The Life, Death, and Relife of the Mushroom Mage

Chapter 8

Daisy Aldova stepped off the carriage and looked up at the sky above her. This was it. In two weeks, she would attend the debutante ball. She was going to be here for the entire social season, from spring to summer, and she had no idea how her father was affording it, but he was.

Her task was simple. Find a wealthy man to marry so she would stop being a burden on her parents. It didn't matter if he was old or young. He simply had to be kind. That was what her mother told her. She shouldn't reach above her station. Maybe a son of a count or a baron. Something safe, something wanted. She was the eldest of three daughters, and she had to make her parents proud. They may not be particularly wealthy, and the county was going through a drought right now, so it was even leaner, but they were still landed gentry.

She had to remember that when the other girls mocked her. They were landed gentry, and they were good people. That was the most important part.

Daisy wasn't altogether concerned about finding a husband, however. She wanted to make friends, most importantly, and she didn't want to compete with other girls for men. That seemed crass and unrefined. No, she would keep her head down and make a few close friends, and---

The wind caught her hat, and she yelped as it went spiraling off her head. Impulsively, she chased after it and snapped it up, straightening up and dusting it off, and then she looked up.

There were two carriages pulling to a halt in the middle of the square, and she stared with wide eyes. One of them was from the church. She could tell from the crest on it. The other... Harwith. She recognized that from her modern politics classes. Her eyes widened even more, and the door to the Harwith carriage swung open.

Out stepped the most beautiful boy she had ever seen. He had white hair and red eyes, tall, broad shouldered, with a trim waist and long legs. His boots rose to his knee, shiny and polished, and his skin was practically glowing, pale and elven-like. He was stunning, the very picture of the cold north, and she watched in awe as he walked over to the other carriage and offered a hand.

The girl that stepped out was the most beautiful girl Daisy had ever seen. She had golden hair cascading down her shoulders, dressed in the robes of a priest, with wide golden eyes and sunkissed, perfect skin without a single flaw or imperfection. She was beautiful, perfect, and the first thought Daisy had was they would make beautiful children. They looked picturesque next to each other, like a couple sprang from the pages of a storybook, and she was in awe at their beauty.

And, then. To her great annoyance, a tiny paint horse blocked the view. The rider swung off, and she glared at the boy that had disturbed this picture perfect moment.

He was short. Very short, with freckles kissing his nose and cheeks, honey brown eyes and tousled, curly brown hair shorn short on the sides and left long on the top. He was dressed not exactly expensively, but not poor, either, with brown pants and a clean cream linen shirt with delicate, colorful flowers embroidered around the collar. He was wearing a corset-like leather belt, with his pants tucked into boots that laced all the way to the knee, and a cloak was around his shoulders and pinned to one side with an expensive-looking leaf-shaped brooch. Not nobility, but there was a sword on his hip and a pack on his back.

He walked up to the lord and priest, speaking to them in quiet tones she couldn't hear over the din of the marketplace, and she watched in silence as the priest handed a coin bag. He bowed, tying the coin purse next to another one on his belt, and then he turned back to the horse and took it by the reins to lead it off.

Oh, she realized.

A hired adventurer... But only one?

With renewed interest, she watched the boy walk away. She had always thought romantically about adventurers. Even fancied becoming one herself, before she really, truly learned about her station in her life. She knew better now, knew she was to become a wife and mother, a countess or baroness, but, still.