After repeating “fall asleep, fall asleep” dozens of times, Snow realized that she was still awake and, moreover, not feeling sleepy at all. As sleep continued to elude her, Snow gradually began to feel anxious. The more anxious she became, the more alert her mind grew. Snow kept tossing and turning, from left to right, then left again, until she suddenly sat bolt upright. The fluffy, thick blanket fell away from her body.

No matter how hard she tried, sleep wouldn’t come. Snow didn’t know what to do. She turned and sat on the bed, then slid open the window at her bedside, as she had often done in her childhood. Cold air flowed in, but it felt refreshing as it dried the perspiration on her body.

Snow rested her elbows on the windowsill that Arianne had cleaned thoroughly and propped her chin in her hands. Then she looked upward. The stars scattered across the sky twinkled as if someone had accidentally spilled them all over. Snow’s silver eyes filled with stars.

Snow began counting the stars one by one with her eyes. She thought perhaps counting stars might help her fall asleep.

Just then, she heard a rustling sound. Startled by the noise that seemed to come from right beside her, Snow gasped and shrank back.

With Snow’s surprise, the breeze that had been gently blowing through the open window suddenly stopped.

There was definitely no one else in the room. The teddy bear Mari couldn’t possibly have moved. Snow remained rigid, focusing all her attention on the sound.

Listening carefully, she realized with relief that the sound wasn’t coming from inside the room but seemed to be the noise of someone’s footsteps crushing the grass laid in front of the Santarium far below. Snow realized that in the quiet of night, even small distant sounds could be amplified and seem as if they were coming from right beside you.

Snow looked toward the source of the sound. Someone was walking in her direction, but they were too far away to see clearly even when she squinted. However, she could tell that the person wasn’t wearing white clothes. This meant that the person was most likely not wearing priestly garments. There was a high probability that this person wasn’t a priest.

Her heartbeat quickened. Snow, who had essentially kept herself confined to the Santarium, had rarely seen anyone other than priests. She pulled her head back from the window as quietly as possible. Even the rustling sound of the blanket seemed unusually loud at this moment.

She crouched on the bed, hunching her upper body, raising her face just enough to see outside the window. The sound of footsteps treading on grass grew closer. Now she could see that the figure wasn’t very large—it appeared to be a child.

Snow examined the approaching person more carefully. Despite the dim night, short blonde hair shimmered softly. The child was walking straight toward the Santarium as if truly intending to enter.

Snow sensed danger. The Santarium was an inviolable sanctuary. It was a place where only the holy maiden, authorized priests, and the artists carving angel statues on the unfinished building’s exterior and interior could set foot. The artists were said to perform cleansing and purification rituals every time they entered the Santarium.

For someone to try to sneak in was unthinkable. It was now deep night when everyone was asleep, and Snow was likely the only one awake. Snow was Amir’s holy maiden, the mistress of the Santarium. She decided to stop this disrespectful behavior.

Snow took several deep breaths to calm herself, clenching her trembling fists tightly.

‘I must stop this. I am the mistress of the Santarium.’

Still lacking courage, she even offered a brief prayer, “Amir, please give me strength,” before finally poking her head out the window.

The child had already reached the front of the Santarium. Now she could see clearly. It was a boy who appeared to be around Snow’s age.

Snow took one final deep breath. She considered shouting loudly enough to wake all the other priests, but thought that perhaps the boy had come here out of innocent curiosity rather than malice, so she called out as quietly as possible, yet clearly:

“S-stop!”

‘Ah, I should have put more strength in my voice! I stammered!’

Snow regretted it as soon as she called out. But it was too late. The boy looked up toward the source of the sound.

Under the starlight, Snow’s and the boy’s eyes met.

The boy had deep black eyes that seemed to pull you in. His orange-tinted blonde hair was quite striking, but his calm black eyes balanced it. His deep-set eyes with double eyelids could have given him a serious air, but his expression, wide-eyed with surprise at seeing Snow, was unmistakably that of a mischievous boy his age.

“…Wow.”

The boy exclaimed in awe. Snow had expected him to be startled and run away when she shouted for him to stop, but his completely unexpected reaction left her frozen. The boy, with his head tilted up toward Snow at the second-floor window, uttered another word with an enraptured expression.

“Are you… the Holy Maiden?”

