Gardenia’s Heart

Even with her wife speaking such words playfully, Lily couldn’t help but be alarmed.

“Wait, a page from the book!? Here!?” she asked, agitated.

“Yes, I’m certain. It’s resonating with me the same way it did when we found the Guardian.” Nia held the torn sheet firmly, examining it from multiple angles. “Since it’s only a single page, I didn’t feel anything until I got close—but yes, it’s definitely from the book.”

She confirmed again with excitement, still waving it cheerfully above her head.

As her body was being jostled, Lily finally understood why Nia was covering her eyes. If this was truly a page from the Book of Truth, even a glimpse could be dangerous. Nia was making sure her wife wouldn’t be exposed to it.

“Wait, you know which book that came from? Tell me where I can find the rest!”

Elarielle’s loud voice filled the room.

“Sister, what’s going on!?”

Unlike the queen, Thelira—whose vision had been suddenly covered—asked in panic.

“Listen to me, Thelira. Keep your eyes covered, no matter what, until I say otherwise, okay?” Elarielle made sure her sister nodded several times in agreement before gently pulling her hands away.

Once she was confident Thelira wouldn’t open her eyes, Elarielle leapt over the scrolls scattered across the floor and quickly reached Nia.

“Can you look at that without pain?” she asked cautiously, her gaze fixed on the back of Nia’s head, careful not to let the page fall into her line of sight.

The tone in the high elf’s voice made Lily blink in surprise. Unlike before, there was no anger in her words—just a sudden shock. It was as if a volcano that had just erupted in fury was instantly buried in snow and ice.

“Nia has no trouble with things like this,” Lily answered, resigning herself to continuing the conversation with her wife’s thighs still pressed against her face.

“But how is that even possible? Just looking at that paper gives me a splitting headache—and when I tried to read it, the pain spread through my whole body,” Elarielle replied, her voice growing more agitated. “I even had a royal guard try reading it to see if the effect was selective or race-based, but he collapsed after just a few words and remained in a coma for an entire month.”

Lily flinched slightly at the queen’s words.

She remembered clearly how Nox had warned her that even attempting to read from the book could drive people to madness or delirium—and that was in the best cases.

“You mentioned earlier about finding the rest, didn’t you?”

Knowing the conversation wouldn’t go anywhere by debating Nia’s immunity, Lily pressed on despite her muffled voice.

“So the elves don’t have the other pages?”

The questions piling up without answers made Elarielle bite her lip. She opened her mouth to question Nia again, but quickly closed it, hesitating for a moment before reluctantly responding.

“A few days before our mother passed away, she called me into her chambers and entrusted me with all of her research. It seems she had been secretly searching for a way to develop a cure for Thelira’s condition for a long time,” Elarielle said quietly, taking a breath before glancing toward her sister. “Among all her efforts, this page held the formula she believed—more than anything—could truly heal her.”

“Wait, Sister—coma? Pain? I never knew any of this!”

As if a conversation too absurd to be real was unfolding before her—without her opinion mattering—Thelira, still with her eyes covered, stumbled toward her sister’s voice, bumping into several valuable tools and scrolls along the way.

“Since when have people been suffering because of me without my knowledge!?”

The fury in Thelira’s voice startled both women.

”Don’t worry, the guard has already recovered, and I gave him proper financial compensation.”

Placing one hand over her face, Elarielle clenched her teeth while staring at the ground.

”Since then, I’ve been the only one reading the book, I swear. It gives me a bit of a headache and some pain, but as long as I don’t overdo it, it’s nothing worse than what I endured during the war.”

”That’s not the point!” The high elf’s voice began to tremble. ”Just the fact that you’ve been going to dangerous places to collect the ingredients was already bad enough, and now you’re telling me you’ve been reading something that puts people into comas, and expect me to treat it like it’s normal?”

Thelira clenched her hands even tighter as if trying to strangle the absurdity she was hearing.

”It’s like you just confessed to drinking poison for years, and when I find out, you casually add that it tastes sweet!”

Each of her words felt like knives piercing Elarielle’s chest, and she could only blame herself for causing all of this. Even if she was the leader of the kingdom, expected to stand strong before the elders, the army, and the people, the one being scolded now wasn’t the queen or the hero—it was the only family that girl had left.

”I... I’m sorry...”

Approaching Thelira, Elarielle wrapped both arms around her and pulled her close. As she felt the girl’s trembling body, she finally understood why her mother had kept what she was doing hidden from them all these years.

As the warmth of her sister spread through her body, Thelira took a deep breath to calm herself. She knew her words wouldn’t stop the hero from being reckless in the future, but at least in that moment, her sister had admitted her mistake—and that was enough.

”According to her notes, it’s an antidote capable of treating any kind of mana abnormality. As you’ve seen, we only have this one page.”

