Derrick turned at once toward the wall beside the mural — but that section had long since collapsed. He made his way around to the intact stretch of wall further along.
There, painted on the stone, was a naked man nailed upside down to a cross, his body smeared with bloodstains. Before him stood a host of figures — impossible to make out clearly, but each bearing twelve wings.
They were arranged around the crucified man, like stars around a moon, pouring out their sincere, devout worship.
"This…"
Lovia stepped up beside Derrick, her usually serene eyes trembling faintly. "This is the master this temple once belonged to. The True Creator."
Derrick stared at the mural.
Cough. Cough. Cough.
Without warning, Lovia fell into a violent fit of coughing. Flecks of vivid red flew from her lips and spattered the ground. She staggered, dropped to one knee, veins rising across her face — raw agony, and in her ears the furious, insane gibberish.
"Elder Lovia."
Derrick flinched, instinctively reaching to help her up — then stopped as she waved him off, managing in a low voice: "Go back and rest."
"But—"
"That is an order."
"Yes, ma'am."
Derrick forced himself to stop arguing and walked away quickly.
He'd only gone seven or eight steps when he couldn't help looking back. What he saw made his heart seize:
Elder Lovia was on all fours — licking back up, one small piece at a time, the blood and flesh she had just coughed out.
He felt the blood drain from his face.
How he looked at it, there was nothing that wasn't wrong and deeply unsettling about this.
What was happening to Elder Lovia?
...
Red Rose Estate, Queen's Borough outskirts.
Morning.
In a lavishly decorated bedroom, a man and a woman lay tangled and bare on a water bed. Torn scraps of lace and scattered shoes on the floor told of last night's intensity.
A soft sigh. The girl with the doll-like face opened her eyes.
She lay staring at the canopy above her, expression blank.
About half a minute. Then her pupils contracted sharply. The flush drained from her face, leaving it dead white.
She sat bolt upright. Her long black hair fell loose over her chest. Her eyes trembled as she stared at the man still sleeping beside her — and a flame of black fire ignited in her palm, ready to incinerate him.
But the black flame stopped, hovering a few centimetres from the man's skin. Her fingers shook. She held herself there, eyes fixed on him, for a long and agonised moment.
Then she wrenched her gaze away, closed her fist, and let the black flame die. She pulled the man's hand off her body, swung lightly off the bed, gathered her scattered clothes from the floor and pulled them on in quick, practised motions. She went out through the window and ran.
Trissy ran barefoot through the grass.
Late September in Backlund — the temperature had already dropped. In clothes this thin, most people would feel a chill. But Trissy's heart was blazing.
She was finally, finally fully awake. The hypnosis, the psychological conditioning — all of it had shattered. And the constant gaze she'd felt hovering over her all this time? Gone.
She was free.
She followed a path she'd drifted down countless times in her semi-aware state, heading toward the estate's outer wall. She didn't know whether her escape had already drawn the attention of the Prince's guards.
But this was a once-in-a-lifetime opening. She wasn't about to let it go.
A few minutes later she reached the perimeter wall — nearly three metres high. For Trissy, that wasn't much. She took a running start, let her momentum carry her, and vaulted clean over it, leaving the nightmare behind.
From inside the estate came the shouts of guards.
Trissy accelerated and made for a carriage she spotted on the road nearby. She slipped the door open without a sound — the driver never even stirred — and dropped inside. Then she clapped a hand over the mouth of the woman already seated across from her, tugged the gem pendant from her own neck and pressed it into her hand, and said quickly: "Don't speak. You can have this."
Then she pulled the window curtain aside a sliver and watched. As the carriage gradually put distance between them and the estate, and no one appeared in pursuit, Trissy finally let out a quiet breath.
She kneaded her fingers together absently — a feminised nervous habit she'd developed after her body changed — and felt something loosen. The ring on her finger simply… slid off.
"!!!"
Trissy froze, staring down at the sapphire ring in her hand.
This was the "gift" the Witch who'd tasked her with getting close to Prince Edessak had pressed into her hands — described as a powerful Sealed Artifact.
Whether it was powerful or not, Trissy couldn't say. What she could say was that the moment she'd put it on, she'd started becoming increasingly unlike herself.
She'd tried to remove it many times. Impossible — it had felt fused to her skin. She'd even tried cutting off the finger. The blade shattered.
And now it had just slipped off like nothing?
She couldn't decide if this was good news or bad.
She was still frowning at it when she raised her head and noticed the woman across from her — who had made no reaction whatsoever from the moment Trissy barged in until now. Which was not normal.
Trissy caught a flicker of light passing through the woman's eyes — there and gone.
She readied herself instantly, and said, with a smile: "You… recognise me?"
Klein was in a slightly complicated spot.
He'd come back to the Red Rose Estate a few days later for a second look, following the approach Daly had suggested — looking for signs of the Demoness Sect's scheme. He'd been observing discreetly from a hired carriage when a woman suddenly threw herself in, shoved a rather expensive-looking gem pendant into his hands, and asked him to keep quiet.
His first instinct was a runaway noblewoman — but he'd very quickly noticed something familiar about the doll-like face.
Trissy.
The Trissy responsible for the Alfalfa tragedy. The one who'd taken a Demoness Sect potion, become a woman, and fled Tingen.
What was she doing here? She'd just come running from the Red Rose Estate — Prince Edessak's estate. Had she come to assassinate the Prince on a Demoness Sect commission too? Had she succeeded?
She tilted her head with a smile and said: "Recognise me?"
Klein's nerves tightened. He kept his guard up, very carefully. "I… saw your wanted poster."
"Oh?"
She smiled. Those alluring eyes moved around thoughtfully, and something occurred to her. Trissy blinked. "Promise me — don't tell anyone you saw me. Alright?"
She placed the sapphire ring in Klein's open palm. "This ring is worth more than my bounty."
To be continued…
Advance 100 Chapters are up on my Patreon!
pat reon.com/AlphaSenatus