Gifts of Gratitude (2)

After my conferment ceremony and the following celebration, I returned to my room. I had long been given a room worthy of the court mystic, in the upper floors of the castle, close to the wing where the royal family resided.

My master still had his old room. While he was retired as the court mystic, he remained close to His Majesty as an old friend and an advisor. As long as he remained in the castle, he had to be treated according to his court rank.

My room was quite large, but with the walls covered in bookshelves; small tables in each corner covered in instruments and tools of divination, alchemy and such; and my large desk under the window, there was no abundance of space. Fortunately I at least had a separate bedroom and lavatory.

I kept my stuff in order, as my master had taught me, and the servants cleaned the room almost daily, so the impression was by no means messy. Whatever it was among my literature and tools, I could find it within minutes.

I had no further duties today, so I was free to do whatever I wanted. After pondering for a moment, I sat down at my desk, on my well padded chair, and resumed reading the book I had begun this morning.

I didn’t get very far before I heard a knock on the door.

“Come in!”

I rose from my seat to see who the guest was, although I already had a pretty good guess. My guess turned out to be correct, as Mira opened the door and casually entered, followed by Anna and their maid, Elina, who was carrying some kind of an ornate wooden box.

Elina Hale had been the twins’ personal maid – they only needed one, since they were practically always together – since they were four years old. She was a 27-year-old, rather buxom woman with chestnut brown hair tied in a bun, naturally dressed in a maid’s work uniform. She wasn’t a stunning beauty like her mistresses, but she was undoubtedly attractive and possessed ample mature charm.

Of course, that was only my objective assessment – not only was she married, she was like an older sister to all three of us.

“Mira, Anna, what brings you here?”

We had nothing scheduled today, but it was nothing unusual for them to pop by to bother me in their free time. Since that was the case, I had a couple of extra chairs tucked in a corner. I didn’t have space for a tea table (we sometimes used my desk), but at the very least I could let them sit. I was prepared to grab those chairs if it seemed like they wanted to stay and chat.

Mira took the wooden case from Elina, who curtsied and stayed by the door, making herself as unnoticeable as possible. She was always present if the twins were in a closed space otherwise alone with me, but unless she was serving us or involved in our games or conversations, she made herself unnoticeable, like a good servant should.

It wasn’t a matter of trust towards me, it was simply in consideration of the princesses’ reputation. After all, I wasn’t their biological brother.

“Ed, we came to give you our congratulatory gift.”

Mira raised the lid and showed me the object inside. It was a thick leather bound book. A newly made one, from the looks of it. I recognised the language the title was in: it was one of the best known ancient languages, Bithaean, which I could read about as well as anyone in today’s world. The title translated to something along the lines of “Concerning Bithaeans.”

I almost forgot to breathe for a moment. If this was, as the title suggested, a book about the ancient people of Bithaea, written by a Bithaean author, it could provide a lot of new knowledge about the ancient times and cultures. Where did the princesses find such a treasure?

“It’s a copy of an ancient book that’s completely preserved, recently found in Sovar. Your master’s connections helped us get the permission to commission this copy and bring it over the border, and our parents paid for it and the delivery. We’re ashamed to say that we can only claim credit for the initial idea. We’ve long been looking for something like this to give you as a present, so we kept our ears open for rumours. About a year ago we finally heard of this discovery, so we persuaded father and mother to help us get it.”

“We say it’s a congratulatory gift, but really, it contains our feelings of gratitude for everything you’ve done for us over the years. Thank you for everything, Ed!”

Mira explained the details and Anna supplemented the reason with a cute blush on her cheeks.

I stared at the book without truly seeing it. As I slowly reached for it and took it into my hands, it felt heavier than I knew it to be. I didn’t even open it, I just placed it on the desk behind me.

I locked my eyes with Mira’s and said:

“Come here.”

For some reason she blushed hard and seemed to shiver. She handed the empty case back to Elina, who had at some point appeared next to her, and obediently approached me.

Wordlessly, I drew Mira into a tight embrace. I felt a lump in my throat and unshed tears burning my eyes.

“Thank you. It’s a wonderful gift.”

My voice sounded muffled. I breathed in her familiar scent and tried not to cry. I didn’t mind showing my emotions to the girls, but after all, crying would have been too embarrassing.

Mira didn’t hesitate to hug me back. I couldn’t see her face, but I didn’t need to: I could feel her emotions from her touch.

After a while, I let go, and Mira immediately stepped back. I noticed the deep flush on her beautiful face and her blue eyes avoiding my gaze in embarrassment. I didn’t keep staring at her, though: I still had one other person to share my emotions with.

Before I could call for her, or even turn to look at her, Anna dove into my embrace. Perhaps she was too embarrassed to show her face to me. I hugged her just as tightly as I hugged Mira before.

“Thank you, too, Anna. You both are very important to me.”

“...You’re very important to us, too, Ed.”

Her voice was a mere whisper.

After a while, I reluctantly let go of her soft, warm body. I couldn’t show favouritism. Besides, I had more or less regained control of my emotions and wasn’t in danger of bursting into tears anymore.

Anna seemed a bit more reluctant to let go than her sister, but she only held on to me for a moment before stepping back. She suddenly turned around before I could get a good look at her face. I didn’t mind, though: it was obvious that she was just embarrassed.

“We- well, we’ve done what we came here to do, so we should go now. We don’t want to delay your reading. Bye, Ed!”

Mira stammered an excuse and the both of them fled from my room as if it was a monster’s lair.

Elina, hiding her mouth with her palm, but her mirth obvious in her eyes, curtsied and left the room to chase after her mistresses.

I smiled wryly and shook my head. We used to cuddle all the time when we were kids. Now they were young ladies, and suddenly such intimacy was embarrassing. Well, to be honest, I was embarrassed, too.

Lightly sighing, I sat down and wiped my eyes with a handkerchief. Then, immersing myself in childhood memories, I caressed the book before me like a precious treasure.

Of course, it was indeed a precious object. However, since it was just a copy, not the original, I wouldn’t normally touch it with such care. Nor was there any reason to brush it with my fingers like this.

No, the reason for my action was that this book represented the twins’ feelings for me. Of course, we exchanged gifts quite often, but this time was different. This was no casual gift. They had gone through significant long-term effort to acquire something they knew I would really love. Their care touched me deeply. I felt really fortunate to have them as my “little sisters.”

It took me a while to snap out of it and actually begin reading the book. I set aside the one I had been reading, to finish it later.