Madeleine also tried to cast Enchant, but she didn’t succeed.
“I can’t do it,” Madeleine said, dejected.
“I’m sure it’ll be easier once you get the hang of it,” I reassured her. She just needed more practice.
I poured the ointment into a jar and finished up the process by sucking the air out of the vessel.
“This was a lot faster than I expected,” Madeleine remarked.
“Right?”
Next, we’d make the honey candy. The process to do that was also rather simple.
“We’ll use honey, sanontou sugar, and citrus and ginger extracts,” I explained. The extracts were prepared by straining some crushed ginger and citrus, which Parfeil and Madeleine’s attendant had done while we were busy with the ointment.
“We just put all the ingredients in and boil them together.” I placed a pot on the magicstone stove and lit a fire. Once the sugar melted and the color darkened, I removed it from the heat.
“Then we just scoop the mixture up with a spoon and drip it onto this wax paper.”
The syrup hardened after drying it for a bit. I also cast Enchant to make them absorb mana. Finally, I cut the wax paper into squares and wrapped them around the candies.
“Now we just let them bathe in the moonlight for about three days. I think they’ll be finished by the day after tomorrow or so.”
We looked for a safe place to let the items absorb moonlight and settled on the balcony in my room. I covered them with a net to ward off insects and left them out.
“And we’re done!”
“I’m looking forward to seeing the results in three days!” Madeleine said, delighted.
“Indeed.”
By this time, it was almost sunset. I invited Madeleine to stay for dinner, but she said she’d head home.
“Millefie, see you tomorrow. I hope you have a good evening.”
“I hope you have a good evening too, Madeleine,” I responded.
The day was almost over, but the earlier incident with the boys’ academy students was still troubling me. I didn’t regret confronting them to protect Madeleine’s honor, but for some reason, there was an uneasy feeling lingering in my heart.
I thought that maybe drinking some hot milk with honey would help me calm down. I ordered Parfeil to make me some after dinner.
Only Glacé and I were around for dinner. Father had gone out with a couple of gentlemen, and my mother was at a banquet with some acquaintances.
As we were eating the main course of duck confit, Glacé started a conversation.
“Mille-Feuille, I heard that Madeleine came over today.”
“Yes, she did,” I replied.
“She went home without seeing me?”
“It appears that she loves me more than she loves you.”
“I’m green with envy,” he responded.
Does he actually feel that way? My brother had always been nonchalant about things, so I couldn’t tell what he actually thought.
Marriages between dragonkin were not conducted out of love. Instead, they were a method for ensuring the bloodline’s continuation. A more detached relationship tended to be more favorable to both parties. This was true for my parents as well. They didn’t act lovey-dovey for most of the year and they only acted like a couple when an occasion called for it. Being so absorbed and involved in a burning, passionate love—like my previous incarnation had been—would only serve to cause trouble for everyone around them.
Ever since I had remembered Charlotte’s memories, numerous questions and doubts just kept popping into my head. I asked my brother about one thing that had been gnawing at me.
“Glacé, what do you think of the burden that draconic transformations put on dragonkin women?”
“That’s quite a question to ask.”
I had actually never seen my brother or my father transform into a dragon. It had always been peaceful at home since I was born, and we never came close to any place where there were monsters. However, men who never transformed, like my brother and father, were a rarity. There were men who transformed into dragons simply to go from place to place, and there were also men who transformed whenever they got too drunk and lost control.
“The burden that transformations put on dragonkin women is too big,” he said. “I think that there’s no need to transform, but I also understand that we dragonkin would be eradicated if we didn’t do so.”
“By the Kingdom of Sacristain?” I asked.
“Well, yes.”
In other words, my brother was saying that transforming into dragons was a way to display our power and to keep the Dragon Duchy of Éclair’s sovereignty.
“This situation demands the continued sacrifice of our women. Of course, I feel terrible that it has to be this way... Mille-Feuille, what I’m about to say is a secret, okay?”
My brother placed his index finger on his lips and lowered his voice. “Married dragonkin are entrusted with the task of transforming in public as a display of power.”
“Does that mean that some transformations that look like accidents are actually done on purpose?”
Glacé nodded gravely in affirmation. “We only have to do it once or twice a month. It’s not much, but it happens.”
“You mean mother and father have to do that as well?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
It wasn’t like Glacé was seeing my parents’ faces every single day, so he didn’t know when they would do that.
“Mille-Feuille, if you get married, you will also be entrusted with that duty.”
“I know.” It was something I had already been prepared for and was the entire reason I was going to the magic academy, after all. “Why did you decide to tell me about all this?”
“It seemed like you had a lot of questions about the sacrifice of dragonkin women, so I wanted you to know about it.”
Apparently, once a man had settled on a partner, the usual practice was to inform the woman about this obligation on the eve of their wedding day.
“I don’t think you’d be very amused if you were only informed then,” he added.
“You’re right—that wouldn’t be very amusing at all,” I replied.