Chapter 57: The Weaknesses of a Calamity
Freya picked her suitcase back up after straightening her clothes, when one of the two men in front of her called out.
"You lost, sweetheart? The cheap floors are further down."
"I came to see your queen. I was told I could find her here."
The two men looked at each other at that, cracked a smile, then burst out laughing.
"Don’t talk nonsense, come on. Our queen, as you put it, doesn’t meet just anybody. Go on, off you go," said the one on the right, jerking his chin toward the district he’d mentioned a moment earlier.
The other didn’t move right away, looking her over from head to toe before peeling his shoulder off the wall.
"Hold on..."
He took three steps and planted himself in front of her, close enough that she could smell his breath, then caught her face by the jaw with his free hand, the other still holding his spear braced against the floor.
"Oooh, peasant clothes aside, you’re a pretty little thing, aren’t you."
His fingers tightened, thick and calloused, and he turned her head left and right the way you’d look over livestock at market, hunting for the angle he liked best.
Freya let him, eyes empty and body perfectly still, the notification appearing calmly in her field of vision.
[ Word of Greed skill activated. ]
Freya didn’t know exactly what had set the skill off, between the want this man was so plainly feeling right now, and her own want to see him dead, right this second, or later, it hardly mattered.
Or perhaps something else entirely.
I miss you so much, Aria.
Because yes, this particular situation reminded her of Aria, that devoted servant who would have come tearing through the entire district with her aura unleashed over a gesture like this one, even though Freya was only a replica here.
She could picture it without any effort. The polite smile, the flawless curtsey, and this man’s arm already parted from his shoulder before he’d even registered what was happening.
That same servant she missed so badly, who was also her lover, and the woman she loved most across both worlds despite the little time they’d spent together.
Everything would have been so much simpler with you here, Aria...
She kept telling herself the absence was mostly a strategic one, but deep down she knew perfectly well that what she missed most about Aria had nothing strategic about it.
Over these two weeks without her, in the fog, in the constant dark, Freya had arrived at a simple conclusion. She was hopelessly and terribly in love with Aria.
And she knew the reverse was true as well, far more intensely so, far more devoted and far more obsessive, so that her SSS-rank servant would come back, even if it meant facing every trial this world had to offer and then some.
Of that she was certain.
The man who’d stayed by the door spoke up then, spear resting against his shoulder and arms crossed.
"Look at her daydreaming when she knows exactly what’s coming, hehe."
"You know the rules, man, don’t talk shit. Word gets out and we’ll never see the up-there again."
The up-there? Some local turn of phrase, as in never seeing daylight again? Don’t tell me the humans down here really are moles?
The one by the door finally left his post and came over laughing, circling around Freya to stand at her back, while the other kept that unpleasant hand on her face.
"You know what... I’ve got a better idea."
He leaned in toward her ear.
"You wanted to see our queen? How about you spend the night with us, and in exchange I put in a word so she’ll see you?"
Oh, so that’s how it is?
At that thought, Freya slid her hand slowly into the collar of her dress, reaching for something at her chest, which made the one holding her laugh.
"Hold on... hold on, not here, don’t go pulling anything out—"
Her hand came back out, barrel already raised.
TAP.
Blood sprayed from his temple before he could finish the sentence. The fingers gripping her jaw went slack all at once, and his body tipped backward before hitting the floor, his spear clattering down beside him.
The other had time to take a single step back, his eyes moving from the corpse to Freya without managing to connect the two.
"You fucking bi—"
TAP.
He never finished his sentence either, his body crumpling against the door and sliding down the wood, leaving a long red smear behind it.
Silence dropped over the lane all at once.
Freya lowered her arm, then immediately brought her sleeve to her face, scrubbing at her jaw where the fingers had been. Once. Then twice. Then harder, across the whole cheek, until the skin turned red.
It wouldn’t come off. The feeling stayed right there, that calloused hand turning her head one way and then the other, that look sizing her up like goods on a shelf.
"Aaaah, you disgusting piece of filth."
She spat on the body.
Then she ground her heel into his face, once, twice, before pulling the pistol back out and emptying three rounds into what was left of his head.
TAP. TAP. TAP.
The corpse jerked with every impact.
"Fucking trash. Fucking scum. Fucking—"
She was about to fire again when she stopped, arm still extended, her breathing short.
She stayed like that for two or three seconds, motionless.
Then she blew out a long breath, closed her eyes, and slowly lowered the barrel.
