AO 7 Ch 16

Hours later, we came to our senses. Or at least I did. Maribelle had satisfied me enough that my curiosity returned.

My maid was nearly unconscious, lying on the bed with a glazed look of utter satisfaction. For now, she wasn’t going to demand any more.

I moved into the new room to see exactly what we had discovered.

To my surprise, it was a small library. It wasn’t so old that it was musty and I assumed it was Carmilla’s. Several pieces that Carmilla had hung were clearly important to her, or at least memorable of some atrocious accomplishment.

The mummified head likely had a good story, or so I hoped.

I ran my fingers over the tomes before I plucked one off the shelf and opened it. 

Today marked my twenty-sixth birthday, the beginning of the book read. Father is still on to me about shaving my head, but I have told him that I will not play dress-up for the nobles any longer. They should fear the royal family. Any other notion is unacceptable. 

I frowned and put the book back, picking out the one next to it. 

Today is my twenty-seventh birthday, it began.

I scowled at the books. She wasn't old enough for all of these to be her diaries. Though I assumed these were the real ones. The ones on the small bookshelf outside were likely bait should anyone discover her little warren looking for information. Those would let people feel a sense of accomplishment and escape with something, but behind this wall were her real documents.

No Carmilla was so paranoid she had a decoy within her hidden room. The woman had been absolutely deranged.

Scanning the shelves, there were more than a few scrolls. I unfurled them to find they were mostly logistical in nature, others about secret deals or blackmail for nobles in the kingdom. Carmilla really had a web here in the capital. 

Not interested in the blackmail, I turned back to the journals and began doing math in my head. Carmilla was supposed to be the same age as my mother. And I knew that if I was now 19, then I was able to count down and pick out the journal that would have been the year that my father went missing. 

Today I've turned 34, it began. Harry pretends to be smitten with me, but it is clear that he gives Gwen attention over me more often than not. I am not foolish enough to believe that there is no ulterior motive. I've been in the royal family long enough to know that very few things in the world are free, especially when you have so much to give. 

Not wanting to read the romantic drama that was her life, I thumbed through the book. She wrote nearly every day, and at a quick glance, my mother and father's names were commonplace amongst her words. Only for the pages to skip a beat as I realized several were torn out.

I flipped back to the one before that and began reading. 

After the ball, Harry went with me through the lower passages that we had discovered in the maid's room. Since then I had claimed the room for myself, and had it expanded to fit my status. Some called it odd, but at the end of the day, preserving the doorway into these maze-like passages was more important than becoming the gossip of the palace.

It also provided an excuse for Harry and me to slip unnoticed into the depths. It was evident that Harry was searching for something down here. I must admit, this shared endeavor was one of the few ways I could lure him away from Gwen. Perhaps, if I did it enough, I could claim more than just his time. Today, we discovered several books on dusty shelves. Harry skimmed through them rapidly, his concern growing. After reading one, he insisted that I dispatch him on a mission for the Royal Family, a mission specifically for him. I'm uncertain about the contents of the book, but it remains. Harry, however, was unable to take it with him. Tomorrow, while I wait for the wheels of the royal palace to turn, I will have the opportunity to read it for myself. I marked the spine with yellow paint to make it easy to find among our collection. 

I turned the page in vain hope of finding more, but the next several pages were torn out.

It's been a while since I've been able to journal. Everything that has transpired was simply overwhelming. To think that the reason I hadn't seen much of Gwen was because she was concealing her pregnancy, and worse, that Harry had been leading me on the entire time.

His desire to spend more time with me was not born out of sudden interest, but out of desperation. He knew his connection to me would be tenuous at best when I discovered Gwen's condition and the child they had conceived.

I harbor no regrets that the child has been removed from this world, only that I was unable to confront Harry and get clear answers about all of this. 

Instead, the swamps dividing Avente from Zenovia proved to be Harry's territory, a place where I couldn't match him. Still, I recognize the value of what he's discovered: a magic that transcends what we use today. With it, I should be able to secure my own legacy. And next time even if someone comes to his rescue again he won’t be able to match me.

The end was smudged as if tears had fallen on the page. 

"Just what could you have found, Father?" I murmured, brushing my fingertips over the page. Apparently, someone had saved him?

He hadn't appeared in all this time. I harbored no illusions that my father was still alive. But it seemed the story was still unfolding before me, and that the path led where I was already headed. Zenovia. I tapped my fingers on the page, curious about the place my father had come from and apparently returned to. Or tried to. It seemed entirely possible that he died in the swamp.

