Celestial Hymn 26 (Patreon)

Celestial Hymn
Chapter 26

-VB-

Rosia felt thrills of excitement travel up her spine as she traveled with her lord’s retinue.

She was going to King’s Landing for the first time! The thought filled her with jubilation, and she wondered what kind of lords and ladies she would see from her lord’s side.

She squeezed her eyes shut as the Stormland breeze slammed against her. She weathered it, even moving at her normal pace through it, until it disappeared as quickly as it had come. Its departure, however, had been not natural.

She saw one of the “mages,” apprentices of her lord, holding a cyan flamed bronze lamp in front of themselves no more than ten paces from where she was in the retinue caravan.

As she stared into the mesmerizing flame, she couldn’t help but envy them.

Sure, she had known that her lord was a little weird - and possessed odder things - before he announced it all, first by becoming the Voice of the Seven (a title she knew he disliked) and then by taking on apprentices for his magic.

She had also tried to become an apprentice. Magic looked and sounded wondrous. She’s seen the things he did, and wanted to do the same.

Lord Marris looked at her sadly as he set a purple gem down after asking her to hold it.

Nothing had happened, and her stomach sank.

“Normally, I can feel even a little bit of magic if it is within a person, and this includes the potential to wield magic even if they don’t have a mana reserve, which is true for currently all of my apprentices,” he told her. “I’m afraid that you lack even that ability.”

She sat down, downtrodden.

“I’m sorry. This is something that is related to birth, so I can’t…”

“No, it’s alright, milord,” she mumbled.

At least she had tried, right?

“There is something else I can do, however. Consider it a reward for your service to me so far.”

She pulled her hand up and sprayed it out. On her index finger was a small bronze ring. Bronze was something of an obsession with her lord, she thought as she held her magical ring, her lord’s reward to her.

He described it as “Ring of Protection.” It used the sun’s light to recharge itself and would protect her against both magical and mundane attacks. He’s shown it himself, firing an arrow into the sky and then letting the ring protect him when the arrow fell to strike him.

She had marveled at the translucent blue orb that protected him.

She felt its protective warmth in her finger, waiting like a man-at-arms to protect her should the need come. More than that, she did not need to be aware of the danger for the “shield” to protect her.

She just needed to be careful and not put herself into harm to reveal her and her ring’s worth. Thieves were all around, after all.

Still, she felt envious of the apprentices, because they could do more, even if they relied on tools made with her lord’s touch.

She sped up a little and caught up to the apprentice closest to her. “Hello,” she greeted.

The apprentice, a young girl, looked at her and gave her a stiff nod. Rosia saw that it was more out of nervousness than any arrogance of the nobility or those with power.

“Hello. How may I help you?” the polite young girl asked her from under her unnaturally immaculate purple-rimmed white robe. Rosia have seen on more than a few occasion dirt landing on those robes and sliding right off. “You are Housekeeper Rosia, right? A favored servant of Lord Marris.”

Did it feel good to be recognized like that? Yes, yes it did.

“I am indeed Rosia. It’s a pleasure to meet you…?”

“Charra,” she replied. “It’s a pleasure to meet you as well.”

“I just want to know what using magic is like.”

“... It’s a wonder,” she whispered as she looked down at the cyan flamed lamp, which was what blocked out the Stormland winds for this part of the caravan. Interspaced throughout the caravan, apprentices like Charr kept the wind off of the people, making their travel smoother for it. “I can do a lot of things, though Lord Marris doesn’t let me do all of them. He lets the more experienced apprentices do things like throwing boulders.”

“Throwing boulders, huh?”

“Yes. I want to do that, too, but he warned me that I was too weak for it. That I can’t do it until I was older,” Charra pouted.

Rosia thought that it was cute on the round-faced and raven-haired girl.

“What kind of magic do you want to do?”

“... Water.”

“Water?”

“Lord-Master showed us water magic and made a rainbow in the air.”

Rosia blinked. “Truly?”

Rainbow was a symbol of the Seven. Just as the Seven-pointed star had seven points, rainbows have seven colors, and each colors represented an aspect of the Seven. For him to effortless create a rainbow when only natural phenomena like rain could before showed the apprentices that he truly was the Voice of the Seven.

It was another thing to be envious about.

‘Why not just say it?’ she asked herself. It wasn’t like she was going to make enemies. “I’m envious,” she sighed forlornly and honestly.

Charra puffed up with pride. “It is something to be jealous about, right?” she asked not hurtfully but more centered on herself.

Rosia scoffed and pinched the little girl’s cheek. “Ow ow ow ow-!”

“Yes, and telling me to my face that I should be jealous will make me happy?”

“You said it yoursel-! OW OW OW-!”

“Cheeky bugger.”

“OW-! Okay, can you stop for a second? I need to turn off the spell.”

She did, and the cyan flame disappeared.

The wind … did not come back.

She looked forward and saw a land beyond Stormland. Her first time outside the Stormlands.

It was a land of trees and soft breezes. Of a sky filled with fluffy clouds.

This was the Crownlands.