Aiela

  All this time, she’d been thinking Venza wasn’t interested in other women. Or perhaps, she was thinking of her position as Heir and knew she would need to bear children to continue the line. Creating a child with Venza wouldn’t have been impossible in the future. Once Aiela’s powers in Nature Magic grew and she’d gotten better at applying all the genetic engineering techniques she somehow knew, it would have been doable. Perhaps easy. That had been low on her list of priorities, though. They had so many more things to think of before that.

  Both assumptions had been shattered in one conversation. As Aiela made her way to see Lady Nora in her study, she glanced briefly in the direction of Lauren’s room and couldn’t help but feel envious. She’d given Venza six years of her life and it had taken one day for Venza to fall head over heels for someone new. Perhaps she should have said something sooner.

  Tonight, she wanted nothing more than to sit in her own room and let her thoughts stew, but she’d told Lady Nora that they would meet, and not even Aiela was willing to blow off the mage who’d once been called the Eternal Pyre.

  Pushing down her regrets for not trying harder to let Venza know how she felt, Aiela took a deep breath. She needed to get this over with. Her hand knocked on the door of Lady Nora’s study. Four taps, then two. Aiela frowned. Venza had been right.

  “Enter,” she heard Lady Nora say faintly. Aiela pulled the door open, revealing a small office with wooden book shelves carrying volumes upon volumes ranging from history to magical theory. Still, the office felt oddly bare for a lady of Nora’s standing, even if she had married into House Greyfield. There were no portraits of family or other memorabilia that linked to the woman she’d been before. Nora Greyfield sat behind a heavy, ornate wooden desk, her hands steeped together in a graceful manner. To Nora’s left, one of the servants, Cassie, stood at attention. She was Lady Nora’s personal attendant, often trailing behind her wherever she went.

  “My lady,” Aiela greeted her. “You wished to speak with me?”

  “Would I have called for you otherwise?” Nora asked with a level of snark that matched Aiela’s own. “Please, sit.”

  Aiela nodded, taking a comfortable throne chair across from Nora’s. She didn’t particularly favor this room. It was a nice enough study, but she felt Lady Nora’s presence all over it, pushing down upon her. She’d much rather have met somewhere more neutral like the dining room again.

  “Would you like some tea?” Nora asked, gesturing to a trolley nearby with a kettle and a pair of tea cups.

  “No, I’m alright, but thank you,” Aiela said. She didn’t want to stay a minute longer than she had to.

  “Suit yourself,” Nora said. “Cassie, be a dear and pour me a cup.”

  “Right away, my lady,” the servant answered, moving to carry out Nora’s instruction.

  “Tell me,” Nora spoke, turning her gaze back to Aiela. “How fares Venza’s spellcasting?”

  Internally, Aiela groaned. This song and dance again, as if Aiela would say anything different than the last ten or so times Lady Nora had asked.

  “It doesn’t fare at all,” Aiela answered. “Venza has not been able to cast any spells besides Reach and Affinity Reading. She cannot even enhance her own body with simple bolstering spells that would help her fighting style greatly.”

  Well, she hadn’t really tried, anyway. Aiela’s bolstering spells were far better, after all.

  “So she really did defeat over a dozen brigands with only her physical abilities and that paltry Reach spell?” Nora asked before taking a sip of her tea.

  Aiela resisted the urge to sigh. The two Greyfield women could be downright insufferable at times. “Yes, my lady,” Aiela answered, doing her best to keep her voice even. “She has a talent for thinking on her feet, and her growing skill with the one useful spell in her arsenal has made her a force to be reckoned with.”

  “But she really can’t cast anything else besides those two?” Nora repeated.

  Aiela mentally counted down from ten before responding, lest she say something she would regret later. “No, she cannot, Lady Nora. May I ask why you keep asking?”

  Nora did sigh, not seeming to care if she did it in front of her. “You know as well as I do that if she could simply be an Imperial Battlemage like me, she would be set. She could serve like I did and eventually settle down with someone from a distinguished military family.”

  Aiela said nothing. She knew that’s what Nora had wanted for her daughter since she’d been born. However, that was not the hand Venza had been dealt. In another life, they would have both gone to the Imperial Academy to study Battle Magic. Aiela herself would have been top of her class, most likely, but that was not the reality they lived in.

  And to be blunt, Aiela was happier to not be trapped in a magic school learning spells she already knew. It did not escape her notice that even in this fantasy Nora had, she didn’t think Venza would become Lord Marshall herself, but Aiela did not bring it up.

  “Do you think-” Nora began, then stopped herself. But eventually she continued. “Do you think she would have been happy?”

  Aiela pondered the question. It was really something Nora should have been asking her daughter and not her. But if she had to give an answer... “Maybe,” Aiela said. “I think she might have. After all, she would still have followed in her father’s footsteps somewhat.”

