Chapter 62: Call Me Freya
Freya slowly calmed down in Aria’s arms, those same arms she had missed so terribly these past weeks, taking in their warmth as much as the other took in hers.
Still full of shame toward herself, she couldn’t stop apologizing the entire time to her servant, who didn’t really understand what she meant by any of it.
Then the tears and the stammering finally stopped, leaving Freya in full possession of her faculties.
Or nearly so, at any rate far more than she had been a few minutes earlier.
She pulled herself out of Aria’s arms of her own accord, looked at her with a sorrowful expression, and spoke, no longer thinking about the consequences or even about the plan she’d laid out.
After all, she’d already adjusted, refined and reworked it any number of times over the past weeks. There had been Aria’s disappearance, then the hero who’d come knocking at her door, her new skill that had accelerated and simplified everything, the unknowns, the surprises, and even her own boredom, which had played no small part in how quickly she’d thrown herself into conquering Evangel and the barony.
And so, without a single ulterior motive, simply because she wanted to open up and tell the truth to the woman in front of her, because in the end she was the only one who mattered, perhaps even to the point of setting her grandest designs aside for a while.
Her expression turned serious, more serious still, carrying an unmistakable sadness while she searched for her words.
Which in the end came out far more easily than she’d expected.
"I... I..."
She let out a breath, then started again.
"I launched the conquest of human territory while you were gone, Aria."
"Isn’t that wonderful, madam?" the servant said, prouder of her mistress than of anything else in the world, as always.
"No... no... please, listen to me."
At those words, seeing that something was wrong, the servant nodded and fell silent.
So Freya told her everything, start to finish, from the moment she’d disappeared.
The defense against the S rank, and the fact that without the pull and her outrageous luck she’d have died that day. The hero who’d attacked her dungeon and whom she’d tamed with her skill. The pulls, the girls, the new arrivals, the dungeon upgrades.
And finally what she meant to do with the information Aldric had given her about Evangel.
Which was to take Evangel, not by force since Aria wasn’t there, but through cunning and back-room dealing.
Based on that same information, she’d chosen the two people who would be her face and her hands in what was to become her starting point. The young apprentice hero Aldric Paydragon, and for the underworld side, Queen Kyiara.
"Who turned out to be a kitsune," she added with a smile, still marveling at the races of this new world.
Then she remembered why she was telling her all of this.
The smile dropped at once and she cut the rest of her plan off mid-sentence.
She lowered her eyes to the ground.
Her fingers began tracing something on the rock, her nails sliding across it and scoring the stone without her even noticing, thanks to the strength of her enhanced body.
"I tried to tame the little fox with greed. To lead her where I wanted her, offering her wealth, trade and a great deal more."
Aria, silent as ever, said nothing.
Freya stopped.
Her nails stopped scraping the stone, and she let the silence stretch several seconds too long.
"I succeeded, in a manner of speaking."
She breathed in.
"But she caught me off guard... and she kissed me, Aria."
The demon stopped nodding.
Her face went blank all at once, her eyes no longer even blinking, and her hands stayed exactly where they were, perfectly still on her knees.
Freya still didn’t look up.
The words began pouring out faster and faster, without her trying to hold them back, as though stopping now would cost her more than seeing it through.
"She wrapped her tails around me. She kissed my mouth, my neck, and more than that..."
Her voice half caught in her throat.
"I stopped her when it went too far. Because I thought of you."
She clenched her fists against the floor.
"But I feel awful about it, because..."
She finally raised her eyes, and her hands came to rest on Aria’s shoulders of their own accord, Aria’s face having stayed completely frozen.
"Because I enjoyed it, Aria."
A silence.
"I don’t know if it was her seduction skill. I don’t know if it was because she was a beautiful woman. I don’t know."
She let go of her shoulders and made a gesture at the empty air, then brought both hands against her own chest, gripping the fabric over her heart.
"But I enjoyed it. And for a few moments I even told myself I could just go along with it. That it wasn’t a big deal."
Her voice broke on the last word.
"I’m a monster. I’m sorry."
She shook her head, her eyes shining again.
"I know you love me. I know exactly what you’d be willing to do for me, and I did that to you anyway. I’m sorry... I really am..."
She stepped back half a pace, unable to hold that gaze any longer.
"And on top of it, when you came home after being gone all that time, after all those weeks apart..."
Her breathing cut out for a second.
"I... I lost it, and I accused you of the exact thing I’d done myself. Without a shred of shame. In front of everyone."
She brought her hands to her face.
"I’m a monster. A genuine monster."
Faced with her mistress in a state she had never seen her in, Aria couldn’t help but set aside all the fury and everything she was feeling inside.
All of which could very easily have killed her own mistress through the sheer pressure of her aura if she wasn’t careful about letting it slip.
She breathed in once. Twice. Three times.
All right, a few more times than that, before finally getting a grip on herself and pulling her mistress into her arms.
Freya went rigid at the gesture, like a child who’d braced for punishment, or at the very least rejection, and received the exact opposite.
"Madam... it’s my fault too, for leaving you alone all that time..." Aria managed to say, despite the anger still twisting inside her.
