Bibliophile Princess: Volume 7 [Parts 1 to 4] by Yui

Author:Yui
Language: eng
Format: epub

Arc 2: The Blue Sky Compass

Chapter 1: Glen’s Counterattack

There was a sound that few had ever heard before, and its nature supposedly varied from person to person. For some, it was a rousing battle hymn. For others, it was a strong, furtive rhythm that pulsed from the silent depths of the earth. Sometimes, it could even sound like the roar of a raging sea.

How would it sound to me? I’d love to hear it one day.

When I said as much to the old sailor who had told me the story, he smiled back at me with a face full of wrinkles. He said that if I was lucky, maybe someday I would. Those were the sorts of chats we’d have each time he brought food and water to where I’d been chained to the bow of the ship.

I was the ship’s resident slave. I’d been with the crew for as long as I could remember, and I had no memory of who my parents were or where I’d been born. All I’d ever done was survive from day to day, doing odd jobs to keep myself fed. That is, until one day I heard the wind whisper that a storm was brewing.

No one had heeded my warning, not even the ship’s expert navigator. Yet I was right: a tempest did strike. It was a violent storm that came out of the blue. The ship took quite a beating, and many of the crew were swept away by the waves.

On the deck of the battered ship, someone pointed out that I had foretold the storm. From that moment onward, I became the crew’s slave. It was my job to inform them of any changes in the weather—not that I knew the first thing about how to predict that. All I could do was pick up on the sounds of the sea, wind, sky, and the birds near the ports. The same went for the noises my fellow seafarers made; if someone sounded grumpy or irritated, I always made sure to give them a wide berth. Everyone did that sort of thing, though. It wasn’t just me.

Yet I was the only one held captive at the bow, and if I ever failed to predict a storm, I was beaten. Will I spend my whole life trapped here? I often wondered. Am I going to end up as a pile of bones on the deck of this ship? Soon, I found myself wishing that the whole ship would sink to the bottom of the ocean.

And so, one day during our voyage, I decided to keep quiet. The weather was gorgeous; the sky was an endless expanse of clear blue, and the winds were steady. It was smooth sailing. Everyone was bright-eyed and jolly for the first time in ages.

Then, all of a sudden, thunderclouds came rolling in at a frightening pace. It truly came out of nowhere.

I’d simply chosen not to say anything about it—about the faint stirring I’d heard in the distant sky.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.