“My Lady!” William said, looking at me. “You look unwell.”

  “Good, at least the inner and outer match,” I said. “Because I also feel unwell.”

  Perhaps it was lame, but the world was slightly spinning. Alyssa set me onto one of the children's beds. I was just so tired, ugh, who knew one spell could be so draining. I just wanted to sleep.

  Looking up, I saw another woman staring at me. “With respect, we would please like for you to inform us what you did.”

  William looked curious as well.

  I smiled. “Just a healing spell. Took a bit more of my mana than I realized. But look, the child. She stopped coughing.”

  The sister turned to look at the child and went over to speak with Mel.

  Alyssa pressed her head against mine. She was super warm. She also touched my neck.

  “She’s cold. Low pulse as well. Get Lady Evelyn. I will protect her,” Alyssa said.

  “I just need a nap, then-”

  “No, I’m afraid I can’t allow that, my Lady,” she said, pushing me back upright.

  I just wanted to shut my eyes for a moment. Oh, whatever, I would simply use her as a pillow then. Suddenly, she was slapping my cheeks.

  “Quit it already, would ya?” I said. She was starting to get me mad.

  “Oh, all the,” Lady Evelyn came into the door in a rush. She had a bowl in front of her. It smelled familiar. “Take a bite.”

  “Hmph.” She pushed a spoon past my lips, and I realized this was half-cooked rations. “Ah, gross. Why-”

  “Swallow, now.”

  She was scary when she talked like that. I gulped down the lukewarm filling and the mildly crunchy outside. Oh, wow, it was like a slight warmth began glowing inside me. She wasn’t satisfied until I ate everything in the bowl she had brought, even though it was super gross.

  The fire in my belly grew a bit, and I was beginning to wake up a bit. Why was I so sleepy, I wondered? I took a deep breath. “That felt weird… ouch!”

  Lady Evelyn pinched my cheek. “What on this earth possessed you to try magic! Oh, all the stupid things. Weren’t you explicitly told not to use magic until the academy?”

  “I-”

  “No. That wasn’t a question. I’m not done shouting yet. And you,” she turned to face Alyssa. She then clenched her fists. “Arg! I guess you couldn’t have known. But now you do! Lady Julia hasn’t learned to control her magic yet! Don’t let her use magic!”

  Alyssa tapped her chest. “Understood, my Lady.”

  Lady Evelyn took a few deep breaths before looking at me. “Okay. All I want to know is if this explanation can wait until we get back to our inn? Yes or no?”

  “Yes, I-”

  She pressed her finger against her lips. “Save it.”

  “Okay. Can I stand up now? Two people feel like too much on this bed.”

  “No, you cannot. I sent William to get some more food, once you are full! Then you can get up. Okay?”

  I nodded. “But why?”

  “Lady Evelyn, I think it is almost time,” a sister near the door said.

  “Can you handle this, Alyssa? Explaining what she did wrong is fine,” Lady Evelyn said.

  Alyssa nodded and looked at me. “So you aren’t familiar with mana sleep?”

  I shook my head. “Not at all.”

  “Mana sleep is a condition that happens when you use too much of your mana too quickly. Your body gets cold super quickly, your mental state becomes silly and unfocused, and finally, you feel an intense desire to sleep. When you sleep in that state, sometimes your heart stops. It is a frightening condition.”

  I felt a chill in my heart and instantly got scared. “You’re saying I could have died!”

  “I don’t think so,” she said as she pressed a bit of her forehead against mine again. “Much warmer already. Mana sleep can be fatal, but it isn’t in all cases; it presents itself very similarly at first, which is why it is always taken seriously. But if half a ration can get you awake. It wasn’t a serious case.”

  “They weren’t even fully cooked. So gross!” I said as I wanted to scratch my tongue, but I wasn’t confused enough to consider that.

  Alyssa giggled a bit. “Another good sign. I hear that with severe mana sleep, you will eat leaves like they are mom’s home cooking. That was an intense spell, but I guess, you probably can’t say anything about it, can you?”

  I shook my head. “At least, I know I should talk to Lady Evelyn first.”

  William came rushing in, holding various pieces of food on sticks. But he brought an absurd number of them. They looked like flower arrangements, just with food. One type was roasted meat, and it smelled amazing. Another was roasted vegetables. And lastly, he had one crape. The children seemed to notice, but the sisters began pushing them outside.

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  “Here,” William said, handing me two of the sticks. I took a bite of the meat one.

  “Delicious!” I said. I didn’t need to be told to eat. I was really hungry. I wasn’t sure what kind of meat it was, but it was juicy and came off the stick with just my teeth. I went through two sticks of meat and one for veggies, but I still wasn’t feeling full. “This… but… my stomach isn’t even that big?” I asked.

  “It is another factor. Your body is burning through it extremely quickly. The first time I got mana sleep, I ate eight meat sticks myself,” Alyassa said.

  I couldn’t stop eating. I just wanted more. “Wait, you got mana sickness?” I asked between bites.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Obviously, we try to avoid it, but in training, it can be tough to know your limits. It is pretty common. And even mild mana sickness can lead to you getting sleepy. How much food you need is the best way to determine how serious it was.”

  “If my uncle is to be believed, he once had mana sickness so bad, he ate an entire boar by himself,” William said as he handed me another meatstick.

  “That smells good,” a voice said. I realized it was the little girl I healed.

