This was the last straw for Brigitte. “But, but—Your Highness! I have no idea what she’s talking about!” she cried desperately.
“It’s far too late for you to play innocent!” he roared back.
“Do you have proof? Prove that I’ve been cruel to the baron’s daughter!”
“I don’t need proof! Lisa would never lie to me!”
Brigitte had nothing to say to that. Meanwhile, the other students began to fill in the silence with whispers.
“Imagine treating poor Lisa so viciously!”
“She thought she could do whatever she wanted because she was the prince’s fiancée.”
“The Red Fairy must be on fire with jealousy… How frightening…”
They were talking quietly, but not so quietly that Brigitte couldn’t hear. No one was standing up for her.
After all, most people hated Brigitte Meidell. She was so worthless that she’d contracted with a no-name, and yet she’d been engaged to the Third Prince just because she was from a good family. She was haughty, domineering, and mean. If she was harassing a baron’s daughter, too, then of course no one was going to defend her.
She heard all of it.
She must finally have realized that she didn’t have a single friend in the crowd. Worse, even if she flew out of the hall, she wouldn’t find a single friend in the entire land.
Everyone knew it, which was why the laughter swirling around her grew steadily louder. As she stared at the floor, her whole body shaking, Joseph jabbed his finger at her and delivered his verdict.
“Brigitte, I’ll say this one more time. I am ending my engagement to you.”
“…”
She couldn’t even muster an answer now. Pale-faced, she gripped the hem of her skirt and managed to bow once. As she staggered toward the door, Joseph landed his final blow.
“Don’t ever come near Lisa or me again!”
She paused very briefly, but then, as if to salvage a final shred of pride, she walked out of the hall without looking back.
It goes without saying that after that, the party came to life. The hall was buzzing with sneers and laughter until late that night, all at Brigitte’s expense.
They were called the Fire Clan.
Skilled at fire magic and crowned with bright, burning red hair, the Meidells were a distinguished noble family who had earned their nickname long ago. Brigitte was the oldest daughter of the Earl of Meidell.
Ever since the Kingdom of Field was founded, the custom had been for all children to be taken to the shrine on their fifth birthday to enter into a contract with a spirit. Although the spirit world was, by nature, at odds with the human world, its inhabitants sometimes granted people the right to use a portion of their power. For example, if a contract was formed with a water spirit, the child could expect to be skilled at water magic. A contract with a wind spirit ensured skill in wind magic, and a contract with an earth spirit, skill in earth magic.
On the other hand, children not fortunate enough to have a spirit had no magical skill.
For both children and their parents, the contract ceremony held important meaning: It determined their future.
Like all the other children, Brigitte was taken to the shrine for the contracting ceremony on the day she turned five. It was eleven years ago now, but she remembered it as if it were yesterday. She would never forget it.
“…And the spirit contracted with the earl’s daughter Bridget Meidell…is a no-name.”
Embarrassment tinged the priest’s voice as he made the announcement.
A loud buzz went through the crowd at the shrine. When little Brigitte turned fearfully around, she saw that the eager expectation on her parents’ faces had vanished.
“No-name” was the common name for tiny spirits.
Tiny spirits were very weak, and while they did glow faintly, they couldn’t even float. They were the dregs of the spirit world, not even worthy of individual spirit names among humans. That was why they were all placed under the label “no-name.”
It wasn’t unusual for commoners to contract with one of these. Some families were grateful to contract with any spirit at all. But for the oldest daughter of an earl, especially the bloodline of the Fire Clan—well, word of this unheard-of event spread like wildfire.
It must have come as quite a tragedy to little Brigitte when the very same year, the son of the Water Clan, a family often praised in the same breath as the Meidells, contracted with not one but two first-class spirits.
As soon as Brigitte returned to her family’s mansion that day, her father grabbed her arm and thrust her left hand into the roaring hearth fire. She struggled to free herself, wailing from the heat and pain, but her father continued his terrifying punishment and refused to let anyone else in the household intervene. But after the priest who had been called to treat Brigitte’s burn left, the Earl of Meidell insisted glumly that he was only trying to reset her contract.
“If this thing really is our child, she would never have contracted with a no-name. By making her touch the fire, I was only trying to find out if she was a changeling,” he claimed.
Needless to say, Brigitte could not think of him as her father after that, and a blistered burn remained on the back of her left hand. The wound was so deep that even the high-ranking priest was unable to heal it fully. From then on, she hid her hands in gloves.
Many people believed the Earl of Meidell was in the right for this series of events, and they mocked Brigitte whenever they saw her. At tea parties and other social gatherings for the children of nobles, the others weren’t ashamed to point at her and titter among themselves.
Before she knew it, people were calling the poor girl “the Red Fairy.” Fairies were said to have less magical power than other spirits. All the children laughed and said it was perfect for a girl whose ability fell so short of her breeding.
One day, in the midst of this misery, Brigitte met someone at a tea party who changed her life.
Joseph, the Third Prince.
As she sat scowling in a corner, talking to no one, he came over along with his guard and casually struck up a conversation.
“Miss Brigitte, tell me what you like,” he said as she sat tongue-tied before the handsome prince.
She blinked a few times, then said the first thing that came to mind: “I like spirits.”
Instantly, she regretted answering so honestly.
People in the Kingdom of Field believed the old tales about changelings, the spirits who took the place of newborn babies, and several times a year, news of such an incident was reported. Although she was young, Brigitte knew well that one of the reasons people called her the Red Fairy was to suggest teasingly that the real Brigitte Meidell had been switched at birth with a red-haired fairy.
“Really? Why’s that?” Joseph asked. He didn’t sound like he was teasing her, which was a first for Brigitte. And so, despite the red rising in her cheeks, she was able to answer him with confidence.
“…Spirits can be frightening, but…I think they’re very beautiful.”
“Huh. Good answer.”
That was all. That was how it began.
Joseph, the Third Prince, simply said those words and smiled. But to the young Brigitte, that reply saved her in ways she never could have imagined.
Joseph must have liked her, because the royal family sent an official notice, and soon after, the two were engaged.
Her parents cautiously sent a servant to tell her—she never saw them in person anymore. When she heard the news, she could have floated to the ceiling. Joseph was her only friend, and her attachment to him was hardly surprising.
But soon enough, even her savior began to change.
“My favorite girls are the stupid ones,” he declared coldly one day.
Brigitte was confused. If he had a preference, she wanted to be the kind of fiancée he preferred, but she simply couldn’t understand what he was saying.
“…What do you mean by stupid girls?” she asked hesitantly.
“Exactly.”
“What?”
“Girls who don’t know anything and want other people to tell them. Like you did just now. That’s what I like.”