The First Snow of Hartney
Kisha sniffled and crouched down in front of the tree. Her legs hurt so badly she could hardly stand it. And she was so cold she could no longer even tell whether she was crying or not.
She buried her face in her knees and shook with silent sobs.
Then someone called to her from behind.
“Kisha.”
“Ah…! Priest!”
Kisha lifted her tear-streaked face in a flash. Somehow, the priest with crimson hair was already crouched right in front of her.
“Wh-what should I do?”
“Are you all right?”
“Y-yes. But the tree…”
At the sound of his gentle voice, a fresh wave of misery rose in her throat and turned into a hiccup. Kisha took a deep breath through her rough, sore throat and went on.
“I found it, but… I think it’s already dead.”
It was dark enough now that she couldn’t make out the priest’s expression very well.
But after being forced to face despair alone, simply finding another person had been enough to steady her. Just knowing he was there beside her gradually calmed her down.
“Um, can I go back to the temple now?”
“Of course.”
The priest answered kindly. Kisha let out a breath of relief and her shoulders went limp with exhaustion.
“I’ll have to search more tomorrow.”
At that, the priest, who had taken her hand to help her up, faltered.
“...You want to look for flowers again?”
Only after she was standing did they fully meet each other’s eyes. A faint crease had formed between the priest’s brows.
“You just saw a tree freeze to death in the cold. You nearly died just like it, saint. And you still want to go again?”
“Yes! I’ll keep looking. Our village doesn’t have winter, so… if there really are flowers, this is the only place they could be.”
“Aren’t you afraid of dying?”
At first, Kisha thought the priest was angry. She shrank back, but soon realized that wasn’t it at all.
The priest is worried I might die.
How very priestly of him—so kind, so compassionate. Thinking that, Kisha smiled despite herself.
“But if I don’t do anything and fail to find a way to cure the plague spreading through my village…”
Her mother, her younger siblings, and many other people from the same district would lose their lives all at once. Kisha quickly pushed away the terrible image and shook her head.
“Then I’d be the only one left.”
“...”
“That’s far scarier than dying.”
After hearing Kisha’s answer, the priest, Seherbian, looked strangely altered. His gaze fixed on her as though he were looking at a creature he had never seen before in his life.
“Th-then, if you don’t mind, just for today, could you take me back to the temple…”
“Very well.”
Kisha had been about to ask him to take her back because she no longer had the strength to endure the cold. Seherbian cut her off before she could finish.
“I’ll bring back winter, just as Kisha wishes.”
“Pardon?”
He did not mean he would escort her back to the temple. Seherbian was answering the prayer she had offered the dragon there, in the temple.
“But first, let’s make one thing clear.”
Kisha’s pale green eyes reflected transparently in his dark sunset-colored ones as he looked down at her.
“Are you sure you won’t regret it when winter returns?”
Many people had come to pray for their wishes.
And when those wishes were granted, did they all feel satisfied—
“Don’t come back later and blame me, Kisha Hartney.”
Watching the girl wipe away her tears and nod, Seherbian smiled bitterly.
Even though it was always the same cycle, the same ending, he could never ignore the desperate prayers of humans. As always, he could only listen in silence.
“Huh?”
Then Kisha, who had only just managed to stop crying, blinked blankly.
“Come to think of it, Priest, how did you know my name?”
Kisha had never told the priest her name. Only now, belatedly realizing that fact, the girl looked bewildered. A faint, hazy afterimage stirred in the back of her mind.
No way.
She had thought it was a dream.
The memory of seeing, at the moment she thought she had died, a beautiful silver guardian dragon with a flowing red mane—and telling it her name.
Maybe that was why she had been able to speak so freely with the priest standing before her now, with no sense of discomfort at all.
“...Winter Bell?”
Seherbian, still in priest’s robes, smiled lightly when he heard her trembling voice. Then he lifted his white staff and tapped the ground once.
“Mimir, open the door.”
Thunk!
A massive door fell from the sky to the temple floor. Kisha, so shocked she forgot even to scream, collapsed where she stood and trembled all over. Seherbian pointed past the door with his staff.
“Kisha, walk through this door.”
“I, I…”
“Your wish will be granted.”
Beyond the doorway, Kisha could see the village she knew so well. Familiar roofs, the ordinary daily life of familiar people. Under the dark night sky, lanterns glowed and smoke rose from chimneys, making the whole place look unbearably warm.
With a face that looked as though she might cry again, Kisha stared through the opening, then slowly got to her feet.
Just before she stepped through the door, the girl turned back to Seherbian.
“Thank you!”
That was all. Kisha passed through and disappeared, and the open door soon closed on its own. With a heavy thunk, a draft of cold wind mixed with snowflakes slipped through the narrowing gap and tickled Seherbian’s cheek.
Leaning on his staff, Seherbian watched until the door turned into a shard of ice and vanished in a scatter of frost. Then he murmured in a languid voice,
“...I hope that feeling never changes.”
No one could know whether the precious flower that bloomed only in winter would appear again soon, or whether it would never bloom at all. Even Winter Bell, who had called winter back, was no different. He possessed the power to bring ruin, but not the power to create life or restore it.
That day, for the first time in a hundred years, snow fell over Hartney Village. It was the joyous day when the missing daughter of Hartney’s lord, Kisha Hartney, miraculously returned alive.
* * *
The snowfield of Blanconia.
There, the winter guardian dragon known as Winter Bell, Seherbian, lived.
Born to a mother of the Fire Clan and a father of the Silver Clan, Seherbian had inherited an unusual appearance: though he was a Silver Dragon, his silver scales were accented by a mane of red.