Otherwise, I would be furious to learn that he had lived and had yet to reveal himself to my mother.

I put down Carmilla's journal and looked up at the other books in this collection. It had been a while, but hopefully, she used some quality yellow paint. I began walking through the stacks, noticing that there were splotches of paint on some. Some red, some blue. But none marked yellow.

It was only after going through the books a second time that I found one with the spine scratched away, as if paint had been scratched off. Small flecks of yellow clung to the cracks in the leather.

I pulled it open and attempted to read it, but it appeared to be some sort of cipher. A massive grin spread across my face.

What if this was all a case of spy work?

My eyes nearly popped out of my head. I couldn't help the massive grin that spread across my face before I snapped the book closed and clung to it tightly. I opened a small portal of dark magic infused with my soul and carefully placed the book inside. 

When I wasn't squirreling things away in the basement of the royal palace, I'd have to spend some time decoding the book.

"Ard," Maribelle said groggily, and I heard her shift on the bed like she was patting around for me.

"Coming, my pet," I replied, walking back into the room to find Maribelle wrapped happily in blankets. "You look comfortable," I commented.

Maribelle hummed contently. "I feel quite comfortable, sir.”

“Did I scratch that itch you needed?" 

Maribelle hummed with her eyes closed. "Though every time you scratch the itch, it's like a bug bite that suddenly needs much more attention." 

"Well, I don't know if we can spend the whole day down here," I chided her and glanced over at the dozen empty pitchers.

"No one comes down here," she pouted.

"I'm sure this is nice and secret. However, I do think we have a journey to take." 

Maribelle squinted at me before she sighed and rolled off the bed, taking the sheets with her like a dress. "If that is your will, sir, then it will be my life." She quickly tied the bedsheet around her. 

"Are you actually going to wear that?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. 

"Well, I can't wear what I wore here," she gestured off the side of the bed where her maid outfit was torn and quite dirty. 

I cleared my throat, and with the wave of my hand, a puddle of shadows swallowed it. "I'll sneak you out then, however you want to be dressed," I changed my tune. 

Meanwhile, Maribelle folded her arms behind her back, patiently waiting for me. "Did you find something good in that room?" she gestured at the broken wall. 

"Certainly something interesting," I replied. The two relevant books from last night had been set aside, safely stored away in my shadow. "Let's head back first," I suggested, frowning as I tried to work Missy's magic. 

Suddenly, the goddess herself appeared, yawning and stretching her arms high over her head. As the darkness swallowed us, we were transported back to my room at the Aldis Estate.

That meant she and likely the other goddesses had spent the night in my soul. The little voyeurs.

"You know what? That was very helpful," I said, smiling at Missy with as much innocence as I could muster. “How’d you know that we needed you right then?”

She blushed. "You'll have to figure it out yourself," she said, having done all that while being mid-stretch and suddenly was acting like she had somewhere else to be. "I'm hungry. Being cooped up in Soulgard last night was not how I had planned it."

The other two goddesses appeared as well, all three of them acting like they hadn’t gotten much sleep last night.

Ditzy pushed past me with a pout, though at the same time I had the feeling she wasn't entirely disappointed. Then again, with women, who knew? Bad Kitty, however, paused and stared at me and Maribelle. 

"I can't believe you called me naughty," she said playfully.

I narrowed my eyes at her and then at Missy. "Do I just have three voyeurs for the rest of my life?" 

"Get used to it," Missy said, kissing me on the cheek before leaving the room. I glanced over at Maribelle. "I think it's time for breakfast. Why don't you get something proper on? I think, even if I'm about to leave today, we shouldn't show up with you dressed like that."

"If I do, it's going to give all of the other maids at the estate something to dream about," she muttered, only to scowl at her own words. "Never mind, I'll get dressed quickly. Wait here. You don't get to wander off on your own."

I opened my mouth, flabbergasted. "Really? This is literally House Aldis' estate. What could anyone do to me here?"

She held up a finger for me to wait before she quickly ran a rag over herself and prepared a bath. She then practically threw me into it.

It seemed that she wasn’t the only one about to get ready.

***

"Oh, and you decided to stick around for the morning after. Quite the show, son."

I couldn't quite tell if my mother was amused or angry and decided it was best to assume both. Women were complex beings capable of multiple emotions at once.

