Chapter 56: Chapter56-The Prophecy Concerning Elizabeth
Bairon picked up the dragon scale again, cautiously holding it further from his nose to take another whiff.
It was indeed foul, redolent of a sewer that hadn't been cleaned in centuries.
"Aren't you going to vomit?" Seasoft asked, pinching her nose.
Bairon shook his head. "It doesn't smell like anything to me."
"That's impossible."
Disbelieving, Seasoft leaned her nose closer.
Seizing the moment, Bairon thrust the dragon scale nearer.
And then...
"Ugh!" Seasoft twisted her face and dashed back into the bathroom.
"Bairon!" Her voice reverberated from the bathroom, a blend of dry-heaving and furious cursing.
"Remember, don't take everyone's words at face value," Bairon admonished.
Having once again demonstrated the treacherous nature of humanity to Seasoft, Bairon returned his gaze to the dragon scale in his hand, falling into a contemplative silence.
Although the wooden box contained only a single subdragon scale, he trusted that the Church of Light hadn't deceived him.
This was the clue they had provided.
But what did a dragon scale have to do with curing Greyscale?
Bairon placed the dragon scale back into its box and went to the kitchen to wash his hands thoroughly with soap.
He then returned to the study and half-knelt beside Evelyn.
"Let me see," he said softly.
Evelyn swept aside the short strands of hair obscuring her face.
Her cheeks were marred with patches of grayish-white—a sign that the Greyscale had been arrested, but not eradicated.
Yet in an inconspicuous corner of her cheek, Bairon spotted patches of greyish-black, hard lumps.
They didn't look like dragon scales…
Bairon's eyes darkened slightly.
After confirming that Mrs. Howard's heirloom was a dragon scale, both he and Seasoft arrived at similar conjectures.
While Seasoft speculated that Mrs. Howard might be a transformed subdragon, Bairon suspected she carried a trace of Dragon bloodline.
The likelihood of this assumption was not low.
Dragons, by their very nature, enjoy crossbreeding with other species.
The resulting offspring, subdragons, have unstable bloodlines.
Over generations, these descendants would gradually lose their draconic traits, becoming increasingly similar to another species.
Therefore, as Dragons disappeared from the Röntgen Continent, beings with even a trace of Dragon bloodline have become exceedingly rare.
The last time Bairon encountered a creature with a Dragon bloodline was during a night market stroll in Sailport with Evelyn.
There, he met Ajani·Phillip, the Son of White Tower, whose mount, a Berserker Bear, was a Spellbeast with a trace of Dragon lineage.
But Evelyn likely wasn't one of them.
The grayish-brown lumps formed by Greyscale bore minimal resemblance to dragon scales.
"What are you looking at?" Seasoft reentered the study, her voice tinged with both weakness and curiosity.
"Nothing," Bairon replied, letting Evelyn's hair fall back into place.
"I think, since you're also puzzled, why not ask Miss Howard?" Seasoft suggested.
Bairon blinked, curious. "Why should I ask her?"
Seasoft gave him a look as if he were an imbecile. "It's her grandmother's heirloom, of course you should ask her. Who else would you inquire?"
Unbeknownst to Seasoft, Bairon had obtained the heirloom from the Church of Light's Saint Thane Cathedral.
Wait a moment...
Bairon's keen senses caught a whisper of something amiss, a subtle discordance in the tapestry of events that couldn't be easily ignored.
The coincidences were stacking too high for Bairon's comfort.
Anthony had just handed over the heirloom when Elizabeth appeared at his doorstep, and both came bearing information related to curing Greyscale.
Moreover, Bairon recalled arriving at Saint Thane Cathedral just as Elizabeth's carriage was departing. Another coincidence.
Rubbing his forehead, Bairon tried to shake off the unsettling feeling.
Intuition told him that some mysterious force was pulling the strings, connecting him with the Church and Elizabeth.
But despite pondering on it, he couldn't fathom what that force could be.
The cloudiness of the whole affair vexed him.
"Brother, are you alright?" Evelyn's voice pulled him from his thoughts.
He managed a smile. "I'm fine."
"You don't look it," Seasoft chimed in.
Taking a deep breath, Bairon retorted, "Seasoft, if you were a bit more clever, I could find your Divine Artifact more quickly."
"Really?" Seasoft sounded surprised.
