Ophelia looked at Merlin quietly.
“Mom just hopes that after seeing these memories, your insecurity will be eased a little. I don’t want to see you suffering anymore because you feel troubled by your magic.”
She reached out, using her thumb to gently brush her daughter’s smooth cheek.
Merlin took a deep breath and finally nodded firmly.
“Yes. If I really was born with magic, I want to know the truth behind it.”
“Then let’s begin, just like that day.”
Ophelia gracefully extended her hand, her fair, slender fingers shimmering like jade in the dim light. Her palm faced upward, resting quietly in front of Merlin, waiting for her daughter’s response.
“Okay.”
“Relax. It should be much easier this time.”
“Why?”
“Because in the beginning, I wasn’t sure if you were royalty. If there is no blood relation and you aren’t a married couple, you can only rely on mutual trust. The connection isn’t always smooth. It’s different now.”
Ophelia added.
“Because you trust your mother. It can succeed even without a blood bond, let alone when there is one.”
“Understood.”
Merlin took Ophelia’s hand, their fingers interlocking and their foreheads meeting.
Indeed, it was much easier than the first time. Merlin felt Ophelia’s soul flow smoothly into her side.
Ophelia spoke directly to Merlin within her consciousness.
“Just like before, do not resist. Relax and follow my lead. Don’t do anything.”
Under Ophelia’s guidance, Merlin’s consciousness gradually sank.
It was as if clear water had been dropped onto a fine watercolor painting; the colors began to bleed, flow, and swirl.
Merlin felt a slight wave of dizziness.
Her consciousness shifted to a certain rainy night.
A face was blurred by thick fog and rain.
A woman trembled as she kissed a little girl’s forehead for the last time.
She placed the blue-haired girl in front of an orphanage doorway, with food set beside her.
The little girl looked at the woman obediently, without crying or making a fuss.
“Though I have no choice but to leave you here… a rougher human boy would be better suited to survive in a place like this. Ideally, someone a bit uglier… yes… uglier… even uglier… you still look too delicate. Forget it, what can I do when my child is just so cute?”
The woman interlaced her hands and touched foreheads with the child, just as Ophelia and Merlin were doing now.
Soon, the little girl with shimmering deep blue hair turned into a little boy with short black hair.
“When the time comes, you should change back. When that happens, just follow the clues to contact our kin. Even if you do nothing, our people will find you.”
The woman stood up, gently applying a sleep spell with her fingertips. The child’s eyelids slowly closed.
“My baby, we will meet again.”
Merlin’s memory remained in that cold darkness. Only the pitter-patter of the rain echoed in the endless loneliness.
“…”
“Is that my biological mother?”
“Yes. That was my sister, Cecilia.”
So Merlin… really was a girl in this life.
It was just that her birth mother had temporarily adjusted her appearance to be a boy for her safety.
It made sense. If she were a girl, especially a cute one, she likely would have been targeted and kidnapped just like Mashina. Looking back, living as a boy in the slums had been the right choice.
“I won’t peek at your other memories; even children have a right to privacy. Next is Mashina.”
“…”
Ophelia guided the warm current of consciousness past that darkness, searching for another node.
The light was dim. On the only “bed,” Mashina’s small body was curled up. Her cheeks were flushed red with fever, her lips were parched and cracked, and she was letting out painful murmurs.
“Water… so hot…”
“Just hold on a little longer!”
The anxious voice of a black-haired boy rang out. He was standing before a workbench made of wooden crates.
In a chipped ceramic bowl and scattered across the workbench was a pile of unidentifiable materials.
Mashina’s breathing grew weaker and weaker, as if it might be extinguished at any moment.
In despair, Merlin slammed a fist onto the workbench.
Thud!
The wooden box made a dull sound.
Tinkle—
A crisp sound rang out.
Something rolled out from Merlin’s ragged collar.
It was a deep blue crystal, flat and battered, looking like shattered glass with dense little nicks all around the edges. It emitted a faint light in the dim room, and the air around it seemed to drop several degrees in temperature.
“This is…”
Ophelia spoke to Merlin within her consciousness.
“The answer. Isn’t it obvious now?”
“…”
At the time, Merlin didn’t know any of this. Only one simple thought flashed through that little head.
He touched the crystal with a fingertip; a cold sensation washed over him, instantly soothing the agitation in his fingers. Merlin looked at the crystal, then at Mashina suffering from the high fever on the bed.
“It… hurts.”
The girl’s weak cry interrupted Merlin’s thoughts.
Merlin tried placing the crystal on Mashina’s forehead to cool her down. Mashina’s expression relaxed slightly. Merlin sat by the bed, gripping her hand tightly.
But for some reason, the boy’s eyelids began to feel heavy, as if something had been released.
Drowsiness surged—the exhaustion that follows the loss of a crystal core. But Merlin knew nothing of this at the time. If an elf had been present, they surely would have recognized it and helped Merlin recover on the spot.
But there were no “ifs.”
Merlin’s body swayed before he finally slumped powerlessly by the bedside. The hand Merlin held grew limp, slowly dropping to rest on Mashina’s chest.
Silence fell over the small shack.
In the darkness, the deep blue crystal did not slip away.
Like iron filings drawn to a magnet, or a drop of water returning to the sea, it gently penetrated skin, muscle, and bone, turning into a ball of ghostly blue light that silently merged into that heart.
Thump… thump…
The heartbeat gradually stabilized, becoming strong and steady.
“That’s enough.”
Ophelia’s cold voice rang out in Merlin’s consciousness.
When she returned to her senses, Ophelia had already quickly let go of Merlin’s hand. She didn’t want to watch for even another second.
Merlin looked up at Ophelia’s expressionless face.
“I suppose you understand now?”
“Yeah… because I didn’t realize that thing belonged to me. I didn’t know what a crystal core was back then.”
Ophelia looked at Merlin, signaling for her to continue.
“Plus, the place I lived back then was pretty messy. Sometimes things would suddenly appear or disappear, or things I thought were lost would show up again. At the time… I didn’t think much of it.”
By the end, Merlin’s voice grew smaller and smaller.
“Is that… not just because your living habits are too messy? How could you forget something so important?”
“Yes…”
Merlin had nothing to say in her defense and could only lower her head obediently before her mother.