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  “You do not think my daughter’s-” Nora paused, seeming to look for the word. “Disposition, would have made her unhappy?”

  “Disposition?” Aiela asked, unsure of the question.

  “Cassie?” Nora spoke, eyeing her servant at the side. “You understand the delicacy of this matter, yes?”

  “Of course, my lady,” Cassie answered. “I won’t utter a word to anyone else.”

  “Good girl,” Nora said, before focusing her attention back to Aiela. “I mean: Do you think she would have been happy with a husband? Given her very apparent interest in your new friend Lauren?”

  Aiela felt the blood rushing to her head. How did Nora Greyfield, who spent so little time with her daughter, figure out that Venza was into women but Aiela could not until this evening? How did this woman who didn’t even understand her own daughter’s potential know something about Venza that Aiela did not?

  “I am fairly certain Venza is capable of liking both men and women,” Aiela answered.

  There was a silence in the air, one of many that evening, as Nora seemed to wait for Aiela to say more. When she didn’t, Nora spoke again.

  “You really are a loyal friend to her,” the Lady of House Greyfield said.

  Aiela tried not to roll her eyes. A loyal friend? Really? Were both Greyfield women really this dense? “Why is that, Lady Nora?”

  The Lady of the House flashed her a mischievous grin that reminded Aiela of her own. “Because I was hoping that with her newfound interest in Lauren, you would be cross enough with my daughter to slip up and tell me she’s been hiding her spellcasting prowess from me,” Nora admitted.

  Oh. Perhaps only Venza was dense, then. “I’m not sure I follow,” Aiela said. “Why would I be cross?”

  “Please,” Nora scoffed. “I’ve seen the way you look at my daughter. Whenever the two of you are in a room, your gaze is resting on her half the time.”

  “Well your daughter seems oblivious,” Aiela said, relaxing somewhat in her seat. “I’ve changed my mind, Cassie. Can I have tea please?”

  “Of course, Miss Aiela,” the attendant answered, taking the second cup and pouring the translucent, brown liquid into it.

  “How long have you known?” Aiela asked Nora. She took the cup from Cassie with a grateful nod before dumping two cubes of sugar in.

  “Must be two or three years by now?” Nora answered as if asking a question herself. “I will admit: I was surprised. I can tell pretty easily when people take an interest in my daughter, but to think you, who grew up with her would as well.”

  Aiela took a sip of her tea to buy herself time to think. Despite the sugar, it somehow still tasted bitter. “And what do you think of this?”

  “I’ve always wondered why you never told her,” Nora said. “Surely, there have been opportunities.”

  Aiela took another sip of her tea to buy time to think. She pursed her lips as she asked herself the same question. In the end, she said, “I didn’t think she would be interested.”

  “Because you’re a girl or because you didn’t think she’d be interested in you specifically?”

  Aiela’s mask slipped for a moment as the question resounded inside her. Had she really not known Venza was interested in women? Or had she just been too afraid of rejection? She often framed that her life here felt like a dream, largely because Venza was around.

  “If you knew, why didn’t you say anything before now?” Aiela asked.

  “Because while I have nothing against it,” Nora answered. “I would have preferred a male suitor. We are a noble house, after all. Less complicated that way.”

  “But you would have approved? You don’t care that she couldn’t continue the bloodline?” Aiela asked.

  “Please,” Nora said with a scoff as if her intelligence were being insulted. “There are many ways around that: Consorts, adoption of a cousin’s unwanted children, just to name a few. And with how powerful I suspect you will be someday, it will not matter what other people think, either. Power is everything..”

  “You say that with confidence,” Aiela said. Internally, she swore. She didn’t normally talk about this with anyone, but Nora had already seen through her, so why hold back? “Or is it experience?”

  Nora gave her a long, appraising look. Then, her lips curled into a proud smirk. “The latter. How much do you know about my side of the family?”

  “Nobles from a neighboring province,” Aiela said. “Venza says she visited with you once when she was younger, but never again.”

  “House Sivaris,” Nora spoke. “And you’re only half right.”

  “Sivaris? Like Siva? The Fire Goddess?,” Aiela asked, brows furrowing in concentration. “I don’t know any Odolenian House by that name.”

  “That comes as no surprise,” Nora said. “Because we’re not from Odolenia. My family is originally from Serian to the Southeast.”

  “I suppose that would have been odd at the time,” Aiela said. “Though it’s hardly scandalous. As I understand it, Odolenia and Serian have been on good terms for some time. Emperor Harway himself literally married a princess from Lupa to the north and the two countries had been at war back then.”

  “You’re right. It shouldn’t be scandalous. Except I had been promised to another,” Nora said, lips forming a smirk. “My dear Lucius took me from someone else.”

  Aiela blinked. “He did what?”