By the time they returned to the vampire territory, night had already fallen.
The younger maid kept hugging Lonia and crying, while the older one had a look of utter despair as she wrote out her last will and testament.
The two maids had gone inside ahead of her. Lonia's movements as she hopped down from the carriage were much clumsier than usual. Keeping her head low, she hurried through the front hall, trying to slip back to her room before anyone noticed.
She didn't succeed.
At the end of the corridor, Eliza was leaning against the doorframe of the study.
The two maids knelt to one side, prostrating themselves flat on the ground and trembling uncontrollably.
Eliza had her arms crossed over her chest. Lonia's footsteps faltered.
“...Sister.”
Eliza didn't say a word. She closely inspected Lonia's appearance.
The silver burns on the tip of her nose, the bite marks on her lips, the scraped skin on the side of her neck, her tattered cloak, the scorch marks on her shoulder, and the blackened tips of her left fingers.
Even though the maids had already administered emergency treatment, it was still not hard to tell what she had been through.
“Silver powder.”
“...Yes.”
“Who?”
“Slavers. Three of them. In Maple Town...”
“Maple Town... I recall that is a trading hub established by the Demon King. And yet, slavers appeared there and tried to kidnap a princess of the Catori family?”
Eliza's voice didn't rise, but the temperature in the corridor dropped by two degrees.
“It's not the Demon King's fault... I go there every week. I've been going for two years now.”
“I know.”
Lonia's spine stiffened.
“Did you really think I didn't know you slip away early from every gathering?”
She shouldn't have known. There was no way she could have known.
“Yona and Lin failed to watch over you properly.”
“It's not their fault! It was all my own doing!”
“Enough.”
Eliza straightened up from the doorframe, her high heels making two sharp clicks against the stone floor.
“They've already told me everything.”
She walked over to Lonia, looking down from her height at her bruised and battered little sister.
“I thought you just hated socializing and were looking for a quiet place to hide. I never expected you to run off to the gray zone of the border between humans and demons to mingle with a bunch of commoners. You are insulting the honor of the Catori family.”
“I am not!”
“You even went to see that half-breed.”
“Don't you dare call Fina that!!”
“...”
Eliza stared at her coldly for a few seconds.
“Come inside. Lin, treat her wounds properly first. Yona, come with me.”
The younger maid stood up, her face pale as ash, and followed Eliza. The older maid, full of worry, took Lonia's hand.
“Please, don't kick Yona out...”
“Shut up.”
Lonia sobbed as Lin led her into the study. Without a word, Lin waited by her side with a basin of medicinal liquid and bandages, skillfully beginning to clean the silver powder burns. As the cool medicine seeped into her blackened fingertips, Lonia's shoulders shuddered, and she gritted her teeth hard.
After a while, Eliza entered the room alone. She sat behind her desk and flipped open a ledger, not looking at Lonia again.
“Sister... what about Yona...?”
“I only ordered her to clean the entire estate. What did you think I did to her? And Lin, you will be joining her later.”
“Huh?”
Lonia wore a look of utter bewilderment.
“...”
Eliza sighed.
“According to family rules, they should have been executed.”
She fell silent for a moment.
“Let this be a one-time exception. If you want to go to Maple Town in the future, remember to take a couple more attendants with you.”
Lonia looked up.
“...Sister? You're not going to stop me?”
“I don't want you to hate me.”
The rustling of pages being turned was exceptionally clear in the quiet study.
“Besides, even the Demon King has spoken. What would be the point of me stopping you?”
Lonia opened her mouth, then closed it again. Her left hand was soaked in the basin of medicine, her blackened fingertips trembling slightly in the pale blue liquid.
“...Thank you, Sister.”
“Don't thank me. If you come back with silver powder burns again, I'm locking you in solitary confinement for three months.”
...
Once Lonia had fallen asleep, Lin quietly closed the door, slipped out of the room, and made her way toward Eliza's quarters.
The door opened. Yona was sitting inside with her hands folded over her knees, looking at Lin with a bit of anxiety.
“...Lady Eliza, is this really... alright?”
“It's just that the Demon King's intervention and that half-breed's power exceeded our expectations,” Eliza said indifferently, her eyes narrowing slightly.
“Ultimately, she didn't suffer any lasting harm. And the Demon King disposed of those three corpses for you, which in a sense, actually did you a favor.”
“...”
Yona opened her mouth, wanting to say something, but in the end, she kept silent.
“But Lady Eliza... how... did you know what we were thinking...?”
The corners of Eliza's mouth curled up slightly.
“It's a secret.”
Lin lowered her head.
“The Demon King's disciple... Hehehe...”
She sneered, closing her eyes completely.
...
A week later, at the front gates of Gloom Castle.
Two guards clad in black armor stood on either side of the gates, looking down expressionlessly at the short child dressed in a black traveling skirt.