  Suddenly, I felt satisfied. I stood up, and both Alyssa and William seemed worried, but I felt fine now. I ripped a piece of meat and handed it to the little girl. She happily bit into it. She coughed a bit until she drank some water.

  “That was really good! Thank you, lady!” she said. I thought she might have been tempted to stand, but she lay back down and looked at me with curiosity. “Are you a princess?”

  “Huh? Oh no! I’m not anything like that,” I said.

  “Your dress looks like the princess from my storybook,” she said. She reached under her bed and pulled out what looked like a thin wooden board. Alyssa took it and handed it to me.

  It opened and had some parchment inside. She did say “book”, but I had never seen a book this small before. I couldn’t read every word, but I recognized the word princess. That was in Lady Evelyn’s notes, which she wanted me to learn. The book actually didn’t have many words. Instead, there were a lot of pictures, and the princess did have a dress like mine. But it wasn’t that different than the dress the Malatise ladies wore.

  Even Lady Evelyn almost had a dress as good. “I can see what you mean. I know a few people who have dresses even better than mine.”

  “Really! Are they a princess?” she asked.

  I was pretty sure they weren’t. “I don’t know, but if I ever meet a princess. I will tell them to come meet you, okay? But you should probably get some rest.”

  She took her book back, tucked it under her pillow, and rolled over. I meanwhile ate my crape, and with that I officially felt full.

  “Three meat sticks, two vegetable sticks, and one crape,” William said.

  “And half a portion of rations,” Alyssa added. “Pretty tame.”

  “Please be more careful, my Lady! If you die, we will be blamed,” William said.

  I looked down. “Sorry.”

  Lady Evelyn came in. “Is she full yet?”

  I nodded.

  “No need to waste the meat and vegetables. Take it to the kitchen. We are getting ready to serve lunch, plus. This room looks empty. You, child, are you asleep?”

  The child I healed leaned out of bed. “No ma’am.”

  “Head to the cafeteria,” she said.

  The girl grabbed a little piece of cloth, stuffed with something, and tied with a string. She held it close as she slowly left. William followed her.

  “Alyssa, no one enters.”

  “Understood,” Alyssa said as she stood outside the door. This place had two ways in, but Lady Evelyn was clearly looking at that one.

  “Explain. What did you do? Why did you break such an obvious rule? You do realize you could have died, right?”

  My stomach twisted a bit at the idea. I also realized that I wasn’t full anymore. Not hungry, but how could my body handle so much food! I shook my head. “I know that now. I, well. I met a goddess.”

  “Huh?” Evelyn asked.

  I explained how we prayed, and while praying, a goddess named Frauenleben spoke to my mind. She told me it would be okay this one time, and the child was definitely going to die without my help.

  “What would you have done? Could you have healed her? Or maybe someone from the capital?” I asked.

  Lady Evelyn just flopped back onto the bed, laughing. “What do I even say to that? But no, I didn’t have a spell good enough to heal the kid. So, it is you that the gods speak to. I… oh to hell with it. Stille Verursachen!”

  It was like a soap bubble formed around the two of us. It was eerie, and I couldn’t hear the birds chirping anymore.

  “It is a silence spell. A more advanced version. First. I’ll tell the sisterhood you healed the child. I’ll withhold the mana sleep part. I need to tell William about your lack of mana control. Please consult me next time!”

  “I will,” I said, fiddling with my fingers.

  She hugged me. “Julia. I have never had a student like you before. But that is sort of a given. You are a Maiden. I’m not trying to remind you of your duty. I just mean, like I get it. Maidens are in storybooks and legends alike. And they are said to be the best of us. I tutor noble children, who are meant to grow up into something similar. But you really are in a class all your own, Julia.”

  I blushed. “I… only did what anyone would have.”

  “I wouldn’t have,” she said, looking down. “I’m not trying to say I’m a bad person or anything. But I was perfectly fine with just doing what I could. I wanted to stop here to donate food. Some of my rations were going to expire, and children near winter always struggle. But it isn’t like I couldn’t do more.”

  What do I say to that? I… it wasn’t like she had to be the same as me. She had clearly seen a lot more of this world. “I… coming here to donate food is nice.”

  She smirked. “You don’t need to make me feel better, Julia. I wasn’t feeling that bad, actually. Just, Maidens aren’t chosen every generation. I always thought the idea that they were these pure vessels who did only good things was just a story. Life isn’t as nice. Plus, if I were writing their story, I would write it like that. Regardless of how good they actually were. Yet, here you are.”

  She paused and began laughing even harder.

  “What!” I shouted. It felt like she was laughing at me.

  “You didn’t even read the storybooks! So you didn’t even know! So you were copying other Maidens, talking to gods, and healing children, even though you didn’t know that was what they did! I’m far too used to people who fake things for profit. To think I would get to teach a Maiden.”

  I just pursed my lips. I didn’t appreciate being compared to storybooks I had never seen. I just… wanted to be a village girl.

  She stood up. “I just understand now: why the gods answer some prayers but not others. So, don’t tell the knights about talking to a goddess. Also, things will be much easier after your debut, because then we can let them know your status. For now, just try and act the foreign noble bit as best you can. But enough of this, you are likely gonna be feeling a mana load soon. We should prepare you for that.”

  “Wait. Mana load?” I asked as another chill went down my spine.