The fingertips of her right hand scattered light once more. 　Seeping away. Dispersing like mist. Regardless of her will, the magical essence dissolved into the twilight air. 　Elara exhaled and tried again. The star-shaped mark etched on the back of her left hand grew faintly warm as she concentrated her consciousness. Light, gather. Take form. Obey my will——. 　White particles flickered at her fingertips. But in the next instant, they scattered like smoke. "……Again." 　The whisper reached no one. 　In the stone well plaza at the center of Hasla village, Elara sat on the edge of the stone wall, studying her right hand for a long moment. Slender fingers. Pale knuckles. Joints without a single callus. A few small scars accumulated over seventeen years. They were all the proof that she still existed here. 　Her long hair, a pale violet, flowed in the evening breeze. The green embroidery on her cloak caught the setting sun and dimmed. Her amber eyes were fixed on the distant edge of the forest. 　The Great Forest of Morine. A sea of conifers spreading east of Hasla village. Its edge was now outlined in black, drawing a boundary between orange and shadow. Elara barely remembered the version of herself who could have called it beautiful. 　A thin booklet rested on her lap. The cover was leather-bound, its corners worn smooth. A keepsake from her mother, retrieved from the depths of the basement. A journal documenting the theory and practice of magical essence manipulation. She had opened and closed it countless times today alone. 　Laughter leaked from the Wheat Ear Tavern. 　The metallic sound of farm tools being put away. The footsteps of a child running through an alley. The evening of Hasla village was filled with its usual sounds. On the surface, nothing had changed. 　But. （Reina.） 　A face surfaced in the depths of Elara's chest. Her childhood friend's smiling face. The girl who had fallen to a shadow beast during the village attack weeks ago. Every time Reina's smile appeared, the magical essence stirred restlessly. Light lost its form. Control slipped away. 　Elara was beginning to understand that was the reason. 　Her mother's journal had written it too. Magical essence is the resonance of emotion. The turmoil within a caster distorts the flow of essence and obstructs control. The deeper the sorrow, the more magical power becomes like a wild horse, refusing to obey——. 　She understood. 　Even understanding it, Reina's face would not fade. 　Elara rose from the stone wall and cradled the journal to her side. She pulled her gaze away from the forest's edge and turned it back toward the village. The lamplight of the Wheat Ear Tavern flickered through the window. She had to gather information. Without knowing what was happening, she couldn't even name this unease. 　When Elara opened the tavern door, the sweet scent of herbal liquor struck her nose. 　The place, which doubled as the village assembly hall, was bustling with the evening meal. Farmers gathered around tables, and the proprietor hurried about carrying cups. In the corner, she could see the round back of Village Chief Fedor. 　Elara approached. "Chief Fedor." 　The village chief turned and narrowed his eyes slightly. A man in his fifties with a sturdy build. He rarely showed emotion openly. There was a certain pride in him that this was what a Hasla village chief should be, and it always seeped through his expression. "Elara. Sit." 　Elara pulled out the chair across from him. Fedor held his cup of herbal liquor in both hands. His fingertips trembled faintly. 　Elara did not miss that. "I heard the activity of the Seam of Lamentation has increased again." "……Yes." Fedor answered curtly. "Compared to previous years, it's remarkable. The emergence of shadow beasts from the southeast has nearly doubled in the past month. Even the garrison in Ferin has sent word to heighten vigilance." 　Practical words. A matter-of-fact tone. 　But his hands holding the cup still trembled. "Has anything come from the Seam——" "We don't know yet," Fedor interrupted. "We don't know, but I have a bad feeling. Every time that Seam becomes active, something happens. The records say the Calamity of the Rift three hundred years ago began the same way." 　Elara closed her mouth. The Calamity of the Rift——a historical catastrophe in which the southeastern part of the continent was overrun by a swarm of shadow beasts, and twelve thousand people lost their lives. She had heard the story countless times since childhood: how the mages of that era risked their lives to pacify the Seam. 　Would it come to that? 　An elderly farmer in the corner of the tavern muttered as if to himself. "That smell……isn't it a sign of the Night of Avoidance?" 　Elara's brow furrowed involuntarily. The winter solstice night——the night when all lights are extinguished and silence is kept by custom. The night when the outpouring of magical essence from the Seam of Lamentation is said to be most violent. But it was autumn now. Winter solstice was still far away. 　At that moment, Fedor raised his hand toward the proprietor. "Another cup." 　The proprietor returned and spoke with a wry smile. "You're drinking too much again, Chief." "This is medicine," Fedor replied. "Three cups of herbal liquor hardly counts as medicine," the proprietor said. 　The farmers laughed a little. Fedor's mouth corners rose slightly as well. 　Elara laughed along with them. But deep in her chest, something remained that laughter could not dissolve. 　Fedor's fingers still trembled faintly. 　Night fell. 　Elara lit the lamp in her house. She placed a fragment of a magical essence crystal in the lamp's saucer, and a blackish-purple light softly illuminated the interior. This light too was born from the Seam of Lamentation——the thought made her feel slightly strange every evening. 　She settled at the table and opened her mother's journal. 　