If Aiden hadn’t been helping her all this time, she wouldn’t have lasted even a little today — she’d have collapsed before she so much as started.
Over the past month, the only reason Dear had come to handle even a sliver of Endairon’s power was these nighttime sessions.
So Aiden was someone she owed a great deal to. She knew perfectly well that he was turning a blind eye for her at real risk to himself.
Which made her feel all the worse. Asking him again, like this.
“Is it really out of the question?”
Dear asked carefully. Instead of answering, Aiden looked down at her hand, wound round and round with bandages.
“You mean to go out even on a night like this?”
“It’s because it’s a night like this that I have to go.”
“I understand how you feel, but driving yourself doesn’t always produce good results.”
“I’m not going to train. I’ll only check, I promise.”
At that, Aiden’s face clouded over with thought. As a senior knight, he knew a fair amount about spirit arts — not as much as a summoner, but enough. There was no way he’d miss how serious it was for a bond to break in the middle of a working.
What’s more — though Dear had no idea of it — the first time Aiden had ever laid eyes on her, she’d been sitting beside the spot where water was drawn, knocking her forehead against a tree and muttering something to herself.
What are you going to do, carrying on like this.
Pull yourself together, Dear. You have to pull yourself together.
The rough bark had left her forehead bright red, but Dear hadn’t given it a second thought. She’d steadied herself and gone right back to practicing moving water.
And when the water in that filthy puddle had swirled obediently at her will, only to burst apart and collapse with a wet splat, even Aiden had felt a pang for her.
Because of that, he’d ended up tacitly overlooking her slipping out at night to train.
Aiden was a commoner himself, and it wasn’t as though he’d reached senior knight without a past of his own like that.
In the end, it was Aiden who sighed first.
“Only check. Nothing else.”
Dear’s face lit up in an instant.
“Really?”
“No training.”
“Right.”
“And no workings, either.”
“Right!”
“You check its condition and come straight back.”
“Understood.”
Her answers, at least, were braver than anyone’s.
Aiden watched her with a distinctly unconvinced look, then glanced down at the bandaged hand once more.
“If anything feels the least bit wrong, come back at once. You’ve already pushed yourself more than enough today.”
“I will.”
“One hour.”
“An hour and a half would...”
“Dear.”
“One hour.”
Dear backed down in a hurry.
Only then did Aiden take a look around them.
“The west post changes over in ten minutes. Go out then.”
Dear’s eyes sparkled.
“And don’t come back by the north. I saw on my way in that they’ve added patrols over there tonight.”
“Then I’ll come back the usual way.”
“Yes. So long as you’re back before the post changes over, I’ll manage something.”
“Thank you, Aiden.”
Dear beamed at him.
Aiden looked at that face of hers and let out a small sigh.
“If you’re grateful, then actually listen to me tonight.”
“Of course.”
“I can’t think why the more meekly you agree, the more uneasy I feel.”
“That’s unfair.”
Dear stuck out her lower lip.
Aiden watched her with the faintest smile, then straightened up.
“Go carefully.”
“I will.”
Dear nodded. She changed quickly in her quarters, threw a dark hood over herself, and headed west, the way Aiden had told her.
She walked as slowly as she could manage until the lights of the guard post fell away behind her. The moment she was fully out of sight, she turned off in a direction her feet already knew.
Just a little west of the encampment, the forest began.
The woods, long since abandoned by human feet, had grown so thick she could barely see a step ahead. Dear walked with only the moonlight to go by, picking her way around tree roots.
How long had she walked? Somewhere ahead came the faint sound of water. Dear’s pace quickened. At first it was only a small brook.
Follow that thread of water upstream and the damp in the air soon thickens. Wet moss spreads underfoot, and ferns grown knee-high brush against your trouser cuffs.
And not long after that, when a good strong rush of water comes through the trees, it means you’re almost there.
A small waterfall, spilling down through a cleft in the great rocks.
It wasn’t much of a height. But perhaps because no human hand had touched the place in ages, everything around it was deep, dense green.
Moss blanketing the stone, ferns packed thick along the water’s edge, right down to the droplets falling through damp, trailing vines.
