The woman had eventually reached her front, but she didn’t say anything for a while. In fact, she actually tilted her head to the side as if she were examining something interesting. It was a surprisingly… adorable action. However, one look into those twin orbs of light was enough to snuff out the spontaneous thought.

Those eyes were not normal.

She had seen all kinds of impressive eyes that had been affected by magic of some kind. It was uncommon, rare even, but nothing much more than that. In general, the only thing they guaranteed was a high affinity with a particular element, nothing else. Ah, actually no. There was an exception, which was of course Jörma’s 3rd eye, but something like that could not be placed in the same category as the others. She had once been told by Titania that the eye wasn’t something that had been gained from evolution or mutation and was instead a magical treasure that Jörma found called the Eye of Petrification.

But that was all besides the point. This woman’s eyes weren’t frightening because of their magical nature. Rather, it was something else that she couldn’t put into words. All she knew was that she felt in front of that woman, there was nothing that could be hidden. All her secrets were free for the taken if the woman simply wished it.

It was a harrowing thought.

It sounded silly now that she thought back on it now but it hadn’t been back then. Not one bit. Actually, the thought of those eyes could still give her jitters.

In any case, after that the woman had softly raised her palm and all the cries hailing her name came to a stop.

“Who and what are you?” The woman said. Her voice had been gentle. Elegant like many of the great people she knew, but there hadn’t appeared to be any of the same steel in her voice. However, the loyalty and utter submission in the people around her spoke for itself. The woman had the greatest power here and didn’t need to sound like it.

But make no mistake, when Bellatrix said the voice sounded gentle, she did not mean that it sounded caring or motherly. No. She meant gentle in the way that she released the words. Softspoken so to speak. The kind of voice someone might have used if they were muttering to themself whilst in deep thought.

Bellatrix didn’t try to hide anything. She stated her name and race and where she came from. She even took the liberty to explain about the situation of Envy. Well, it hadn’t been her plan to reveal so much when she opened her mouth, but the words just kept coming out.

It was the first time she had felt that talking could be so difficult. She could never regain control of her breathing and the longer she stared into the woman’s eyes, the more she panicked.

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It had felt like they were expanding into 2 burning suns, and try as she might, she could not look away. As a result, her explanation had been extremely haggard and by the end of it, she had been visibly shaking.

The greatest humiliation of her life.

The woman, and everyone else for that matter, had been completely silent during her explanation, not even asking questions. Only when she had nothing more to say did the woman finally speak.

“Bellatrix. You bring valuable information to our home and should not have been treated like this. You people, free her.”

The same people who subdued her walked to her and placed their hands on their respective magic ropes. Soon she was free, but nobody stood close enough to make sure she didn’t try to flee. The group that released her walked back into the crowd without a second look. Those in the crowd didn’t tense up at the new threat. Nobody cared. It was as if they thought there was not a single possibility of her escaping or even fighting.

Humiliation.

And yet, at that time the only thing she could think of was that she had been pardoned. That she would not be killed. Escaping hadn’t even been a thought.

Greater humiliation.

“Everyone disperse. I would like to speak to our guest alone.” The woman spoke.

“““Yes, Empress.””” Everyone replied in unison, and they all left swiftly. Soon enough Bellatrix was alone with the Empress.

“My name is Gloria.” The woman, Gloria, spoke. “It would appear we have a lot to talk about.”

And they did.

They had a very long conversation over a period of a few days, and she had been taken care of. She had even been granted knowledge on their culture and way of life. When she was not with Gloria, she was with the annoying woman with the darkness element, touring the streets of the city. Like this, she learned all sorts of things that were not present anywhere else. They enslaved beasts instead of the other way around, wielded powerful elemental weapons, organised magic plants in ways that made them proliferate faster and die less, and more.

They were much different to the Elves and Humans that she knew of. The difference between them and Humans were obvious, but even when compared to the Elves, they still came out on top. They had half of a continent to themselves!

And all of this was because of Gloria. The darkness girl liked to say that a lot. She couldn’t count how many times she would hear the phrase ‘Praise the Empress of Glorious Light!’ in just a single conversation, talk less of total.

But still, it was impossible to not acknowledge the sheer potency that was the Empress. That woman was not normal at all. She was so intelligent that it was frightening. More than enough times she had been suspicious about whether she could read minds because it had always seemed like it in their conversations. Nothing seemed to phase her and everything that came out of Bellatrix’s mouth seemed to fall into the all encompassing boundary of Gloria’s expectations.

Even Titania could not compare to her if you did not take into consideration things like clothing and the like. Eventually, with such thoughts running through her mind, she could no longer resist talking about the Humans that she knew of along with the Elves and Fae.