Pearl Springs, where open-air baths were scattered across the grounds, had several estates spread far apart from one another.

…Come to think of it, the estate just nearby belonged to the Rodev Marquisate, didn’t it?

And the small house between them, which family owned that?

It was a modest little house, so it changed hands often enough that she couldn’t quite remember.

She simply wasn’t that interested in the surrounding area.

Louis listened quietly for a while as Julia chattered on.

That her whole family was consumed with her sickly younger brother’s recovery, and that she wandered around out of sheer boredom because of it.

“Don’t you have a guard?”

Julia tilted her head at Louis’s question.

However safe Pearl Springs might be, a noble’s child roaming alone was not something to be encouraged.

Listening to what followed, Louis gathered that Julia was essentially left to her own devices because of her brother Vincent.

Since she spent most of her free time exploring the gardens and surrounding area with a basket in hand, it seemed her maids and parents didn’t think there was much need to keep a close eye on her.

Given the nature of the open-air hot spring grounds, the estates of the various noble families were not separated by clear boundaries but left loosely open.

Of course, the outer perimeter was strictly guarded by knights and soldiers, but the interior, where people moved in and out for bathing, was far less rigidly controlled.

“…Lou.”

Julia, who had been chattering away on her own for quite some time, suddenly tilted her head.

“Are you sick too, Lou?”

Louis gave the faintest nod.

“Are you very sick?”

Louis shook his head.

It was asthma and pneumonia, eczema that flared up from time to time, pruritus from that, insomnia, poor appetite, and chronic weakness. Not a life-threatening illness.

Resting comfortably at the hot springs, building up an appetite, managing the skin condition and respiratory ailments.

That was all.

“I’m glad.”

Julia smiled, bright as a sky swept clear of clouds.

Louis found it impossible to look away from that wide, open smile.

Just then, Sione, who had been watching Julia and Louis talk from a distance, came closer carrying a tray with drinks and refreshments.

“How do you do? Which household are you from, young miss?”

“Oh, hello!”

Julia seemed to notice Sione only now. She smiled brightly and gave a polite bow.

It was a little much for a noble to bow to a servant, but it wasn’t rude, so no one said anything.

“I’m Julia Wilroy. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Oh, you must be the young lady of Wilroy County. And how old are you?”

“Five years old!”

“My, what a darling age! Oh, we have freshly baked almond cookies and butter cookies here. Would you like to try some?”

“Yes! I love almond cookies.”

Under Louis’s silent observation, Julia gradually let her guard down under Sione’s gentle coaxing and began to show her true self.

“Mm! These are so good!”

She took the almond cookie Sione skillfully handed her, held it in her small hands, and crunched away at it. She looked exactly like a tiny creature nibbling on an acorn, and it was terribly cute.

Then, as though a thought suddenly struck her, Julia turned to Louis, the owner of the estate, and thr*st a cookie toward him, crumbs still on her lips.

The gesture was utterly guileless.

“Lou, what about Lou? Aren’t you eating?”

Louis, a faint trace of amusement on his face, slowly shook his head.

His appetite was so poor as a rule that he felt almost no desire to eat anything at all, and so whenever someone offered him this or that outside of regular meals, he never touched it.

“But these are really good…. I think they’d taste even better if we ate them together.”

Julia murmured, sounding a little wistful.

The moment Louis turned away indifferently to signal that it was fine, something hard and nutty pressed against his lips.

Startled, he lifted his violet eyes to look at the other person, and there was Julia, right in front of him, beaming with a tilt of her head.

“Just once! Okay?”

It was pure, guileless insistence that left no room for refusal.

Louis had no choice but to part his lips and take a small bite of the cookie.

The faint, nutty flavor of almond spread gently across the tip of his tongue.

Julia’s eyes went wide and round immediately, and she smiled with the most satisfied expression in the world.

“It’s good, isn’t it!”

Louis let out a languid sigh and gave a reluctant nod.

Julia’s eyes lit up with delight, sparkling like a zookeeper who had successfully fed a rare, untamed animal, and she fed him the remaining pieces of the cookie one by one, tending to him with great care.

When the last of the cookie was slowly finished, Sione, who had been watching the whole scene from the side, looked on the verge of tears, wearing an expression of deep emotion, as though witnessing a miracle.

Then, wrapping Julia in a hug, Sione murmured over and over, an angel, truly an angel!

“One more, just one last one, okay?”

Julia’s pestering gaze and the vague feeling of having lost some unspoken contest put Louis in a strangely sullen mood.

“…I’m going inside.”

