The Duke’s Reborn Daughter Sometimes Chooses Violence.

“This is unhealthy, Lady Esra.”

Anias’ purple glow faintly surrounded my legs. So faint it was impossible to notice unless you expected to see it. The Telekinesis made each step that little bit easier as we entered the manor. Veyne Manor, being largely barren, had always seemed odd.

After being inside the Indri Manor for a few days, I found I quite preferred it just the way it was.

“I am sorry for making you use your Gift like this.”

Right now, maintaining appearances was important. I was injured, but I still had to project strength. What a tight balance. I couldn’t risk stumbling, not now.

“It’s quite all right,” Anias said. “Though I never quite imagined using my Gift like this.”

It was hard not to smile at that. She was only teasing.

My jaw still ached from forcing polite smiles for Willem Cross. The man had bombarded me with questions, and dodging his suspicions drained whatever mental energy I had left. Willem Cross might have nodded along as he took my report, but I got the distinct impression he didn’t quite believe everything. Oh well.

That was before I even reached the gates, where a swarm of reporters had swarmed me as soon as they’d seen me. The reporters themselves had their own questions. Some of them were silly.

My Lady! Is it true that Duke Indri’s own golems went berserk?!

Some of them were expected.

My Lady, what do you say to House Greenward for his tariffs? What do you say to the price of grain almost doubling in just the last few days?

I answered a few questions, mainly around Duke Greenward’s agreement to lift the trade restrictions between our Districts. The rest they would find out soon enough from House Wardell. Maids and manservants were waiting for me, right in front of the large stairwell that led up to my own quarters.

The women all curtsied, the men all bowed. It was…a rather severe level of respect, one that I hadn’t gotten just a few short days ago.

Anias leaned closer. ”They simply wish to express their relief that you are back, My Lady.”

I nodded at that, projected my voice with just a bit of mana. Even that made me twitch from the phantom pain. “Thank you all for worrying about me.” I smiled. “I am always relieved to know that I leave my home in good hands.”

To my confusion, many of the men and women looked… sorrowful? Their eyes were downcast, their shoulders slumped, and some avoided meeting my gaze altogether. I didn’t know what to make of it, and so I had Anias help me to my quarters right away.

“Where is Violet?” I finally asked, now that we were somewhat alone.

“In a room next to yours, Lady Esra. Just as you asked.” She paused. ”She was brought here in secret, but a few of the maids know. I trust them all.”

That was probably fine then.

“Good. Where is Damian? Where is Sere?” I yawned, stretched my arms. It was really impressive that Anias could ease every one of my steps as she was. Someone else might have had me tripping over by now.

Anias hesitated. ”I…believe they are where they wish to be.”

“What?” That was an odd way to answer an otherwise simple question.

Anias gestured to my door. ”My Lady.” She bowed slightly.

“You can withdraw your mana, Anias.” I smiled, though it was hard not to wince as my legs suddenly felt much heavier. “And thank you.”

“I just hope Your Ladyship will rest.”

“I will certainly try, Anias.”

The woman nodded and walked off. I opened the door, stepped inside, and closed it.

As soon as I did, I sighed loudly. Groaned. Sank down against the door until I was sitting on the floor.

My body was trembling faintly. My hands were shaking. Every time I blinked, I was back in that tunnel again. The scent of blood. The golems. The corpse of that bastard. My friend, whom I’d ended up hurting without meaning to. My mother. I really did need rest.

It was all done. Every single loose end that I could think up had been tied neatly into a pretty little bow. A few of these loose ends required Violet to wake up, but that could wait.

“Are you…okay?”

I froze, cursed myself as I saw that I wasn’t alone in the room at all. My nerves must have been truly frayed for me not to notice right away.

Right next to my bed, on two opposite chairs, sat both Damian and Sere. I stared at them blankly for a moment. I felt the mask slip over me again. My back straightened, and I smiled. “I didn’t know you two were here. Anias didn’t mention it.”

Damian looked confused, his posture stiff. Sere looked concerned, eyes wide. Was it my imagination, or was she a tiny bit taller? No, that was ridiculous; she simply sat straighter. And...just what was she wearing?

Damian rose from the chair and strode over. I watched him as he inspected me in turn. He sighed deeply and held out his hand. “Well, come on.”

