Episode 7
When I opened my eyes, everything in front of me was full of green leaves.
I thought blankly,
But it’s winter right now?
This was not a season when trees could be that green.
And then I noticed strange tall white buildings.
Only after a moment did I realize what they were.
‘It’s… a temple?’
Pure white spires rose sharply into the sky.
That was a clear sign of a temple.
And if it was this large, it had to be the Grand Temple.
I knew because I had gone there once for the All Saints’ Day service.
White flower petals were falling like rain under the clear sky.
It was a day so beautiful it looked unreal.
I thought blankly,
‘Did I die?’
Just a moment ago, I had been sick in the attic of the Atherion mansion.
Had I died just like that while lying sick?
Was that why I was seeing something strange like this—
a vision, or maybe a dream?
Then someone shouted again, the voice piercing my ears.
“My lady!”
I quickly turned my head.
Without meaning to, I tensed up.
Could Tiseriel be nearby?
Right now, the only person who would be called “my lady” was Tiseriel.
But it was not her.
A knight in white armor came closer and politely held out his hand.
His light brown hair, neatly tied like a swallow’s tail, moved sharply with him.
“It is time, my lady. Please rise.”
That face looked familiar.
I felt as if I had seen it many times before.
“Lady Stacia.”
I was sure I had never seen him before.
Then why did he feel so familiar?
Why did he feel so dear to me?
“…No, I suppose I can’t call you that anymore. So just this once… may I call you…”
He hesitated, then whispered softly,
“…Tii.”
“!”
A wind blew.
Silver strands scattered wildly across my vision.
When I reached up, I could feel them clearly.
The silver threads wrapping around my fingers felt unbelievably soft.
When I tightened my hand, I felt my scalp pull.
Only then did I realize what it was.
“Silver hair?”
My hair was silver?
And my fingers were long too.
Not the short little fingers of a nine-year-old child.
Shocked, I spun around.
After looking around, I ran toward the lake I spotted nearby.
“Tii!”
I heard a worried voice calling me, but that was not important right now.
I had to see what I looked like.
When I leaned over the lake and looked down, I saw something I had never expected.
“!”
I was wearing a white dress made of bright lace, as if it had been woven from spider silk.
At my chest, a necklace glimmered, set with a jewel shining in a mysterious blue light.
It was the same color as the jewel in the Lady’s Ring.
And then—
dazzling silver hair,
and mysterious blue eyes that seemed to gather every shade of blue light into one place.
Anyone would think I was a fully grown woman.
I looked completely different from the current me.
I did not have silver hair, and my eyes were not that mysterious either.
Mine were just ordinary blue.
And yet—
‘This is me?’
The person called Lady Stacia might not be me.
After all, Tiseriel was pretending to be me.
But “Tii” was a nickname only I was called.
While I stood frozen in shock and confusion, I suddenly felt as if I were falling.
Then I woke up.
***
“Hah!”
I woke up drenched in cold sweat under my ragged blanket.
This was the me I knew.
Still straw-like brown hair, ordinary blue eyes.
Short, thin, and covered in scars.
‘What was that?’
Was it a vision?
Or a dream?
I turned my head blankly.
And then I saw something shocking.
A blue jewel was floating in the air, shining.
It was as if it were insisting that what I had just seen was not a dream.
The jewel floating there had a very familiar shape and color.
‘This is… Astraia?’
There was no doubt.
It was the jewel that had been set in the Lady’s Ring.
The ring itself was gone, and only the jewel floated there.
I slowly reached out my hand.
The jewel obediently dropped into my palm.
Strangely, it was the exact same temperature as my body.
That made me certain.
Its form had changed, but this was still the Lady’s Ring.
And there was a way to test it.
I smeared some of my blood onto the blue jewel.
The moment I did, it turned invisible, just like the Lady’s Ring had earlier.
‘So I was right!’
I jumped up and searched through my few belongings.
I made a string and awkwardly tied the jewel onto it.
It was crude, but now it was a necklace.
It would be hard to carry around just the jewel, and too easy to lose it.
So the ring became a necklace.
When I touched it with my blood again, the necklace turned invisible once more.
Not just the jewel, but even the rough string I had made.
After safely hiding Astraia, I fell into thought.
‘Why did the ring change like this? And what was that vision earlier?’
Nothing like this had ever happened during the many experiments Tiseriel’s family did on me before I returned.
But soon I shook my head.
This was not the time to think about things like that.
I had far too much to do.
I quickly got up from the bed.
‘The next step of my plan is…?’
At that moment, my vision spun, and my body swayed.
“Huh?”
Thud!
As I fell to the floor, I remembered something I had forgotten for a moment.
‘Right. I was sick.’
Yesterday, I had worked all night in wet clothes without even drying them.
Of course I got sick.
I must have forgotten I had a fever because I had been too shocked and tense.
Lying on the floor, shivering with fever, I barely managed to think,
‘This… is bad.’
My vision blurred fast.
‘N-no. I can’t fall asleep like this… I still have too much to do…’
I had to escape from here, go to the place where the sacred relic was sealed, obtain it…
And I had to reclaim the life that had been stolen from me.
That was where my consciousness cut off.
It did not feel like falling asleep.
It felt more like I had simply blacked out.
“…!”
“…!”
I heard loud noise around me.
My body was being shaken hard.
Even so, my eyelids felt too heavy to open.
I think I could taste blood in my mouth.
And vaguely, in my dreams…
I think I saw someone…
***
Tiseriel’s nanny stood stiffly at the edge of the attic.
The doctor, who had been urgently called in, said something that made the tension even worse.
“I think… it’s already too late.”
Instead of being shocked or worried, Tiseriel’s nanny reacted with irritation first.
“Ah, of all times…! She was perfectly fine earlier. Check again properly!”
She had come to drag Tii away to Tiseriel.
But no matter how much she banged on the attic door, the little rat maid would not wake up.
So they broke the door down, only to find the child collapsed on the floor like a corpse.
Without even touching her, the nanny had called for the mansion’s doctor.
And this was his final diagnosis.
“…Yes. She is dead.”
