Chapter 7
A few days later.
Enya slowly unwound the bandage around Tarmin’s hand.
When she peeled away even the inner bandages, stuck to his skin with ointment and sweat, his scarred hand was revealed.
She traced the reddish burn marks where he’d gripped the stone and sighed.
“Ugh, it itches. Stop touching it.”
“What am I going to do, Taal? It’ll scar.”
“What’s wrong with a scar like this? Anyway, it looks like it’s healed, doesn’t it?”
“Should I put on ointment one more time, just in case?”
“No, thank you.”
Tarmin clenched and opened his bandaged right hand, checking how it felt.
Whenever his new skin brushed against something, he felt a slight sting, but it wasn’t quite painful.
It seemed like he could go about his daily life without any problem now.
Even so, Enya was acting as if she were the one who’d just been hurt.
Seeing that she still couldn’t stop worrying, he decided to tease her and lighten the mood.
“What are you going to do now that you can’t wear the collar anymore?”
“What did you say?”
Enya’s eyes, which had been filled with concern, instantly turned sharp.
“Enya, if you want, you can borrow the collar anytime.”
“Do I look like I was wearing it because I liked it?”
“You weren’t? You didn’t like the collar?”
“No! It was so humiliating!”
Tarmin watched in silence for a moment as Enya braced herself against the table, getting angry.
To be honest, the burn from gripping the stone didn’t look like that serious an injury to Tarmin.
It wasn’t the sort of wound that needed to be wrapped up this tightly, and he thought Enya had been worrying too much.
As for the bow he hadn’t touched for a while, he just needed to get used to it again. It wasn’t as if he were in the middle of an adventure now.
He’d agreed not to ask what her illness was, but there was still something worrying him.
What Tarmin was worried about was Enya’s pathological guilt.
He couldn’t understand why she’d been trembling at the thought of losing a friend over a burn.
Even when he made unreasonable demands, she couldn’t refuse. If he asked her to do something she absolutely couldn’t do, she’d plead with him through tears.
That wasn’t how a normal relationship worked.
To put it bluntly, she’d only hurt herself by recklessly handling a magical tool she knew nothing about, hadn’t she?
If someone touched the bowstring on Tarmin’s bow and cut themselves, he wouldn’t feel guilty about it.
Besides, in the first place...
If their friendship could end over a single injury, he wouldn’t have joined the hero’s adventure with her.
When he’d teased her with the dog collar, he’d rather she’d gotten angry and despised him.
Then he could have apologized and thought of a way to make it up to her.
But the way she’d responded was...
As one final test, he decided to ask Enya something.
“Enya.”
“What!”
“Will you wear that collar one more time? Just for the last time.”
Enya snorted.
“Don’t be ridiculous. Why would I? You said only until your hand healed. No.”
“There’s no particular reason. I just want to see you wearing it. Just once. Please.”
At the word “please,” Enya flinched.
For some reason, she took a few deep breaths. Her face reddened, and she asked again,
“You want to see me?”
“Yeah.”
“...Wearing the collar?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Just once?”
“Just once.”
“Well, if you’re asking me, I suppose it’s not something I absolutely can’t do...”
Her voice trailed off as she hesitantly stood up, rubbing her neck as she slowly approached him.
Seeing that she couldn’t bring herself to refuse, Tarmin gave up and waved his hands.
“Oh, forget it.”
“Huh?”
“I was just asking. I wanted to see if you’d really do it just because I asked.”
“Huh?”
“Hey, even if we’re friends, you can’t just do everything someone asks you to. You have to know how to say no, too.”
She didn’t know how to give a firm refusal. That was what Tarmin was worried about.
Quaalid was Tarmin and Enya’s hometown.
Though she’d been away for a long time, Enya surely had other friends from back home besides Tarmin.
Even with all the complications, like her having become a woman, she’d eventually meet up with them without Tarmin. She couldn’t go around interacting with people like this.
Enya immediately protested, sounding indignant.
“I said I didn’t like it! I refused!”
“Then why did you agree when I asked you?”
“Th-that’s...”
“One thing I’ve learned since you came back is that you’re way too weak to resist a request. If you do whatever people ask, you’ll end up with nothing but your underwear.”
“That’s not it.”
“Then what is it? Your hand’s healed, so there’s no reason you can’t refuse.”
“...”
“Unless you actually like wearing the collar?”
“Shut up!”
Enya, her face bright red, kicked Tarmin in the leg.
That was another bad habit Enya had picked up since coming back. When she didn’t know what to say, she resorted to violence.
