Dahlia in Bloom: Crafting a Fresh Start With Magical Tools Volume 6 (eBook)

Hisaya Amagishi (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2023
250 Seiten
Distributed By PublishDrive (Verlag)
978-1-7183-8108-7 (ISBN)

Infos

Dahlia's quiet evening with Volf gets interrupted when a rain-soaked Marcella appears at her front gate pleading for help. Not all problems can be remedied with mere words, and Dahlia must fly into the face of danger now that lives are on the line. She may have the mettle to fight and the savvy to use her new noble connections, but this new project requires an extra pair of hands: someone with magic compatible with her own. Who will her partner be? How will they work together? Progress and farewells await in the sixth installment of Dahlia's artisanal adventures!

Textauszug

“What happened to Irma?! Is she okay?!”

“She’s pregnant, Dahlia. But she ain’t doin’ so hot. She’s in danger.” When Marcella finally raised his head, he showed everyone how terribly red his eyes were.

Dahlia handed him a towel. “What is her condition?”

Still dripping wet, he refused the offer to go upstairs and instead sat on the stone steps. It was only after firmly pressing the towel against his eyes that he spoke again. “Remember how Irma couldn’t get down the steps when the four of us got together for dinner last time?”

“Right, the summer festival...” She distinctly remembered how Marcella had had to carry Irma home in his arms. That was nearly three weeks ago, and Dahlia hadn’t seen Irma since; the only exchange they had had was through letters, and Irma had said she had her hands full. Dahlia had assumed she meant that business was good, but it seemed like that assumption was incorrect.

“Yeah. Afterwards, it was obvious that something was up. She felt nauseous, but brushed it off as having eaten too much or caught a cold or somethin’. But it didn’t get better, and so I dragged her to the docs, who said she was with child. At first, we couldn’t have been happier, but then it got harder and harder for her to move...”

“Is Irma still with the doctors right now?”

“No. They couldn’t do nothin’ about it, so she’s at the temple.”

“The temple? Can the priests use healing magic to cure her morning sickness?”

“It’s no morning sickness. It’s hypermageia. The baby’s magic is too powerful, and they said Irma’s body can’t handle it.”

“What?!” She was taken aback. Hypermageia could lead to difficulty in breathing or even cardiac arrest. Dahlia had heard that if the magic got out of control, it could cause burns or frostbite as well. It was supposed to be something that happened to nobility, and only very rarely at that. Why, then, would it affect Irma? “How did that happen? Irma only has grade two magic. How much do you have, Marcella?”

“Fourteen...”

“Hm?” For a moment, she thought she’d heard wrong. Fourteen was way more than what Dahlia had as the daughter of a noblewoman and a magical toolmaker. Fourteen was at the level of high-ranking nobility—something that almost never occurred in common folk. Someone with that much magic could get a full ride through mage school.

“Is that maybe, uh, a case of late-blooming magic?” Volf asked hesitantly.

Marcella cast his gaze to the ground. “Yeah. I started with grade four magic, but after nearly frickin’ dyin’ in a carriage crash when I was seventeen, my magic shot way up. That’s when I learned that my old lady and old man were actually my aunt and uncle. My birth mother worked in the red-light district and my birth father was probably some noble, but who knows.”

“Marcella...”

“Volf, Dahlia, you two ever thought it was weird how a guy like me is named Marcella?” There seemed to be a shadow over his smile. In Ordine, “Marcello” was typically the masculine and “Marcella” the feminine form of the name, but the pattern was only that—typical—and so Dahlia had never thought twice about it. He continued, “Well, it’s because I got the name from my mother. She chose it in case my father were ever to come looking for either of us. Not that it means much.”

“Marcella, is your mother...” But she didn’t need to finish her sentence.

“She didn’t survive the childbirth ’cause I was quite premature, they said. Maybe it was a case of hypermageia too...” Marcella’s pained words dripped onto the floor along with the rainwater. “Before we got married, the doctors told us that we wouldn’t be able to have a kid together because we’re more than ten grades apart, but now...”

“I see...” Irma had said that having a kid wasn’t in her plans, citing the fact that work was so busy and she had to pay back the loan she’d taken to build the salon. Despite knowing how much she loved children, Dahlia had understood that Irma wanted to put work first.

“The priests are healing her with magic, but she’s not keeping any food down. She also hasn’t been able to move her fingers for three days—they became rock hard. Why did my kid have to have my useless earth magic?” In place of his usual unfailing smile, he wore teary eyes. Marcella stood up, bit his lip, and bowed. “Please, Dahlia, convince Irma to give up on the child instead of her own life! No matter what I say or how I beg, she won’t listen to me, but maybe she’ll listen to you. I know I’m scum for asking this of you, but please, for Irma’s sake...”