Snow’s mind went as white as her hair. She hurriedly tried to close the window.

“W-wait!”

Snow’s hand stopped at the boy’s desperate cry.

“Holy Maiden. Are you the Holy Maiden?”

He walked slowly and carefully toward the window, as if he had discovered a small, fragile animal. Snow was so tense that she felt she could hear the boy’s breathing despite the distance between them. With her eyes wide open, Snow stared at the boy who was bathed directly in the pouring moonlight.

“Meeting the Holy Maiden has been my dream. Could we talk for just a moment?”

The boy was afraid Snow might close the window again. So he whispered very quietly, yet gently. With her heightened hearing, Snow could clearly understand what the boy was saying. When Snow remained frozen without showing any reaction, the anxious boy moved closer.

At that moment, Snow was thinking about what the boy had said.

‘Meeting me is… his dream?’

The boy’s earnest words reminded Snow of a warm memory. It was a hazy memory from before Arianne had given her the name “Snow,” so it wasn’t very clear.

It was a lazy, sunny afternoon in late spring.

Snow was sitting on the lap of a beautiful female priest with long, straight light brown hair that flowed down to her waist. The soft bosom beneath the white, thin priestly garment comfortably supported young Snow’s head. Snow rarely saw her because she seemed very busy, but she really liked her. That was still true now.

The female priest held a storybook slightly tilted on her small lap, embracing Snow, and read it to her personally. Seeing Snow nodding off with her head tilted to one side from the drowsy, gentle voice, the priest broke into a laugh as quiet and gentle as her voice.

“Holy Maiden, are you sleeping?”

“No, Ceres…”

Snow, who still had enough consciousness to vaguely answer, mumbled in a sleepy voice. The beautiful female priest, Ceres, gently closed the storybook she had been reading and placed it softly on the table. She lightly embraced Snow with one hand while combing through her white hair with the other, speaking quietly:

“The Holy Maiden is such a precious and special being.”

Those words settled like feathers in the ears of Snow, who was drifting in and out of sleep.

“The Holy Maiden has allowed dying people to dream once more. You applied medicine so that the wounded could stand again.”

The sun, which had been hidden behind fluffy clouds, emerged, making the sunlight a bit stronger. Ceres raised the hand that had been combing Snow’s hair to create shade over the child’s face.

“So the Holy Maiden is a dream. A dream dreamed by the Goddess Amir, and a dream of all the people in the world, including myself.”

‘A dream. I am a dream.’ Snow cherished those words in her heart even as she was falling asleep. Fluffy clouds covered the sun again. Ceres continued combing Snow’s hair until the holy maiden fell completely asleep. Then, tired herself, Ceres closed her eyes briefly while securely holding Snow with the same hand that had been combing her white hair, ensuring she wouldn’t fall.

This was what happened between Ceres Martadia and the Holy Maiden Bernadette—that is, Snow—on a warm spring afternoon.

The boy’s words reminded her of what Ceres had said then. The boy said that seeing the holy maiden was his dream. Just as Ceres had said, Snow really was the dream of this boy she was seeing for the first time.

Snow slowly reopened the window she had half-closed. The boy, who had been anxiously watching Snow, broke into a bright smile. Snow firmly gripped the windowsill instead of the handle and leaned her head forward, bending down so the boy could see her better. The boy let out another small exclamation.

“The Holy Maiden is far more beautiful than I had ever imagined! Like the moon in the sky.”

Snow’s face flushed red at the compliment about her appearance. She thought it was extremely fortunate that it was night, not day. Under the sun, her reddened face would have been completely exposed, and then Snow might have been so embarrassed that she would have closed the window.

Snow was about to say something to the boy but stopped, not knowing what to call him. She carefully began to speak:

“What should I call you?”

“Hmm… Ah, El! Please call me El.”

The boy smiled as if truly delighted, his deep black eyes crinkling. Snow found it fascinating that he could be so happy just because she had asked his name.

“El. How did you get here?”

“My uncle came to the temple to receive a blessing, and I asked to come along. I was hoping I might be able to see the Holy Maiden, but I never dreamed I would actually meet you like this!”

The boy who had asked to be called El was aware enough to know that it would be problematic if the priests woke up. He lowered his voice and spoke in whispers. The boy pleaded with Snow once more with earnest eyes.