Chapter 68

A few steps outside of her former room, Livia stares down the mostly empty hallway suspiciously. She completely ignores the crumbled form of the wet nurse and takes a cautious step forward.

Her son suddenly wiggles in his sling, making a small noise and her eyes drop down to check him over. He remains slumbering and she absently cast a small spell to dull the sound around him. His weight at her front was doing nothing to help with her soreness, but Livia had little choice but to bear it for now.

They would have a small time frame to leave without causing a ruckus.

“No guards,” Sen states behind her.

“They must be busy holding up Amaya and Liliana,” Livia guesses as she hikes up her sack further. She tries to walk on silent feet, but her gate is heavy and her feet feel like swollen clubs. She winces when a floorboard creek underneath her but continues on down the hall.

“How should we go about this?” Sen says by her shoulder.

They come to a stop at the intersection splitting up the second floor of the north wing, standing in the shadows of a wall. Livia turns and stares at Sen before shrugging casually, “No idea,” She answers honestly.

Sen just sighs. Suddenly, he lifts his head, his ears twitching as he frowns.

“What is it?” Livia strains her own subpar human ones. She hears distant voices, the taps of feet walking and doors being opened in closed. The servants of the north wing have already begun to start the preparations for the day. Though, she notes, that most of the activity is happening pointedly away from her room.

Her eyes narrow as fuming anger bursts up inside of her.

Duke Valentine must have ordered the servants to keep away from her former room for a certain period. So, no one other them himself, the few guards and knights he assigned, could see her baby being removed from her room alive and well. He must have been planning to take such actions from the moment he returned back to the estate.

“The guards have gathered downstairs in the parlor. Liliana and Amaya are with them. Along with the royal guards, I think there are a few of your father’s knights. They are starting to get restless. The duke has taken too long,” Sen reports back, drawing her out of her thoughts.

“It won’t be long before they come up and check on him,” He continues on and drops his eyes to stare a hole into her head, his expression carefully blank.

It was pointless. Livia already knew what he was trying to get at while not outright saying it. To be blunt, re-grouping with Liliana and Amaya would be risky. While they could easily take out the group of knights and guards around the two young women, especially with Amaya’s help, the commotion would bring unwanted attention.

Not to mention the very important detail of her newborn baby still strapped to her chest. He wasn’t even one day old and he has already come too close to precarious situations. Livia wasn’t exactly eager to jump headfirst into a fight. If anything, all her instincts were screaming at her to beat a hasty retreat while the window of opportunity was still open.

She sighs and massages her aching temples before running a hand through her messy hair, trying to think.

“How are they? Are they being treated well?” Livia eventually asks. She keeps her back to the wall and turns her head to stare down the hall. It was still empty. No servants have ventured to the second floor of the north wing yet.

“You realize I can’t see through walls, right?” Sen says flatly.

Livia rolls her eyes, “You can hear through them well enough.”

Sen pupils dilated in response.

She waits, counting down the seconds in her head while she slowly rocks her baby as she cradles his head with one hand and rests the other under his bum. Livia hopes to keep her son asleep as long as possible. The last thing they needed was a crying baby on top of everything else.

“Liliana is asking them a lot of questions,” Sen says after a while.

Livia’s lips twitched.

“And Amaya is grumbling to herself. From the proximity of their voices, it sounds like they are close to one another and unalarmed,” Sen continues to report.

“And Beth?” She asks tentatively.

Sen shakes his head, “I did not hear her.”

Livia nods and comes to a decision.

“Then we will leave them behind,” She concludes grimly, “Liliana will not be harmed with the duke back in his estate and Amaya can handle herself. We will contact them once we are in a more secure location.”

The tension releases out of Sen's shoulders and he nods curtly. Against his chin, Noctis stares between the two of them before letting out a curious sound, tilting his head.

Livia reaches up and scratches at his chin and offers up a brave smile to the kit that she suddenly feels is only surface deep.

“There is a back entrance for the servants at the end of this hall,” Sen says, stepping away once she drops her hand. His body turns in the direction of his words, “It leads out into the overgrown garden. We should not encounter many people as it is technically still under repair.”

Livia nods along even though she knew this as well. Her hands curl and twist into the air, her magic springs up like an over-eager puppy at the command of the silent ancient words she speaking in her mind. The old magic shrouds them like a well-worn blanket and they blink out of sight.

