A Mother's Forgotten Face
Ashlyn collected herself, turning her gaze elsewhere as she cleared her throat.
“I’m fine right now.”
“You might be fine now, but who can say a few hours from now. Don’t go nodding off while you’re commanding later…. Get some sleep.”
The man crossed so easily between rudeness and tenderness. Ashlyn had never met anyone quite like him. Of course she had her old friend Federin. Yet where Federin was sly while always keeping a proper line, Gennady behaved as though no such line existed at all.
Ashlyn flinched and shivered by herself. The unease came from catching herself unconsciously comparing Federin and Gennady.
I really must not be in my right mind.
As Sergeant Billef had said, she needed to sleep for an hour or two at least.
“You’re right. I’ll go rest a while.”
“Good.”
“But shouldn’t you catch a little sleep yourself? We’ve both been awake this whole time.”
The man blinked two or three times, as though no one had ever asked him such a question before.
“Ah, this much doesn’t bother me at all.”
“You said even if you’re fine now, you never know what it’ll be like a few hours later.”
“I’m a werewolf, after all. I can stay awake three days straight and feel nothing.”
“Ah, right.”
Yes. He was not human. Indeed Sergeant Billef looked perfectly fine at the moment. If anything his face seemed clearer than when she had first seen him. Ashlyn spoke to the man.
“Wake me in two hours. You know where my tent is?”
“…Yes.”
Ashlyn’s tent was a small chamber dug out of the inner wall of the trench. It was exceedingly cramped and shabby, yet when one considered the soldiers’ quarters crawling with rats and fleas it was nothing short of paradise. In truth it was so clean and orderly that it was hard to believe it belonged to a trench at all.
The moment Ashlyn stepped inside she stripped the glove from her left hand and flicked her index finger as she intoned the spell.
"Orrot."
⟨ Barrier ⟩
A translucent barrier shimmered briefly over the back of her left hand, and the clean fragrance of cypress wood filled the space.
In truth Ashlyn had been using magic to keep this place clean. Any guilt over spending sacred magical power on mere cleaning vanished the moment she faced the rats, fleas, and filthy water. Instead she had chosen to think of it this way:
On the battlefield the most important thing is neither courage nor strategy—it is cleanliness.
In reality a great many soldiers had collapsed from illness in the trenches. Typhoid, cholera…. Most of them were infections contracted from the contaminated environment. Sensing the problem, Ashlyn had spent the past few weeks secretly purifying the soldiers’ drinking water and bathwater and exterminating the demon rats that carried the germs.
“Doesn’t it seem odd how we haven’t been seeing those demon rats and rot-bugs much lately?”
“Is it because of the werewolves?”
“No, they were already gone before that.”
No one recognized that it was thanks to Ashlyn’s efforts, but that did not matter in the least. She had never begun the work seeking recognition. A proper mage was supposed to devote herself quietly in places no one could see.
At any rate, inside the now-clean room Ashlyn pressed a handkerchief against her dry eyelids. The sleep she had been holding back came surging in like a flood. She chose not to fight it and instead let herself sink into the mire of sleep.
Twelve years ago. That day was the death anniversary of the former Duchess of Wintercrown. Talia Wintercrown, Ashlyn’s late birth mother.
She had come from the Anpante family, renowned for fire magic, and nine years earlier she had suddenly fallen ill and passed away.
At the time Talia’s death had been a great shock to Istar’s magical society. Of course it had. Talia had been the living symbol of the union between the Wintercrowns, masters of abstract magic, and the Anpante family, likewise masters of fire magic.
In truth the two houses had never gotten along. One might call it a feud stretching back nearly several centuries. Magicians who wielded abstract power looked down on elemental mages as “superficial,” while elemental mages in turn dismissed those of the abstract school as “fools who clutched rulers and chased castles in the air.”
And the Wintercrowns and the Anpantes represented abstract magic and elemental magic respectively. Thus the marriage of Talia Anpante and Henry Wintercrown had been an event that symbolized the reconciliation of the two factions.
Naturally it had been a political marriage. A textbook political marriage. A contractual union arranged according to the interests of the families, with no emotion mixed in whatsoever.
In short, the tedious story could be summarized as follows.
