“What? Why?” she asked, oblivious.
“You can’t even call that a flower! It looks like it could kill two or three people at once!” he replied, exasperated. “Won’t it ruin the view to have all your plants growing around that thing?”
“No,” she said firmly. “It’s almost like a guardian for the rest of them. I think it’s wonderful.”
With the topazios in the middle of the garden, Marialite had a strong feeling it would protect its fellow plants from anything that came at them. Perhaps it would repel every plant’s natural enemy—bugs.
Just as she was thinking of all the ways it might benefit the garden, an ear-splitting scream interrupted her train of thought. It was one of the maids.
Marialite turned around to witness something…unexpected. While one of the plant knight’s hands was holding his sword, the other one was slowly extending towards her. It was moving.
Raven rushed to catch Marialite in his arms, but she rushed over to the “knight” without so much as a moment’s hesitation.
He doesn’t want to harm anyone. It feels more like he’s trying to tell me something.
The topazios slowly reached out to her, then stopped.
“Are you…trying to say ‘it’s nice to meet you’?” she asked it.
The flower nodded its head up and down in response. Evidently, it could understand her.
Wow! It’s so intelligent! You’d never guess it’s only been alive for a few minutes.
Feeling a strange sort of camaraderie, Marialite took the knight’s hand in both palms and gently shook it. She had an inkling this would be the start of a long companionship; she was growing more and more fond of the plant by the second.
“It’s nice to meet you, too!” she beamed. “Um… You’ll need a name, so just give me some time to think about it. I’ll try to find one that’s just as magnificent as you are.” Naming things definitely wasn’t one of her strong points, so she thought it’d be a good idea to borrow a book from the library later.
That was when something caught her attention. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed her shadow quivering slightly. Not a moment later, a handsome young man with silver hair appeared where her shadow lay. The soldier and maids fell to their knees, bowing down.
“Lord Sirius?” Marialite asked hesitantly. “That’s an unusual way of teleporting…”
“My powers have a strong affinity to darkness, which means it’s possible for me to travel through shadows the way you just saw,” he shrugged. “Anyway, did something happen? I sensed a weird presence, so I came here to check it out as soon as I could.”
“Come here, Lord Sirius. I made a new friend,” Marialite said with a proud look on her face. The topazios knight slowly maneuvered its hand into a peace sign; he had quite the jolly personality.
For a moment, Sirius didn’t say anything at all. His expression remained neutral, and he simply stared at the topazios.
I wonder if there’s some sort of problem…
Her heart sunk. What if Sirius told her she should kill it as soon as possible?
“Thank goodness it appears to have worked.” Surprisingly, when he finally spoke, Sirius’ cheeks stretched into a satisfied grin. “The topazios seeds I gave you were imbued with my magic. That way, I can protect your garden even when I’m not around. Then, my magic interacted with your powers and gave birth to the strong, intelligent plant we’re looking at right now.”
“Oh, so that’s why it’s like this?”
Perhaps that was also the reason why the seeds had been kept in such a lavish box.
As Marialite looked up at the plant made of both magic and holy energy, it gently caressed her head with its red, flowery hand.
“We need a good name for him,” she piped up. “Do you mind if I choose one?”
“Of course not. Besides, it’s a product of our love, after all. I expect he’ll grow to have your pure heart, so I’m really looking forward to seeing how things go,” Sirius said energetically, quickly detailing his thoughts. “I know—let’s keep a diary to record each day of its growth. I know I already keep a diary, but I was thinking we should keep it in a separate notebook. It almost feels like we’re keeping track of our child’s first words, and I’m really excited, and my heart won’t stop pounding…!” His eyes shone, turning a deep crimson. “By the way, I’ve been keeping that diary ever since I first met you, so I’m actually on my fourth one.”
He spoke so fast that Marialite half-wondered if he was breathing properly. Still, he seemed happy. Now that his eyes had changed color, she noticed his irises were an exact match to the color of the topazios flower. Perhaps that was the color of his magic, and traces of it created that same brilliant red.
In other words, the plant was, in a lot of ways, like a child to them. As Marialite stared inquisitively up at the knight, who was practicing his sword-handling, something moving in the night sky caught her eye. It was a single black bird flying towards them. It swooped down onto Raven’s head and let out a sequence of squawks. Raven listened, and after a few moments, his brow furrowed in response.
“Ugh… For real? I knew this’d happen, but why so soon?”
“What’s wrong, Raven?” Sirius asked, a blank look on his face. Raven heaved a huge sigh and frowned as though the world was coming to an end.
“You have a guest, Lord Sirius. It’s Lord Elestial’s daughter.”
The moment that name reached his ears, Sirius froze. In much the same fashion, the maids and the soldier’s eyes widened, and they stiffened up. In unison, they all turned to look at Marialite, a look of despair on their faces.
“…Does she have something to do with me?” she asked in confusion.
“No, not at all. It’s just…” Sirius fumbled. “She might want to see you, but…I don’t think you should get involved with her, Lady Marialite.”
With the way he was mumbling and giving half-baked answers, it seemed like he was determined not to tell Marialite about this woman. Raven, however, rolled his eyes and gave a proper answer instead.
“She’s the most troublesome demon in the entire kingdom. Trust us, you do NOT want to go anywhere near her. Her parents raised her wrong, I’m telling ya. Anything bad you can think of… Trust me, she’s already done it.”
And he was deadly serious.
✦ ✦ ✦
“I canceled my afternoon tea for this! Did you know that?” a woman’s voice shouted, absolutely indignant. “I want to get this over and done with as soon as possible. Bring His Highness, the Celestial Dragon, out here right this instant!”
There was a red carriage parked outside the front gates, and the source of the voice was coming from inside, where they could see the woman yelling incessantly at a guard. The old butler standing next to her didn’t try to stop her, and instead complained to the soldiers with a deep frown on his face.
“How many more minutes do you intend to make us wait?! My lady is a busy woman! If you make us wait any longer, I shall consider it an insult upon her!”
“P-Please calm down! We simply can’t let anyone inside the palace grounds without His Majesty’s permission!” a soldier insisted.
“Why would we need his permission?” the butler spat. “My lady… There’s no reason for us to listen to the claims of these lowlives!”
“Yes, you’re right,” she nodded in agreement and exited her carriage. “It would be quicker if we went in and found him ourselves.”
Ignoring the soldiers’ desperate attempts to turn them away, the woman and her butler strode straight past them. However, they soon came to a stop…
Because the person they were looking for was standing right there—Sirius, the heir to the throne of Celaeno.
He was surrounded by a crowd of bodyguards, who were all staring suspiciously at the two “guests.” It was as though they were wordlessly conveying the fact that they would immediately resort to drawing their swords if they had to. And, not to mention, Sirius himself was wearing the same sort of murderous expression.
However, the woman was anything but scared. She gave him a ferocious, fixed stare in return, and licked her lips eagerly.
“My, my. You used to be such a cute little thing, but I suppose the rumors were true. You’ve grown into a wonderfully handsome man. Very well… I must have him,” Cornelia, the daughter of Lord Elestial, grinned wickedly.