In a matter of a few short minutes, they trek towards the end of the hall, through the servants' entrance and down the damaged steps, and stop before a door with a cracked glass panel.

Through the door, a weak beam of sunlight greets them as it tries to break through the pillars of the forest slowly creeping forward and threatening to overtake the north wing. The old, long-abandoned garden has been taken back by nature, making the distinction between the wild and civilization nonexistent.

Sen takes the lead and draws his sword to cut a path.

“If we circle around, we could grab a carriage for the servants. However, the Valentine property is enclosed by walls on all sides. The only way in and out is through the gates,” Sen remarks as he steps through the thick of the forest. He holds a thick branch back, letting Livia pass, “It will be in our best interest to leave before word of what happened to the duke spreads around the estate.”

He was right, again.

“If we keep heading north-east, we should be able to make it to the carriages within ten minutes,” Livia says in reply, pointing in the direction. The forest would act as a shortcut and give her a small reprieve in using her magic and the carriage would be the safest and fastest way to travel with her son.

Teleportation was completely off the table.

“Once we attain our carriage,” She says, looking up as Sen falls into step beside her, “We should head to the east gate. It diverts to the main road.”

“You wish to take the main road?” Sen steps slow to match hers.

Livia nods, “I intend to disappear into the nearest city.”

“Verbena is still within the dukes’ territory. Shouldn't you strive for something further away and out of reach?” Sen says, side-eyeing her.

“I do not wish to stray far from Liliana. And I still owe Amaya,” Livia says, “Plus, the nearest prison is near the city. I suspect that Beth is already in the process of being taken there,” She glances over at Sen, “You didn’t hear her at all, right?”

“...That is correct,” Sen says.

Livia sighs again.

“Then that is where we will go.”

----------------------------------------

The screeching wail of her son permeates the small wooden cabin in which Livia sits alone.

It has been exactly thirty minutes since they had been permitted to pass through the Valentine Estate east gate, and two minutes since her son has woken up. Livia had disguised herself and Sen as caterers specifically hired on for the Fall Courtship. She even managed to muster up the strength to do darning and complicated mind tricks on the knight who had asked for their permission slip to leave.

An illusion would be less tiring. But Livia had never needed such papers to leave estate before and therefore had no idea what it looked like nor the time to figure out.

Stolen novel; please report.

As soon as she finished the spell, it was like her magic had a stopper placed on it. The once easy flow now felt like a thick sludge struggling to move through a small pipe.

Livia needed no guidance as to why that was. She concluded quickly that the adrenaline that had pumped through her when her baby was threatened was the cause for her magic responding so quickly. Now that it was gone, it was now responding how it once had when her magic had first returned.

Unfortunately, without the adrenaline pumping through her, Livia was suddenly starkly aware of just how sore and worn out her whole body felt. To add to that, her son was up and angrily sobbing his displeasure into her eardrums as he struggles against her chest, causing her to wince.

Livia's arms feel like lead but she lifts them up and loosens up the fabric of the sheets, carefully untangling from her son's squirming form.

“Alright, alright, I hear you,” Livia says lowly, “What’s wrong? Why did you suddenly start crying?” She asks her son as he continues to wail his little heart out. Then her nose wrinkles and she stares down at the cloth diaper latched onto her baby with trepidation.

Oh hell.

Livia brings her son closer to her chest, hushing him and rocking him as she stares around the small cabin with wide eyes. Where did she put the sack? Didn’t she have it with her only seconds ago?

“Waaah!!!! Waaaaagh!!!” Her son cries out, communicating in a way he only knows how.

“I know, I know. It’s gross. Just give me a minute,” Livia says, spotting her sack wedged under Noctis, who was staring at her baby as if he was some strange creature not of this planet. His back was arched up and he was still as his hair stood up. He looked seconds away from freaking out.

Geez. Maybe she should have let him stay with Sen, who was currently driving the carriage, after all.

As if his name had been called, Sen glances and cranes his head to stare through the open window placed in front of the wooden carriage, “What is wrong with him?” He asks and has the exact same expression as Noctis. He doesn’t bother to hide his grimace of disgust when the smell hits him.

Honestly, these two.

“He took a dump, and now I need to change him,” Livia tells him, then she nods towards Noctis, “Can you call him towards you? I need my sack.”