"In my defense, it was a fun evening, wasn't it?"

My mother only politely smiled and went back to eating.

The rest of the table was full. Luckily my grandfather wasn't present, but my mother had seen fit to invite her anchors and mine. While mine were sitting and hers were working. Maribelle quickly fell into line with those working, rolling her sleeves up and joining them in preparing the food, as well as keeping an eye on me.

"I assume you two had a lovely evening," my mother said, casting some serious side eye towards Maribelle.

"You might doubt my words," Maribelle said, "But your son knows how to please a lady." 

"Please," my mother covered her ears, "I want to hear nothing of what actually happened. It was my mistake to make simple pleasantries."

"It was even more spectacular than the ball," I said quickly to my mother. "How are you? You and the second prince in particular," I asked, bobbing my eyebrows. 

"If you must know, we have several appointments that have been placed on the books in the coming week."

"Oh," I said scandalously. 

"And that is it for my report," my mother said with finality. 

"Geez, I'm just curious." I held my hands up in surrender.

"Still, I am happy to see you, Ard, for one last meal before you go."

I nodded and spotted Eva at the table before quickly summoning one of the books that I discovered. "As fate would happen to have it, I discovered some of Carmilla's journals last night."

My mother squinted at me. "I thought you went back home."

"Oh, was that the story?" I asked, turning to Emlyn with a guilty smile.

"Not anymore." She scowled.

“Well, anyway,” I decided to breeze past that mistake. "I discovered Carmilla's journals and she talks a lot about my father.”

“Of course, she and I competed for Harry's love," my mother said with a sly smirk on her face, given that she won.

"Interestingly, about a week before he disappeared, she tore out several pages." I flipped open the journal, “saying that Harry found something in one of the books under the palace.” I looked at my mother to see if she had any more information. 

My mother only shook her head. "It was somewhat of a complicit agreement that he didn't talk about what he was doing for Zenovia and I didn't ask.” 

“Well, it sounds like leading up to her discovering that you were pregnant with me, my father found something that made him want to go back to Zenovia in a hurry. It seemed like that's what triggered Carmilla to go after him." 

My mother frowned and took the journal from me, reading quickly through the page that I had left it on. "The words are plain," my mother said after a moment, "but if Harry was on to something, he didn't tell me. You have to find this yellow painted book, but chances of that are..."

I had a giant grin on my face as I held up the other book. "Rather good actually," I said with a smug smile.

"The problem is…” I shifted my gaze to Eva. “The book is encoded, and I checked it against the ciphers that you gave me but I couldn't make heads or tails of it."

Eva beckoned for the book, and I handed it to her in complete trust. She opened it up and flipped through it several times, frowning before going back and forth on two of the pages. 

"I can't be certain, but it could very well be an older cipher. The intelligence game often changes. If anything stays the same for too long, it's bound to be figured out. So this might be an older one, or your father cracked it on his own." She said.

"Well, he was a good spy," my mother said, and I scowled at her. 

"What? He made me fall in love with him and even gave me you. I can't be too mad, especially when he promised that if anything happened and affected House Aldis, he would always prioritize us."

I ignored the smitten look on my mother's face. "Do you think you or Uncle Valken could figure this out?" I asked Eva. 

"Oh, for sure Uncle can," she said, putting the book down. "In fact, maybe we'll just give it to him to keep him busy on our trip.”

“Good thinking." I winked at her. "I can think of many things we could do while he's busy."

My mother looked to Maribelle. "And here I thought you took care of his every need." 

Which was the wrong thing to say to her. Thankfully she was recently satisfied. Otherwise, I'm fairly certain Maribelle would have just stuck a dagger in my mother's throat, at least by the way she glared at her. 

"Anyway. This is a lovely breakfast before we head off," I smiled at my mother. "Let's not involve things that upset my anchors."

The two men hovering around my mother scowled at me as if to say I should put Maribelle on a leash. I had more than once. It just was a different kind than they expected. 

"These pancakes are delicious," Bad Kitty said, breaking through the tension. 

"Thank you," my mother said politely. "And thank you all for looking after my son. I'm sure if it wasn't for you, he wouldn't have returned to me as whole as he has."

I was tempted to say something about how much trouble Emlyn caused before biting my tongue and realizing that was a battle that wasn't worth picking this early in the morning. "Well, don't worry, mother. There will be plenty of troubles to come that I'm sure they can keep me out of hot water."