Aureum's little plan that she had cobbled together once she saw Mendax was so:
She would leverage her history of handing Vitreum over to Aes to get Maledic to let her leave.
Or at least pity her.
One problem with this. She had no physical evidence. The money was given away, if that would have worked, and the letter was long gone. So she needed witnesses, and it would still look suspiciously convenient.
Thus, the questions about Vitreum. Now, with Aes and Vitreum gone, she had no witnesses. No easy way out.
That's nothing new. But more importantly—
"Is Vitreum really alright?" Aureum said. "She didn't want to return to her mother because she was unhappy here, right?"
"No!" The cook vehemently denied.
There was a bit of silence. Gemmo continued to twist in the cook's arms. Aureum, who had finished eating, took him back.
"The girl was loved by the manor," the woman in charge of stirring the pots said. "And she seemed to love the manor in return… But despite all that, she still wanted to see her mother. It's no fault of our own."
Aureum still remembered how adamant the little girl had been about seeing her mother even back then. It was the only reason Vitreum had followed Aureum in the first place.
Maybe Maledic is using this as more than a chance to trap the mother, but also as a way for Vitreum to get a bit of closure.
But she could only wonder about the old man's motives. The immediate problem at hand still stood.
"That brother of hers on the other hand—
"Oh, he's not a child, so he doesn't count! Don't bring him up."
The women brought somebody else up on their own.
"He's as foolish as a child.
Benedic…?
It wasn't her first option, but maybe—!
"And what happened to this Benedic?"
"Sent to Bonumbas. You heard about him, too?"
Ah…
It seemed by providence that there was no easy way out of the Hidden Manor of Maledic for Aureum.
Could I just demand meeting with Maledic anyways, and just tell him? Just pressure into him with it besides?
Pressure him with what? Spesavia said he had more sense of justice than Mors, but was justice alone enough to motivate him to do something that would disadvantage him?
Probably not.
Though everything hung on him not understanding how disadvantaged sending Gemmo away would be for him, without adequate backing, this was more likely to raise his suspicions.
Could I use Spesavia to back my story…?
She had authority, but not more than Maledic's. And he knew she hadn't been there for the events if Aes had given the briefest of reports. It wouldn't work.
Aureum banged the table with her fist. The pain of it didn't make her flinch.
Damn it all!
The others paused and looked at this "random" outburst. Aureum couldn't bring herself to care.
"Ahhh!"
Gemmo twisted in Aureum's arm. She switched to holding him with both and rocked him.
"Thanks for the meal," Aureum said. "But I have to go."
She plodded her way back, shushing and bouncing Gemmo.
"Waaaah! Ahhhhh!"
He kept crying. Aureum couldn't blame him. They said that children could sense people's emotions. Right now she wanted to strangle Maledic, or at least set something on fire.
"Fine! You can keep crying, little Gemmo. But stop trying to struggle free! I don't want to drop you."
He paused and looked up at her with a slow blink from those dark blue eyes. Then he scrunched his face up and started up again.
"WAAAAAAHHHHHH!"
Aureum resorted to lots of rocking and soothing noises. She made it back to her room and eventually got him to sleep.
Sitting there on Spesavia's bed, she seethed. Without a distraction, all inside her was focused upon the injustice of it all.
Could I use Mendax?
Of course not! Not only was he a potential hazard to the whole situation, but he also wasn't a figure of trust to Maledic. She'd need around a hundred witnesses like Mendax, and that simply didn't exist.
Aureum's head fell into her hands as her foot tapped.
What did I do all this work for? I worked every day—nearly every day—for MONTHS, and no matter what, I'm always behind.
By the time I could save myself from one disaster, the next one rises. And it's always something completely out of my hands! I couldn't even begin to stand up to them.
It wasn't fair. Life, that is.
She might have been working hard for months, but there were those sorcerers who worked tirelessly for years. Centuries even.
It was impossible for her to compete with that.
Tears of frustration began to prick at her eyes.
Can talent overcome this? Luck even?
Luck might be able to, but it would have to be multiple strikes of divine favor. She'd been lucky enough to move time back itself. Not lucky enough to become a god. Talent just felt like a sick joke.
In the back of her mind, in her heart of hearts, she had wondered if maybe she was diligent enough, she could be talented enough to be a genius. A genius that could be enough to stand against all those that would thoughtlessly smoosh her.
But she had tried her best, and she could no longer hide behind laziness. She wasn't a genius. Even if she was, it actually didn't matter.
I'm still trapped.
After the destruction of her pearl, she had started late. Every effort she did ameliorated that, but nothing could outweigh it. She didn't have the best situation for training either. She constantly had to figure out how to live before she could focus on one thing. People had given her what they could, but nothing could substitute time.
Now the tears really started to come. She kept them silent so she wouldn't wake Gemmo. It made her throat burn.
And in the end, none of it matters.
Whether she cried, whether she was outmatched and outnumbered, or whether life itself was fair or unfair. She looked at Gemmo, sleeping peacefully.
As long as I'm not dead, nothing is decided yet. I'm the one who turned time back and kicked this into motion. I might have to wait and see it turned against me, but I won't do it idly. And—
"I'm not going to accept death again," she whispered.
