“Did you eat? Are you hungry?”

A nod, meaning he ate. A shake of the head, meaning he wasn’t hungry. Mirha asked warmly, and the boy did his best to answer with gestures.

“Good. Do you think you could tell me your name now? Only if you’re comfortable.”

Mirha added gently, and the boy hesitated. His dry, chapped lips moved pitifully. But no matter how much he worked his mouth, no sound came out, and Mirha quickly stopped him.

“You don’t have to force yourself if it’s too hard. Don’t push yourself.”

The boy looked at Mirha with eyes brimming with tears. He clearly wanted to speak but couldn’t get his voice out, and the frustration showed. Mirha felt a sharp ache in her chest.

“It’s all right to take a little longer. It’s all right if it takes time. No one will rush you, so just take it slowly, a little at a time, day by day.”

Mirha whispered gently and wiped the wetness from the corners of the boy’s eyes. The first time she reached toward him, he flinched, expecting a blow. Now he accepted her touch without resistance.

“Can you write?”

A shake of the head. The boy was crestfallen. He couldn’t speak, he didn’t know his letters, and he was afraid that once she realized he was completely useless, she would throw him away.

“I see. I’ll teach you that too, slowly.”

Mirha promised with kindness. The boy bit his lip. Why did this gentle adult treat someone like him with such care? Someone as worthless and dirty and weak as him.

Just as puzzling as Mirha’s kindness was the warmth of the child called Taniel.

The girl, bright as a fairy or an angel from a storybook, took his dirty, bony hand without hesitation and read to him in a warm, sparrow-like voice.

The boy couldn’t understand either of them, the adult or the girl. His life until now was nothing but cold mud, yet the world they showed him was as sweet as candy and as warm as a hearthfire. It was so overwhelming it made it hard to breathe.

If the whole world had simply stayed cold, there would have been despair, but no fear.

Since life would go on being cold and lonely regardless, he could have endured the pain quietly, without the torment of hope.

But now the boy knew that kindness existed in this world. He learned that warmth this lovely and beautiful was real.

He could never go back to the way things were before. Now that he knew another kind of life was possible, he couldn’t curl up in silence in the cold mud and simply wait to die.

So this must be why people say nothing is crueler than giving something and taking it away. Once you taste paradise, you can never bring yourself to return to hell.

“Child, for the time being you’ll be staying here with me. It’s only a temporary arrangement, but I’ll look after you. And once the Senate confirms foster parents to take you in, you’ll have a family of your own. You’ll be able to live with a mother and father.”

What? No. The boy’s eyes went wide at Mirha’s gentle explanation. His body began to tremble.

‘No. Please don’t.’

The boy moved his lips frantically. But his broken voice produced no sound, and tears filled his eyes again. They overflowed before Mirha could wipe them away.

‘Please don’t abandon me. I’m sorry. I’ll do whatever you say. I’ll do anything.’

Temporary? She was going to find someone else? Send him somewhere else? No, please, no.

Abandoned by his birth parents when he was very small, tossed around as merchandise at auction houses, having only just tasted the first warmth he ever knew, the world was too cruel a place for him.

This gentle adult and the bright, sparkling girl were the only ones he could trust.

It didn’t matter if they weren’t perfect. It didn’t matter if they were bad people. The terrified child clung desperately to the lifeline that appeared before him.

“Please…”

Perhaps the desperation reached her. Struggling and choking like someone drowning, his voice suddenly broke free. A sound came out, rough and hoarse like an old man’s.

“Don’t abandon me.”

The child pleaded. He slid down from the bed and dropped to his knees on the floor. He grabbed Mirha’s sleeve.

“Don’t leave me. I’ll be good. I’ll do whatever you say. Please don’t leave me. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…”

“Child? Child! It’s all right, I’m not abandoning you. Shh, everything’s all right.”

Mirha’s heart lurched as the child clung to her in desperate, incoherent pleas. She pulled the trembling child close and gently rubbed his thin back. Her voice was firm and kind at once.

“I’m not abandoning you. Never. And you haven’t done anything wrong, so there’s nothing to apologize for.”

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry… I’ll be good. I really will. So please don’t send me to someone else.”

The child begged with a tear-streaked face. Mirha bit her lip.

“Child, I’m a knight. Knights can’t become foster parents. I can’t adopt a child either.”

The Senate’s laws did not forbid knights from marrying or having relationships. To love and build a family was a sacred joy and a right given by God.

But it had become custom for most knights to remain unmarried as a lifelong offering of themselves to God, and a trend spread like fashion where knights might enjoy light romances but saw no reason to be bound by marriage.

In that climate, if Mirha declared she intended to take in a child as her own, the backlash would surely be fierce.

Not a child born legitimately within a family, but a picked-up son. The hypocritical and conservative upper class of the holy nation would never leave Mirha and the child in peace.

She already drew sharp looks from every direction for being low-born. To be honest, she didn’t have the courage to take in a child while bracing herself for criticism even harsher than what she already endured.

‘I’m exhausted.’

Even now she felt like she was hanging by her fingertips at the edge of a cliff.

The boy’s expression crumpled at Mirha’s careful refusal. The strength left his thin hands, and Mirha’s sleeve slipped slowly from his grip.

The boy didn’t plead any further. Even his tears stopped. He bowed his head with empty eyes and pressed his lips shut, as though he lost his voice again.

Seeing the boy’s face lose its will in an instant, Mirha snapped back to herself. The sight of a small child wearing a broken expression at such a young age was too much for her conscience to bear.

‘…Being exhausted is no excuse.’

Mirha decided to wring out one more effort. She prayed desperately that this would not be the last, that she would not be completely spent after this moment.

“Child, what is your name?”

Mirha asked gently. The boy answered in a dry, obedient tone, all urgency drained from his voice.

“I don’t know.”

Mirha was briefly taken aback, but she didn’t press further. Instead, she added another question carefully.

“Your age? Do you happen to know how old you are this year?”

The boy shook his head weakly. Mirha gave up on the inquiry and offered gently.

“Child, there’s somewhere I’d like to take you.”

There was one way she could take this child in without breaking any custom, knight though she was.

* * *

Mirha took the boy to the temple. To have his sacred power measured.

“Taniel, you stay and rest at the quarters.”

“No, Teacher. I want to come too. Please let me.”

Taniel asked stubbornly. The pitiful boy her teacher brought back became deeply important to her in the span of a single night. She wanted to be there when his future was decided.

“…Actually, thinking about it again, it would be better for you to come along.”

Mirha agreed readily after a brief consideration. Having Taniel nearby would help the boy’s emotional stability. From what Mirha observed earlier, the boy seemed to have already begun to rely on Taniel as well.

Sure enough, the boy visibly relaxed when he heard Taniel was coming too.

He still didn’t know exactly where he was going, or what waited for him ahead, yet simply knowing the gentle adult and the kind girl would be with him was enough to ease his heart a little.

Starved of others’ kindness, the boy quickly showed attachment to the adult and the girl who offered him even a small measure of warmth. Mirha found it both heartbreaking and worrying.

‘If he’s already this deeply attached, then later, if they ever have to part…’

Even Mirha, powerful a knight as she was, had no power to foresee the future.

With no way to say with certainty what lay ahead for the child, seeing his unstable emotional state made her anxiety rise.

But Mirha didn’t let her worry show in front of her student and the child. She simply smiled like a dependable adult and spoke with the same steady warmth she always did.