
“Mm. Why do you think that?”
“Because he didn’t answer. I kept calling out, thinking I should keep praying until he heard me, but there was no response… and then I lost consciousness…”
Watching the girl bow her head sadly, mumbling through the end of her sentence, Seherbian looked a little guilty.
But only for a moment. Then he slowly opened his mouth again.
“Holy child.”
“Yes?”
“Why did you come here?”
His tone carried a trace of rebuke.
“What were you planning to do if Winter Bell never showed himself to the end?”
Kisha hesitated, twining her toes together for a moment, before at last answering.
“I can keep waiting.”
Her voice was small, but firm.
“My mother waited for winter all along too, and everyone in Hartney village did as well.”
When had it started, she wondered?
As Winter Bell fell silent, winter itself disappeared from this world. Only the Blanconia snowfield remained as winter’s sole domain.
“So I’ll wait too. Until Winter Bell answers me.”
The girl curled the small fist resting on her knee into a tight little ball. Thinking he might need to say it louder, Kisha wet her lips nervously, but then a laugh-laced voice brushed her ear.
“…Well now.”
“Priest?”
“Holy child, you’re waiting for something no one else is asking for.”
He sounded as though he were smiling, but when Kisha checked his face, it was cold as ice.
“B-but you know that too, don’t you, priest?”
“…Know what?”
“It’s already been a hundred years since winter came to this world.”
To Winter Bell, it might have been little more than a tedious span of time, but for Kisha, a girl of only twelve, a hundred years was an unimaginably long age.
“I’ve never seen winter even once in my life.”
Because exhausted Winter Bell, the guardian dragon Seherbian, had no longer brought winter to the world.
Kisha went on with tears trembling in her voice. “After autumn comes a slightly chilly autumn, and then spring follows right after. Since winter disappeared, our village never gets snow anymore.”
“Hmm. And what’s so good about snow, then?”
“What’s so good about it?”
Hearing the priest’s indifferent response, Kisha clenched both fists and insisted, “It must be incredibly pretty. When the snow falls thick and heavy, the whole world is supposed to turn white.”
“Ah, yes, well…”
“They also said in fairy tales that there’s a warmth you can only feel by a hearth lit on a cold day.”
The girl’s tiny finger pointed vigorously toward the fireplace, where the flames were dancing brightly.
“Just like the stove you lit, priest.”
“Ah.”
The priest kept repeating a perfunctory “ah” in a thoroughly indifferent manner. Then, when the girl fell quiet, he asked again.
“Fine. You wanted to see a snowy landscape. And what else?”
“…They said if my mother’s illness is to get any worse, the weather has to be cold.”
At last, the real reason came out. The priest’s gaze fixed on Kisha like a blade.
“My mother—no, actually, more than half the village caught it too. It’s called Laxito. A spring plague, they said. But they said it only gets better when winter comes.”
Kisha explained the disease named Laxito in a confused sort of way.
“To cure it for sure, you need medicine, and I was told by the healer that there’s a flower that only blooms in winter. They make medicine from it. Ah, the Winter Butterfly Flower! The blue flower that blooms when the snow has piled up thick and white.”
This time, Kisha spoke of the flower with even greater resolve than before.
“But for that flower to bloom, winter has to come first.”
“……Wait.”
“Yes?”
The priest cut her off mid-sentence and looked vaguely exhausted, tapping his own shoulder with the white staff he held.
“So the wish you came all this way, risking your life to pray for was…”
His sunset-colored eyes held the dancing hearth fire and glowed softly.
The child smiled brightly and nodded with all her might.
“Yes! I want winter to come back!”
At that very moment, the staff that had been still all this time gave a soft ring.
Kisha Hartney’s residence is currently affected by the spring plague Laxito.
A spring plague?
As expected, the ingenious staff Mimir immediately added the necessary information and relayed it. Only then did the priest fully understand the girl’s true wish.
Ah. So that was it.
Sometimes such things happened. Since the seasons were laws created by the gods, they sometimes allowed time to prepare for the calamities that would come later. Creating conditions in which seeds could grow well, maintaining warm temperatures so nature could flourish, and even bringing torrents of rain for thirsty plants and animals—these were all arrangements made for living things.
If a plague that would take lives in the next season was spreading, then it was also the duty of the season before to prepare the medicine that could overcome it in advance.
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