Extra Interlude: A Flash of Light
“COULD I have a little of your time this evening, Lord Sirius?” Marialite asked bashfully, her cheeks slightly pink.
Sirius’ jaw tensed, and the quill he held in his fist snapped.
Taking that as a bad sign, Marialite laughed awkwardly, her eyebrows knitting together. “If you’re too busy, I’ll just invite Lady Cornelia,” she suggested.
“N-No! Of course not!” Sirius fretted. “I was just so excited, I forgot my own strength… I didn’t mean to offend you.”
Sure enough, his irises had turned red with raw emotion, and his cheeks were even more flushed than Marialite’s. He looked like a tomato, but there was no one there to witness it apart from Marialite—and she didn’t have the heart to tell him.
However, he quickly calmed down when he realized something.
“Hold on a moment…” he hedged. “Did you just say you could invite Cornelia instead?”
“Yeah. She loves Snow very much, after all,” she smiled.
“Snow…?” Sirius questioned, surprised to hear the divine beast’s name. Now that he had established that he’d gotten the wrong idea about what exactly she was asking from him, his body temperature swiftly cooled back to a normal level.
Maybe another time.
“If you’re with me, I’m sure that’ll make Celestine and Liffey very happy, too,” she sang contentedly, holding up a green feather.
Apparently, she’d been gifted one of the teleportation devices, too. The green was a soft, pale hue that very much suited her personality, and before Sirius could even mention it, she’d already grabbed his hand and teleported them both to Celestine’s workshop.
“Why, if it ain’t His Highness. I can understand why you’d want to attend, though; it’s not every day ya get to witness something such as this. Very special,” Celestine greeted them.
“Nobody’s told me what’s happening,” Sirius admitted, slightly alarmed.
Celestine looked up from his cauldron of boiling medicinal herbs, raising a puzzled eyebrow at him.
“You agreed to come along despite being unaware of the situation?” he snorted.
“Lady Marialite was the one who asked me. I assumed it wouldn’t be anything of a dubious nature.”
“Is that so?” Celestine quipped with a smirk. “Well, tonight, we’ll be ascending a mountain.”
This was sounding more and more dubious by the second.
In Celaeno, night never truly ended, but that referred only to the color of the sky. A demon’s concept of time was still no different from a human’s. There were some Celaenians who slept during the day and awoke at night, but Sirius had never heard of people climbing mountains specifically at night.
Liffey chimed in, noticing the utter confusion on Sirius’ face. “Have you heard of Mount Caelis? That’s where we’re going,” she said.
“No, I haven’t. I can’t say I’m all too knowledgeable about the mountains. Is it special in some way?” he asked.
“A rare, legendary flower grows on the summit,” she beamed. “If you boil it and drink it, your magic will be more powerful than you could ever dream of! It strengthens your physical abilities, too! And you’ll become so attractive, you’ll be able to woo anyone you ever set eyes on! And you’ll get rich!”
“That has to be an exaggeration,” Sirius immediately countered.
It was too good to be true. If a flower like that really existed, he wouldn’t even be impressed; he’d be scared of the power it possessed.
“I reckoned the same,” Celestine said with a smirk.
“But, if Phobos cats really exist, there’s no reason why the flower shouldn’t, too!” Liffey persevered, balling her hands into fists.
Sirius had never expected Celestine to go along with something like this; it appeared he had a soft spot for his assistant.
“I agree with Liffey,” Marialite grinned. “Plants are incredibly diverse, and you never really know what you might find.”
“Well…if Marialite’s okay with it, then…I’ll come,” Sirius decided.
Marialite was the personification of possibility; his love for her wasn’t the only reason that he felt like he could believe in her.
“If His Highness is in agreement, let’s get this thing underwa—” Celestine cut himself short as a pillar of red light appeared next to Marialite.
And everyone knew who red meant.
“Halt!” a voice called out as a maid with long, red hair and cat ears emerged into the workshop. She held Snow in her arms, who was yawning. “I’m coming, too!”
“Lady Cornelia!” Marialite gasped excitedly. “Have you decided to join us?”
“This little cat told me everything. If something happened to you, I would fail in my duty to protect the saint, and everyone would berate me! Therefore, no matter where you go, I shall follow!”
“Eeeek! You’re Lord Elestial’s daughter!” Liffey exclaimed with a grimace on her face. “What’re you planning this time?!”
“Don’t worry, Liffey,” Marialite reassured her. “Lady Cornelia doesn’t like being on her own, that’s all. She probably just felt left out.”
“O-Oh, really? Hmm… Okay, then…”
“Oh, do spare me the pitying eyes!” Cornelia snapped, unable to take Liffey’s warm, sympathetic gaze.
Sirius glanced at her and sighed. “Why did you give her a teleportation device?” he asked Celestine, exhausted.
“At first, I laughed her off when she asked for one, but then she awarded me a large sum of money,” Celestine shrugged. Evidently, the temptation of riches wasn’t something that weakened with age.
“Is it really okay for her to come?” Sirius asked, uneasy.
“Doesn’t affect me whatsoever. With the saint around, even a fully-grown tiger acts like a kitten,” Celestine laughed.
“We’ll have to bring enough supplies for one more person, then. Does that work?” Sirius asked.
“By all means. At this point, bringing an extra person or two doesn’t really make a difference,” Celestine said, brushing him off with a flippant wave.
While Sirius wondered if it was truly safe to be so nonchalant about this whole situation, he brought up something that had been niggling at him for the past few minutes.
“What did you mean when you said I’d get to witness something ‘very special’?”
“Curious, are we? Well, you’ll just have to wait and find out,” Celestine grinned wickedly, heading over to where his assistant was being chased around the room by an enraged Cornelia.
✦ ✦ ✦
MOUNT Caelis was in the southern region of Celaeno.
It was lined with bare, lifeless trees, and not a single blade of grass poked through the mounds of dirt. As there were no plants to be consumed as food, the area was also completely devoid of wildlife.
It was no wonder the barren, soulless mountain had come to be known by another name: Mount Desolation.
“Why on earth did you invite Lady Marialite to such a dangerous place?!” Sirius barked.
“I couldn’t have put it better myself! Were you just trying to see if it was possible to scare her?!” Cornelia shrieked.
For once, they agreed on something.
Now that they were actually on the mountain, it was plain to see that something wasn’t right. That much was undeniable. There was absolutely no sign of life, and the frosty wind that whistled through the air chilled them right through to the bone.
No one admitted it aloud, but they all got the impression that there was no turning back now that they had stepped foot there.
“Uh…when was all this arranged? No one told me we’d be climbing a mountain,” Raven commented fearfully, staring at the desolate mountain in shock. Sirius had brought him with them without explaining anything. He’d been tasked with looking after Snow, who was nestled between his arms and his chest.
“I thought everyone might get hungry, so I brought some sandwiches! One of the maids helped me make them,” Marialite announced.
“Woohoooo! A saint’s homemade sandwiches!” Liffey rejoiced.
Marialite simply held out her basket with a smile; she didn’t seem even the slightest bit scared. It would take more than a dusty old mountain to frighten her off.
“She’s tougher than all of us put together, that saint. She could turn anything into an occasion for a picnic,” Celestine guffawed.
Sirius and Cornelia had no words—probably because it was true.