FFF-Tier System, SSS-Rank Wife-Chapter 38: Two fates

The flame danced atop the kiln.

To an outsider with no prior knowledge of what was actually going on, it would appear like a comically small fireplace with two unusually dressed people staring at it for some weird reason.

For the two of us in the know, however, the situation was slightly different.

"So pretty..."

I’ve allowed my inner child to surface for just a little bit as my eyes drew to the fire like a moth would to a lamp.

There was something primal, something that thousands of years of evolution and later civilization couldn’t remove from the very core of my being.

And just like my ancestors of old, I simply stared at the continuous wiggle of the small fire, perfectly content with doing nothing but observing as it grew bigger and bigger.

Before long, the flame itself had vanished, as the fire ate through enough of the padding for its spark to hide within the kiln itself.

’So far, so good,’ I thought as I moved all around the kiln, switching from looking down the middle, to looking down the air-shafts, all the way to moving my hand above them all to check on the flow of air.

And just like one could expect, there was a clear draft above the shafts, proving the fire within the kiln was properly drawing the air in.

Then, as I got on my tiptoes and leaned over the kiln to stare down the middle, ’just a little longer, huh?’

It wouldn’t be until about fifteen minutes after the fire started that the kiln’s insides reached the optimal conditions.

Looking down inside the shafts, it felt as if I was staring down the narrow tunnels leading straight to some sort of inferno. And with an actual flame now nowhere to be seen, I could finally move on to the next and second-to-final part of the whole process.

Feeling Selia’s stare pinned to my back, I used what little excavated earth there was to first seal one air-intake after the other, greatly limiting the flow of air through the whole thing. Then, as the final part of the step, I grabbed a handful of the wettest ground I could find before squishing it in my hands and then slapping it on the top of the kiln, fully closing the last possible way for the air to get inside.

"Phew," I let out a huge sigh while wiping my forehead with my forearm and then stepping back. "Assuming I didn’t screw up anything, all we have to do now is wait," I’ve commented just like before, only to turn around...

And be met with Selia sitting down with her elbows resting on her knees while she used her hands to support her chin all the while looking right in my direction.

"Ah," sensing my look, Selia jolted up a little, raising her upper body upright only to then lean back while resting her hands on the side of the hill she was sitting on to keep herself from falling over. "Looking at it, I really expected there to be more, much more smoke coming out," she pointed out.

Looking back, I stared at the smoking bulb reaching only as far as a few inches above the ground.

And sure thing, smoking it was. But just like Selia pointed out, the kiln produced only a fraction of the smoke one could expect from a fire made with the same amount of wood as the stuff I’ve stuffed inside of the structure.

"Honestly speaking, I thought there would be even less of it," I admitted before casting a worried glance in the direction of the nearby road.

The chances of someone spotting us from over there were small... but with the amount of white smoke rising from the kiln, they increased by quite a lot.

There was a massive difference between someone randomly checking out the most random of hills by the road out in the middle of nowhere... and then checking an unnatural amount of smoke rising from somewhere that lay just outside of the reach of their eyes!

Yet, as I turned my eyes back to the saintess, she was already hard at work, crafting yet another spell.

Her hands vibrated, her fingers twitching as if holding back some kind of force that desperately attempted to free itself from her hold. The air around her tensed up, grew more intense, while everything else about her became more vivid, more intense.

Then, with a flick of her hand, Selia finished up her job, summoning a somewhat constant gust of wind that struck right where the smoke gathered, dispersing it in the air before it had the chance to rise high enough to be seen by anyone else.

"That should do the trick," she whistled with satisfaction painted on her head, only to then look over—

Effectively catching me staring right at her for the second time already.

This time, however, I merely gulped my saliva down my throat rather than recoiling back the way I did before.

And to my surprise, rather than giving me an annoyed stare, Selia... smiled?

"What?" she asked as her full, red lips curved into a small smile, "am I that breathtakingly beautiful you just can’t look away?"

Her smile morphed into a smirk as her eyes filled with a smug sense of teasing satisfaction.

Yet, rather than getting some sort of reaction out of me...

"Yeah, there’s no doubt about that," I merely nodded my head as I supported her claim without even a hint of hesitation. "But that’s not why I’m staring. I noticed that whenever you cast magic, your surroundings... No, both you and the air all around you appear to... change?"

Selia cutely leaned her head over her shoulder, her smirk giving way to a more neutral expression, her blue eyes widening with a spark of interest in them.

"Ah, don’t get me wrong," I quickly shook my head and took a step back. "It’s not the same, golden way as when I first saw you use those powers of yours," I recalled that very moment in my mind, "like, when both your hair and your air turned golden for a moment before regaining their natural color. What I just saw happen was..." I hesitated, searching for a proper word to fit what I had in mind, "different?"

This was by no means a perfect word to use, but for the lack of a better one, I had no other choice but to settle on it.

And thankfully, with Selia’s smile returning as she laughed it all up, she didn’t seem to mind me pointing it all out.

"Oh, do I?" she asked through her giggle that made her already adorable face all the more beautiful and charming.

"Well, it’s not any kind of a secret, merely something I rarely have the chance or reason to talk about," she muttered as she turned her eyes away and pinned them on the smoking kiln. "You see, just like you don’t have any fate at all, I’m a holder of two distinct ones. A fate of a saintess, centered on the divine, and the fate of a sword saint, centered around my prowess and experience with the sword."

Speaking about her own situation put Selia in a mood I’ve never seen her in before, something between nostalgia, determination and... desperation?

"It is when I manifest my powers of a saintess that my hair and eyes change color because of the divine power coursing through me. When I’m using normal magic, just like everyone else in the world, the changes to the intensity of myself and the air around me," she shook her head, sending her storm of silvery hair in a slight frenzy, "are a result of my mana spilling out."

Judging by the look deep at the bottom of those beautiful, blue eyes of hers, there was more to this topic. Something that she wasn’t quite yet ready to share with me. A thought made all the more obvious when she shook her head and turned it my way with a slightly awkward smile.

"But that’s enough about me," she said only to put on a teasing smirk on her lips while her amusement reached as far up as the corners of her eyes. "Do you think this is the right time to have us talk about what happened last night?"