As well-behaved of a child as Xochipilli was, he was clearly still a child as he struggled greatly against the cold shower. He even switched to toughness to withstand it, and the water was nowhere near those levels of frigidness, but Aloe didn't make much fuss out of it and just bathed the boy.

  Her body had already dried before she could grab the towels, as much as it was composed of vegetable matter her body still burned more potently than the average person's, so she dried the boy with the towels and warmed him with her body.

  "Hmm~" Aloe hummed after sniffing Xochipilli's scalp. "Far better now."

  "I see…" The boy responded sheepishly, his face as red as his eyes.

  "Now let's get dressed."

  His dapper clothing was still dirty from being worn for many days straight, so Aloe pulled one of the simple attires they had brought elsewhere. She could have taken out one of the cheap day dresses to wear matching clothes, but she loved her green dress too much for that. One of the many blessings of her body was her dress, which had yet to be soiled by so much as a speck of dust, and she intended to keep wearing it until something forced her to.

  It wasn't as if the dress was in pristine condition, nonetheless. It was very creased but considering that it was frilled already and it had many crevasses by design, it didn't look as bad as it could have. And everyone knew that a creased textile wasn't enough to stop wearing a piece of clothing.

  Xochipilli and she walked out of the public baths, and she felt a pang of nostalgia as the afternoon sun met her. Her hometown had changed by leaps and bounds, but that feeling of leaving the bath being born anew with the warm sun caressing your skin as you descended the marble steps… It took her centuries back.

  Aloe took a deep breath as they reached the plaza in front of the public baths, just at the base of the chiseled staircase. Her lungs were filled with nostalgia of a time gone by. She almost felt whole again. But the emphasis in that almost was so potent, so great that it drowned her in despair and made her see how empty she was.

  "Aloe?" Xochipilli shyly pulled on the skirt of her dress.

  "Do you remember our objectives here in Sadina?" The old druid mused as her eyes were locked with the sun. Not even the searing violence of the heavens could harm her now.

  "Threefold they were," the boy recited. "First, revisiting the city. Second, visiting the tree. Third, see how my people hold up."

  "If I can mandate it, we will do more than to 'see'." Aloe's gaze glided down to the boy. So small he was that she almost had to turn her head ninety degrees downward. "But for now, let us complete that first objective. Not many places remain that I'd like to revisit."

  If they even remain. The vegetable woman left that last part unspoken, for even if she knew it wasn't likely to be the case, her heart couldn't survive uttering those words. If there was still a heart in her chest.

  Even in the old city, Sadina still was overflowing with modernity, for lack of better words. Whilst not exactly recently, the city had been renovated, and heavens know how many times after two centuries. It was more modern than the Sadina she had lived in, and yet it paradoxically felt old. The sight of the fallen blue leaves of the colossal ter'nar gave the sight a mystical touch, yet it only alienated the memory more for Aloe.

  It felt as if the heavens were personally throwing salt on her wound and telling her this was her city no more.

  Aloe withheld all that agony and guided Xochipilli in silence through the streets. The city might be different, but if urban planning had told her something during her days as a scribe it was that streets were forever. Cancers that people kept building on without paying much attention, following a route traced by old and long-gone people. Mostly stupid people at that. So by knowing where the baths were, she was able to guide herself.

  This was no longer the city she had been raised in, yet it was still Sadina.

  That feeling kept soothing and breaking her heart constantly, like an ice bath on a hot summer day. Perhaps a great way to stave off heat, but also a better way to die from hypothermia.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  "Ah," Aloe weakly groaned as she almost passed right beside it. The sight was so different that it was unrecognizable. Even when she knew the exact geographical position, she could only see a random fa?ade.

  Aloe Ayad was in front of her family's estate, and she couldn't recognize it.

  Once upon a time, her house had stood above the rest of the neighborhood. She was a commoner alright, but her family had had once upon a time almost as much income as a family of merchants, and her big two-story house definitely showed that. Yet now, it was no different from the rest of the houses next to it.

  She gathered her hand into a fist, she was so tempted to barge inside and see if even a modicum of her previous abode remained, but she was discouraged when she sensed vitality signs inside. Multiple of them, of various sizes.

