<This year, there hasn’t been any rain and it’s dry, with strong winds. It might spread farther than we think.>
People were bustling around in the distance, appearing like small dots. They were doing their best to stop the fire before it reached the barley fields and mountains.
“Uh… What should we do about that?”
Dimitri was also bewildered and kicked the ground. Asha, who swallowed hard, took a deep breath and quickly grabbed Dimitri’s hand, leading him back to the mansion.
“Uh, what’s going on?”
“If we stay here, people will get hurt.”
“So, what do we do?!”
Down the hill, people in the distance were diligently carrying buckets, trying to extinguish the fire. It wouldn’t have been visible in the darkness, but as the flames grew, they became noticeable. Asha clenched her fists tightly.
“We still have our carriages. We came here by train from the station. Load water onto it, go down, and help as much as we can. If that’s not possible, at least evacuate the people.”
“Here?”
“Yes, here.”
Asha urgently spoke and quickly moved toward the mansion. Karnov, who was leaving the mansion to pick Asha up just in time, was the first to recognize Asha.
“Asha, what’s wrong with your expression? What’s going on?”
In the hall on the first floor of the mansion, several people playing Kerum turned their heads at Karnov’s voice. They were surprised to see Asha’s changed complexion. Pointing outside, Asha quickly explained.
“There’s a fire outside, below the hill.”
Asha said so and added an explanation. Irina and Yuriev faced each other when they heard that it would not be easy to control the fire, and that it would not be just a barley field that had not been harvested immediately, but that it would also be dangerous for those who wanted to extinguish the fire.
Irina quickly rallied the knights and rushed to the yard where the carriage was, while Yuriev sent someone to fetch blankets and clothes from inside the house. Meanwhile, children gathered around Asha.
“Asha, what do you mean fire? Is there a fire outside? Is it a big fire?”
Natalya asked with a surprised expression. Asha nodded, swallowing her saliva.
“The weather has been dry, so I guess that’s why.”
As Asha was about to go down with the carriage organized by Irina, Yuriev strongly objected.
“Asha, it’s dangerous. Mom and Dad will look at the situation and stay inside. Arten!”
Harp player Arten also looked surprised while standing with only the harp, then flinched at Yuriev’s call.
“Ye, yes?”
“Please take care of the children in the house. I’ll go down with Irina to check.”
“Trust me!”
Arten, who had shouted confidently, seemed to realize belatedly that the children left inside the mansion were the daughters of a marchioness, one son of a duke, and three imperial grandchildren.
“Uh… Well… Since it’s chilly outside, let’s go inside for now…”
“Ah. Arten, you must have been quite surprised.”
Asha sat Arten back down, offering him the warm mulled wine he had been drinking.
“No, I… I…”
She also put a blanket around his shoulder and looked back at the children. The children, who didn’t know what she was doing, were staring at Asha with anxious faces.
“The fire below… We don’t know when it’ll be extinguished.”
Karnov quietly gestured to Asha.
‘Your spirit?’
‘Yeah.’
There’s no way the Spirit of Feelings was wrong. Asha held Dimitri’s hand tightly and took a breath.
“Let’s evacuate the hall for now and make some space. Since a lot of people might come, we need to prepare plenty of food. We should bake more bread. I’ll handle the kitchen work, so…”
The children nodded with determined faces, and they began moving the furniture to the edges of the hall. In the meantime, Asha looked at Karnov, biting her lips.
“Karnov, it would be good to quickly spread the news to the capital. If the barley fields burn down, we need to rescue the farmers…”
“I’ll take care of that, so just go and have something warm to drink. Your complexion doesn’t look good.”
“No, it’s just… I was just startled. Natasha and Lyuda must have been surprised too. Dimitri also saw a fire for the first time with me…”
Asha, who was saying that, suddenly stopped talking.
“Asha?”
Karnov, as Asha said, paused as he was about to move to inform the capital. Asha hurriedly shook her head and pushed Karnov’s back.
“Ah, nothing. Karnov, tell the capital quickly!”
“You stay in the mansion. Don’t think about going down.”
“I said I’d prepare food. I’ll be in the kitchen.”
At Asha’s words, Karnov looked at Asha for a moment, and was pushed out of the mansion by her. And as soon as Karnov’s shadow disappeared, Asha approached Dimitri, who was dragging two chairs.
“Is it possible?”