Freya opened her mouth, but was cut off before she could begin.
"As I told you before, you were an ordinary human just a few weeks ago. You’ve endured a great deal. You’ve handled a great deal, in spite of everything."
Her arms tightened slightly.
"And I, the one who was supposed to stay by your side, the one who promised to always be there for you, vanished without leaving you the slightest sign that I was alive. I can’t imagine how hard all of this must have been for you. And I’m certain you didn’t really show it to the others, keeping it all to yourself."
"But... but that’s got nothing to do with it, Aria! That’s not what I’m talking about!"
"Let me finish, this time, madam."
At those words, Freya couldn’t help but fall silent.
She let Aria speak, simply listening, remembering the last time she hadn’t done so, barely minutes earlier, and how bitterly she’d regretted it.
"First of all, understand that despite my sickly jealousy, which I fully recognize as unhealthy and which I do try to keep in check as best I can for your sake..."
She paused.
"...you don’t belong to me, and I know that perfectly well. You are my mistress. I am the one who belongs to you, whereas you—"
Freya didn’t let her finish regardless.
She couldn’t stop herself from cutting in, no matter whether she’d end up regretting it all over again.
She pulled out of the embrace, pushed her shoulders back to hold her at arm’s length, and looked at her with a face that had nothing sorrowful left in it.
It was angry this time, which startled Aria far more than it should have.
"Be quiet."
Her fingers closed around the fabric of her dress at the shoulders, and she gave her a small shake.
"Be quiet, Aria, because I didn’t say it last time, and I’m going to say it now."
Her voice was trembling, but not with sadness.
"I love you."
Aria opened her mouth. Freya didn’t give her the chance.
"I love you, do you hear me?! Not the way a mistress loves her servant, not the way you love a useful tool, not the way you love something you own! I love you the way one woman loves another!"
She shook her a second time, harder.
"I spent two weeks wondering if you were lying dead somewhere! Two weeks telling myself every single day that an SSS rank doesn’t die like that, knowing full well I was lying to myself! And do you know what I worked out over those two weeks?!"
Her voice climbed another notch, ringing off the walls of the nest.
"That it wasn’t the dungeon I wanted back. Not my conquest, not my plans, none of it. It was you! Only you!"
The tears were rising in her eyes again without her noticing.
"So no! I love you far more than you think! I love you far more than I let on! So no, don’t tell me I don’t belong to you! I do belong to you!"
She drew breath, out of air.
"I’m happy to play along with your little mistress-and-servant game, all right?! But don’t you ever say again that I don’t belong to you, and don’t you ever put us on different pedestals when it comes to our love!"
Aria stood perfectly still.
Then tears began forming at the corners of her eyes, for the first time since Freya had known her.
"Mis... mis... mist..."
She began stumbling over that very word, the one she had nonetheless spoken thousands, perhaps millions of times over the course of her long existence, unable to get it out under the weight of the moment.
Freya shook her head slowly, left to right, as if to cut her off once more.
"Just call me Freya, please, Aria."
They looked at each other like that for a few moments, neither of them saying a word.
Then Aria opened her mouth.
Nothing came out the first time.
She swallowed, closed her eyes for a second, and when she opened them again something in them had changed.
"I love you too..."
She paused, as if the next word weighed more than every other one put together.
"...Freya."
The name came out softly, almost clumsily, with the fragility of something spoken for the very first time.
And Freya felt her chest tighten all at once, because after thousands of flawlessly articulated "madam"s, it was that one word, said in a voice that shook, that landed like the real confession.
Her hand rose slowly, hesitant for the first time since they’d known each other, and settled against Freya’s cheek.
Aria’s thumb passed beneath her eye, wiping away what was left of the dried tears on her skin, with the absurd delicacy of a woman capable of leveling an entire kingdom.
Freya closed her eyes at the touch and tilted her head, pressing her cheek into that palm as though she meant to settle there for good.
Then she laid her own hand over it, not holding it in place, simply keeping it there.
They stayed like that a moment, forehead against forehead, their breathing mingling in the silence of the nest.
Freya felt Aria’s breath against her lips, short and faintly unsteady, nothing at all like that of an SSS-rank servant.
She was the one who closed the last few inches.
The kiss had none of the fever of Kyiara’s office. It was slow, deliberate, with no urgency whatsoever, as though every one of those weeks apart had to be set down in it one at a time.
Aria’s fingers slid from her cheek to the nape of her neck, closing gently in her hair, and Freya took hold of the fabric at her waist to pull her closer.
They broke apart, found each other again, broke apart again.
And each time they found each other, something shifted almost imperceptibly. The kiss lasted a little longer, the hand at her neck traveled a little lower, and Aria’s breathing grew a little less steady against her mouth.
Freya felt her back meet the wall of the nest without the faintest idea when they’d moved.
She opened her eyes and met her servant’s gaze, her aura beginning to warm the air around them, and understood exactly where all of this was heading.
Two full weeks of absence, of longing and of fear, surging up all at once and looking for a way out.
Neither of them needed to say it aloud.
And somewhere above them, in the upper galleries, some twenty spiders unanimously decided that now was an excellent time to go sleep elsewhere.