  A family lived there, and it was no longer her own.

  The vegetable woman gritted her teeth and chuckled before walking the other way. She felt her blood – or whatever the substance flowing through her body could be called – boil with imperious rage. Not rage at the world for being so dull. Not rage at life for being so cruel. But rage to herself. For allowing this to happen. For not being strongest.

  For having taken so long.

  "What was that?" Xochipilli asked a few minutes later once they were long gone.

  "What used to be my family's house," Aloe replied with… no strength left in her body. It is ironic that my hands can turn boulders into dust, yet I cannot muster any will to speak.

  "Why didn't we enter then?" The boy innocently suggested.

  "For it is no longer mine. It hasn't been for a long time, apparently." She chuckled grimly.

  The child let the matter rest, but her own words got her thinking. What about the things that were inside? What about the remains? What about Mother, Father, and Karaim? She no longer needed to breathe, but her lungs stopped moving from the anguish. Aloe was but one slight breeze from breaking into tears. She had been isolated for so long just to be strong enough to complete her mission, yet now she felt weaker than ever. No, don't cry. Project strength. Weakness is sin.

  Being unable to know where the remains of her family now rested created more rifts in her broken heart, but she didn't allow Xochipilli to see that. To see her weakness. The pathetic pile of shit she was.

  Giving herself completely to the charm stance, she blocked any possible insight into the insides of her being. What remained was a pleasurable fa?ade that no human could decipher.

  Their next stop was Jafar and Mirah's home, but much like her own, nothing of it remained. Even less, for no one lived in it, and after unceremoniously prying the door open with a kick, it seemed it had been uninhabited for a long time.

  Cracks beleaguered everything, and they weren't in the abandoned home.

  "Which place is this supposed to be?" Xochipilli asked with his nose on his elbow. Only when she looked at him did she notice how dusty the place was.

  "The home of… very good friends. Or used to be." Aloe pursed her lips. "I would prefer seeing the house occupied with another family rather than abandoned."

  They left the dusty graveyard of memories and walked to their final destination. Even Xochipilli was able to guess which one it was as her eyes were glued to it all the way there.

  "Whose home is that?" The child asked once they arrived at the base of the steps leading to the palace of Sadina.

  "It used to be… mine." Considering how she was short of the ruler's concubine, the statement wasn't fully wrong.

  "You lived in such a big house?" Xochipilli's glowing eyes brought her a kernel of warmth. The boy wasn't aware of what had happened in that place, he could only see the glorious beauty of imperial Ydazi architecture.

  "It's called a palace, but yes," she found herself letting a wry chuckle.

  Her feelings were mixed. Nostalgia and pain. Pleasure and shame. Curiosity and fear.

  Aloe took a deep breath, her jaw slightly trembling, and proceeded to walk up the many steps. They had been a source of annoyance, doubly so when she was bound to a wheelchair and had to be escorted with a palanquin to even leave the palace.

  Unfortunately for them, they were cut short as a fence atop the hill blocked their path. Guards of cultivator roots stood at the gate blocking the path. It was curious seeing people without armor or visible weapons acting like guards, but at the same time, such things were trinkets to the true equalizer of power that was vitality shaped by Nurture.

  "The Sultan is not receiving any visits today, make yourself scarce." One of the guards crudely responded.

  That was just the information she needed. The druid was aware that now Sadina was its own sultanate, no longer a measly emirate, as Ydaz had been rebranded as a Caliphate, but she needed to see it with her own eyes. Not only that there was an emir no more, but it wasn't even the one she knew as the guard talked of a male ruler.

  A lump formed in her throat. Of course, you knew it, she told herself. Only one more person besides you can resist the cruel passage of time, and Rani… wasn't the one. Had she been a good person? No. But a part of her ached to see her again. Maybe even more than Mirah and Aya. Though to those two she felt even ashamed of thinking of seeing them. Her only wish was that she could apologize to them, but even death escaped her now. Meeting them in the heavens was impossible, and even if she were to die, she knew only a lower hell awaited her.

  Cracks formed her being as she looked at the palace she had called home for years from afar, a familiar yet foreign. Too little, too late…