Almost three months had gone by since I started living with Alicia, and I still couldn’t hear her inner voice. It grew even colder outside, and frigid gusts invaded the tower.
“It’s so c-cold,” I said as I shivered beside the fireplace. I was terrible with cold weather, so Alicia had started a fire for me. “I-I’m really glad you’re here, Alicia. I can’t even go get firewood in this cold.”
“You sure seem to get cold easily, Your Highness… What did you do in the palace during wintertime?”
“I just wore a lot of layers and stayed in front of the fireplace.”
I couldn’t count how many layers of clothing I wore every year. I’d also been this way in my past life, so I was a cold-hater to the core.
“Oh…”
“I can’t stay like this if I’m going to live here,” I said. “Let’s move our bodies a bit. It’ll help us stay warm.”
Though the palace supported us, Alicia and I lived alone. There was much to be done, so I couldn’t afford to let the cold take over.
“Ooh, right! Since we’re going to move our bodies anyway, there’s something I’d like to try!” Alicia said, then promptly dragged me outside.
“H-hey, Alicia… I’m supposed to be confined to the tower, so I don’t think I should be out here. It’s a lot colder. I can’t stand it!”
Considering how we’d regularly played outside when the weather was better, my confinement was a flimsy excuse at this point.
“You’re thinking aloud, Your Highness,” she said, stifling a giggle.
“I won’t deny that,” I grumbled, shifting from foot to foot. “So? What was it you wanted to try?”
“The Black Witch game!”
“The Black Witch game?” I tilted my head in puzzlement; I’d never heard of it before.
“Yup. One of us will be the ‘Black Witch’—she runs after the others to catch them. The witch wins by catching everyone! As for the others, they win if they can outrun her.”
It sounded like a game of tag. Seems like similar games exist in every world, I thought, oddly impressed.
“Wouldn’t we need at least three people for this game?” I asked her. “If it’s just the two of us, there’d only be one person running. The game will end once we catch each other.”
“Yeah, but…I just really wanted to try it after seeing kids in the city play,” said Alicia, giving me her best puppy-dog eyes.
I couldn’t say no to that look. “Fine, but we’re only allowed to run between the tower and the forest behind it. We can’t get close to the palace. Also, we can’t go indoors. Those are the rules.”
“You got it, Your Highness! And now…”
Alicia took out a coin and flipped it. Plink! The coin spun in the air a few times before she caught it on the back of her hand.
“Heads or tails?” she asked.
“Heads,” I said.
“Unfortunately, it’s tails. I’d like to be the Black Witch!”
“What? You guessed it right! Are you sure you want to be the Black Witch?”
“Yep! Always have!”
“Well, okay. Come after me once you’ve counted to ten, all right?”
I dashed as fast as I could toward the forest. Once she reached ten, Alicia chased after me at lightning speed. Shocked at how fast she was, I ran even quicker. Now that a bigger gap stretched between us, I ducked into the forest, observing Alicia’s movements as I hid behind the trees.
“Huh? Your Highness! Where are you?” Alicia called out, entering the forest. She scanned her surroundings in search of me. “Princess Luxeria?”
I used trees and bushes as cover while I ran, being careful not to make a sound. Is hiding allowed in tag? Ah well. I had no idea how Black Witch worked, and Alicia hadn’t said anything about hiding when she explained the rules of the game.
Quietly, I watched Alicia from the shadows. Her eyes glimmered with the same joyful shine as when she first proposed we play the game. She frolicked about with the kind of childlike excitement that suited her eight-year-old self.
Yes, she was only eight, just like me. You wouldn’t think her so young from how sharp and perceptive she was. I wondered if perhaps she’d reincarnated, like I did, but she never reacted when I mixed in modern terms during our conversations. Maybe she was deliberately hiding it from me.
This might be far-fetched, but what if it has something to do with her magic? People can enhance their physical prowess, so why not mental prowess as well? It would explain her amazing memory.
Whatever the case, this was only guesswork. There was no way to verify the nature of her abilities as long as we were stuck in the tower.
“Found you, Your Highness!”
Stuck in my own thoughts, I failed to notice Alicia closing in. Crap! I tried to run away with all my strength, but in the end, she still caught me.
“Let’s take a break!” I said between heavy pants. I hadn’t done sprints in quite some time, so I was completely out of breath. I sprawled out on the ground, wiping the sweat rolling off my forehead. It wasn’t very ladylike, but I doubted anyone was watching.
Alicia collapsed next to me. “Do you feel warmer now?”
“Yes, I do. In fact, I feel too warm now, thanks to you.” I inhaled deeply, then exhaled.
As I finally caught my breath, I felt a fit of laughter welling up inside me. Alicia started to laugh at the same time, clutching her stomach.
“That was fun,” I said with a contented sigh.
“Very!” Alicia agreed. “You were so fast, Your Highness. I was panicking because I couldn’t catch you at all!”
“Well, you’re really fast, too. You were so speedy that halfway through, I found it utterly terrifying.”
“What?! That was because you were hiding, Your Highness! I was worried I’d lose sight of you again!”
As we bickered, I couldn’t help but play back scenes of our game in my mind. That really was a blast!
After that thought, my laughter was ready to burst free again. Maybe Alicia thought the same; she also loudly guffawed with glee.
When our cackling finally died down, Alicia whispered, “That was the first time I ever played that game.” Even though she lay right beside me, she was so quiet I could barely hear her. “My magic is really strong, you know? I was born with it, so everyone was scared of me from the start. Especially since no one around me could use magic.”
Only roughly one in three hundred people in this world had magic. Ausgrid was famous for having a higher percentage of mages, but even then, they were small in number. It was commonplace for people to never have met a mage in the first place. Mages were often feared and shunned by the people around them, even if their magic wasn’t as strong as Alicia’s.
“On top of all that, I’ve lost control of my magic before. Unlike you, Your Highness, I ended up hurting a lot of people. That’s why I was put in the kingdom’s custody.”
“Ahh.”
It wasn’t that the thought hadn’t occurred to me before. She possessed far more magic than others; it was a miracle she’d kept it under wraps for so long.
“Have you learned to control it?” I asked.
“I have. Letting it run wild once was enough.” Alicia’s smile was bitter, tinged with regret.
Picking up on those feelings, I decided to not ask any further. “I see.”
“I went off topic, but…that’s why I never got to play with anyone my age.”
“Ha ha. Me either. I’ve never played the Black Witch game before. Actually, I’ve never spent time with anyone my age. We’re the same.”
“Yeah…”
“Still, it’s a shame you caught me. I won’t lose next time!”
Alicia laughed, probably understanding the meaning behind those words. Next time meant we were going to play again.
“I won’t lose next time, either!” she exclaimed.
We looked at each other and started giggling again.
That night, Alicia and I both caught a spectacularly bad cold. Of course we did—we’d sweated profusely and taken our sweet time chatting outside in the chilly air! That unpleasant experience was the reason why we made it a rule to return to the tower immediately after playing outside.