No Need For Love (5)

Noi’s love was something Kardia deemed “unnecessary.”

She could tell he cherished her. And yet the months he had spent with the Noi of now—their present—had been neatly painted over by the single word, “Master.”

(The night sky we danced under, the chime of our toast, the tingle in my trembling fingertips—all of it.)

For Noi, those were unforgettable hours. In her twenty-six years, she had never felt so many first feelings. Every pebble of a moment shone like stardust—so long as she was with him.

She picked them up one by one and polished them with care.

So she could not let them go.

But to Kardia, they were now… unnecessary.

(No, I’ll cry…)

Noi squeezed her eyes shut and forced the tears down.

To him, perhaps it had been only the span of a blink—just a few months amid years, decades.

Even if a master who had climbed up out of the grave was fascinating for a time, in the end even the feeling that made him treasure the Noi of now would sink into his countless memories.

(…I really did want this love to come true.)

When she first realized she was in love, she had been too consumed with finding out he had deceived her for anything else.

So she was shocked—

—to realize how truly and properly she had fallen in love with Kardia.

Hand in hand with Aidoni, Noi glanced up at the stars framed by the corridor’s window.

The stars shone high and far. On the floating isle they had been so close; now they were so distant.

Servants gave them puzzled looks as they passed, but Noi followed Aidoni to the room prepared for her—the one Noi herself had used until yesterday.

“I cannot sleep without a pillow.”

Aidoni’s voice suited the night—quiet and composed.

Perhaps she had overheard Noi and Kardia’s conversation in the corridor. That strangely high-spirited act earlier had likely been a ploy to whisk Noi away from the scene.

“A cushion is fine for me. Sorry to intrude.”

“Not at all. Go to sleep with gratitude to me in your heart.”

They both slipped off their outer robes and crawled into the bed. Lying on their backs, they stared up at the canopy side by side.

“…Aidoni.”

“Yes?”

The bed was not so narrow that their shoulders had to touch, yet Noi’s upper arm brushed Aidoni’s, just a little. That warmth soothed Noi’s heart.

“I’m glad you were here today.”

Aidoni was nearly ten years younger.

It felt pitiful to need a child to prop her up, and yet Noi was more grateful than anything.

As a girl, Noi had had no real friends. The only one she could have called a friend was Fengalow.

She did not know whether her judgment was sound—but if she were to give a name to the bond between her and Aidoni now, “friend” felt most fitting.

Noi felt Aidoni’s body tense through that small contact.

“…Noi-sama. I intend to leave the Enclave one day.”

“Eh?”

Noi, not expecting that, turned in surprise toward Aidoni.

But Aidoni kept her face pointed straight up, so Noi hurriedly looked up as well.

“…My mother was the granddaughter of my great-grandmother—Lady Kukuvaya.”

Kukuvaya’s own children had already passed, and the only direct descendant was Aidoni’s mother. Everyone had assumed she would be the next head of the Weavers’ Enclave.

“But my mother… left the Enclave. She bore me outside, left me in the Enclave’s care, and went back out. She has not returned once since.”

Until Aidoni grew strong enough to be entrusted with things as a child—in consideration of ability—the collateral-line Tsera had been treated as the provisional next head.

“I hated my mother for so long. I didn’t even know her. So I lived as everyone around me told me to live—swearing I would never be so irresponsible.”

Beneath the covers, Aidoni’s hand moved.

The back of her hand settled atop the back of Noi’s.

“But then I found there were things that existed only in the outside world.”

Traced out on a breath, Aidoni’s resolve was thin—but trembling with excitement.

“For the first time I felt—‘I’m alive.’ I had never felt it so strongly. I want to feel my heart race like that again… I want to make clothes.”

Slow Noi finally realized—Aidoni was talking about the royal capital.

“Ever since that trip, the resentment toward my mother that tormented me so much—has not risen once. On the contrary, I came to understand her feelings so painfully well. I cannot live in the Enclave anymore. I cannot call it living.”

