Her footsteps slowed, as she entered the threshold to the library with someone else present. Henry looked up at her as if to judge what was inside her mind, more expecting a hesitation to enter through the doors. The entire of the royal family were smart, and absolutely good at acting. No wonder that once her presence was added to the palace grounds, it felt as if she were already part of the family from a very young age.
Her hand was hanging in mid-air as she twisted the knob and walked in while holding the kid's hand. Luckily, they were not up and in front so if she was sneaky enough, they could get out within the second the suspense settled down on the other person present.
"Are you going to be busy with work from now?" The child spoke while letting go of her hand as Aefia took off a thick book from the top shelf. "Not really, it would be a small exploration into the worlds of this books if you took it into accord like that." She smiled while glancing at the map on the cover page and read the title.
In her mind, only one sentence had stayed ever since, I said she is smart and good at hiding things and definitely...In that immediate realization, she knew that even Henry had gone through it. Maybe it was an intentional training that the duchess had done to keep her son's from falling into the traps of other people.
"Do you want to go and have a seat?" She spoke to him as she looked the way his eyes stayed diverted at. The sitting area, which must mean his mind right now wanted to continue the conversation. Finally letting off a sigh, she put the book back onto the shelf and let words spill out. "Honestly, I think there is already a hint that you want to know why or what happened."
His attention drifted from the sofa to her face which fell expressionless towards the floor and then to her hand. "But in the other way, you might be a little too young to understand it, because I am just an outsider who got dragged into this family and the main reason behind countless problems, am I right?" She spoke while recalling the stitched wound behind her dark glove. Wearing both made her uncomfortable.
"It's the matter with mom, I already know." Henry responded with an unfamiliar face, that almost represented that of Aefia's. "She does it, to anyone she thinks is powerless. Most particularly, father, who had been most protective of us until that knife took his life that day. I was only around four and Lewis was eleven. It was him that our father was about to protect."
And unlike the fate you have shared, I took a different turn in life that changed the way I had been. I was able to escape the bloody battle of survival, but I couldn't get through to the others. Aefia recalled her past back at Earth. Seeing the trauma that illuminated upon his face, she crouched down and stared at him from the lower angle. His gaze shifted towards his non-biological sister as a mirror image seemed to reflect back.
"I was also your age...when I took an indecisively step to try and escape that abusive life I had." She slowly let her words fall free. Suddenly realizing that whoever were in the library, also had ears, she got up and gestured towards the door with her head and Henry seemed to have understood the assignments.
Aefia and Henry broke out in a run as they hid between spaces to lure out anyone who followed them. She was already aware that someone else in this palace had the stealth skill and decided to confuse them out of their invisibility form. Using her own skill, which was an almost impossible thing to maintain with her drained health, she dashed out of the area and reached the garden while realizing there was no importance in doing that.
The kid laughed as he stood in the dark of the night sky and sat on the ground. "Don't roll in it, otherwise you will get dirty and the duchess while blame me for it." She spoke while picking him up and watched him walk across towards the flower bushes. He plucked them one by one as they fell to the ground with a flicker and dissapeared. Magically embedded flowers.
She followed behind and found it a relieve now that he had forgotten what was being told and blankly wondered across the stone ground. Just when she thought that the situation was indeed back to normal, the child turned around and spoke with a serious face. Seeing this, Aefia's mind flashed back to life and throbbed with pain that intensified over the seconds.
"Aren't you going to continue with your story? Or did you think it problematic when you recalled your past?" Henry abruptly turned around and three stems of rose fell to the ground as they blackened alongside the grassed ground. His eyes stayed sharp at her pupils that were stable with small hints of hesitation showing across her face.
"I don't know why, but nowadays I find it impossible to speak about, given how...it's been sometime since then. For short, yes you got me right when you said it was problematic to speak of it. But..." She trialed off not knowing what sentence would come after this. Saying those few words felt like a sickle was tied to her throat and her limbs which made speaking feel like a crime.
"You are a little too young to understand family problems for short, I can say that your brother Lewis might have suffered the same thing that I did. The only difference is I had chosen a path that allowed for a small movement along the way that stopped a quite amount of the, torture." She glanced down at the ground where the flowers were darkened. "And alongside that, I did learn that parents do so in order to have their children presentable in public, you know?"
"...I didn't." Henry spoke as he glanced at her face with a fragile smile that strengthened along with time. "Then how about annoying kids? They must have not been taught a lesson." He spoke while staring at Aefia with a little comfort that made it seem like she were actually a sister he grew up with. "They were just left to play with toys while they learnt no manners." A response came back, but with a little hesitation tied to it.
Was it really something fine for a child like him to hear about? He is in fact still learning and once he knew the truth, the remaining of his life will be led through distrust. And that alone just gets me worried because for a small amount of happiness among that child, I pulled in falsehood and lies that would stay in his mind for ages to come.