Sen stares at them a second longer without his expression changing before he calls the kit to him and turns back to focus on steering the carriage. Livia is only mildly offended by the fact that her familiar practically bolts away from her at the speed of light, scrabbling up and through the hole in the cabin of the carriage.

Livia huffs and summons her sack to her. It drifts hazardously in the air, dipping a few times before falling beside her. The small action was enough to make her feel like she could sleep for a week and still be tired. Beth had said she would still need to recover even after being healed but damn this sucks.

Sighing, Livia shifts her sobbing baby boy to one arm and begins rummaging through the sake for a container of water she always kept inside and a clean fabric diaper. Once she got the items, she rearranges the sheets on the hard wooden stool, folding them until it creates a small cushioned area with one side raised up to act as a barrier. Livia carefully sets her son down on it and removes a small knife from a holster on her thigh and cuts a few small sections of her long dress to use as makeshift wipes before returning it.

Finally, she sets about changing her son's cloth diaper.

Once done, she holds out the soiled one before she glances at the small curtain window and tosses it out of it with a shrug. With that done, her son's wails have now drifted into small whimpering cries.

Livia coos at him, mumbling sweet nonsense as she gathers him up again, tucking the soft blanket around him before she snuggles him to her chest.

“He made all of that noise just because he pooped himself,” Sen says in front with a disgruntled tsk.

Livia snickers, “I’m sure you reacted the same way when you were young.”

“...hn,” Sen neither agrees nor disagrees.

“So,” Livia starts, rocking her baby, “Now that I am a runaway daughter of an esteemed noble family, I no longer have a fortune or an army of servants to cater to my every little whim.”

“So, it seems,” Sen agrees slowly, flickering a look over his shoulder.

“And,” She drawls, “I also happened to spend the small fortune I had gathered-”

“Stole,” Sen corrects tartly.

“Over the months on the much-needed items for my adorable baby boy,” Livia steams rolls right over him, “But a woman such as I cannot just enter a city such as Verbena without paying a small fee of ten coppers upfront.”

“How do you not even have a single copper coin to your name?” Sen asks incredulously, “Didn’t your father provide you a weekly allowance?”

“Duke Valentine did,” Livia says, and tries to lean back so her sleeping son rests more comfortably on her, “However, I did not exactly have the time to drain my account before I left.”

“...”

“Sen, my dear companion, if you would be so kind to provide a wee-lass such as myself with a small boom?” She asks with the eyes of a begging puppy, “Be a dear and help your old ex-employee out,” Livia continues to beseech shamelessly, “I’ll be sure to pay you back once I get back on my feet. You know how these things go. You have a baby out of wedlock. Your stick in the mud father tries to snatch said baby from his crib as soon as he is born and BOOM. You are homeless because ain’t nobody got time for that bullshit.”

Sen just sighs, staring straight ahead, “What even are you saying right now?”

“Do you want me to beg some more?” Livia asks readily, blinking like a stunted owl, “Because I will.”

“No. Shut up,” Sen growls instantly.

“Well, that isn’t a yes,” Livia points out, “Please-pretty please,” She begins in a pitched and cracked voice.

“What are you on?” Sen asks seriously.

“I inhale the dreams of children to survive,” Livia says and giggles madly. Then her smile suddenly drops off and she sinks into the uncomfortable wooden seat, staring up at the roof of the cabin emptily.

“...How are you feel-” Sen starts to say slowly.

“Like shit.”

…

“You don’t have to ask, you know,” he tells her lowly without looking back, and bitterness wells up inside of her, “You don’t have to pay me back either,” Sen continues, offering his hand out for her to grab once more. He gives and gives without asking for another thing in return, patiently waiting and always holding back his words so he wouldn't slip and say something damning after being strong-armed by the pact.

Because to him, Livia was a person to be pitied. She was a person to take care of and look after to absolve himself of his own guilt. The loyalty between them was artificial. And everything after that rested on a shaky and unstable foundation that she could never trust.

Livia shakes her head tiredly, her expression strained as she mutters, “I really cannot stand it after all.”

“What?” Sen glances back, frowning.

“I have the book with all the information you need,” Livia says curtly in reply, “I had made sure to write it all down, just in case...” She trails off.