She pulled out a bronze token from the inner lining of her cloak.
It was a passage token personally issued by the Demon King, with Lonia's name engraved upon it.
The guards glanced at the token, then stepped aside to clear the path.
The massive black iron gates slowly ground open before her.
The interior of Gloom Castle was exactly as she remembered it from two years ago. An attendant was waiting for her in the foyer, leading her through the main hallway, up two flights of stairs, and turning into a south-facing corridor.
At the end of the corridor was a wooden door. The door panel was brand new, its color several shades lighter than the surrounding walls, and the scent of freshly shaved wood still lingered around the frame.
Lonia pushed the door open.
Sunlight.
It was sunlight created by some kind of magic, serving as a substitute for the non-existent sun in Abyss City.
The room was spacious. A single bed covered with a gray quilt sat in the corner, and on the nightstand lay a brand-new oil lamp, alongside the mouthguard she had gifted her.
On the opposite wall was an entire bookshelf—mostly empty, though someone had already begun moving books onto it. The bottom two shelves were packed with yellowed old volumes, identical to the ones from the old archives.
Rafina was sitting on the windowsill.
Her silver-white twin tails draped over her shoulders, tied with the very same ribbons Lonia had given her.
She sat there, staring out at the withered forest with her crimson eyes.
The sunlight bathed the side of the young girl's face, tinting her pale skin with a soft golden hue, while her crystal horn refracted tiny rainbows in the light.
She had also changed into new clothes—a simply tailored black long-sleeved dress, with the red maple leaf bronze hairpin still pinned to her collar.
Lonia leaned against the doorframe, watching her for three seconds.
“Hey.”
Rafina turned her head. Her crimson eyes lit up the instant she saw Lonia, her lips curving upward as her arrow-tipped tail perked up behind her, its tip tracing a tiny circle in the air.
“Nia! Did you come through the front gate?”
“Duh. I have a token.”
Lonia stepped into the room, her leather boots clicking crisply against the wooden floor.
“Not bad. You've got a window, sunlight, and you don't even have to run outside anymore.”
She walked over to the windowsill and reached out to flick Rafina's crystal horn.
“So, it's been a week. What did that guy teach you?”
Rafina hopped down from the windowsill and stood in the center of the room. Closing her eyes, she let her hands hang loosely at her sides.
Lonia leaned against the windowsill, crossing her arms as she watched her.
The air changed.
Like ripples spreading across the surface of a pond, a wave of energy expanded outward from the center of Rafina's body.
Lonia felt the mana inside her own body vibrate in response.
Rafina opened her eyes.
“He taught me how to sense the flow of mana. How to make it circulate through my body instead of pooling in one place.”
She raised her right hand, palm facing up. A sphere of faint red light floated up from her palm, its shape clear and stable.
“And how to guide it outside my body without letting it go out of control.”
The ball of light hovered in her palm for three seconds before she closed her fingers, pulling it back inside.
Lonia stared at her palm for a long moment.
“...You can already do this much after only a week?”
“He said my mana affinity is very high. Higher than most demons he has ever seen.”
“What about that ability of yours?”
“Um... he said... it's a fractured Authority.”
An Authority?
Lonia subconsciously clenched her fists.
“So what rank are you now? Did he measure it for you?”
Rafina's tail curled slightly.
“...He did.”
“What rank?”
“...He said it's hard to measure with conventional ranks. Because my total mana capacity is huge, but my control is practically zero. If we're only counting the power I can normally draw out—”
“What rank?”
“...Around Rank Five.”
Lonia's expression froze.
Rank Five.
Eight years old. No training whatsoever. Rank Five.
Lonia had trained for two years, pushing herself to the brink of death every single day, only to reach Rank Three.
Lonia's lip twitched. Then it twitched again.
“...Oh.”
“Nia?”
“It's nothing. That's great. Rank Five. Amazing.”
Her tone was as flat as a sheet of ironed paper.
Rafina's tail retracted, its tip curling into a tight knot. She recognized that tone. Lonia always sounded like this when she was sulking but refused to admit it.
“...Nia, are you mad?”
“No. Why would I be mad? My best friend is a genius. I couldn't be happier.”
“...Your lip is twitching.”
“It's just the wind.”
Rafina looked at her. A trace of anxiety flickered in her crimson eyes, but it was quickly replaced by something else.
“...Nia.”
“What?”
“I have a surprise for you.”
Lonia's brow arched.
“What surprise?”
“You'll find out at the next gathering.”
“...Since when did you learn to be so mysterious?”
The corners of Rafina's mouth curled up, her arrow-tipped tail swishing gently behind her.
“...It's a secret.”
...
The day of the gathering.
The public parlor of the Ten Courts district. The dim, atmospheric light filtering from the ore dome, the thick carpets, the low tables, and the pastry platters. Everything was exactly the same as it had been for the past two years.