“Marcella...” Instead of acknowledging him, Dahlia turned to Volf.

He nodded. “I’ll go fetch us a carriage to the temple. Dahlia, you go get ready to leave.”

“Thank you, Volf. Marcella, let’s go to the temple together and I’ll talk to Irma.”

“Thank you, you two, thank you...” The rain struck even harder, drowning out all their voices. Marcella bowed again, looking smaller than ever.

The carriage headed northeast towards the castle where the temple was located. In this world, a temple was a large complex, something between a church and a forum of Dahlia’s previous world. Its walls were made of some kind of white crystal that glimmered in the noon sun; a dark, rainy night like tonight did little for it. Dahlia had thought that their destination would’ve been the Hall of Healing, but Marcella directed the driver to stop at the small entrance beside. That was where they provided palliative and end-of-life care, and it was where the mortuary was as well.

Dahlia tensed up as she crossed the threshold into the building—she hadn’t been here since Carlo’s funeral. Volf, beside her, had an obvious frown as well. They continued down a corridor with gray walls and a darker gray floor, then the three of them greeted a priest sitting down in a chair. The man had a sympathetic look on his face and seemed to recognize Marcella. Then, at the back of the building, a white door came into view.

“Irma’s in this room,” Marcella said. “Sorry, Dahlia, but—”

“It’s okay, Marcella, I understand. Let me talk to her for a bit,” she said, preventing him from finishing his sentence. He nodded.

“I’ll be in the waiting room with Marcella. Hang a right at the end of the hall and you’ll find us.”

“Okay, and, um...thanks,” she replied.

“Of course.” It was hard for her to ask him to take care of Marcella, but Volf seemed to have read her mind.

Dahlia took a deep breath and slowly cracked the door open. “Irma?” She got an answer immediately.

“I’m giving birth.” Irma, wrapped around in a blanket, was already getting up from her bed in the middle of the room. By her feet was a large tub. She had shrunken, her face was as pale as paraffin, and all redness was gone from her lips. Her usual shiny tea-colored hair was dull and pale, as if she had aged fifty years.

“Hey! I haven’t even said anything yet.”

“I bet Marcella told you to come persuade me. But I’m not going to listen, you know? I’m giving birth to this child no matter what.”

“I knew you’d say that...” Dahlia knew her friend well and had known her answer even before coming here. What she hadn’t expected was how hoarse Irma’s voice was. “Do you know how much magic you have?”

“I had two originally, I’m up to eight now with this child in me. Pretty amazing, huh?” She placed her hands on her belly and laughed, only to immediately bend over and throw up into the tub; out came little else but blood-tinged water. The fingers grasping the tub looked like they had light brown crystals stuck to them. Her child’s power was probably activating the earth magic.

Dahlia rushed to the bedside table to pour a cup of water, then brought it to Irma, who gargled with it between grasps of air.

“Thanks. Don’t worry, Dahlia. I just have to put up with this for a few more months.” Irma’s wan smile didn’t make a convincing case that she could last that long. “You’ve been busy, haven’t you? Are you handling work okay?”

“I’m not that busy, especially not since I have Ivano handling the business side of things. No overtime at our company either.” Dahlia didn’t want Irma to worry about her, not right now.

Irma stared back with sunken eyes. “Hey, Dahlia? Are you and Volf really not dating?”

“We’re really not. Just friends. Why do you ask?” Dahlia wondered if Irma was just trying to change the subject, to distract Dahlia from trying to persuade her. She walked closer to Irma so she didn’t have to strain her voice.

“Can I ask you for a favor?”

“Ask away.”

“It’s something only you can do for me...” Irma’s eyes fluttered as she grasped Dahlia with her cold, hard, bony fingers. “Dahlia, if anything happens to me, I want you and Marcella to—”

“Don’t even joke about it, Irma!” The words escaped her lips as a scream. “You’re going to get better, and you, Marcella, and your baby are going to be happily together forever! And that’s how it’s going to be!”

“It would be nice to believe that.”

Hearing her friend so defeated, so resigned to her fate, made Dahlia want...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 27.2.2023
• Reihe/Serie: Dahlia in Bloom: Crafting a Fresh Start with Magical Tools
• Reihe/Serie: Dahlia in Bloom: Crafting a Fresh Start with Magical Tools
• Illustrationen: Hisaya Amagishi
• Übersetzer: Hisaya Amagishi
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Fantasy / Science Fiction ► Fantasy
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• Schlagworte: Fantasy • female protagonist • Isekai • Light Novel • Magic • Reincarnation • Romance
• ISBN-10: 1-7183-8108-5 / 1718381085
• ISBN-13: 978-1-7183-8108-7 / 9781718381087