“What?”

Damian’s brow furrowed. “Are you planning on getting your rest on the floor?”

I had nothing to say to that. I took his hand as he pulled me up. I felt his arm on his shoulder as he walked me to the bed. It…was embarrassing. I was too tired to argue.

I plopped down, resting against the headboard. Damian stepped away for a fraction of a second, and when he turned back, there was a cup in my face.

I stared at it. Saw steam wafting out from the hot tea inside. “How?”

Damian shrugged. ”One of the maids shouted as soon as the guards spotted you outside. I thought it made sense.”

I took the cup, gingerly sipped it. It was bitter.

I wasn’t a complete fool. Slow as my thoughts might have been right now, a part of me could guess what this was about. A part of me dreaded it, but I had always known it would come to this sooner or later. I had left him behind. Worse, I had not told him anything. I had treated him like a child, not as the retainer he had sworn himself to be.

“Damian, I-”

“Just drink.” Damian sighed, already back in his chair and leaning back. “You’re tired, aren’t you? It can wait.”

I noticed Sere… scribbling in a notepad. She flipped it around, messy handwriting staring back at me in the form of a single word.

DRINK

I stared at it, a hundred questions running through my head. She...she could write now?

I looked to Sere for answers and saw her glaring back at me.

“Okay, okay.” I smiled and took a larger sip of the tea.

The heat of it filled me, and began to thaw at a coldness I was so used to I had all but forgotten it was there at all.

Sere had actually learned to write? It didn’t look like she was at the level of sentences, but…damn.

I set the cup down on my side table. I inspected the two. Sere looked oddly pensive, her gaze shifting from me to the window, lips pressed together. Damian looked like he was trying very hard to look comforting. He didn’t quite succeed, but I appreciated the effort all the more for it.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t think-”

Damian cut me off. ”Are you okay? Actually, that’s a stupid question.” He inspected my face. ”Is it done?” he asked.

“It’s done,” I replied. “He won’t be bothering anyone anymore.” I tried to stay purposefully vague, what with Sere sitting right there.

Sere had her journal flipped towards me again. I stared at it.

INDI?

I looked to Sere, then looked to Damian. His cheeks were faintly red, but he met my gaze. “I uh…I told her. As much as I knew anyway.”

“Why?” There was only the hint of anger in my voice. I was a little too tired to feel much more.

“She can be quite persistent,” Damian said dryly. “And you didn’t tell her why you left. Honestly, if I didn’t tell her something, I was afraid she was going to run off and try finding you herself.”

That was much harder to believe. I wanted to chide him, but Sere had already written something else.

NOT. CHILD.

My breath caught. I looked at Sere’s face, at an expression that seemed at once both angry and sorrowful. It...looked like she was truly upset with me. Not because I kept things from her, I realized, but because of why I did it.

“I’m sorry,” I said reluctantly. “I’ll…keep that in mind.”

Sere nodded furiously. Seemed to relax a little.

I was weighing a decision. No, I realized I had been weighing it ever since my survival had been guaranteed. When did I become like this? The kind of person who considered every single word they said, even if it was to a friend? Perhaps I had always been my mother’s daughter. I don’t want to be that way any longer. At least…not here.

“It started from the first moment I-”

“You are sure you want to do this now?” Damian asked, dubious. “It’s really not that important. If you need the rest, feel free to rest.”

“I’ve decided.” I nodded. Took a deep breath and began to talk.

I told them of the wrongness I’d seen from the first moment I’d set foot inside that place. I told them of my invisible watcher, of the strange statues, of the Duke and the odd way he kept looking at me. I told them of my suspicions, my confirmation of them, and the horrors that followed. I told them of Violet, the strange, beastly girl who wasn’t very strange or beastly after all.

But when I finally spoke of the cages beneath the manor, the air in my bedroom seemed to freeze.

”He was turning them...” Damian’s voice cracked, the words barely making it past his throat. His hands gripped the armrests of his chair so hard the wood groaned in protest. ”The missing children. He was turning them into Artifacts?”

I could only nod.

Beside him, Sere let out a sharp, choked gasp. Her eyes were impossibly wide. It was hard to say if it was just from the horror of it, or if perhaps she realized she was supposed to be one of those children herself.

