Before he met Ygraine, Bosha had never loved anyone. He had never expressed his love to anyone. Buying his men drinks was the extent of his affection for others.

So it wasn't easy for him to realize. What state he was in and what he wanted to do?

From a certain moment, whenever he closed his eyes, he could picture Ygraine. What her eyes looked like, what her nose looked like, how her lips moved when she spoke or laughed, how her hair blew in the wind, and what direction it went.

No matter how much he thought about it, he realized that the image he had drawn wasn't the real Ygraine, and he wanted to find out what that difference was so badly, that it felt more urgent than anything else in the world. He wanted to jump out of his seat and find her right now.

But when he saw her, his head would bow as if he had a knife to his throat, his steps would be heavy as if he had shackles on his ankles, and his speech would slur as if he had a tumor in his mouth. Bosha always wondered…

"Why did I point my sword at her?

Bosha couldn't understand his past self; the regret, the guilt. It seemed to make him feel strange. So Bosha said to Ygraine, "I will never point my sword at you again. I swear it. I will be your sword and your shield.

And Ygrainne smiled and replied, "I need neither sword nor shield."

Upon hearing those words, Bosha felt as if a sword had been thrust into his heart and a shield had hit his head.

He could not be Ygraine's sword or shield. As he thought about it, he felt like he was a rolling stone or twig. A huge lump formed in his chest as if a coiled snake t had settled there. To release the lump, Bosha ran through Cyros and was struck dead by the witch's clone. He died with pride. For once, he thought, he had become the sword of Ygraine.

However, it was a death filled with self-satisfaction.

Edulis now felt as if he had been swallowed by the belly of the beast. The more Laotou talked, the more his stomach seemed to fill with gastric juices.

I should have been there. In Sijia, in Ascidia, in Mastaba, where Ygraine had met her end, alone, in the blackness of the unknown!

I shouldn't have made her lonely...

"Edulis! Edulis!" Aruru bounced on Edulis's shoulder. "Edulis, how dare you doze off in front of the great Laotou!"

With that, Aruru nipped at Edulis's ear, but Edulis didn't flinch. Edulis stared at the thing that Laotou held, the heart of Ygraine.

It was like an apple made of silver. A white bud sprouted from the top.

"Edulis!"

"Laotou. If I gather the scattered pieces of Lutea, will that heart beat again?"

As Edulis spoke, Laotou nodded. Edulis remembered the white ball of magick inside him. He had lost it in his fight with Tibea. The fragment of Lutea that Edulis had been born with had been scattered into thin air after saving the people.

Could it be that he didn't have enough of it to bring Lutea back to life? Edulis asked, and Laotou answered.

"Not at all. You just need a certain amount of shards. Then, just like firewood, Lutea's presence will grow and grow, and she will regain her original form. But..."

Edulis wanted to run out of the forest to find Lutea's fragment right then and there, and his legs were tingling from the effort of suppressing it.

"There are two problems," Laotao said.

"Problems?"

"The first is that Granadilla knows about it, and she's been looking for pieces of Lady Lutea, breaking them or contaminating them."

Edulis frowned. "And the second?"

"The second... is that I won't be much help in finding Lutea's shards," Laotou said, bowing her head.

"If this bud withers... Lady Lutea will never be able to be resurrected. So I'm using almost all of my magick to maintain this bud, though even that will soon reach its limit..."

"I see." Edulis stood up and stroked the back of Laotou's head. What else could he say to the creature that had guarded the heart of Lutea for eighty years?

"You've done a good job, Laotou. Leave it to me now. I'll do something about it."

"I'm sorry...you came to me, but there's nothing I can do."

"What do you mean there's nothing you can do? Thanks to you, I found a chance for Lutea to live, and I found a clue to what happened after I died. You've helped me a lot."

Just then, Aruru shouted from Edulis's shoulder. "What the hell, Edulis, aren't we in trouble?!"

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"We're not in trouble, Aruru, so stop fussing and get some sleep."

"But… Weren't you going to ask Laotou to destroy the black orb? I thought that was the plan…

"Aruru!"

That was one of the reasons Edulis had sought out Laotou. He would need Lutea's power to break the Eye of Granadilla, the black orb that binds the Fae family. An apostle with the same magic as Lutea, he thought, might be able to break the orb.

"Perhaps... you're not planning to destroy the gem? If you don't, it will devour people, and the Fey family will… Crunch! Squeak!"

Edulis roughly grabbed Aruru's body and shoved it into his pocket. Then Laotou looked up at him, eyes wide.

"The Eye of Granadilla..."

"Never mind, I can handle it."

"I can break it… I'll channel all my magick into Lady Lutea's heart, and then I'll turn what's left of my being into light so that it hits the orb..."

"Enough!" Edulis knew that's what Laotou would say, and it would end her existence. That's why he didn't mention it.

"Why didn't you say something, Bosha? If Lutea were here, she wouldn't hesitate to destroy the eye."

"Fool. Do you think the great Bosha came relying only on you? There's another way."

"What is that?!"

"Go to the sorcerers of Ascidia, they know how to deal with curses. The Black Orb wants the bodies of the six children, and we can make ritual dolls to replace them."

"Those sorcerers... were wiped out by a witch. I haven't heard of any survivors."

"I have a hunch where they might be."

"You're lying."

"I'm not lying."

"Suppose we find a sorcerer. What guarantee do you have that they're good enough to avoid the witch's curse?"

