Viya drew the white gloves from the drawer. Looking at the cold coiled around her left hand, she steadied her breath, took out a fire-element ore and laid it on top, and the cold bored in through the seams of the stone.
The frost that had covered her hand melted away slowly, leaving pale skin and a haze of rising steam.
Viya went through this every night before she slept.
Elemental power this concentrated brought absolute strength, and ate away at the body every moment it was carried.
She pulled the glove on and let out a long breath. Compared with the frost on her left hand, the flame coiled around her right was nothing to overlook either. Viya took up the fire ore, and under the nourishment of the flame the dull stone burned red again.
She was one and the same person, yet the elemental power her two hands put out was entirely different. For Viya, dividing up a fight was simple.
Left hand, high damage. Right hand, damage that was high. The monsters would see to killing themselves.
Viya drew the glove onto her right hand and looked at a file tucked away in the cabinet.
Two years ago she had brought Marilou to the resonance stone at the Saintess's statue to test her aptitude, and the stone had put Marilou's affinity for mana at ninety-nine percent.
Aptitude like that was unmatched anywhere in the Kingdom, and to this day Marilou wasn't even a novice mage.
Every time Viya thought about it she got a headache.
Her own affinity was lower than Marilou's, and she had won the Temple's recognition all the same, while the girl beside her, purer still, showed not the faintest trace of a gift.
Viya stood at the window with her hands behind her back, gazing off into the distance, lost in it.
Turning it over and over, she drafted a document: "Application for the Retesting of Marilou's Magical Aptitude."
"Come to think of it, it's been a long time since I visited the academy."
Viya fetched her staff, changed into a full bespoke outfit with a pointed mage's hat, and left the residence.
***
Marilou sat clutching her nightclothes, taking in the decoration of the house with her eyes wide.
It was far more luxurious than where she lived, and lying down anywhere in it was comfortable, as though the whole place had been prepared for her.
She rolled over, and a creak cut through her train of thought.
Outside the window, a crow was doing an impression of a woodpecker against the glass, producing a steady creaking rap.
Marilou got up and went over to it. The crow was black all over, and its black eyes held the reflection of Marilou clasping her hands together with a puzzled face.
"Are crows even supposed to be out at this hour?"
Marilou looked at the thick night behind it. This crow was clearly no easy customer either, cawing and rapping without a pause.
"Do you want something to eat?"
Marilou fetched a cookie from her bag and opened the window a crack.
Seeing the window open, the crow darted forward and bit, not the cookie, but Marilou's hand.
"You awful thing, you stupid bird, you little wretch!"
Marilou reached to rub her hand, and was startled to find purple smoke pouring wildly out of the spot where she'd been pecked.
When she looked up again, the building around her had begun to warp, and the thing that had plainly been a crow a moment ago was slowly taking a human shape.
What had been the crow was now a woman in a high collar, wearing a hat of pitch-black feathers and turning a die between her fingers. The face hidden behind the black plumes spoke, mocking.
"I never expected to find one of my own kind here."
"Own kind... what do you mean, own kind? Are you a false god?"
Marilou remembered reading of such beings in the old books: a terrible group of counterfeit gods.
"False gods, those lower creatures. Child, how could we possibly be anything so low? The blood of us witches runs in you. What runs in us is law and order; false gods are nothing but a clumsy imitation of our authority.
"Come back to us. I'll help you open the switch inside you, and you'll be as strong as we are, instead of squatting in this hole playing at being Thumbelina."
Marilou retreated half a step. "What are you even talking about? I don't understand. This is the Temple. If you keep this up, I'm going to shout."
Her body was trembling faintly. Was this the classic transmigrator's blessing? Because she wasn't at all sure she wanted this particular cheat.
"The Temple. You wouldn't mean that hypocrite of a god up in the sky? Very well. Witch has another meaning besides. Godslayer. We have never believed in any deity, and as long as blood like ours runs in you, you will come to that day yourself. Here's a small gift, as a parting present."
The suffocating pressure faded away, and a letter dropped into Marilou's hand.
An invitation to the witches' tea party.
Write down a name, and she could attend the Witches' Assembly.
Next Assembly: five days from now~
Tucked against the back of the paper was a card. Painted on it was a blazing sun burning slowly, except that it was traveling downward, falling, and beneath it the phantom outline of a sun gone out.
"This is my card?"
Marilou couldn't make head or tail of it.
The crow settled on a branch somewhere and became again a woman with her eyes hidden behind feathers.
"The power of order buried in her blood is a touch stronger than mine. Only a green shoot, though. A little bully hiding inside the Temple. Old wretch, this is under your eye too, I take it."
The crow girl lifted her head and looked at the sky. High above the Temple at that moment, a phoenix with beating wings was gazing down on it, except that one of its wings was maimed.
The golden blood left at the tips of its feathers turned into brilliant blazing suns, sinking down bit by bit until they went out.
"Every time a witch wakes, it heralds the arrival of a disaster. Marilou, what sort of commotion will your awakening day stir up~"
The crow picked up a card with a crow hanging upside down on it, moved her fingers slightly, and murmured.
"Sisters. I've found where our little sister is. The Temple."
***
St. Mard Academy of Magic.
A complex of buildings white from end to end. Viya rode into the city on a snow-white horse, felt her way along for a while, and came to the bridge that joined two of the buildings, and only up close did she see that the two sides were built in entirely different styles.
She had come many times, and each time she saw those two utterly unlike styles she still felt a small jolt.
They said that in its day the academy had been attacked by a great dragon, and the shattered buildings had been renovated, giving it the shape it wore now.
Standing before a gray-white building, Viya knocked, and the door opened soon enough.
Out came an old man with a beard going gray. Seeing Viya, he smiled and spoke.
"Your Holiness, you've come?"
"Good evening, Headmaster Parr. I'm here today to ask about the magic testing Marilou underwent."
"Ah. Does Your Holiness wish her tested again? We put Miss Marilou through several rounds before and nothing anomalous occurred. Though the child has a very high affinity for Ancient Magic, and our instructors were quite baffled by it: why anyone should have so high an affinity for an Ancient Magic that has almost no described capabilities at all."
"Ancient Magic. You mean the magic that made the disaster at this academy."
"Just so. The dragon was only the main force back then. What truly destroyed the academy's ley lines was that same Ancient Magic, whose source we have never been able to trace..."
Parr took off his glasses, wiped them, and put them back on.
"Your Holiness, if Miss Marilou truly does have a strong affinity for Ancient Magic, I think that may be a disaster for the Kingdom."