Turning to Lily, Elarielle—still holding her sister close to her chest—spoke in a softer tone.

Lily, who had listened silently to the entire exchange between the sisters, took a moment before replying. She understood just how dangerous reading the Book of Truth was—and knowing that Elarielle did it constantly to protect her sister was not something she could treat lightly.

”How much information were you able to get from the page?” Lily asked.

”Our mother completed most of the analysis herself, and I continued it from there. The page doesn’t follow a single language—if that’s even the right way to put it. Symbols from different cultures were blended together for a purpose. It’s as if each line was written in an entirely different system. It took time, but I managed to identify the names of all the ingredients listed and how to prepare them. But the location... that was different.”

Elarielle replied, her eyes scanning the materials scattered across the room with an exhausted expression.

”While it perfectly lists the locations of each ingredient down to the smallest detail, the way the page was torn makes it impossible to find where the last one can be found. The...”

”Amberdrop.”

The voice that echoed through the room didn’t belong to any of the three girls.

Eyes wide, Elarielle snapped her head toward the top of Lily’s head. Ignoring her own warnings, she tried to spot the page that was now being held by a certain someone—or rather, she tried.

Running her tongue slowly along her lips, Nia let herself slide down from Lily’s head, only to end up cradled securely in her wife’s arms. Both of her now-empty hands wrapped around Lily’s neck, seeking the most comfortable spot to rest her head.

”Wait—where’s the recipe!?”

Without even blinking, Elarielle rushed toward the purple-haired girl, her eyes scanning her frantically, trying to find where she might’ve hidden the page.

”You already memorized everything on it, didn’t you, Miss Hero?” Nia yawned, resting lazily against Lily’s shoulder. ”Besides, I still haven’t forgiven you for attacking us earlier, so I’ll be keeping it as compensation.”

“What?!”

Elarielle couldn’t believe what she was hearing—no, she outright refused to accept what her brain had just concluded the girl had done with the page.

“Y-You... you didn’t...” As her face paled and a chill ran down her spine, Elarielle felt a hand gently placed on her shoulder.

“Looks like this time, you’ve lost, Sister.” Thelira gave her a few reassuring pats, shaking her head with a fake look of sorrow on her face, though her lips twitched as if holding back laughter.

Now that her line of sight was clear, Lily watched the stunned queen being comforted by her sister. A vein visibly twitched on Elarielle’s forehead, but the disbelief at what had just happened, combined with everything else so far, left her completely paralyzed.

Lowering her gaze, Lily gently shifted her arms to let Nia settle into a more comfortable position. Her wife, wearing a triumphant smile, seemed quite satisfied with having obtained the page—and didn’t hesitate for a second before consuming it.

With no choice but to laugh at the absurdity of it all, Lily found herself deep in thought again.

Despite their differences, now that things had come this far, there was no reason to keep information about the book secret anymore. The fact that the former queen only had a single page instead of the entire Book of Truth likely meant she hadn’t obtained it whole. Perhaps she had found it separately—or received it from someone else.

At first, Lily had considered the labyrinth Thelira had discovered through her precognition. But if that were the case, the former queen would have the entire book, not just a page. Besides, if Amberdrop was located inside the labyrinth, then she would have already acquired it, and wouldn’t still be searching for it.

“Our goal in the labyrinth is to find one of the volumes of that book.” Clearing her throat to catch the sisters’ attention, Lily spoke up again. “We’re not entirely sure it’s there, but we have enough reason to believe it’s worth searching for.”

“Wait—one of the volumes? So there’s more than one?” Elarielle asked, crossing her arms.

“Yes. We already have two of them.”

Lily’s hand unconsciously moved to Nia’s blushing cheek. Her words reminded her that they were already a third of the way there. She didn’t fully understand how the Book of Truth had given her wife a mind of her own—but that didn’t matter. If finding all the volumes meant keeping Nia safe, then that’s exactly what she would do.

“Right... You elves also live much longer than humans, don’t you?” A thought struck her. “The books were written by a mage named Sylvan. Have either of you ever met her?”

Aside from Nox, Lily had never met anyone else who knew of the author. But if one of the elves—whose lifespans far exceeded those of humans—had encountered her at some point, it might finally give her more insight into the goal the guardian had spoken of: finding true magic.

“Sylvan?” Elarielle brought a hand to her chin, then let out a sarcastic laugh.

“Never heard of her.”

Lily blinked, startled.

“Someone told me she lived during the war era and was once known as the greatest mage in the world!” the silver-haired girl insisted, her voice rising.

“Tsk. If someone that powerful really existed back then, I wish she had helped us during the war.” Elarielle clicked her tongue and waved her hand dismissively.

Lily turned her gaze from Elarielle to Thelira, but as if a second bucket of cold water had been poured over her, the other girl shook her head as well.

“I’m sorry, Miss Lily, but I’ve never heard that name either.”

