The weeks passed in a blur while I focused on building the energy rings around my heart. I needed power, and the process kept me distracted from the ocean of my rage just under the surface. True to his word, the Baron had apparently ordered for me to be left alone. No other encounters with any of the Silverwaters occurred, and for that, I was thankful. Even if it came at the cost of being eventually sold off.
Although I had only just managed to form the first ring, that had been enough to trigger my new body into undergoing some needed physical changes. The changes were minor and nothing like the reformation that would happen upon achieving a silver-level core, but it made using Lilliana’s body a lot smoother.
I grew a handful of inches upon achieving the first ring and coupled with the soldier’s daily exercise routine, thin muscles now rippled beneath my unblemished skin. The scars of my true body would return, I knew. The scars of an awakened were not just physical manifestations—they were reflections of the awakened’s journey and a testament to the wounds of their very soul.
Lilliana’s brown eyes had also shifted to a reddish brown, the first sign of their eventual total shift to my original blood-red coloring, the symbol of Aedronir royalty.
The maid Baron Silverwater had assigned to me, Dectra, cleared her throat from the doorway. Her lips were always twisted into the expression of someone sucking on something sour. I couldn’t tell if that was her natural look or just a face she made when looking at me.
“It is time for your etiquette lessons… my lady.”
Since the first day the maid had been assigned to me, I’d disliked her. Even without the permanent sour expression staining her face, the woman simply reminded me of my grandmother. My actual grandmother. Grey, beady eyes showing disdain for everything I did. Coarse white hair, messy and untamed, yet braided with a delicate touch. The dichotomy did nothing to aid the hair’s ugliness or grease, yet spoke much to the person’s inherent bias toward hypocrisy.
I raised my eyebrow from where I sat at my cracked and dilapidated desk, reaching over with a quill point to tap a short white paper next to the stack of educational material the Baron had been providing me.
“It is the fourth day today. Next is history, not etiquette.”
“The history teacher is not available at the moment, so Madame Elara has stepped in to replace the course time.”
“That is unacceptable,” I said, clenching the quill in an undignified fist and then burying the point into the white paper. “My education must be properly balanced. Etiquette can wait. If the history teacher is not available, fetch another one. Or must I be the one to fetch?”
The maid was silent for a long moment, and though her eyes had narrowed, I could still see anger and hatred in them. I didn’t know why this maid was filled with such anger, but I truly did not care so long as she performed her duties. At the very least, Dectra had so far been quite able in that regard. Sometimes a dog wasn’t bad, it simply needed to be tamed and shown where its place was.
“Yes, Lilliana,” Dectra said through gritted teeth.
I turned a sharp gaze on her and stood in a single swift motion, the heavy steel blade at my hip jangling against its sheath as I did so.
“If you wish to deign such a disrespectful tone, I will have you serving slop to the hogs in an hour.” Not a threat, a fact. While the Baron still did not particularly find any favor with me, he would continue to protect my welfare if only for the benefit of the marriage contract. “In fact, I might have you fed to the hogs.”
Dectra paled and gave me a deep bow that brought her near horizontal to the floor. The sliver of heart energy burrowing its way into Dectra’s mortal heart would be enough to persuade her of my seriousness. It was doubtful Dectra could tell it was heart energy manipulating her senses, but it didn’t matter. It was the feeling that mattered.
“I will fetch you a new history tutor, my lady.” Without waiting for a response like she should have, Dectra turned and fled out of my bed chambers. I let her go despite the disrespect. One step at a time.
In any case, I wasn't too concerned about etiquette or history courses. While there were certain aspects of etiquette that differed between my current role and previous world, the differences were rather minuscule. What was interesting, however, was the political layout of this world and something called magic. While there were no textbooks available to me describing the essence of magic in any great detail, my understanding, based on the few lines relating to magic I'd read in A History of Lysoria, indicated that magic was similar to heart or core energy, but that was created from something called leylines rather than the heart.
I turned back to the opened geography textbook laid out on my desk and absentmindedly flicked the quill pen around between my index and middle fingers. A single area was circled with ink, and its borders were traced by a mountain range called The Drought Ranges. The kingdom was a mid to lower-sized territory called Lysoria, and that was where I currently found myself, though technically the Silverwaters were stationed on the outskirts of the kingdom as the Baroness was related to a foreign duke… somehow. I hadn’t quite figured that part out yet.
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
The world itself was called Graedon, but the textbooks available to me only detailed a single continent—Pularea. The land was split into six different territories, one of which was Lysoria. I didn’t pay much attention to the other five, though I couldn’t help but note that only one of the territories was labeled as being an Empire in enormous font, even on the Lysoria-made map before me.
I thumbed to the next page, which focused on the Lysoria Kingdom's territory. The aptly, if unoriginally, named Silverwater town at the core of the barony was surrounded by three neighboring cities, but none of them struck me as useful. Considering Lysoria’s neighboring country to its east, the Kingdom of Cael, traded with Lysoria through a slave-run city on the border of both nations, I was fairly surprised to learn that slavery was actually banned in Lysoria.
