Chapter 42: Uninvited

Chapter 42: Chapter 42: Uninvited

Allan sat alone in his private office, even after all the noise and work had settled down. In time, the fire had burned down to a low orange smear across the desk, just enough light to read, if he leaned close enough.

He turned the pages of the book, slowly, his jaw locked and tight the more he read it.

The book wasn’t false, everything matched the book he had read in the game. That was the problem.

He couldn’t help but lean back, look at the ceiling. He knew, every high-return path came with a price, in blood. Seris’s original route had been one of those. He’d closed it once already and watched the multiplier die overnight. Yes, the 250x return from Seris was no more.

He’d told himself that was the last time he’d have to make that choice. He’d been wrong. The same option sat open in front of him now under Lira’s name. The Abyssal Witch path still promised fifty times return, sometimes a hundred, but it also promised that Lira would stop being someone who could live quietly under any roof, his included.

He turned to the door. He could still hear her. Thin, muffled crying somewhere past the door, still going on long enough. She hadn’t come in. He didn’t think she would. Twice he put his hand flat on the desk to push himself up and go to her.

Twice he didn’t move. He didn’t trust what he’d say yet, and an unfinished decision said out loud to a crying woman was its own kind of cruelty.

Creak!

The door opened without a knock.

Seris stopped the moment she saw his face. Maybe she didn’t expect him to be here. Whatever she’d come in to say died before it reached her mouth. She’d seen him angry before, loud-angry, throw-something-angry.

She hadn’t seen this. Utterly quiet and flat.

"Lira’s outside," she said. "She won’t come in. She’s been like that since you left her with the book." A pause. Her hand found the doorframe and gripped it a little harder than the moment needed. "I told her to give you the night. I don’t know if that was the right thing to do."

Allan didn’t answer right away. He kept his eyes on the book. When he finally spoke, his voice came out rougher than he’d meant it to.

"Tell me, Seris. Should I choose power, or love? I wish you’d say it back to me plainly."

Seris held his gaze the way she had the first night she’d accepted the collar on her neck. The same way when Allan woke up from the bed, different, and the same way he had freed her from her slavery contract and raised the house from the ground.

"We already belong to you," she said. Her voice caught on the second word and she pushed through it. "Both of us. Before it was by name and right but now by—" She stopped, started again. "I’m not going to pretend that sentence doesn’t sound like a line I’ve rehearsed. It does. I have rehearsed it quite a bit.

But it’s still true. Do whatever you decide with our futures. Just don’t let it be the kind of decision you make out of wit and regret it later."

She didn’t wait for an answer. She pulled the door shut, quiet, and left him with the book and the sound of Lira crying still finding its way through the wood.

Allan sat with that longer than he expected to need. The fire popped once, low. Then he stood, slowly picked up the Book of the Covenant, and carried it to the hearth, and before he could talk himself out of it.

He threw it in.

The pages caught fast. Black edges ate inward. The binding of the book cracked, curled, and burnt off.

He stood over it and made himself watch the whole thing because looking away would have made it easier and he didn’t think he’d earned easier.

The extreme path was now closed. He kept waiting to feel certain that had been the right call but the certainty didn’t come. Only the fact of the ash did.

He was still standing until the last ember died and the room went properly cold.

"Scoundrel of Yggdrasil..." He said, remembering the true meaning of that title.

"What does that title mean now?"

Next morning.

He found her a little before dawn, still sitting in the corridor outside his door, knees drawn up, eyes swollen from crying.

"Lira," he called, as he sat down on the dusty floor beside her without a word, just the two of them on the cold boards.

"It’s gone," he said. "I burned it a few hours ago."

Lira didn’t look at him. "I know. I felt it go away." A long breath. "I keep waiting to feel relieved and I don’t. I just feel smaller now."

"I know that feeling doesn’t go away just because I tell you the choice was right."

"Was it? What use am I right now? I am not smart like Seris, I can’t manage the stables like the workers, I suck at maid work.

Adventuring, that was all I could do, that was all my powers were useful for, but not anymore, I guess."

He didn’t answer that directly, because he wasn’t sure yet, and lying would only poison whatever they had.

"You may not understand, but it was the choice that keeps you a person I can sit next to on a floor at five in the morning instead of something I’d have to be afraid of eventually. That’s the only part I’m sure of."

She finally looked at him, eyes red-rimmed, and didn’t say anything else. He put an arm around her, pulling her tight, as she leaned on his chest.

They sat there until the light through the corridor window went from dark to gray, the morning light shining on their faces.

Thud!

The gates opened before their moment could end, and it was clear who it was, the insignia clear and visible.

"Amelia?" Allan called.

The sound of wheels and hooves echoing in their yard, with a voice already giving orders to servants who didn’t work for her.

Allan came down into the entrance hall running on almost no sleep, and found Amelia von Arclight walking in as if the manor’s deed already had her name on it, with trunks behind her, four of them, carried by butlers and maids, all of them who personally belonged to her.

"I’ve come to live with my fiancé," she announced, and smiled at him like her declaration was finished.

"We haven’t discussed a wedding date. Hell, we haven’t even discussed whether the wedding would even happen." Allan kept his voice level, though it took more effort than it should have this morning.

"What does Lord Arclight say about you arriving with trunks and no warning at all?"

"I need no one’s permission." Her smile didn’t move. "You are already mine, dear husband, the paperwork just hasn’t caught up yet."

For half a heartbeat her eyes flashed red at the edges, a blight of crimson that didn’t belong in a human iris and it was gone before he could read more. Her eyes turned brown once more.

Allan couldn’t help but just stand where Amelia left her, having no words to reply to her blatant declaration, all he did was look above, gazing at the blue sky.

Meanwhile, Seris and Lira came from the side corridor almost together, and the difference between them was immediate. Seris arranged her face into something diplomatic before she’d even finished crossing the hall.

"Welcome to Oakwood Manor. We’ll help you settle right away." Her voice even more professional than normal.

Lira didn’t arrange anything. She stood a step back, eyes still faintly swollen from the night before, and looked at the trunks. She quickly picked up the lightest case without being asked and without a word, which was its own kind of answer.

Amelia watched both of their reactions with utmost attention.

"You two really are close," she said, mild as anything. "I’d heard. I didn’t believe how close until now. Who was it that sent me the letter?"

Lira gradually raised her hand, Amelia smiling wide. "Good. We have a lot to talk about," she declared.

Lira didn’t answer to that, while Seris stood there, slightly in awe. They took her upstairs while Allan stood at the bottom of the staircase a while longer than the moment needed.

"What the hell is happening?"