Groaning from the pain, Tarmin kept talking.
“Ow! Stop kicking me! Do you know how much it hurts to get kicked by someone wearing shoes? Have you ever been kicked?”
“Just die already. Then you won’t feel any pain.”
“I’m only saying this because I want what’s best for you, oww!”
Getting kicked in the leg had an unexpected benefit, too.
His leg hurt so much more that his burned hand didn’t hurt at all.
**
While Enya was panting heavily after all that vigorous movement, someone knocked on Tarmin’s door.
“Is anyone home?”
After calming Enya down, Tarmin went to open the door. Elenora Addis was standing there.
A noble young lady with softly curling brown hair and white trousers that suited her well.
She was a beauty whose tall figure and white trousers drew the eye, but Tarmin felt nothing but foreboding.
She’d accompanied him on several hunts and uncovered his secret, after all.
Usually, whenever she had business with him, she sent an elderly servant. For some reason, today she’d come all the way to his house herself.
She gave Tarmin a small smile and greeted him.
“Hello, Tarmin. I heard you injured your hand. Are you all right?”
“Yes. Thanks to you, it’s much better. I’ve even taken the bandage off now.”
When he showed Elenora his scarred palm, she looked a little surprised.
“You really were badly hurt. I hope it hasn’t affected your ability to use your hand.”
It sounded to him as though she were asking whether he could still shoot those curving arrows.
The thought made his insides ache.
“I don’t know yet if there’ll be any aftereffects. Anyway, what brings you here?”
“Oh, I didn’t come for any particular reason. Have you found flowers for the festival?”
“The festival? What festival? Flowers?”
Seeing Tarmin’s confusion, Elenora’s eyes widened.
“Surely you know the Sky Garden Festival is in two days?”
Now it was Tarmin’s turn to be surprised.
“Wait, it’s November already? These past few days have been so hectic.”
After Enya collapsed, he’d stopped hunting as well, and his sense of time had gone all out of whack.
He’d been reflecting on the strange feeling that the season had changed while he slept, when he felt a tug on his clothes and looked behind him.
Enya was pulling at him from behind.
What was going on?
“Excuse me. Just a moment.”
He partly closed the door and turned to look at Enya.
Enya asked him dubiously,
“You really don’t know what she meant by asking if you found flowers?”
Tarmin decided to answer honestly.
“Nope.”
In response, Enya gave him the same look he’d given her a moment ago: one that was exasperated, yet concerned for an idiot.
The sight made him bristle, and he thought maybe she had good reason to kick him.
“You don’t? Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you know what the Sky Garden is?”
“That I do.”
The Sky Garden was a legendary garden said to have been built by a wizard for a young girl.
The legend told of a great wizard with enough power to change the world, who wasted his mighty magic building and tending the Sky Garden to find a flower that could save a single girl.
According to the witch who’d been his companion, wizards were idiots who were so kindhearted they were bound to go extinct.
The Sky Garden Festival was held to celebrate that romantic legend.
There was no proof that the Sky Garden had ever existed. Some stories placed it in the sky, others on a mountaintop, and its location and nature varied from tale to tale. There were even three or four places, Quaalid included, that held festivals while claiming the Sky Garden had once been there.
Stories about sacrificing everything for values of the heart, like love, always found an audience.
“Are you stupid? Then what do you think she meant by asking if you found flowers?”
“Did she mean if I’d found a fantastical flower?”
“Try a little further in that direction.”
“...Did she mean if there was a girl I could give flowers to?”
“That’s it.”
“I see. So it’s some kind of romantic metaphor? I wouldn’t know. I’ve never done anything like that.”
Tarmin opened the door again and spoke to Elenora.
“Uh, sorry. My friend explained it to me. Yes, I think I have found flowers.”
Was that the right thing to say?
Elenora smiled and replied,
“I see. I hear there’ll be a circus at this year’s festival, too, so I’m sure it’ll be fun.”
“A circus?”
“Yes. I got them permission to perform in Quaalid.”
Tarmin didn’t think much of it, but nodded.
“Thank you for telling me. If you hadn’t asked, I wouldn’t have known there was a festival, let alone a circus.”
“Not at all. Your hand’s injured, so I thought you might enjoy the festival while you have the chance.”
After seeing Elenora off, Tarmin had to face Enya’s reproach head-on.
“A beautiful woman came over wanting you to court her, and that’s all you could say?”
“She’s not that kind of person. Besides, if she meant asking whether I had someone to meet at the festival, I really do have someone.”
“Someone to meet? Who?”
“Sigona.”
Enya’s eyes widened.