Just like the shade of snow that hasn't completely melted, I carry on with these feelings inside me… ~ Fuyu No Hanashi, The Seasons
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The next days that followed after Risa went out of the house for the first time went well. As she wished, she was finally able to do household chores around the Master Mage’s house without straining herself.
Though she wanted to do more concerning her sealed magic, no one would mention it to her, for some reason. But it wasn’t because the mages didn’t want to say anything about it. According to Jehan, the Master Mage and Lady Enlari were so busy with their duties at the Magic Academy that they couldn’t pay attention to Risa at the moment.
Then again, it wasn’t as if Risa was demanding it. Of course, she wanted to know more about her sealed magic. The dragons who had been accompanying her whenever Jehan would have to leave her to head to the capital could only say that they sensed strange energy in her. But they were sure that the energy wasn’t dangerous or ominous at all.
Though Risa wanted to feel assured about it, there were mysteries about her arrival that still haven’t been solved. She wanted to know how she ended up floating in the river, as the Master Mage and Jehan had claimed. Not that she doubted them. But the wound she sustained and the lack of knowledge about what really happened to her were only filling her head with more questions.
She could strongly feel that there was a hidden story that she had to uncover. She had no idea how she’d be able to do such a thing, but she would do her best to learn about it.
“Wherever did your mind wander off to again, huh?”
Risa stopped wiping the water off the plates she had washed earlier and turned to the source of the voice.
“Jehan. I thought you headed off to the capital.”
It was another day for the young mage-in-training to go back to the capital. So Risa was sure she would be left there all by herself at the time. And yet…
“The Master Mage told me to go back here. Well, it was more for a personal reason, though.”
She frowned at that. “Personal reason?”
It took a while before Jehan gave her a proper answer. “My father is heading to the academy to look for me again and demand that I do him a favor. Seriously, I’m not his servant, you know.”
“You truly don’t have a good relationship with your family, huh?”
But it seemed that Jehan didn’t want to talk about it. So she didn’t push him to say anything more.
“Are you alright?” Risa ended up asking after a period of unbearable silence.
Jehan nodded and smiled at her. But she could tell that it was forced. “Please don’t worry about me. I’ll be alright. I’m just glad that Lord Benlor was considerate enough to never let me see any members of my family.”
“Lord Benlor? Is that the Master Mage’s name?”
“Oh, that’s right. I never mentioned to you the Master Mage’s real name. You always refer to him as Master Mage, huh?”
Risa nodded and placed the last plate she wiped dry on the dish rack. “Is he also a noble?”
“He’s the only child of Marquis and Marchioness Faihdrin. His full name is Benlor Gaillard Faihdrin. One story that is known about him is that he was possibly the youngest to become a Master Mage at the age of 27. Well, until now, he’s the only one who had attained such an achievement at that age.”
“He’s truly an amazing person, huh? Even though 40 years have passed since then…” And then Risa remembered something. “By the way, did he have a wife and children? I never heard him or Lady Enlari mention it before.”
“He did. His wife is still alive and they had only one child – a son. Both of them are currently the ones managing the Faihdrin estate since Lord Benlor’s parents died. He would return home on certain days of the week to see them and be with them. But he couldn’t leave this forest completely because of the dragons.”
It was when Risa recalled the skill she discovered while trying to recover from the ordeal she had, even though she couldn’t fully remember it. The time she first conversed with the dragons guarding the Master Mage’s house.
“Jehan… You can keep a secret, right?”
Of course, that question had caught the young man’s attention. Jehan raised his head and faced Risa with interest.
“It depends on the secret that you want me to keep. But if it’s about magic, then I have to at least inform Lord Benlor or Lady Enlari. They gave me that order, after all.”
“They honestly don’t miss anything when it comes to taking care of me, huh?” Risa couldn’t help smiling at that. But she had no one to confide this with and she wanted to get answers to the questions lurking around her mind.
The two mages weren’t present at the moment. So she could entrust this to Jehan.
“Has there been anyone in this kingdom who could… listen to the dragon’s thoughts?”
Risa saw Jehan frown after asking that, however. She couldn’t tell if he was thinking about it or if her question hadn’t registered in his mind yet. She waited with bated breath before he spoke.
“I don’t know very much about the people who possessed such a skill because it’s rare for anyone to become a dragon listener.”
“Dragon… listener?”
Jehan nodded and continued speaking. “It’s a magical skill that allows anyone who possesses it to be able to hear the dragon’s thoughts when they touch them. By far, the only one known to have that skill is the Second Prince of the Kingdom of Revia -- Prince Alathil.”
“Prince… Alathil?” Now that was a unique name if Risa would say so.
At the moment, however, she couldn’t understand why the sound of that name made her feel as if needles were pricking her heart. Was she supposed to feel this way at the sound of someone’s name? Especially a name that a member of the royal family owned…
“He’s possibly the only member of the royal family for the past four generations to possess such a skill, along with his amazing swordsmanship and his ice magic.”
“Wow… I guess every member of the royal family has skills they can use to fight properly, huh? By the way, does the Master Mage have that dragon listening skill, as well? I mean, he does command Qilrun and Frindall.”
“Who?”
Risa pointed up, indicating the skies. “The two dragons flying above the Master Mage’s house at the moment.”
“Don’t tell me those dragons told you their names, as well? Or did Lord Benlor tell you?”
She shook her head. “I never asked the Master Mage about the dragons’ names at all because he doesn’t stay here that much, unlike you. He was probably interacting with them at night while I was asleep and the dragons would allow me to touch them and tell me what the Master Mage mentioned that night.”
“That’s strange. I don’t recall Lord Benlor ever talking to the dragons the way the dragon listeners do. But this is a development. We have to tell this to the Master Mage and Lady Enlari. They might be able to figure out what to do next after learning that.”
Though Risa was unsure, she figured that she had to confide her situation to people who she knew would help her. Since Jehan said that being a dragon listener was a rarity, she had to know how it would help her live in that kingdom.
Possibly along the way, she’d be able to know the reason why she felt that pricking feeling upon hearing the Second Prince’s name.
‘I knew I never met him. So why did I start feeling like this at the sound of his name?’
YOU ARE READING
The Seventh Moon
Fantasy【Written In English】 A mysterious voice became a catalyst for one woman to find herself in a kingdom of magic on the verge of dealing with a great war. With the aid of the kingdom's 2nd Prince, she realized her fate in that world which seemed to be...
