"Is that so?" George spoke while placing his hands under his chin. "She wants herself locked up in an asylum...are you sure you heard it right?" Regardless, it was impossible to believe that someone who was smiling and walking around like nothing this morning, was now saying something so absurd, that it was almost as if someone was replacing her to say this.
"It seemed like it." Lewis answered back shortly afterwards. "I did ask if she was saying the right thing, and then she said it's a command, not a suggestion. What is more interesting is how a strange incident happened with her, and then I found her at the graveyard. She was resting against the tombstone of her relative."
"That relative? The one who had brought her here in the first place?" He asked while standing up and walking forward to rustle his younger brother's hair. "Don't try to be funny, she can't be graved that fast and in a second unless that happened a day or so before."
Lewis grabbed his hand and yanked it away. "You will think of it as a joke unless you had went to inspect that unknown worldly dungeon that had appeared and drained the surrounding energy. She was the one who entered it...and cleared it too." His gaze sharpened as they turned serious.
George's shocked eyes stayed locked at their brother for a long time and his steps stopped entirely, leaving only the sound of the breeze flapping the papers assembled on the desk. "An unknown worldly dungeon? And she had entered it...then that is enough clue her relative was also entangled with the situation." He finally turned around to speak with proper concern.
"Now do you seem to understand why she is mentally unstable?" Lewis nodded his head. "She watched someone close to her die in front of her eyes and she couldn't save her in the hands of a Guardian who just recently possessed her, trying to end her. You didn't check it yet, but they say she has gone down in health too. When I was present, she was inconsistently coughing up blood and when the nurse checked, she was down with high fever. And I don't know this either, but they are saying she might have interacted with poison."
"A Guardian possessed her?" He questioned with widened eyes. "Being able to escape a dungeon where she faced the Guardian herself, that must be the unknown worldly dungeon's origins based on the links." He tapped his chin. "If you have noticed, she is very smart at hiding things, if you can do so, try talking to her and get as much information as you can. I guess that must be why she had been sent to this palace.
"I seem to have underestimated how she had the ability to control her life until now. If only there were more restrict, we could have prevented this from happening. Why did you let her go that easily? You had your element, so if you had accompanied her, the matter wouldn't have been this intense."
"I tried to go along with her, but she sent me away with Henry towards the school. And she used a skill to do that...with a snap we were inside the carriage again. By the time I had come back to get through to the dungeon, it had suprisingly already been cleared. Then I followed her trail towards the graveyard. And since that was an unknown worldly dungeon, that explains how it took seconds to grave her."
George fell into silent thoughts as he stared at the ceiling with worried eyes. After a short while, an idea seemed to have entered his mind that made his eyes shift back towards his brother. "I might have a solution to this matter now. There is a way for me to take all responsibilities of her from mom, and that will still allow me to observe her. If the Guardian of Silence has learned of a way to try and kill her, she will have be placed within close observations from now on. I will think about the asylum part when I get a chance to speak with her."
***
A knock erupted at the duchess's door as she told them to come in and George watched her put away her glasses. "I am sorry for not being able to attend the matters yet, but I seem to have fallen into a problem with the prophecy and the girl. I asked her about why she came back bloodied, and she just savagely thought she could say 'you didn't want to know about my relative'." She spoke while placing her forehead on top of her hand.
"That is the reason I came to speak with you, if you have the time that is." George spoke while sitting at the sofa area in front of the desk. The duchess nodded, "go ahead then. I think she is a matter worth discussing."
"The fact is, mom...I have been seeing you treat her with a different eye for a very long time now." George spoke with serious eyes while glancing at their mother's way. "And I find it a little disrespectful myself to say, that you are clearly doing so with the intentions of forcing the entire empire at her hands. I agree that according to the prophecy, she is silently causing the empire to raise to their feet."
"Is that all you have come across to say? Then I have almost no time left to speak about this." She, as expected, immediately disregarded the matter. "But that is also not the something I wanted to speak about. You seem to have been burdened with her responsibilities for now. So please let me speak until the end, unless you are ready to jump into the conclusion."
With a silence being left by their mother, George continued speaking. "Following what I have heard from Lewis, she was said to have entered an unknown worldly dungeon, and her relative died there. And following that, she was said to have gone into a mentally unstable state. She even wants to get along and lock herself in an asylum.
"A Guardian just recently possessed her to kill her, and if you are worried about the empire going down, you know where this is going. If the destruction is true, than at this point, her death would be the destruction. Do you see the links now?" He bent forward to stand up. "Now my final proposal is, you will have to entrust her responsibilities to me, while you will be staying her legal guardian. Do you approve to that?"
Surprised, the duchess slammed her hands down on the table and abruptly stood up. "Are you seriously cracking a joke? I am not letting a hair loose from her. You are her elder brother, and stay that way. She is being taken care of enough."
"Then if she truly was, how did she die almost twice until now. Where it is unpredictable that she will survive the third time too." George spoke while talking back to their mother at a harsh tone. "Rethink what you just said, because if she does let loose of her life next, I will make sure neither Henry nor Lewis gets even an inch towards you. It is clear how absurdly well you can take care of children."