Their hands shifted where the backs touched, and Noi’s fingers slid into the spaces between Aidoni’s.

“I will do my best. Even at what I cannot do—I will try. I want to try.”

Aidoni drew a steady breath and squeezed Noi’s hand with intent.

“…So I, too, owe you thanks.”

Hearing Aidoni’s voice blur with tears, Noi couldn’t help murmuring:

“…You’re cool.”

“Oh my, that’s the first time anyone has said that to me.”

She laughed like a peal of little bells. Surely Aidoni was usually praised first as “cute” or “beautiful.”

“You are. And you helped me just now.”

Knowing Kardia would not look kindly on it, she had nevertheless hidden Noi.

Beside her, Aidoni mumbled and muttered, “N-not really,” “That’s not why I—”

Struck by Aidoni’s resolve, Noi thought it quite naturally:

(…Maybe I should leave here, too.)

They said love was an illness.

And illnesses, in time, healed.

With time and distance in proper measure—surely a day would come when they could face each other again as adults.

(It would be better to step away once and cool my head.)

There was so much to consider. The world was not so kind that a child—especially a powerless, mana-less little one who could not even activate a single magic tool—could live alone.

And yet she could no longer picture herself somewhere cramped, living patiently and properly.

(…I should look in on my house.)

House Galenée was in the royal capital. Her younger brother had likely succeeded the line—had it died out, or was he still alive? She wanted to know.

There might be work in the capital that made use of the magic knowledge she still held. Hereabouts, a Noi with no strength and no mana would be good for little more than, at best, “someone’s wife” someday.

According to Panselinos, the bank card Kardia had returned would, unfortunately, be tied to an account frozen after twenty years of inactivity. After a hundred years, it would be gone. Noi cursed Fengalow in the foulest terms.

(…If he thinks of me so dearly—if he’ll give me everything but love—maybe that should be enough.)

Part of her thought so. But Noi knew it would not do.

What Noi wanted from Kardia was his love.

His love—straight and sure, a love he would give to no one else.

(What he feels… is not love. It’s devotion to a master.)

Any mage would likely feel it at least once. Noi herself had once felt it toward her grandfather.

She had wanted, more than any other disciple, to be the most doted upon; on the night she set out on her own, she was lonely and sent a bird. For all that the prickly disciple had finally left, and he could at last rest his wings, her grandfather had opened the Enclave’s gate without a word and shared warm soup with her.

(But now? Day to day I forget my grandfather completely and live happily.)

That was how it was.

That, surely, was the difference between love and devotion.

Right now, Noi thought about Kardia—literally—morning, noon, and night.

She thought of him before sleep, looked for him when she woke, was conscious of him when he was near, fretted when he was away.

She found herself taking the route he would walk, waiting in the place he would return to.

But Kardia was not the same.

He was not.

(And even if I stayed by his side like this—if someday the Kardia who now shuns romance were to find someone he loved—if I saw him treat someone else as special…)

Then Noi would never get back up. She had nothing of her own now.

If she continued to live utterly dependent on him, Noi would gain nothing.

(From now on, I’ll stand on my own again and live by my own strength.)

Compared to her previous life, it would be hard. No patron. No great mana.

But—surely there was nothing she could not, at least, attempt.

She had, after all, faced the Demon King twice and survived. Short of something truly extraordinary, nothing would be harder than purifying the Demon King.

(—“Even at what I cannot do, I’ll try,” hm.)

Feeling courage rise at those words, Noi looked at Aidoni. At some point, Aidoni had fallen asleep, breathing slow and even.

Noi turned her head to the side.

Tears threatened; she bit her lip.

(…I’m truly glad Aidoni was here.)

If this bed were wide enough to turn over comfortably, she would likely have spent the entire night weeping.

“…Kardia.”

The single word she let slip vanished into the wavering veil of night.