Not indentured servitude, but the owning of an individual as property. Yet, there were generally no armed conflicts between the two nations despite the opposing ideological perspectives. In my past life, I’d seen many nations enter blood feuds on the basis of slavery.
The relationship between Lysoria and Cael was an interesting one. On the surface both Kingdoms had remained peaceful with each other throughout the centuries. But a deeper reading of the texts indicated a number of intricate political contentions between the two nations. It was as if their governments and people refused to coexist, but also, for some reason, could not wage war against their neighbor.
I grabbed the textbook with the details of Lysoria’s territory, specifically the one with a map illustrated on the thin pages, and stood to leave the room. I didn’t particularly need a tutor in any subject, but it never hurt to have an additional source of information. Regardless, by the time Dectra found a new tutor, I’d be at my next lesson—Religion and Faith, as the Church of Tranquility’s Cardinal Lack was so fond of referring to it as.
The information was interesting, as religions often were, but at this moment, those lessons were perhaps my least useful. I summoned my single heart ring in a smoky appearance in my free hand and began to spin my hand around the fledgling ring as I left the room to roam the halls of the Silverwater mansion.
Unfortunately, before I got much further than the end of the first hallway, I came face to face with the Baron’s eldest daughter, Morgana, and her entourage of handmaidens and fellow young noble ladies. Though I’d never seen her before, I had seen many of her portraits over the past few weeks, and she was easily recognizable by the tight brown curls of her hair and distinct green eyes that had a bad habit of peering down her nose at just about everyone. She couldn’t have been older than her late teens or early twenties, judging by her lack of wrinkles. She wasn’t all that tall; however, she loomed over me due to Lilliana’s body having not yet experienced puberty.
“If it isn’t the whore’s spawn,” Morgana said, flipping open a fan to hide the smirk I could almost hear spread as she spat the insult out. “I hear you went and lost most of your memories? Not that there was much in that crass little head of yours, anyway.”
I grit my teeth in an attempt to avoid pummeling the woman as images of my mother flickered in my mind’s eye. Based on what I’d learned about the Baron’s family in the past few weeks, Morgana could likely wipe the floor with my current self. If the gossip I’d overheard from the housemaids and seen in some of the house information books recently updated, the woman was quite gifted with fire energy and magic. At that moment I cursed the Baron inwardly for prohibiting me from accessing any textbooks about magic or energy. Even information as surface level as what exactly magic was and the associated leylines would have reduced the edge Morgana had over me.
Though, I supposed, it wouldn’t do for the marriage doll to learn how to kill her contract owner.
“Good afternoon,” I said, my voice coming out as pleasant as I could manage.
“Oh, goodness.” One of the many women following in Morgana’s entourage gave a mock gasp. “It even looks like a wild animal.” The woman was a good bit older than Morgana, with fresh wrinkles spreading out from her forehead and under her eyes. She was maybe a head taller than Morgana and two more than myself, but was exceedingly skinny to the point I was surprised she could walk. Her pale skin was in stark contrast to the thick red makeup on her cheeks and lips that did not pair well with her dark brown eyes.
“How old are you?” I asked. Noble ladies were the same no matter what world, apparently. Fortunately, that should make them fairly easy to manipulate.
“W-what?” she asked, matching Morgana by flipping open her own fan.
I pointed to her ungloved hands. “I was just curious why my sister keeps such an old, unmarried maid in her retinue. I have to say, that certainly is quite undignified.” The noble lady cried out in insult as the women behind her snickered. Even Morgana had begun to crack a mocking smile until she realized I had not only insulted the other noble, but her as well.
She gave me a small, warning smile. “Watch where you tread, sister. You may have somehow developed a little bravery recently, but bravery and foolishness are quite closely related. And foolishness never ends well.” Her eyes lit up with a glint of something I knew would not be good for me. She suddenly switched to a fond, elder-sister tone I’d heard from other Queen candidates as a child. “What is it you’re reading, little Lilliana?” I didn’t show her. “Oh, she’s feeling shy!” The girls giggled, perhaps catching on to Morgana’s plan while I was still in the dark. “Why don’t you join us at our tea party? We can discuss,” she peered around my arm with a false smile that wasn’t fooling anyone, much less me after introducing herself by calling me a whore’s spawn. “Oooh, the history of Lysoria. Yes, that should be fun to discuss over some Pularean tea.”
“My apologies, Lady Silverwater,” I said, hesitantly switching to a more formal tone to indicate a refusal for one of a higher station. “But I truly must resume my lessons.”
Morgana waved away my words with her fan. “Not to worry, darling sister. I hear you have been excelling at all of your lessons. One afternoon off will not set you behind at all.”
I wanted to protest further, but the noble lady and her entourage swept and hustled me forward, despite my objections. I choked down the snarl and curses that bubbled up at the complete disrespect I was being shown. Lilliana was an eleven, now twelve, year-old bullied girl. Morgana was a powerful young adult vying to be the family’s head. I could swallow the insults for now to come back stronger later and return it all tenfold.