"I never lie," Bairon responded, suddenly recalling something Elizabeth had said. "By the way, do you know of any Divine Artifacts that are particularly disagreeable?"
"Disagreeable?" Seasoft looked puzzled at first but then exclaimed, "Impossible! If it's a Divine Artifact, I could cuddle with it in bed."
"Fair enough," Bairon nodded, shifting the topic. "What's for dinner?"
"Sweet date pastries. A brand-new product from Mrs. Yarrow's bakery," Seasoft replied.
66 Maple Lane. Nightfall was near.
Leona, the maid, had just wrapped up her final chore for the day.
As she prepared to retire, her eyes fell upon the brightly lit bedroom on the second floor.
Today, another distinguished guest from the Church had arrived.
Given their close relationship, the meeting was taking place in Miss Howard's room.
Inside the bedroom, Elizabeth sat opposite a young girl with snowy white hair and sea-blue eyes, two years her junior.
Both had shed their shoes and now sat on the bed, a small table between them laden with intricate pastries and a tiny jar of honey.
"Vivian, I met him today, as you instructed," Elizabeth said, still uneasy.
The girl across from her was none other than Vivian·Tinia, the saintess of the Church of Light and a survivor of Greyscale.
Vivian nibbled on her pastries in silence, the food on her plate dwindling at an alarming rate.
Elizabeth pushed her own plate toward her.
"Aunt Leona is probably resting now, but if you'd like more, I can have them delivered to the church tomorrow," Elizabeth offered.
"I can't go to the church tomorrow," Vivian said, her voice as crisp as the morning song of a bird.
"Why?" Elizabeth inquired curiously.
Vivian looked up, her mouth full of pastry. "You should prepare yourself. The examination process this year will be different. Everything will be concluded in a single session."
"Is that also a result of your divination?" Elizabeth was visibly stunned.
"No, it's an educated guess. The Archbishop visited the White Tower today and returned in high spirits. The White Tower must have accepted my prophecy. So I speculate that the Academy's exam schedule will also be adjusted accordingly," Vivian paused, then added, "I rarely divine. Temporal Prophecy Spells can inflict significant damage on the magus who casts them."
"I'm sorry," Elizabeth apologized, "that you had to divine just so I could pass the examination."
"It's alright. The divination I performed that included you was incidental," Vivian explained. "The Archbishop is searching for a descendant with the bloodline of the First Giant King. You happened to appear in my 'Prophetic Illusion.'"
"You're joking. My life is already complicated enough, and now I'm entangled in a matter involving the First Giant King?" Elizabeth lamented.
"Wait, that's not right!" Elizabeth suddenly realized. "You never mentioned this before. What did you see in the Prophetic Illusion that made you think Sir Stewart could help me pass the exam?"
"You were wearing a wedding gown for him," Vivian said, her face expressionless.
Elizabeth shot up, exclaiming, "That's impossible! I have no plans to marry!"
"My Prophecy Spells have never been wrong," Vivian replied, enduring the sharp sound that pierced her eardrums. She continued eating her pastries silently, adding, "I knew you would lose your composure, which is why I didn't inform you in advance."
Elizabeth sank back down, dejected. "Vivian, do you know why I don't intend to marry?" She curled her knees up to her chest, burying her face in them.
Before Vivian could respond, Elizabeth answered her own question, "I don't want to pass on the family curse. It's too painful. My grandmother conducted various experiments on herself to prevent the curse from reaching me. Many people know she's a Greyscale survivor, but they don't know that she intentionally infected herself with it."
"I hold Mrs. Howard's contributions in high regard," Vivian said.
"You don't have to feel guilty. The treatments she developed after her Greyscale infection did indeed help you, but that was an unintended benefit," Elizabeth hurriedly consoled her friend.
"I plan to help you," Vivian spoke up.
"Don't do anything foolish!" Elizabeth thought Vivian was planning to use a Prophecy Spell to help her break the family curse and quickly intervened.
She had never witnessed the toll a Prophecy Spell could exact on a magus, but the cautious attitude of Saint Thane Cathedral toward such matters had taught her to be wary.
"I won't use a Prophecy Spell. The help I am offering is of another nature..." Vivian clarified.
"In what way?" Elizabeth was curious.
"To prevent you from marrying him," Vivian replied.
Looking into her friend's earnest eyes, Elizabeth took a deep breath.
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