I told them everything, save for two things: the truth of who I was, and how exactly Duke Indri died. The first was that I couldn’t bring myself to. I had with Violet because I had been panicking, grasping for anything to say. It was unlikely she remembered a damn thing. Now…now I needed time to understand, to come to terms with myself. Then, one day, I would.

I didn’t tell them about the second because that was not my place, even if it had been my sword that had plunged into Duke Indri’s chest. Looking at Damian, it was hard not to wonder what he’d say if I did tell him that part. How would an aspiring Knight react to knowing his Lady helped a daughter execute her own father?

Though, given that I told him that his Lady murdered said Duke on her own, maybe it wouldn’t have mattered.

Despite leaving out some of the worst parts of those few days, it was hard not to feel my voice crack. With my Gift, perhaps I could have stomped on these feelings.

I don’t think I would have, even if I had the mana to spare.

“And…then I just had to feed all of that to Greenward.” I finished. I had been talking for a very long time. My throat felt raw.

Sere and Damian stared at me. Damian’s face had scrunched up halfway through my retelling, though he hadn’t interrupted me much

Sere’s eyes had progressively gone wider and wider the more I’d spoken. It was unclear how much she’d understood. She wasn’t that much younger, but it wasn’t like she’d had a Noble’s education either.

“I guess…that’s about it,” I said finally.

“Next time you decide to go to a madman’s lair,” Damian said, finally. “You are not going alone. I don’t care if it’s a Baron, a Duke, or a God or ten Gods.”

“I don’t intend to go to any lairs any time soon.” I smiled. “Though, if I do have to, I’ll take you with me.”

Damian nodded slowly. Sere was staring down at her notepad, writing furiously. She wrote something, frowned, and started overwriting it. I waited. Sere huffed angrily, rose, and stepped forward.

My eyes went wide as her warmth pressed into me. It took me a second to realize that she was…hugging me

I stared down at her, stared at Damian. He was surprised too.

The ice that had been slowly thawing inside me melted entirely under her embrace. I took a deep, steadying breath.

I had been crying a lot lately, hadn’t I? Now wasn’t the time.

Sere stepped back after a few seconds. She motioned towards herself, took a deep breath, and made sure I was really watching. Then, she channeled mana.

Thick, suffocating pressure filled the air.

With my own reserves so utterly drained, the pressure was overwhelming. Is this what everyone else felt around me when I flared my mana? Without my own power to act as a shield, I felt like an ant in front of a tiger.

Sere awkwardly punched the air a few times, stared at me.

The teacup started to wobble. This pressure felt wild, barely controlled. This…this was because I had given her some bad advice, wasn’t it? It had been because I hadn’t known either, but I was going to have to correct her. Either way, it was impressive.

A few seconds later, the pressure was gone.

“I…I’ll take you too,” I said finally. A promise, one I didn’t want to know what would happen if I ended up breaking. It was hard to say no to her when she stared at me like that.

“You’d better,” Damian grumbled. “She needs to get her energy out some way. She keeps pestering me for training, and she has no idea how hard she actually hits. You told me she had decent mana. That is anything but a decent amount of mana!”

“Well...noted.” I smiled, looked at her. “As it happens, I have just the person for that. Besides, I did make you a promise to practice every day, right?”

Sere nodded furiously, stepped back in her chair.

A comfortable silence settled over us. Some of the phantom aches receded, though perhaps the unburdening was only in my head.

“And you’ve brought this Violet here,” Damian said finally. “She has…quite the reputation.”

“She does.” I sighed. “And uh…only half of the rumors about her aren’t true.”

“What a joy,” Damian said dryly. “Oh well. I trust your judgement.”

“Just…when she wakes up, try to be…understanding with her?” I said awkwardly, looking at both of them. “She has her quirks.”

“After what you told me about Sere, I expect her to be a Demon in disguise.” Damian sighed loudly, too loudly to be anything but teasing.

“Dick.” I grinned back.

Damian nodded, rose. “Come on, Sere. She needs her rest.”

Sere looked reluctantly to leave. I nodded at her, and only then did she rise. The two of them looked at me one more time.

Damian looked oddly resolute, Sere looked…equally resolute, actually. They left me alone.

Within seconds of lying down fully, I was already asleep.