The first few pages were filled with careful handwriting. What is magical essence. On resonance with emotion. Methods of concentrating and dispersing will. Her mother's handwriting was wise, calm, and somehow bore the stroke of a teacher. 　But. 　As the pages progressed, the writing grew increasingly disordered. 　The evenly drawn lines began to meander. Words broke off, sentences stopped connecting. Like water slowly draining from some deep place——the traces of thought being eroded were carved directly onto the paper. 　Ashen decay. 　The price paid each time a mage used magic: the caster's memories and sensations would fade. Her mother had apparently been aware of this progression since around the time Elara was born. Yet she continued to use magic. She continued while trying to leave a record. 　Elara turned the pages. 　The final page had a different pressure than all the others. There were marks as if each character had been carved with trembling hands, yet with certainty. What was written there was neither theory nor technique. Only a single sentence. 　——"Light does not grow stronger by being lost." 　Elara spent a long time before that single sentence. 　What did it mean? 　Light does not grow stronger by being lost. Then by what does it grow stronger? Had her mother tried to write that but been unable? Or had she known the answer and left only this one sentence? 　The words were written when the ashen decay was most advanced. If, even as her memory faded, she had wanted to convey something——. （What were you seeing, Mother?） 　No answer came. Only the question remained, floating in the room where the lamplight flickered, refusing to sink. 　Elara closed the journal and held it in both hands. The feel of the leather cover settled into her palms. Cold, yet somehow warm. She knew it was not good to feel sentimental about such things, yet there was a reason she could not let it go. 　The scream came in the dead of night. 　From the eastern side of the village. A low, but unmistakable man's voice. The night watch. 　Elara set down the journal and grabbed her cloak, running outside. 　The night air struck her cheeks. The smell of dust and grass mixed in the air. Her feet kicked against the stone pavement, she cut through the alley, and circled behind her house. The moonlight was weak, and shadows swayed beneath her feet. 　It was there. 　A mass of black mist stood on the earth with the outline of four legs. Its form absorbed moonlight, its body darker than the surrounding darkness by a degree. The size of a wolf. A shadow beast——a small individual. 　The night watchman had collapsed to his knees, his back against the fence. 　Elara stopped. The mark on the back of her left hand grew hot. She breathed deeply, drawing magical essence toward her. She would suppress her sorrow for now. Reina's face began to surface, but Elara bit down on her back teeth. （Not now.） 　She concentrated her will. She gave form to light. 　A bundle of white light was released from her fingertips. 　Normally, that would be enough. Shadow beasts were weak to "light imbued with will." They could not be destroyed by sunlight or fire, but light released by a mage infused with will and emotion could sear that black, mist-like form. It was basic knowledge she had learned since childhood. 　But. 　The beast did not retreat. 　The moment it was struck by light, the shadow beast's form shuddered. And——it came forward. 　Like an insect drawn to flame. As if pulled. Its four limbs pressed against the earth, its body flowed toward the light. 　Something cold crawled down Elara's spine. （This is wrong.） 　This was a movement she did not know. It was not written in her mother's journal, nor mentioned in the stories of the village elders. Shadow beasts hate light. They fear it. They flee from it. That should be common knowledge. 　Yet this beast was moving toward the light. 　Elara stepped back while squeezing out more magical essence. She concentrated the bundle of light, increasing its density. The mark on her left hand burned with heat. This time, not as a point, but as a surface——broad, strong, pressing forward. 　The beast wavered. 　Its mist-like form grew thin, its four limbs began to dissolve. One last time it made a movement toward Elara——and then it scattered. 　On the earth, fragments of blackish-purple crystal remained. 　Silence. 　The night watchman forced out a voice: "A-are you alright?" But before Elara could answer, she was looking at her own right hand. 　There was no sensation. 　She tried to clench her fingers, but the feeling did not reach them. No cold, no heat, no resistance of gripping. She could see her right hand was there, but that was all. From her fingertips to her palm, as if they had become someone else's, the threads of sensation had been severed. （……It's begun.） 　She did not speak the words aloud. She sensed the night watchman rising with concern. Elara unconsciously pulled her right hand behind her back and wrapped it with her left. 　It was warm. Her left hand was still warm. 　A few minutes later, the sensation returned. Slowly, like frost melting. The heat in her fingertips came back, the cold of the night air returned, the warmth of her left hand was transmitted. 　Good. It was still there. 　——But her mother had started the same way. 　The thought began to surface, and Elara consciously pushed it down. Not now. She did not need to think about it now. 　She crouched beneath the eaves and picked up the blackish-purple crystal fragment. Even in the darkness without light, it held a faint glow——a translucent stone. A magical essence crystal——the remains of a shadow beast. Worth about three silver coins, but value was irrelevant now. She simply confirmed its hardness in her hand. 　Cold. But definitely there. 　From deep within the forest, a low roar echoed once in the distance. 　Back at home, Elara opened the journal again. 　The final page. That single sentence. 　"Light does not grow stronger by being lost." 　The shadow beast had