Talia Wintercrown had been a kind of symbol. A mascot representing the alliance between the houses. Therefore the shock people felt when she died had been less human pity than vulgar worries of the sort “How should I offer condolences without being rude?” or “What clothes should I wear to the funeral?”
And as with all such superficial symbols, Talia had soon faded from people’s memories. After the previous Duke of Wintercrown passed away and Henry succeeded to the title, and after he married his relative Janet.
Nine years after Talia’s death, it seemed there was no one left who thought of her. Not even her natal house of Anpante. Not even the daughter she had borne, Ashlyn….
“I really can’t remember anything anymore,” Ashlyn murmured to herself. Gazing blankly at the ripples on the lake, she murmured again.
“I can’t remember Mother’s face.”
It was not particularly surprising. To keep from forgetting old things required a certain effort of its own. And Ashlyn had never made any such effort. In the fourteen years of her life she had never deliberately sought out her mother’s photograph, nor lain alone in bed trying to picture her. She had been far too burdened with responsibilities to indulge in such sentimentality.
Little Duke Ashlyn.
That was the nickname people gave her. Even though she had a younger brother, Arthur, and the heir had not yet been decided. At first it had been pure teasing—a fond nickname the adults had attached of their own accord to the excessively precocious little Ashlyn.
But as Ashlyn grew, it had ceased to be mere jest. The way her stepmother, the Young Duchess, flew into a rage whenever she heard the nickname “Little Duke Ashlyn” was proof enough of that.
At any rate Ashlyn was now far removed from all that turmoil. She was fourteen years old. Having escaped her boring relatives and her irritatingly clingy little brother, she was spending her time here in solitude, looking at the scenery.
Ashlyn’s long, abundant golden hair fluttered in the light breeze. She blinked her equally abundant lashes as she felt the wind that blew. Her features, modest yet refined and elegant, clouded with melancholy.
In a year I won’t be able to see this view anymore.
She was scheduled to enter the Istaria Magic Academy the following year. There was still one final examination to take before admission, but with Ashlyn’s current skill it was a level she could pass all too easily. She could have passed even if she could not use one or two fingers on her left hand right now.
If I go to the Academy, I won’t be able to see this landscape for quite a while.
Leaving behind her detestable stepmother and the bothersome little brother who always trailed after her was something she looked forward to, yet she felt a little regret at no longer being able to see this lake. It was not so much the beauty of the scenery itself as the fact that it was the only place that held memories of her mother.
Ah. There was one more memory her mother had left her. That was….
"Aturaura."
⟨ Spark of Flame ⟩
When Ashlyn raised the index finger of her left hand and chanted the spell, the circuit flashed briefly and a small flame flared up before vanishing. Ashlyn smiled quietly.
Fire magic. It was the only magical formula her mother had taught her. As she taught the young Ashlyn that magic, she had said,
“You’re a Wintercrown, but you’re also an Anpante. It’s unthinkable for an Anpante to be unable to handle fire.”
Though Ashlyn could not clearly remember her mother’s face, she remembered her voice from that time. The slender voice that had trembled finely. The faint smile visible beyond the wavering flame. And….
Grrr.
Grrr?
Startled by the sudden unfamiliar sound, Ashlyn turned around. And froze on the spot. There stood a strange dog she had never seen before. A large black dog the likes of which Ashlyn had never encountered.
No—was that even a dog? It looked more like a monster. Something like a Cerberus, or a Lycos. Ashlyn’s mind grew complicated. She defensively spread her left hand.
“Aah!”
Ashlyn’s eyes flew open in shock. Her left hand burned as if it were on fire. Her entire body was soaked in cold sweat. No sooner had she come to her senses than someone outside began pounding roughly on the wooden door.
“Are you all right?”
It was Sergeant Billef. He called to Ashlyn with such fierce intensity that he seemed ready to smash the door down at any moment. Caught off guard and flustered, Ashlyn shouted urgently,
“I’m fine, I’m fine so stop banging!”
While she hurriedly wiped her body with a dry towel and put on her uniform, Ashlyn’s hands continued to tremble. Fortunately the pain in her left hand had subsided a great deal compared to before. Yet the mental shock she had felt from the pain still lingered.