“I’m fine. Everyone has taken a vacation or has gotten sick, so there’s no one here or there. You don’t have anyone to stand by you.”
“I’m fine.”
“Even so.”
Just as Shaylin came into the drawing room with water.
“Shaylin can do it!”
At her words, Shaylin rolled her round eyes with astonishment, and Hain tilted her head.
“Shaylin is too young.”
“Ah…”
Shaylin rolled her eyes with her eyes wide open. Her figure looked so young and fragile that it seemed she couldn’t even be asked for a small errand.
In fact, Shaylin wasn’t that very young, either. At thirteen years old, she wasn’t a child among the probationary maids, but she was treating Shaylin as a child because the girls who worked for Sienna were generally older.
Shaylin was small and had big eyes and round eyes, causing viewers to have a protective instinct. Moreover, her speech was dull and slow, so everyone gave her a pat as a child.
“Shaylin, I’m not saying you can’t work… Cough cough.”
“Hain, are you going to pass the cold to me? I’ll be with Shaylin, so go ahead and get some rest.”
She looked alternately at Sienna and Shaylin, with a worried look on her face, then said with her shoulders down.
“I can’t help it. Shaylin! Follow Her Highness, the Crown Princess’s orders well. If there’s anything you don’t know, Aunt Dirane is in the kitchen, so go and ask her.”
“Yes, I will.”
“Don’t bother me for nothing… Cough cough.”
“Shaylin’s going take care of it, so hurry on and go inside. On the way in, stop by the Imperial House and get some medicine, and stay in your room until you’re all right.”
Sienna, with an uneasy face, forced her to step away and sat down at the table.
She used to spend her time reading imperial history books when she had the time, but she couldn’t think of reading because she couldn’t even turn on the candles in the unlightened room and weather. She sat idly because she had nothing to do, and boredom struck.
Flash! Boom! Boom!
The rain slowed all morning and the sky became noisy again. It looked like it was going to rain heavily again.
Flicker! Whenever the thunder roared, Shaylin suddenly opened her big eyes even bigger. Thunder and lightning seemed to scare her.
“Shaylin, come here.”
Sienna opened the blanket around her shoulders and called Shaylin. She could not bear to be held in Sienna’s arms and looked at her. Though she was afraid of thunder and lightning, the difference between her rank and hers was so great that she did not seem to be able to hold her in her arms easily. Sienna called her this time, tapping on her side.
“Then sit here.”
“But…”
“It’s okay to sit next to me. Because I gave you my permission.”
As the thunder and lightning struck again, Shaylin sat aloof next to Sienna. Her hands were shaking visibly. She held her necklace and muttered something. Sienna asked, wrapping a blanket around her shoulder.
“What necklace is that?”
“Ah! This is nothing…”
Boom! Surprised by the loud thunder that rang the ground, Shaylin pushed her necklace into her clothes. Then she mumbled something with her mouth, memorizing it. She heard repeated words as she listened to them as if they were a spell of some sort. Sienna noticed that she was memorizing the prayer of the goddess of the moon.
It was not until the thunder and lightning died down that Shaylin opened her eyes. Her relieved shoulders relaxed gently.
“You believe in the goddess of the moon?”
She looked surprised at Sienna’s question. She was so cute that she patted her head in surprise at the small question.
“What are you so surprised about?”
“But…”
She mumbled in a small voice.
“If I say I believe in the goddess of the moon… no one likes it.”
In the case of Laifsden, the country had freedom of religion because it did not have a particular religion as a state religion. However, that being the case wasn’t really generous to all religious people. In particular, those who believed in the goddess of the moon were under a lot of ostracism.
This is because of Castro, the enemy country that uses the goddess of the moon as the national religion. Moreover, most of the believers who believe in the goddess of the moon come from a region called Tromil, which used to be Castro’s land. Forty years ago, as a result of the war, it was now part of the Laifsden Empire, but people living in the region were still discriminated against because the war against Castro was still ongoing.
“Shaylin’s from Tromil…”
“Yes.”
‘That’s why you didn’t speak very well.’
There were many people still speaking Castro’s language in Tromil. It belonged to Laifsden, but it was still the land of Castro, where the people of Castro had once lived.
“So what? In Laifsden, you can believe in any religion. I’m with the Goddess of the Earth.”
She didn’t become a believer because of faith, but because she needed it politically.
“It doesn’t matter who you believe or what you believe, but whether you have peace come to your mind when you believe it. When you’re tired and exhausted, if you have someone or something to support and lean on, that’s all that matters. So, I don’t care what kind of god Shaylin believes in. I think it’s the best thing if she’s happy to believe it.”
Shaylin’s trembling, which had been terrified, died down. Sienna said, with her hands folded over her tightly collected hands.
“I was scared a little while ago, but now I’m better. I’m sure that the goddess of the moon, who helped dispel fear, must be a sweet and good god.”
“Tha… That’s right. She’s a sweet goddess.”
She said with a nod. The sound of rain lingered and the room was only dark enough to be outlined.
“What is the hometown where Shaylin grew up?”
“…”
Sienna said as Shaylin kept her mouth shut.
“I wonder what kind of place Shaylin grew up in. The Heidel I used to live in was a very snowy place. Everywhere I looked, it was white snow. It’s so quiet in a place where there’s a lot of snow. On a windy day, it was so deafening. But when the wind blows, it gets really loud. There’s a lot of noise that the wind makes as it hits over the frozen snow.”
Shaylin looked up at Sienna, wondering if she was curious.
“I’ve heard of snow falling from the sky, but I’ve never seen snow in person.”
“Well… first it’s white and fluff like cotton and then it’s really cold when you touch it. If you freeze hard and properly, you can even bleed just from rubbing your eyes.”
“That’s scary.”
“But it’s still beautiful when you see it the next day after it’s buried on the top of the world. It’s white and shiny under the sun. It’s so bright that it’s hard to look at it properly. So, the knights even buried black charcoal around for their eyes. That’s where I was born and raised. I lived there but came up to the capital city and wondered what other places were like. What kind of place did Shaylin live in?”
“Tromil doesn’t snow. I’ve never seen snow. My hometown is a warm place.”
Shaylin slowly explained in clumsy sounding words.
“I was born in a very remote place called the Black Bird of Litmillo in Tromil. There’s something amazing hidden there.”
“A great thing?”
“The real name of the place called Tromil is not Tromil. Originally it is called ‘Litromillo’. It means a city that hides the Tromil.”
“Then what’s Tromil?”
“It means the temple of the moon.”
“Is there a temple there?”
“The temple of the moon is only revealed at night. It’s in town when the sun goes down. It’s hidden behind a big lake there.”
“Is there a lake there?”
“Yes. The moon is so pretty because it has a big shade at night.”
At the word lake, Sienna remembered a lake hidden in the woods of the elf where she and Carl had gone before. It was also spectacular to see the red sunset over the white lake.
“It’s a lake blessed by the goddess. So even if you fall into the lake, you will never die.”
“Even if you fall in, you don’t die?”
“The village chief said there was no current in it. Other lakes look calm, but there are vortexes in them, so people get sucked into them, but the water in the lake in Tromil is so calm that you can even relax and float up if you stay still.”
“That’s interesting.”