"You all grew up with your father, and she is basically grown up to a point she knows how to manage her life. I don't know about her parents...but I think you have noticed one thing yourself too, that the girl is capable of taking care of herself. So I don't think anyone's notice is required for her to get back up on her feet again." The duchess returned while narrowing her eyes down to a resting gaze.
"You may be right about that part honestly, that she can take care of herself...but at a point where she says something like locking herself in an asylum, without anyone telling it first, you do understand how she thinks of herself as a potential psycho here. And I also believe she needs a break from whatever has been happening around the palace for her lately. Especially the Guardian trailing."
"The Guardian that is behind her, seems to be filled with jealousy. She managed to survive a near-death situation and then survive an unknown worldly dungeon, so what other necessity is she lacking? She is a pawn I am using to control the palace, having her leave the palace grounds is going to cause uproar against the empire. And I am also in no mood to disrupt this flow by sending her away from this place. That's my final declaration."
"Then will you take the blame if she starts hitting other people around her before hurting herself? Especially you?" As soon as the words escaped his mouth, their mother looked at her eldest son with causioned eyes. Her fingers trembled again the table as beads of sweat appeared at her forehead. "She doesn't have the authority to get her hands drenched on her mother's blood." She spoke with her eyes fixated with a sharp gaze.
"You don't know yet it seems. She might be a little disturbed by the way you are continuously treating her like a material. There has been many cases like this, and you better learn to avoid it before she does get to that level of insanity. Added to that...you are not her blood-related mother." George's turned around to walk away.
"Wait, I will entrust you with her responsibilities so long as she doesn't abandon her roles at the palace. You have one month time to get her mentally stable again, and once the time is up, she will return under my custody. And in between that time, she will frequently learn to come over to the palace, do her duties and attend school on a regular basis. And I will test her sanity at the dinner table tonight...to see if you are speaking the truth." The duchess interrupted at the last second as he flashed a grin before dissapearing behind the door.
"And if I successfully prove it, I will consider it two months then." He spoke while shutting the door.
***
Dinner was held around the same time as usual, at eight sharp. Stress hovered over the duchess's eyes as they stared at the young girl in front of her, with the eyes red and the hair silvering around the ends, clear signs she had undergone Energy Over Consumption. Her gaze then went back to George who gave her a sharp stare, which made her realize there was a necessity for action to be taken.
"So...I heard you had gone into an unknown worldly dungeon? It is very visible by the way you seem have changed, your eyes have gone a full red and her hair seems to have whitened. Which I am also sure you know, will be a permanent reaction unless something has been done, am I right? Now I heard you want to lock yourself in an asylum?" She finally looked at the bandage at the side of her neck.
"Yes, I need approval from you for that too." She spoke while holding the wound and turning her head slightly. "And I won't break the rules by leaving the palace if you don't give me the permission. Then I have the palace prisons, am I right?" Few drops of blood spilt from her finger gaps while she kept her eyes at the duchess with respect.
"You know if it's troubling you, you don't have to keep your gaze at me. That's until you have recovered." There was a feeling of sympathy at the duchess's face as she diverted her attention towards the food on the table. "You are not injured more then this? Like you were supposed to have sustained major ones while facing such dangerous obstacles?"
For a short moment, Aefia's eyes consequetively widened before falling back into the shadow of her hair. "I didn't...sustain injuries in the dungeon...thank you for your concern, I am a little shocked you asked me such a question." She spoke while unconsciously using the same bloody fingers to mendle with her food and the spoon. Henry, who sat next to her, was pretty mad at her for not coming over to their school.
"I guess this is the minimum I can do as a mother with responsibilities over the child who I basically made her quit her connections with her family and friends." She spoke while staying expressionless, and looking down at her food, also expecting a reaction back. A long moment of silence stared down at everyone of them.
When she finally picked up her gaze again, there was a maid servants whispering something into her ears while wiping the side of her neck, that made her clench her silverware tightly around her fingers. Lewis on the other side of the table, bent forward with a realization that something unfamiliar was about to happen.
Unable to hold back her anger, she let down of her cutlery and straightened at her seat. "Henry...I know you are mad at me...but please shut your eyes and cover your ears. Don't open them unless someone does it for you." With the words floating in the air, she waited with a side glance at the kid until he had fully covered them.
Then, her eyes unknowingly glowed a bright red and her hand slammed heavily against the body of the stemmed drinking glass, and crushed it. Immediately, she stood up and threw a nearby shattered piece of glass at the maid's face while looking down at her with the stem still at her hand, bleeding onto the clear body. The maid immediately collapsed to the ground while covering her eyes.
"...don't ask for reasons to why I did it. If you remember what you said, that should be enough." The piercing words echoed through the room as she shouted with souless, void eyes. Her hand then simultaneously broke the glass further as the duchess stood up while walking beside the young girl.
Lewis stood up from his seat abruptly, but was stopped by George who held a hand out to tell him to be patient. Their mother glanced down on the maid servant who sat up with a joyous face. "Your majesty! You just saw what that insolent girl did right?!"
"Did I...say I would have sided with you?" The duchess spoke as both she and Aefia held a painful gaze down at the same person.
End of Volume 1.