One thing at a time, Freya. That one’s already over. Now the next.
She tucked the Beretta back into her collar, exactly where she’d taken it from, the pistol she’d borrowed from Naïa for her outing to Evangel, then picked up her suitcase.
She stepped over the first body, carefully skirted the pool spreading toward her shoes, then waved away the notification still sitting in her field of vision.
[ Word of Greed skill activated. ]
Because yes, there it was, the limit of her skill. The one that could set off riots with a single word, the one that, taken far enough, could level cities, kingdoms or more with a few well-chosen syllables, could also prove fatal to her depending on the situation.
She hadn’t opened her mouth in front of those two men, because the source of their greed was none other than herself. Had she used her skill, she would have turned them into greed-drunk husks aimed squarely at her own person, which would have been particularly unfortunate given what they’d wanted in that moment.
Of course, she could simply have switched off her replica skill if things had gone badly. But not without consequences, since leaving her suitcase here and having to make the whole journey from her dungeon back to Evangel would have been a serious waste of time.
Which was precisely why she’d borrowed Naïa’s Beretta before coming, as a card held back for exactly this sort of situation.
She pushed the door open with her foot and stepped into the palace.
The heat hit her before anything else. Air even thicker than out in the lane, saturated with that sweet perfume that caught in the throat, mixed with spilled liquor and pipe smoke hanging in sheets beneath the chandeliers.
The hall was enormous, draped end to end in pink and gold, with fabric-wrapped columns and a floor polished enough to throw the light back in shifting pools. Music drifted from somewhere on the left, strings and a woman’s voice, and over the top of it ran a constant noise of laughter and conversation.
Women everywhere.
Stretched out on low divans, one leg folded and the other hanging free, silk ridden so high up the thigh it had stopped serving any purpose whatsoever. Leaning against the columns, backs arched and heads tipped back while a client murmured in their ear.
Some wore veils that hid nothing at all, the shape of them showing through the fabric with every breath, while others had abandoned even that pretense, standing bare in the middle of the hall with a glass in hand, laughing at whatever they were being told.
One man drank straight from the bottle with a girl on each arm. Another was already asleep, head tipped back over a chair, one hand still resting on a hip. Two serving girls crossed in front of Freya without even seeing her, loaded trays held up at shoulder height.
Nobody stopped her.
She crossed the hall at an unhurried pace, suitcase in hand, simply letting the flow of the room carry her toward the grand staircase at the back, its gilded railing curving up toward the floor above.
She climbed without rushing, passing a couple coming down mid-kiss, then a man on his own tightening his belt with one hand and pocketing his purse with the other.
At the top, everything changed.
The corridor was narrower, darker, with a thick carpet that swallowed footsteps and closed doors down either side. The music from below reached it only in muffled waves, and the only sounds carrying through came from the rooms themselves.
Freya walked the corridor to the very end, passing seven or eight doors, until she reached the one at the back, wider than the rest and without any number on it.
She put a hand to it and pushed.
The room stood in stark contrast to the rest of the palace.
Large, plain, almost austere, with shelves of ledgers running floor to ceiling across three full walls, a thick carpet at the center, and not a scrap of pink silk anywhere. A single lamp burned on a large dark wood desk, and the window at the back, cut into the rock, looked out over the entire district lane below.
Behind the desk, a high-backed chair sat turned toward that window.
It swiveled slowly.
A woman occupied it, legs crossed, a ledger open on her lap and a pen still between her fingers.
Pink hair spilled over her shoulders down to her waist, eyes of the same pink held a star in place of each pupil, and behind her several fox tails lay spread lazily on either side of the chair, pale enough that they seemed to tint the light around them.
A kitsune?
"So it’s you," the woman said, in no rush at all, closing her ledger and setting it on the desk. "The supposed survivor from the village of Veille, under young Paydragon’s protection."
[ Word of Greed skill activated. ]
A fly came zigzagging in front of her face while she was speaking. She crushed it with the back of her hand without so much as breaking her sentence, and let her arm drop back onto the armrest.
Freya, for her part, said nothing and walked toward the desk without having been invited, her steps making no sound on the carpet.
She sat down on it, one leg crossed over the other, and set her suitcase on the wood, which groaned at length under the weight.
"Charmed, queen of pleasures. Kyiara, isn’t it?"
She smiled.
"And it’s a genuine pleasure to make your acquaintance."