Fema stood by the pastry table, her fiery-red short hair a wild mess, wrinkling her nose at a freshly served platter of honey cake.
Her crystalline scales had grown a size larger than they were two years ago, spreading from her left shoulder down to just below her collarbone.
“Sweet stuff again! Can't they serve something savory for once!”
Tia leaned back on a couch, her misty-gray long hair spilling over half the seat. A pipe dangled from her mouth, her violet eyes half-closed.
“You complain every single time, yet you eat them every single time.”
“I didn't eat them! I just smelled them!”
“You've 'smelled' three of them already.”
Ellie lay flat on the low table, drawing. Her heart-shaped pupils lifted to glance at Fema, and she giggled twice. Sera sat beside her older sister, expressionless, her indigo eyes calm as usual.
Lonia walked in through the side door and froze at the entrance.
Her gaze swept across the parlor.
Fema, Tia, Ellie, Sera, the shadow demons and gargoyles in the corner, the wraiths...
And then her gaze stopped.
At the very end of the low table.
A figure she had never once seen in this parlor before.
Silver-white twin tails. Crimson eyes. Translucent crystal horns. A black long-sleeved dress, with a red maple leaf bronze hairpin pinned to her collar.
Rafina was sitting right there in the parlor of the Ten Courts social gathering.
In front of her sat an untouched cup of tea. Her hands were folded neatly over her knees—the exact same posture as Sera. But unlike Sera, her shoulders were slightly tense, her back held just a bit too straight, radiating a nervous energy.
Lonia stood dazed at the doorway.
Rafina's gaze rose from her teacup, traveling across the entire parlor to land on Lonia at the entrance.
The corners of her mouth curved up slightly. Her arrow-tipped tail peeked out from beside the chair leg, its tip tracing a tiny circle.
A surprise.
Fema was the first to notice the anomaly. Turning her head from the honey cake, her fiery-red eyes fell upon the unfamiliar silver-haired girl, her brows instantly knitting together.
“Who's that? A newcomer? Which Court is she from? The Demon Court? But isn't that guy a man?”
Tia's pipe rotated half a turn in her mouth as her violet eyes finally opened completely. She stared at Rafina for two seconds, her eyes narrowing as a meaningful curve rose on her lips.
“She's not from any of the Courts.”
“Then why is she here?”
“My, Fema, you really are out of the loop. She is the disciple of Lord Demon King.”
The parlor fell silent for a beat.
“Lord Demon King's... disciple?”
Rafina stood up from her chair.
“...My name is Rafina Thun. Pleased to meet you.”
She gave everyone a polite, slight bow.
Fema stared at her for a solid five seconds.
“Thun? I've never heard of that surname. Which lineage do you belong to?”
“...I don't belong to the ten great lineages.”
“You don't belong to the ten great lineages, yet you are Lord Demon King's disciple?”
Fema's tone was heavy with suspicion.
“By what right?”
Tia's pipe wobbled slightly in her mouth.
“She could beat you with one hand tied behind her back, little Fema.”
Fema whirled around to glare at her.
“And how would you know that? Isn't this your first time seeing her too?”
“Oh, I had a dream. Someone in my dream told me.”
“You!”
Lonia stood at the entrance for a long time.
She watched Rafina standing in the center of the parlor, surrounded by Fema's interrogations and Tia's teasing.
The corners of Lonia's mouth twitched.
She strode into the parlor, cutting through the gaps between the low tables, walked straight to Rafina's side, and plopped down onto the chair next to her.
“What's all the racket? She's my friend. Anyone got a problem with that?”
Fema's fiery-red eyes snapped toward her.
“You know her?”
“Yeah, so what?”
“You're a vampire, and you're hanging out with someone who doesn't even belong to the ten great lineages...”
“With a student of the Demon King who doesn't belong to the ten great lineages. Is there a problem?”
Lonia's crimson slit pupils glared straight at Fema, her chin lifted slightly as her small fangs peeked through her lips.
Fema's crystalline scales crackled twice, heat rising from the gaps between them. Then she snorted, turned around, grabbed the honey cake with its melting frosting, and stuffed it into her mouth.
“Whatever. This gathering was already messy enough anyway.”
Tia burst into laughter on her couch.
Ellie poked her head out from behind the low table, her pink heart-shaped pupils scanning Rafina with curiosity.
“Wow~ What pretty horns~ Can I touch them~”
“No.”
Lonia answered on Rafina's behalf.
Rafina sat back down in her chair, her hands once again folded over her knees.
Her tail slipped out from beside her leg, quietly and inconspicuously wrapping around Lonia's calf.
Lonia glanced down at the tail, then looked up at Rafina.
She was smiling at her.
Rate on N.U.