Seherbian.
Lovely Serbi, you are like a warm snowflake that came to winter.
Of course, when he first heard his name, Seherbian had found it strange.
There’s no such thing as a warm snowflake.
Snow and ice were cold, always. Things froze because they were cold, and snow fell because it was cold. To Seherbian, who had been born into the Silver Clan and carried the chill in his blood, “a warm snowflake” was a paradoxical, nonsensical idea—like a silent outcry or a brilliant spring of sorrow.
If a snowflake gets warm, it just melts, that’s all.
Snow, even when it melted, simply turned into rain.
It was only after being chosen by the branches of the World Tree and becoming Winter Bell that Seherbian began to feel the name suited him well. He had come down from the sky, after all, but no one on the ground had ever truly wished for him.
“Master, Master! Look at this!”
“...Mm?”
Having expended a great deal of power to call winter back, Seherbian intended to remain in his domain for a while and focus on recovering. As usual, he had been draped bonelessly in place, and only his head stirred lazily as he lifted it.
A white crow was flying circles around him.
“Liliana.”
The white crow Liliana was a combat guardian who always kept watch over the lair and dealt with any possible threats. If she was making a fuss, then something must have happened at the lair, so Seherbian blinked several times to drive away the sleep tugging at his eyes.
“Yawn… What now? Did someone come by again?”
Still fluttering around in agitation, Liliana gave a flap of her wings and landed on Seherbian’s shoulder, scattering silver feathers.
“No! Not exactly. Or maybe yes? Um, if someone came by, then I suppose they came by?”
“...If you say it like that, I won’t know.”
Since the guardian who had come to report the situation had ended up asking its master for clarification instead, an awkward silence briefly settled between them.
“What is it?”
“The flower!”
“Flower?”
“That child from before. The one Master wanted to save.”
The moment she said child, Winter Bell immediately thought of the little saint who had come to the temple not long ago and made the outrageous wish to “bring winter back” — Kisha Hartney.
“Kisha, then.”
“No?! ”
“...Not her?”
“Yes! I’m talking about a human child, not—”
Liliana’s mint-colored eyes sparkled as she grew more and more excited. Then, at last, she blurted out the name Seherbian had never expected.
“The winter butterfly tree!”
Clink.
Seherbian sprang to his feet reflexively. With his sudden movement, the bell hanging from Mimir gave a soft jingle.
“That’s…”
It was dead already.
He had clearly seen the winter butterfly tree, its life gone and its body frozen stiff, together with Liliana. Without asking further, Seherbian immediately summoned a Door. The moment he passed through it, the cozy interior vanished and cold wind struck his skin.
A white snowfield stretched out before him. And on it, a tiny miracle was blooming.
A lone sapling had grown up and, enduring the cold, boldly stretched its branches into the air. Blue blossoms were fully open on every branch that had seemed withered before. It looked as though he were watching butterflies rise into spring sunlight.
Fwoosh!
The white crows guarding Blanconia cut across the sky and flew away. Only after a silver feather, falling with the snow, brushed his nose did Seherbian reach out to touch the branch. The blue petals that fluttered against his fingers were incredibly soft.
“Master.”
Liliana landed lightly on his finger.
“I checked the records in the archive, and it says winter butterfly trees temporarily stop their life functions if it gets too cold.”
A tree that bloomed only in winter.
Dying and waking again was a unique trait the winter butterfly tree had developed in order to survive harsh freezes.
“I see.”
Seherbian stared blankly at the flowers. Since he had never been interested in the ecology of flowers, this was the first time he had heard of such a trait.
It was fascinating, astonishing, and also…
Thank you. For staying alive.
A calm smile rose over his weary face. Seherbian was truly grateful that the dry, brittle winter butterfly tree had survived without dying and had bloomed at last.
A moment later, he plucked one of the flowering branches and froze it into a neat square of ice. Then he tucked it into a small pouch and lifted it up.
“Lili, take this to Kisha Hartney…”
As Seherbian was examining the winter butterfly tree, Liliana had drifted closer and was just about to flutter in and take the flowering branch when the bell on his white staff chimed lightly.
Clink!
“Thirteen prayers have arrived from the Dragon Shrine. Would you like to review them?”
“...How many?”
“Thirteen.”
Seherbian’s expression, which had been expecting nothing more than the usual recital of human thoughts, stiffened at once. Seeing that face, Liliana began to circle warily around him too.
“What in the world is wrong with people.”
“First prayer: ‘Please lay a curse upon him.’”
As word spread that Kisha Hartney’s wish had been granted, more and more people began to call for Winter Bell again. Most of the wishes brought to the Dragon Shrine after hearing the rumor were cries for revenge or pleas to be cursed.
— Bring ruin to their house.
— Kill him.
— Make them suffer even more than we did.
As Seherbian listened blankly to the rest of the prayers, Mimir’s report of the thirteenth wish only made him let out a hollow laugh.
“Ha… ha ha.”
He had listened all the way to the end just in case, and now the only feeling swelling in his chest was a draining emptiness that made him feel foolish for even hoping.
Whirling around, Seherbian turned his back on the door leading to the temple and stood in the white snowfield, gripping his staff so tightly his hand went white.
“Mimir. Do you think I’m supposed to grant every one of those prayers?”
“I am your guardian.”
“I didn’t ask who you are!”
Seherbian raised his voice, louder than usual. In contrast, the World Tree’s branch, Mimir, fell silent.
“Answer me.”
“...”
“Do I… have to keep carrying out my duty here from now on too? Until the next Winter Bell is born—or maybe until the day I die.”