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SUMMER rolled around, and sure enough, the royal capital was ravaged by a soilpox outbreak. Those who had taken the vaccine were fine, but everyone else was dropping like flies. The advancements in medicine hadn’t happened fast enough, and Iris had yet to develop a cure for soilpox.
She accompanied the mages into town to administer the vaccine to anyone who was either uninfected or still in the early stages. If they needed medicine to alleviate their symptoms, they gave it to them. The man with the scar on his face came to help, too.
The vaccine hadn’t been popular with the daughters of the upper crust, and as such, a handful of high-born young ladies had already died. As Iris suspected, they couldn’t bring themselves to ingest something that was made from soilpox scabs. There was also a political element to it: those who staunchly supported the crown prince were opposed to his younger brother’s activism, including vocal support of the vaccine, and as such, they refused to take it as a form of protest. The royal family had purposely chosen not to divulge that Prince Bleuet had himself ingested the vaccine, and now, it had come back to bite them.
The vaccine had no side effects, just as Iris had hoped…but as it turned out, magic couldn’t solve everything. In a fantasy story, perhaps, there’d be a priestess who could recite a single incantation and bring all the infected back from the brink, but this world’s magic was not that perfect. To convert their mana into an actual spell, the caster needed to fully envision the outcome they wanted. But even then, if they didn’t have enough mana, it wouldn’t work. Furthermore, magic could not make the impossible happen; you could cast a spell to close a wound, but a dead person would never come back to life, no matter how intricately you pictured it.
Iris also learned that the other high-born Holy Maiden candidate had died of soilpox, too. If I’d known she would catch it, I would’ve tried to get her to take the vaccine, she thought. Then she shook her head. No, she wouldn’t have listened to me. As a soilpox survivor, Iris was a heretic. But was there any other way I could have saved her? If I could have cast magic myself, could I have erased the virus from her body somehow?
Only a mage would have enough mana to heal a sick person—but even then, it still wasn’t enough to cure an entire town. Besides, those blessed with high mana were a precious resource too valuable to be exposed to a virus like soilpox, and Iris didn’t have the authority to demand otherwise.
Iris sat in the middle of the grassy field inside the Temple, her knees tucked up to her chin, feeling sorry for herself. According to the Specialized Arts Division, the number of infected was winding down, and tomorrow, they would make a formal proclamation announcing the end of the crisis. But while everyone else was ecstatic that the outbreak had been safely contained before it could grow into an epidemic, Iris couldn’t quite bring herself to celebrate.
Back in her past life, it had taken two hundred years to eradicate smallpox, so perhaps it was greedy to expect anything more. But this was a world of magic, and there was still so much she had hoped to accomplish.
As she was thinking about these things, someone suddenly plopped down beside her.
“Iris.”
It was Prince Reseda. His gentle voice soothed her.
“I knew I wasn’t going to be able to save everyone, but I feel so powerless… I just wish I could cast magic myself,” she muttered.
Quietly, he put an arm around her shoulders. “Well, you did save my brother. And me. And Cytisus. And his girlfriend.”
“But I could have saved so many more!”
Iris looked up at him. He cupped her face in his hands and stared directly into her tear-blurred green eyes, now darkened with despair. His heart ached at the sight.
“We only have two hands, and we can only hold so much at once. Don’t mourn the things that slipped through your fingers—just try to cherish what you still possess.”
His pink eyes shone with the light of determination, and Iris could tell from the sound of his voice that he was trying to convince not just her but himself, too. She wasn’t the only one who knew pain—he had endured far worse than she had. If they’d used his royal authority, they could have disseminated the vaccine sooner. But they were afraid of the political repercussions, so instead, they played it safe.
Furthermore, it was Reseda, Cytisus, and the rest of the development team at the Temple of Magic who bore the brunt of the vitriol from noble families who had lost relatives to the virus. When Nigel first told Iris, she was outraged. Reseda and Cytisus had warned them to take preventative measures! Even Nigel had encouraged it! Those who didn’t listen only had themselves to blame—it was their fault for refusing help! But instead of being proactive about their own health, they criticized us!
That said, Iris was too hung up on the past; no amount of wishful thinking would change it now. The future, however, was still within reach. She balled her hands into fists.
“Prince Reseda?”
“Yeah?” he answered softly, smiling at her. The light had returned to her eyes.
“From now on, I’m going to focus on the future.”
Iris grinned at him just as a single fat tear rolled down her cheek. He reached out and wiped it away with his fingers. Her eyes were so green, he’d half-expected her tears to be green, too. But they weren’t, of course. Then, on impulse, he brought his fingers to his lips.
Iris let out a hideous screech. “Wha-Wha-Whaaaa?!”
She slammed her hands into his chest, pushing him away. Rolling onto the grass, he started coughing and laughing.
“I’m sorry! Really sorry! But that was just...” Completely inappropriate!!! Iris’s face burned scarlet. He laughed harder.
“Ha ha ha ha ha! You haven’t changed a bit, have you?”
He rolled onto his back and looked up at the sky. It wasn’t the real sky, of course; the Temple’s ceiling was under there somewhere. But it was every bit as bright and blue.
He laid an arm over his eyes. He was glad to see Iris in better spirits, but at the same time, her hair-trigger rejection stung. After all the time they’d spent together, she still didn’t return his feelings…
He took a deep breath, then exhaled. Then he felt her flop down beside him, and it reminded him of the time they shared back at the Chevalier annex. The breeze tickled his cheek and rustled his hair. Why did he feel like crying? He didn’t understand. He knew he was happy being around Iris, but at the same time, he still felt alone.
“I’m so glad you’re here with me, Prince Reseda.”
Her words struck a chord with him. He appreciated hearing it and appreciated her for saying it, and yet she still refused to be his. It was agonizing.
“Are you? Is that why you shoved me to the ground?”
Rubbing his eyes roughly with one arm, he laughed and looked at her. Iris looked back at him, their faces mere inches apart. Her mint-green ringlets were covered in bits of grass, making her look like some sort of forest fairy. Anxiously, he wondered if his eyes looked puffy.
“Well, you’re my partner in crime,” Iris replied with an impish giggle. At this, he realized her intent to shoulder all the blame previously directed at him.
“You’re evil. This is all your fault, I hope you know,” he laughed, though admittedly, “partner in crime” had a nice ring to it. “Listen, Iris—let’s both work hard to make it into the Academy. That way, we can get up to even more trouble together.”
“A prince shouldn’t be causing trouble in the first place,” Iris said in a scolding tone. Then she grinned. “But it does sound fun.”