Guilt washed over her mind, as she could see vivid images of the times she was once lied to. Those were a lesson that thought her trust issues, so soon enough, she might have to come close about it to Henry. But then, she couldn't keep this in her mind too because it caused various worries to bring unwanted headaches. Despite the fact, the garden seemed peaceful with the chilly breeze that swept the leaves of the rose bushes, creating a rustling sound.
Of course, this kid is also smart...what did I expect? She let a smile appear on her face while glancing at the watch on her hand, looking at the number two, she remembered the last night promise that she had made to the young kid. "Oh and I wanted to say something, about the promise I had made that I will join you tonight if possible?"
"Why? Will you be busy?" He spoke slightly upset as if hurt. "No it's not that! I will be working late due to the stack that had piled up while I was gone, so I will eventually join...a little later then two, is it possible?" She spoke while glancing with a panicking gaze.
"As long as you come along, then it would be perfectly fine. If you are busy, I won't mind either, but you can't skip it, even if five minutes." Henry shrugged as he returned towards the palace doors. "By the way, I found it obligatory to ask you about your health mid-way." He pointed at the gloved hand.
Aefia diverted her eyes towards it while removing the black leather, revealing a half vanished wound. Recalling about the fact that she could regenerate with her magic, healing wasn't going to take long. "It's alright, it will dissappear within the next six hours or so. Other then that, I don't think anything else would be worrisome from now. Around this time, the duchess might come along and check our rooms, so we better hurry back."
By changing the topic, she wanted to keep the child's mind into something else, knowing how he was still just in his curious age, there might be more questions brought up if not closed permanently. I am suffering the regrets of telling him about my abusive childhood and who knows what he is thinking about it as. If we somehow share the same mindset, then one thing that he might be thinking right now would be 'this girl is strange! No wonder she is the odd one out from the rest of us'.
She stood in her place until waiting for the last sight of her little brother leave, and then just dissapeared into thin air as her magic wrapped around the limbs, making an illusion seem to dissappear like that. Meanwhile, staring out of the window of the study, a similiar figure to Aefia stayed watching and seated. Leaning against the cold surface, her hat was already on the verge of falling.
She had purchased a skill, not too long ago, which allowed the ability to replicate and clone oneself. Using that skill, she had casted another version of 'Aefia' and watched over what was being said or told, and since she didn't have the ability to control what was being said, she only had a hint of what she could read.
Her hands and legs were crossed as she stayed gazing at the three dark flowers fallen on top of the grass carpet. Without a further hesitation, she stood up, held her hat in place and space shifted into the garden where those roses were. Her fingers wrapped around the three sharp needle-like stems as a few left scratch marks on the tips, the red colours slowly returned as her fingers glowed a vibrant maroon and returned them into the bush that they had fallen from.
The person who was at the library, was herself, while also the person at the study was the exact same person. If she wanted to fool the Guardians, she was going to have to do it this way. Within that short amount of time, there were many informations gathered. All of them were mind blowing and had her wondering why this was something so different compared to what they were told all along.
Guardians are not some random elemental magic users or what so-ever, and rather, they are extremely powerful leaders who take care of nations in different planets, but whether it was truly worlds, that's a different thing to matter since it too was probably falsehood. That was strange, to know how there were many magic users but only a few become well-known powerful rulers or fighters.
Now that this was confirmed, she knew there was another thing that made more sense. Within that small amount of time, the other information she had briefly gathered, was the truth behind how many states or continents there truly are. To count it all, if states were actually countries based on Earth's, then there were exactly two hundred and three including islands.
Her research had to stopped until there, but based on her understandings surrounding this, she had found out that even citizens are told lies. If this were the world, then it was worth trying to be careful about it since anyone could fall for any trap within seconds. Upon the realization, she wanted to gather up and inform the competition members, but in order to do that, who was going to take responsibility to send them back to Earth while they stayed homeless in a stranger planet.
Aefia was going to leave today on the contrary of catching up with the office, but there was a much bigger important factor to keep in her mind while attending her class. Due to the season change, dining times were also altered and breakfast in truth was in two minutes time, around eight in the morning. She walked back towards the palace, after having exhausted her last amount of magic energy with the illusion.
Maid servants were hurrying, making beds and tidying sometimes while also carrying dishes towards the dining hall during other times. The long corridor, just last night it was utterly silent and now, it was a lively zone packed with humans. She walked up to the table and stood behind her chair like the others were.
The duchess arrived after a very short while and upon few seconds of her seating, they all sat. Without noticing the food arranged, the woman looked at Aefia and spoke out a question. "What are you going to do about your school?"
It was expected, there was no enquiry or anything about her health, and that lifted her mood slightly. George seemed shocked at first, but decided not to intervene, and the servants held the dishes with trembling hands.
"I was thinking...that I would quit the school I am still attending and continue a full-time study in the public one you are to enroll me in." With a straight face, Aefia spoke about her thoughts on leaving the competition.