"We'll have to figure that out when we get there."

"Bosha!"

A childlike scuffle ensued.

"Bosha... I'm an apostle, and an apostle follows the teachings of Lady Lutea."

"I am Bosha. I find a way to survive. I can handle it without you."

"So... how..."

As the conversation seemed to drag on forever, Taharka stepped to Edulis's side and then spoke to him.

"May I suggest an alternative?"

Both Edulis and Laotou looked at him, puzzled.

"Bosha, maybe you can harness the power of the goddess."

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Upon hearing Taharka's words, Edulis immediately turned to Laotou.

"Is it possible for a human, not an apostle, to use the power of a goddess?"

"How would I know?" Laotou answered immediately. "No, why are you looking at me like that? Of course, I don't know. I've never been human!"

"Right."

Edulis nodded, then turned to Taharka. Taharka said.

"All humans have a bit of the goddess in them. Your white magick is proof of that. Do you know that?"

"I do."

"Abramelin, the Imperial Archmage, has written about how humans can achieve goddess-like powers. The method is this: from the bundle of magic one is born with, take only the part most similar to the aura of the goddess"

"Cut to the chase, Taharka. The monks of the kingdom already practice this but none of them have ever been able to harness white magick."

Edulis suspected that Taharka knew something. Hadn't Taharka himself wielded white magic, though it was far too turbid to be the power of a goddess?

"It can't be helped. The key is to discard. One must take only the part similar to the goddess and destroy everything else, casting it out of oneself to disperse."

"Destroy everything?"

"Yes. Do you understand how difficult that is? Magicak aura is the energy used to do magic, but it is also the way the human mind exists. The Goddess's energy is blocked by even the smallest greed, and it cannot flow. Greed, hatred, jealousy... If you can let go of all of those things, you will be able to use the Goddess's power."

Taharka was saying, simply, was to have a heart like Ygraine's. It was a teaching of Luteanism. Humans are the seeds of Lutea, so anyone can have a heart like hers. But who can live like Lutea? When you see something delicious, you want to put it in your mouth first, and when someone else has something good, you covet it.

In fact, most people don't even want to live like Lutea. Most of the people who claim to believe in Lutea's religion are just making a bunch of wishes as if Lutea owed them something.

Edulis turned to Taharka. "Taharka, have you abandoned all that? I see hatred boiling in your heart, so how can you use white magic?"

"That's the secret of the royal family. I cannot tell you."

"I must accomplish it within a month…"

"According to Abramelin, it can be accomplished in an instant, over decades, or may never be achieved."

Edulis frowned.

"How the hell does Abramelin know that, and is he even reliable in the first place?"

Then Laotou spoke up.

"Bosha, Abramelin is also one of Lutea's names..."

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Edulis sat back on the rock and closed his eyes. The sound of scurrying spiders was heard for a while. Then, his ears felt as if submerged in water.

Edulis looked at his magick. There was nothing but emptiness where the white magick had been. At its center sat the mass of Magi that Edulis had been born with, a rocky mass of mixed minerals, and the Magi that had been refined through arrangement flowed like a spring around his soul.

Discard and destroy. It was a difficult task for most people, but Edulis was confident. Aside from Ygraine, what else did he have left? No greed. No jealousy, no hatred. Only hatred for the witch.

Edulis approached the flowing magick and turned his face to it. Magi glowed with the color of forget-me-nots. A strand of hair-length white magick, mixed with the magick of Edulis' original self. He only needed to pluck a strand of hair from there and hrow the rest of it out of himself. Was that really that hard?

Like a fool scooping up a well, Edulis scooped up his magick and was about to throw it out of the boundaries of himself, when he heard a voice.

- Crawl out alive, and I'll raise you to be my heir.

'Ha, Karayan. Why do I hear her voice?

Edulis didn't understand. 'Karayan, the former leader of the Black Fangs, when was it that he was taken away from me?

- Please, I don't want to be the successor or anything!

Edulis couldn't let his Magi go. He tried to scoop it up, but he couldn't cross the boundary of himself and fell to the floor.

"I can't even throw out this much?"

It was no longer the color of forget-me-nots. ; it had become something slimy and squishy, like a chunk of rotten meat. It wriggled across the floor like a worm, and then stood up on its own two feet.

"I'm scared... I'm scared... Why did my mom and dad abandon me? Why did he do that to me..."

"I'm the descendant of a witch? Because of this red hair?"

"Fine... If you all say so... then..."

"I'll become the enemy of humanity!"

Then, his Magi took the form of a man. Red hair, and fierce glowing eyes, it was a form Edulis knew well. It held a black, crudely curved sword and approached Edulis's soul. It was Bosha.

Edulis spoke to Bosha. "Ygraine told me to love my enemies. And yet I still harbor this nonsense in my heart."

Soon, Bosha stood before Edulis who had a silver sword in his hand. Edulis muttered. "Yeah, right. Honestly, I still don't understand. Why love your enemy? If you love them, are they still an enemy?"

Edulis drew a large arc with his silver sword and Bosha, likewise, drew a large arc with his black-fanged curved sword. Wordlessly, Bosha lunged for Edulis' soul as if to claim it.

"But... didn't we agree? To pretend to understand with all our might."

Edulis spun his small body around and pushed Bosha's sword away. Then he lunged, aiming for Bosha's chest.