<Considering how much of your cookies I’ve eaten, I’d say it’s possible.>
Dimitri, who had been inspecting how to lift two chairs at once, looked surprised when he saw Asha.
“Wh, what?”
“…Dimitri.”
“Why… Why are you like this? You’re not suggesting we go down to put out the fire, right?”
Asha shook her head. At the moment, Asha had a different plan in mind than Dimitri.
“Dimitri, when we were ten, we made contracts together at a spirit ceremony. I made a contract with the spirit of a bird, and you… with the Spirit of Rain.”
“…!”
Dimitri who had been struggling to lift the chairs, dropped them with a clatter when he heard Asha’s words.
━━━✦❘༻༺❘✦━━━
The flames intensified when Karnov woke up the night shift of the Lake Bishti branch post office and forced a stopped train to send people to the capital and returned.
People were trying to keep the fire from spreading to the barley field, but the fire bounced up in the wind and flew in an unpredictable direction. Karnov got off his horse and approached Yuriev, who was among the knights and villagers helping to extinguish the fire.
“Your Highness Yuriev.”
Yuri’s face was stained with ash and sweat.
“Ah! Karnov. Why are you here…”
“I’ve delivered the news to the capital because it seems like the fire is hard to contain. We might get news from the capital as early as tomorrow.”
“Oh, that’s a good judgment. …We tried our best, but it seems like it might be impossible. We need support from the capital to help these people. It’s become a disaster, ruining the year’s harvest. If we want to help them, we must have support from the capital…”
The fire intensified as it was carried by the wind, and support was also delayed due to the location on the outskirts of the territory. Karnov bit his lip while looking at the flames. He had also tried to do something with the power of time.
He thought about setting up a backfire by quickly burning the fuel that could serve as the source when ignited. However, the strong wind made it futile. Every time the flames soared, cries resembling screams echoed. The heat felt like reaching out and grabbing hands. Some people sat on the ground, wailing.
“Some houses have already burned. It seems like it will be difficult. The people with remaining strength should try a bit more, and for those who can’t, we should take them to our mansion for some rest. The journey to the lord’s mansion is too difficult for them, as it’s too far.”
“Your Highness should go up now.”
Yuriev shook his head at Karnov’s whisper.
“The bread we ate today was made from the barley here. So, I can’t pretend I don’t know. I’ll do my best, but it seems like it might be impossible. We’ll do what we can, but until then, please take care of Asha. She can’t sleep when there’s a loud noise…”
Yuriev was wiping sweat and muttering with a worried expression. Then, he called out loudly to Ivan, who was carrying water from a distance. Yuriev and Irina had affectionate thoughts about the apprentice knight, whom they had planned to name their second child after when he was born.
“We’re willing to open the mansion and help people, but when strangers gather in large numbers, anything can happen. Ivan, go up now and protect Asha and the people in the mansion.”
Ivan nodded silently in response to Yuriev’s words. While Irina fought against the fire with the knights, Yuriev, sitting on the ground, prioritized people who had inhaled a lot of smoke or suffered burns. He selected them to be taken on the carriage first.
The carriage departed toward the mansion, away from the fire.
━━━✦❘༻༺❘✦━━━
As Asha picked up the chair and set it upright, Dimitri swallowed nervously.
“D,did you remember that?”
“It’s Dimitri’s spirit, of course I remember it.”
In the empire, contracting with a spirit was usually considered a blessing when a child turned ten.
There were more instances when a spirit could not even be a childhood memory for ordinary people. Therefore, it was natural that even if you heard what spirit someone had signed, you couldn’t remember.
Dimitri’s face was stiff with tension. He noticed why Asha brought it up. Asha took another step closer. Dimitri took a step back and spoke hastily.
“I, I’ve never made a rain cloud, not a drop of water.”
“It’s because you’ve never thought about making it.”
“I have thought about it!”
Dimitri exclaimed in a hushed voice, his voice filled with desperation.
“Since I first saw the fire with you earlier…! I kept thinking…!”
There was an intense yearning in Dimitri’s voice. He had fervently wished for it, but even so, he couldn’t create a single drop of dew. At that moment, Phoebe chirped from Asha’s shoulder.
<How does it sound to go swimming in the mountains?>
“Then what do you do?”
<It’s pointless to try using the power of water for the first time without even touching water.>
Asha’s eyes opened wide. She snatched Dimitri’s hand.
“Let’s go, Dimitri.”
“Oh, where?”
“To the bathroom.”
“What, what did you say?”
