24. Dragon Magic

〔How about reading all of Carry’s diary before deciding?〕

Tahan subtly asked Clementina about Caroline’s diary. What more could be in there?

Clementina headed to the cave to read her mother’s diary. Dion, whom she’d expected to enter with her, told her to go in first alone and blocked the waterfall with leaves.

Clementina felt sulky for no reason when Dion didn’t follow her in. Of course, she only showed her disappointment to his empty space. Then she quickly let go of that feeling.

Though she didn’t know why, perhaps he needed time alone now. Since coming here, Dion had constantly followed Clementina around caring for her, with no time to himself.

Reaching that thought, Clementina felt embarrassed. She was no longer Dion’s wife. Though she had no reason to receive his care, Dion had been kind to her.

Clementina shook her head. She couldn’t consider Dion’s circumstances right now. She just wanted to turn her complicated feelings elsewhere. Blaming herself that longing came from fatigue, she opened her mother’s diary.

The diary, stopped midway through reading, still had more than half remaining. Clementina slowly read her mother’s words like chewing thoroughly.

A figure in her mother’s diary caught Clementina’s attention.

『Oh! Another girl besides me was living on Diahart Island! Good heavens! She looked so young—how did she get here?

She’s even been chosen by two dragons! I barely managed one with Tahan, and didn’t even achieve perfect resonance—how did she do it?

The girl says I’m too noisy. Though I’m much older than her, she’s more mature than me. Just like Claire.』

“Oh! Mother, this isn’t right. How can you compare that woman to Claire? No matter how awful Claire was, she’s not as bad as that woman!”

Clementina felt like screaming. Her hands trembled.

Sue resembled her sister?

“They’re nothing alike!”

Though her mother simply meant she was reminded of the children she’d left behind, from Clementina’s perspective it was utterly unpleasant.

Her shoulders suddenly grew heavy. Startled, she raised her head to find Tahan had entered the cave at some point and was leaning his face on Clementina’s shoulder, peering at Caroline’s diary.

〔What’s written that makes you so happy?〕

“I’m not happy. I’m angry.”

〔Really? Why?〕

“That woman who’s eating dragons and experimenting on them right now—”

Clementina momentarily hesitated whether to tell Tahan that her mother had been that woman’s teacher of sorts. Then she realized something.

Tahan had chosen her mother and spent a long time with her.

Then Tahan couldn’t not know Sue. They must have lived together. She understood why Tahan was so lenient toward Sue. Tahan had said to let Sue do as she wanted.

That was what her mother always said to Clementina’s sisters.

‘If you want to do something, you should do it. Think carefully about what you want to do. And when you think of what to do next, don’t hesitate and do it. If you don’t, you’ll definitely regret it!’

“Mother, this is too irresponsible. You should guide them to do the right thing. You can’t just tell them to do whatever they want!”

Clementina slapped her forehead. She finally understood Sue’s selfish personality and why she’d been especially warm only to her. From the first moment they met, Sue had been familiar with Clementina without reserve, like they’d known each other long ago.

Since she looked exactly like Caroline, Sue hadn’t found her unfamiliar.

“Tahan! Don’t tell me you know who that woman is? Is that why?”

〔Hehehe. Carry pitied that batum. You should pity that child a little too.〕

“You don’t know how vicious that woman is. She dragged me and threw me into a dragon pack, then ran away. I nearly died because of it. I collapsed more than once from the herbs used on dragons. That woman is irresponsible, selfish, and really, a bad woman!”

〔If you say so, then so it is. You don’t have to do exactly as Carry did. Your circumstances might be different. I’m just telling you what Carry did.〕

“People change. I don’t know how innocent that child was when with Mother, but not now. Sorry, but I’m different from Mother. I won’t sympathize with that woman.”

〔Do as you like. It’s your heart, so act as you want. I don’t care. You’re you, and Carry is Carry.〕

“……Is that really okay?”

〔However, I’d like you to read Carry’s diary to the end before deciding. If you still don’t change then, I’ll help you too.〕

Tahan smiled broadly and stuck his nose under Caroline’s nest.

Clementina closed Caroline’s diary. She didn’t want to read more of the diary now. Her mother and Sue seemed quite close, which made Clementina dislike it even more.

She didn’t want to confirm her mother, who’d abandoned Clementina and her sisters, spending time affectionately with Sue. Sue seemed like her mother’s daughter.