Louis gave Sione a brief, wordless command with a tilt of his chin and rose from his seat first.

***

From that day on, Julia came and went through the open-air bath and garden as freely as if it were her own home.

Even in a place as safe as Pearl Springs, Louis was uneasy about a small girl wandering around without a shred of caution, and so he eventually had Sion escort Julia back to her lodgings.

As expected, her residence was a modest little house wedged between the grand estate of the Rodev Marquisate and the Klaus duchy’s villa.

A humble space the Wilroy County purchased for rest and recuperation.

Julia still had the soft, rounded figure of a young child, with baby fat that hadn’t quite faded, and she was an optimistic soul who loved eating above all else.

Her rosy, pinkish cheeks, her round little chin, and her short legs were all terribly cute.

Her curious mind was always brimming with vivid imagination and an interest in everything the world had to offer.

Sione never missed an opportunity to use Julia’s pure, lively energy to coax Louis into eating this and that, and to take walks through the sun-drenched garden.

As they strolled along at an unhurried pace, Julia chattered nonstop with trivial but lively little stories.

A small complaint about a honeybee that buzzed and circled the garden but couldn’t seem to find its hive.

A wistful confession that she had followed a pretty butterfly and stumbled upon a strange thicket full of bright red berries, but was too afraid they might be poisonous to taste them.

And a pure, heartfelt wonder at how, while embroidering a new stitch she had just begun to learn, the colors of the embroidery thread glittering in the sunlight were so beautiful that she lost herself staring at them for a long while.

Snack time and walks in the company of Julia, who chirped without pause like a little bird, were, strangely enough, not unpleasant at all.

Perhaps because of it, Louis’s body, which always felt sluggish and drained as though wrapped in grey fog, slowly began to warm and gain a little strength.

Their afternoons were layered over like a tranquil still life.

Julia would pick up blades of grass or large leaves during their walks and insist they were rare medicinal herbs, folding them into clumsy little boats or floating them on the still surface of the hot spring.

Louis would sit quietly beside her and watch the scraps of greenery glide across the water with the breeze, then open the book he brought and lose himself in the words.

The time where Julia’s boisterous energy and Louis’s quiet stillness blended in peaceful harmony continued without a care in the world.

***

The peaceful days flew by.

Before long, Louis turned eight, and he woke one morning to find himself sitting in the garden armchair.

He felt much better lately.

Whether it was because the years had passed and his body had grown, or because the recuperation had improved his condition, he couldn’t say for certain.

The doctor said the cold morning air was bad for his respiratory system, but even so, he loved this quiet, still time of day.

The morning hours, when the deep blue of the sky slowly faded to pale.

Then, from far away, a small shadow came running.

Long, billowing curls the color of diluted tea, and vivid, bright scarlet eyes.

It was Julia.

Today she had something clutched tightly in her hand.

“Lou!”

Julia came running, breathless, and stopped in front of Louis.

Then she held out her small hand with a triumphant air, and in it were two silver pebbles with a rainbow sheen.

Their smooth surfaces were as fine as silverwork and as clear and transparent as glass.

The iridescent metallic shimmer that shifted with the light was beautiful.

“This one’s mine, and this one’s Lou’s.”

A pebble was placed in his hand.

He looked at it with an expression that asked what it was, and Julia straightened her shoulders and said,

“I got them yesterday! They came from Father’s newly purchased mine! I asked to have our initials engraved on them as a keepsake!”

Indeed, the pebble he received had an L carved into it in elegant lettering.

Julia said, with great seriousness, “This thing, what was it called again, out, ara? Au…?”

The unfamiliar name seemed to escape her, and Julia fumbled.

Louis looked down at the pebble in his palm and murmured.

“…Aurite.”

“That’s it!”

Julia nodded with enthusiasm.

Louis tilted his head slightly.

As a child of the Klaus duchy, the pillar of the Kingdom of Fenhaven, and by the knowledge Louis acquired, Aurite was a rare mineral found alongside ‘Aurom,’ a mineral known as the god’s ore, in deposits where Aurom was present. Its value was nearly nothing.

It was used in a few trivial pieces of jewelry and little else.

However, an Aurite mine was one of the few indicators that suggested the possible presence of Aurom.

Aurom was the most prized mineral in alchemy.

It had exceptional resistance to extreme heat and superior magnetic reactivity, and possessed the unusual property of maintaining structural stability even in the most extreme environments.

For that reason, it was an indispensable material for the finest weapons, armor, and military supplies.

But the areas where Aurom was found mostly had rugged and unstable geological structures, making extraction a dangerous undertaking.