It would be easier this way. After everything Sen has done for her, he deserved this much at the very least. The pact also demanded that she cater to the rules of its formation as it rises up inside of her.

“With it, you are no longer tethered to my side. You can go back to your village and report back to your master. It has everything you need to know about the empire, about the future of Wisteria,” Livia continues when Sen remains deadly silent, “After we arrive to the city, you can leave Sen. You no longer have to follow me around or be chained by your guilt after you had used that trust potion on me without my consent. You can just fuck off and live your life oka-”

The carriage comes to a rattling stop.

Livia bites her lips and sinks down further into the chair, all but curling around her sleeping baby. She looks away.

“I need to get rid of the blood pact as well,” Her face grimaces as she feels it like a moving thing right under her skin.

It felt wrong.

Pulsing like another heartbeat alongside her own, as if it was an actual living being. She pulls away from it as if scalded, terrified. Livia should have gone with her first instinct and gotten rid of it. She should have never let it get this far.

But she had needed the help.

So, Livia had seen an opportunity with Sen to take control over what had been forced out of her, to soothe the hurt and grave insult with the blood pact. She saw a kind soul in Beth, so she reached out, knowing full well that she wouldn’t be turned away. She saw aligned goals with Amaya, so she had bargained a deal that could benefit them both.

All of this had been done for the sole sake of keeping her baby and herself safe long enough to give birth to him.

Her son was now in her arms.

Her magic was also back.

Livia didn’t want any more help. She couldn’t stand the increasing feeling of dependency nor could she beat down the sick feeling of exploitation. It reared up again and again, ugly and twisted, selfish and greedy. It has taken her so long to untangle the web-like rock of emotions, to finally realize what exactly it was composed of.

Guilt and shame curl up like parasitic worms in her belly, slowly eating away Livia. Gnawing at her self-consciousness. Suddenly, she couldn’t help but ask certain questions. One that drowned her in dread and chilled her to her very core.

Because...

How was she any better than the one who raped her?

How was she any better than that hateful empress dowager?

The answer is obvious, isn’t it?

She wasn’t any better.

Livia had been a bully and she had poisoned Amelia. From the beginning, she knew she had deserved to be exiled, and so she went without fighting, sinking and agreeing to some unknown plan buried deep inside of herself.

Escape.

That’s right. She had wished to escape Wisteria with her life intact.

But instead, she had been forced into slavery by the Princes of the Wisteria Kingdom in secret, and sold to the highest bidder, and placed into the Easter Empire harem after traversing across a sea of hell. Livia how vowed to seek out revenge, to return.

And she did.

Return, that is.

But by then, Livia was barely hanging onto the glued pieces of herself. Pretending that the image she broadcast outwardly was true to the one inside. She wrapped confidence and violence around herself like a shield.

And Livia had killed people with it.

Without remorse and without an ounce of hesitance.

No, she wasn’t better than her rapist or the corrupted empress dowager. She wasn’t better than her greedy mother and neglectful father. Livia wasn’t even better than Rodale or fucking Orin. She was human and as flawed as they come.

So, what gave her the right to cast judgment?

What gives her the right to enact revenge?

Livia’s mind drew a deafening blank.

“-ivia, damn it. Livia!”

Sen’s raised voice topples her out of her thoughts. It’s like falling into a pit of spikes.

She jerks a bit, feeling the pain, seeing death reaching out towards her, and her baby whines in her arms as Sen digs his fingers into her shoulders. She hastily draws her son closer and tries to soothe him without really thinking about it.

“Sorry,” She says, her mouth numb, “I spaced.”

“You spaced,” Sen repeats, staring at her with a constipated expression.

Livia pulls away from him, her gaze going out the door, “We stopped moving on a busy road. At this rate, we won’t make it into the city before early noon,” she says. The words are unimportant and do nothing to dissipate the tense atmosphere.

“Livia-”

“We can’t stay out in the open,” She points out. When Sen does not move, when he tries to stare another piercing hole into her skull, she adds, “I promise, we will talk when we are more secure. We need to,” Livia meets his gaze, her expression somber, “No running away this time. I promise.”

Sen leaves her.

He moves back to his seating position in front of the small wooden carriage, within arm reaching distance and yet, it feels like a sinkhole has appeared between them, revealing itself only as she steps right over it, and now, Livia is just falling.