Clementina pressed her lips tight and bit her molars. She wanted to go outside the cave and complain to Dion. Of course, Dion would unconditionally take her side. But should she do that? Could she lean on him so casually?

Should she push these feelings aside and just go sit beside him pretending not to know?

Clementina opened and closed the diary several times. Then at some point she began dozing. In her dreams she felt Dion’s warm embrace. Even while sleeping, Clementina smiled, feeling like she’d found the answer. No matter how sulky she got, Dion always approached her first consistently. This was the same in dreams and reality.

“Cough, cough, cough!“

Clementina suddenly coughed violently. The coughing didn’t stop easily.

Dion, who’d been catching fish with his hands in the pond, rushed over. He hurriedly grabbed Clementina’s shoulder and carefully lifted her, then examined her face. Dion’s face, bare-chested and dripping water all over, had turned deathly pale.

“Are you okay?”

Then heat suddenly surged in Clementina’s chest. It rose up her throat and she instantly covered her mouth with her hand. But there was no way to stop the cough seeping out.

“Cough, cough.”

Bright red blood flowed between her pale, thin fingers.

Lately the distance she could walk had increased considerably, and breathing was easier. The headaches that had plagued Clementina had faded. She’d thought her health had improved because she was by Dion’s side, because life here was comfortable. But had nothing improved?

This was the first time she’d coughed up blood. But it was strange. Her body didn’t seem to have worsened. Rather, she felt healthier.

Among the tree berries and fruit Dion had gathered, the grilled fish, the edible grass—she couldn’t know which, but had some of them reduced Clementina’s pain? But though they could eliminate pain, couldn’t they cure the illness?

While Clementina puzzled over this in confusion, Dion removed his hand from her shoulder. Clementina felt hurt by his attitude. Had he grown sick of seeing such an ill woman after being by her side?

Feeling upset for no reason, she whipped her head toward him. She planned to tell him he could just leave.

But the moment she saw Dion’s face, Clementina couldn’t say anything. Dion was trembling.

The man said to be strong, commanding dozens of dragons, was trembling.

“Di, Dion?”

Dion instantly pulled Clementina close and trapped her in his arms. Long, long wailing continued. No matter how much Clementina asked what was wrong, he didn’t answer. He only cried. He seemed not to know what to do himself.

After Clementina coughed up blood, Dion didn’t leave her side for a moment. When sleeping, when eating, even when she washed, he was beside her. Even seeing Clementina’s n*ked body, his attitude was calm. He frowned seeing her emaciated form, showing no s*xual touch at all. Though affectionate, there was no tension between man and woman.

Perhaps she was no longer a woman to him.

Though she’d threatened not to spend nights together during the promised month, she suddenly missed him outside.

Even after coughing up blood, her physical condition was surprisingly okay. She didn’t cough up more blood, and didn’t suddenly collapse like at the teahouse. Only Dion’s overprotectiveness continued.

Then she suddenly realized she’d been too obsessed with Sue. She was dying. Yet she was wasting her remaining life pointlessly on that woman—she felt disappointed in herself.

The sunlight was so good it was a bright day. A day when five large and small rainbows rose before the pouring waterfall. Clementina lay with her head on Dion’s lap in the wide flowerbed. She glared at her mother’s diary, holding it with both arms stretched out.

Even if it was her mother, she felt it unfair that she’d shake up her life so much at this point.

After doing that for a while, a shadow fell over her.

Around Clementina and Dion sat not only Tahan but several wild dragons. But Kitan was nowhere to be seen. He hadn’t been visible since yesterday—did he have some grievance with Clementina?

The wild dragons all showed no wariness toward Clementina. Though she thought it natural after spending several days together, the Gold Dragon Order’s dragon riders would probably be shocked again if they saw this.

Though it could happen with resonated dragons, that was a special situation to the end. Only a minority of hundreds of wild dragons resonated with humans. They were chosen dragons from the start. Like they were born for that purpose.

So ordinary wild dragons couldn’t be this friendly to humans. Even raised by human hands, they weren’t easily tamed.

Yet after spending so little time together, they mingled with Clementina so casually. This was certainly strange, but for Clementina, who’d normally spent time like this with the Gold Dragon Order’s dragons, it wasn’t an unfamiliar sight.

Clementina was curious about her mother’s diary. She wondered how affectionately that mage had acted, how she’d won Mother over. Clementina opened the diary with a prim expression.

Caroline’s diary continued with stories about Sue.