Lily struggled to process what she was hearing. Her mind raced back through her conversation with the guardian, trying to determine if she had misunderstood something.

Her talk with Nox had confirmed that Sylvan’s name had been erased from human history—but she never imagined the same would be true for the other races. With so little information, Lily hadn’t even begun to uncover what had really happened to her.

Nox hadn’t mentioned where she went or what had happened after he took over responsibility for the Stardust Spring Labyrinth. To begin with, Lily didn’t even know whether Sylvan was alive or dead—nor if she was human or belonged to some other race.

As the girl pondered intensely, still happily rubbing against her wife’s shoulder, Nia—who had been listening in silence—turned her gaze toward Elarielle.

“Do you recognize someone referred to as the Archmage?”

At those words, both elves raised their eyebrows.

“Where did you... hear that name?” Elarielle stammered.

“I heard it when I faced the fifth Twilight,” Nia replied indifferently, causing Elarielle to tense even more.

The metamorph remembered her battle with Orlaith. The moment the demon realized that Nia was unraveling her stigmas using magic similar to the innate ability of the guardian, she immediately assumed someone known as the Archmage was involved.

“Hey...” Elarielle slowly approached, almost pressing her face against the girl’s, her emerald eyes locked deep into Nia’s crimson ones. “You encountered one of the Twilights and you’re still alive? Don’t joke about something like that.”

“Sister—!” Thelira tried to intervene, but was immediately stopped by a single raised hand.

“Stay out of this, Thelira,” Elarielle said, eyes still fixed on the purple-haired girl. “Only those who’ve fought one of those abominations can understand how powerful they are. Hundreds of our soldiers died just buying time against one of those bastards.”

Her words were cold, though slightly trembling—as if that coldness was her way of holding back the anger starting to burn in her chest.

“But that’s what happened,” Nia said with a shrug. “I don’t care whether you believe me or not.”

Seeing no point in continuing the conversation, Nia simply turned back to rest against Lily’s body. Watching the gesture, Elarielle clenched her teeth and shifted her attention to the girl holding her.

“Is that true?” she asked.

“Though I can’t go into too much detail, yes, we found ourselves in a situation where we had to confront one of those demons while in Anthus. From what we learned, she was using her magic to control a person as a host while still remaining in Finis. Nia used one of her portals to strike her in her lab, but we couldn’t confirm whether we actually killed her—since we never found her body,” Lily answered cheerfully, unconcerned whether the woman in front of her believed her or not, gently petting her wife’s head, whose only real concern at the moment was snuggling closer to her.

Seeing that, Elarielle took a few steps back and leaned against a nearby table.

“Demons in Anthus... and of all of them, The Soul Engraver.” Bringing a hand to her mouth, Elarielle began nervously biting a nail.

“That’s new—I thought you’d say we were lying,” Lily commented, barely hiding her surprise.

“The magic you described is definitely something that Twilight possesses. Orlaith was one of the biggest threats during the war. The demon army was able to coordinate its attacks with the monsters from Finis because of her. She always stayed hidden, never appeared on the front lines, and we never found the location of her laboratory,” Elarielle said, pulling her finger away from her mouth and letting out a long sigh. “Besides, it’s not a matter of whether I believe you or not. War doesn’t run on easily confirmed truths. If I, as queen, were to ignore information just because it’s hard to accept, I wouldn’t be able to protect my people.”

The way the golden-haired girl spoke nearly made Lily whistle in admiration.

“Aren’t you afraid we could be demon spies?” she asked.

“Are you trying to provoke me or something? First, you insist you’re not demons, and now you’re asking that?” Elarielle ran a hand through her hair, loosening her ponytail. “Thelira already said she trusts you. I don’t know what the two of you really are, but at the very least, I’m certain you’re not working with the demons.”

Elarielle’s gaze shifted to Thelira, who placed both hands over her heart before offering a faint smile.

After thinking for a moment longer, the queen stepped closer to the girls once again.

“Hey, you used a portal to reach Orlaith, right? Can you still do that?” Elarielle asked.

“Didn’t you hear what Lily said? I can’t go there anymore.” Nia waved her hand dismissively, mirroring the same gesture the queen had made earlier. “She set up a sensory barrier and erased all the coordinates I had.”

Clicking her tongue again, Elarielle rubbed her forehead with her fingers.

“Alright, I won’t press that further. Now, about what she asked earlier,” Elarielle continued, nodding toward Nia with her chin. “It’s not that we don’t recognize the title of Archmage, but…”

As she trailed off and looked away, Lily tilted her head slightly, puzzled.

Stepping forward, Thelira positioned herself in front of her sister. For some reason, she too seemed unsure of how to put her thoughts into words.

“Miss Lily, I’m not sure how the demon Miss Gardenia mentioned could know about this, but... the Archmage is just a children’s tale we tell the little ones.”