They'll have to kill me this time.
After she had calmed down a bit, she began to layer. Dramatic proclamations were like wildflowers in a field. The patience to carry them through was much rarer.
But then again, nobody here noticed or cared enough to stop her. There were even those who would help her.
———————————————————
Mendax, or Hiems, as he was again being called, had had an almost restful past few months.
Having fled Fluentem, he had focused all his might into speed, heading straight for Lapis. His only detours had been to avoid every major city-state he could.
Less chance of being noticed that way. By the time news got out of the little villages that "a stranger with marred skin had been here," he was gone.
He had the privilege of having no deadline to his destination and the disadvantage of being easily recognized. Once in Lapis, he had tried to get himself hired by the Lapis bloodline.
He had failed.
"You want us to believe that the dog of Nix has turned over a new leaf and turned on his master? Even if it was the truth, is anything you know possibly worth enough for us to spare your life? Bark with your lies at someone else, Mendax."
The only person of any substance he could meet within the Lapis bloodline summarily executed any hope he had of working for them. The only reason he wasn't killed on the spot was the suspicion that it was a part of a plot to cause war.
It was a matter of time before Nix released him from its protection. After all, it would make it look weak if its sons turned on them without facing death.
It would also be an easy way to his demise at the moment. His life was two steps ahead of death. He told himself he didn't fear death, but neither did he want to waste his chances.
Yet, before he had made solid plans to leave, he got an invitation. From the golden flowers that bloom on the peaks, no less. It came from an ordinary messenger and was only directions.
Hiems knew who it was.
Taking up the offer, he found himself before a withered little old man who emanated mana with the weight of a mountain. The wheelchair he sat upon was of little importance.
Hiems couldn't have stood before Maledic if he wanted to. Much the same as Caducus.
"Now that you have accepted my offer," Maledic said. "You have two choices. Tell me all that you would have offered to Lapis without a lie, and I will offer you my protection. Withhold anything, and I will kill you."
Hiems nodded.
At that point, he had no real choice.
Telling everything he knew of Nix, he was spared his life. Not his dignity.
After all that, Maledic's offer of protection was to work as a menial servant inside the manor. Not even fit for a guard.
Hiems felt grateful.
Nobody would trust him to protect or serve them directly now, after all. Even being given the opportunity to live and be fed was mercy.
He'd known this, so why had he come to his own death?
Sometimes things came down to spite, pure and simple. If the life he had lived had taken away his very right to live, then he would trade that stained life to bring pain to those that had caused his pain.
It was nothing to stress over.
Yet it was with no small amount of sweat that Hiems was led away from Maledic for the final time.
What was awaiting him was not pain or sorrow, however, but peace.
He was terrible at the menial cleaning tasks he was given, as he had never done anything like them before. He used too much force and broke things. He missed spots around corners he didn't even know could exist. He didn't know the subtle manners servants had and came off as arrogant. His flaws in this job were numerous. He might have been good at hunting, but he wasn't permitted to do that.
Instead, he worked with the stable boys, people much his junior, as his superiors. He worked under the lowest maids, clearing out anything they deemed too gruesome to touch, which they could not previously foist onto anyone else.
He was also allowed to do the simplest of tasks when it came to gardening. He could not clip anything per se. He mostly collected the fallen branches that the real gardener cut.
It was evident that there had been no real opening for his position in the manor, so the entire staff was making the best of it. This was not entirely their fault. He was abysmal the first month, so they trusted him with less and less.
Any respect he might have had in their eyes vanished in a matter of weeks.
And so did the fear.
The peace came, not because he was good at the tasks he was given, nor because these tasks gave him respect, but because they wouldn't kill him for failure. In turn, he wouldn't have to kill anyone else.
They couldn't even fire him, which was not how a normal job worked.
This hadn't been Hiems' expected outcome. He thought that Maledic would either kill him or send him back to Nix as Lapis' spy, which would also probably kill him.
He never liked what he did but fully expected to continue to do it till the end. It was what he was decent at, at least.
In being forced to change, he found he didn't hate it. He favored becoming insignificant in others' eyes over having to create fear.
Maybe I'll actually get the chance to be viewed as a decent person.
The thought came in a time of idleness, when he looked up at the sky and did nothing but watch clouds. Pure luxury.
Anything could happen.
It almost shocked his mind into thinking nothing at all. But then came another thought.
Aureum looked at me…
As is the human experience, as soon as needs for life were met, gratitude for it was short. Ambitions for something greater grew like weeds. It twisted inside him like fire, the thought did, and he tried to choke it out.
There was no point to revisiting how that had ended.
He never expected to see her again. At least not within the same year.
So seeing her again was a shock. Great enough that he paused entirely in his task of wheeling away dirty hay.
"Hiems, stop slacking off!"
"Yes!"
He knew what he had seen. But he still found himself glancing back, later, not directly. Sneaky-like.
She was looking in his direction with a frown.
Hiems turned away, knowing she could only recognize him. His face, no, his whole body burned.
Maybe someone without shame would have been able to directly talk to her. But not Mendax. Mendax was intimate with it.
When he looked back, she had gone.