Dear squeezed through the narrow gap beside the falls, familiar with every inch of it.
From outside, hidden behind vines and ferns, it looked like nothing but rock face, but a few steps in there was a small space.
Clear water had pooled beneath the rock, which was hollowed out like a half-formed cave. The water from the falls ran in through the cracks in the stone and gathered into a little pool.
For practicing spirit arts out of sight, there was no place better. Above all, the water here was clean.
The moment she arrived, Dear pushed back her hood. The damp on the way had plastered her hair across her cheeks in a mess.
“Ngh.”
A short groan slipped out of her, too. As she moved her arm, the place the rope had scraped raw was already throbbing.
She ignored it anyway and crouched down at the edge of the pool. Her own face showed faintly on the still surface.
Dear drew out the spirit stone hanging at her neck. A blue light circled inside it, and beneath the stone the contract mark showed through, faint.
Looking at this, nothing seemed wrong at all. But the sensation she’d felt at the river kept coming back, ominous. That feeling of something drawn taut simply snapping, all at once.
“Endairon.”
Small ripples spread across the calm water.
“Come out.”
At Dear’s command, blue light flashed in the middle of the pool.
At the same moment, the still surface heaved.
Then Dear’s hair whipped wildly in a sudden wind, and every bit of water pooled on the cave floor lifted into the air at once. Hundreds, thousands of droplets followed, each one holding blue light, until they filled the whole cave.
Dear caught her breath without meaning to. She saw it every single time, and it was still beautiful.
Soon the droplets began to be drawn toward a single point. And at last, out of that radiant light, the high-ranking spirit revealed itself.
“...”
The blue glow died away. In its place, something a little bigger than two palms pressed together bobbed in the air.
A chubby little body. Stubby arms and legs.
A head as round as a water droplet, and cheeks puffed out for absolutely no reason.
For something that had just made all that commotion on its way out, the size was deeply unimpressive.
Endairon folded its two short arms behind its back. Then it spoke in the gravest voice imaginable.
“Elma Dear.”
“...”
“This one has heard you call its name.”
Dear looked at Endairon for a long moment.
“So, there’s something I’ve been wondering about for a while now.”
“Speak.”
“Do you really have to come out like that?”
Endairon’s tiny eyes narrowed.
“And what is not to your liking?”
“You could just come out, you know. Plainly.”
Dear gestured at their surroundings. Droplets were still pattering down from the ceiling.
“Anyone watching would think something incredible was about to show up.”
“This one is a high-ranking spirit. The manifestation of a high-ranking spirit calls for ceremony worthy of it.”
“Something the size of my palm does?”
“Size does not speak for the greatness of one’s essence.”
“Says the one with cheeks this puffy.”
Dear jabbed a finger into Endairon’s cheek.
Something soft and something cool lingered together on her fingertip.
“...”
Endairon’s eyes, on the other hand, only turned frostier.
“Elma Dear.”
“Yeah.”
“Do not go kneading this one as you please.”
“I didn’t knead you. I poked you.”
“That likewise was never permitted.”
“All right, all right.”
Dear pulled her hand back. A smile had spread across her lips, though.
It was alive. Exactly the same as always.
Pointlessly grandiose, pointlessly solemn, right down to its pointlessly musty old way of talking. Not one thing about it had changed.
Dear let out a long breath before she realized she was doing it.
“Thank goodness.”
Endairon tilted its head.
“And what would that be?”
“That you’re fine.”
Only then did a little of the smile slip from Dear’s face.
“I thought you were gone today.”
The little spirit’s expression slowly turned serious as well.
Dear asked it straight out.
“What on earth happened at the river?”
Endairon didn’t answer right away. Instead it kept its stubby arms folded behind its back, watching Dear for a while, then sank slowly down onto the surface of the water.
“It is not that this one disappeared.”
“Then what?”
“It is that you could not reach this one.”
Dear’s brows drew together.
“What does that mean?”
“Precisely what it sounds like.”
Endairon raised one small hand and pointed at Dear’s chest.
“The path that joins this one to you was closed for a time.”
