Here is where I thank my betas: thank you betas!

Blood Bonds

Chapter Six

Echoes from the past


"I failed," he said, as I lit a candle. "You were right. I could not find a single one."

I brought the light up to my face and smiled. He was surprised, even stunned by the pallor of my flesh, the dark hunger in my ageless eyes, and the teeth. Oh, yes, I think the teeth definitely surprised the man who could not afford to be surprised.

"I haven't fed in seventy-two hours," I explained, as I fell on him. He did not land the first blow or the last.

-Immortal Blood-


Louise thrashed and turned under her cover. She had spent the whole night like that, drifting from slumber to alertness, and even with the sun already out she wanted to remain in bed. It wasn't something that other people would allow her to do, though, as she heard someone knocking at the door.

For once she was grateful that Kirche was there to answer that, while she kept pretending to be asleep. "Hello, girls! What do you two need?"

"Oh, Miss Von Zerbst." Said a voice that Louise recognized as belonging to Amethyst. "We apologize, we thought that our niece was sleeping here."

"Oh, she is! Give me a moment." There was the sound of a door closing and steps retreating. Then someone placed a hand over Louise's shoulder to shake her up. "Hey, Louise, you awake?"

"Yes, I am." She replied absentmindedly as she pushed herself into a seated position. "And I heard everything." She rubbed her tired eyes, dressed up, and went to meet her aunts. "Morning."

"Morning." They greeted her back. "Are you available? Are we interrupting something?"

Louise narrowed her eyes. They looked embarrassed, and their eyes kept darting from her to the room as if throwing furtive glances at… oh. "We didn't sleep together."

"We wouldn't presume…"

"We didn't sleep together." She insisted.

"I can confirm that!" Kirche yelled from the back. "To my great disappointment!"

"Look." Amethyst pinched the bridge of her nose. "We're not here to discuss your personal life."

"Not that we care!" Daphne was quick to add. "I mean, with your mother we-"

Whatever it was that she was about to say was silenced by her twin ramming an elbow into her ribs. "Shut up, you!" She yelled with her cheeks flaring red.

"What." Louise scowled.

"Look. We're here to continue our talk from yesterday. Are you available?"

"I am."

With a shrug, Louise parted ways with Kirche and followed her aunts to a terrace on the second floor. It overlooked the bay, hundreds of meters below, and was bathed by the light of the morning sun. A table had been set there with three chairs, and the railings were decorated with several stone pots, the plants that they contained having turned to dust long ago. The twins took a seat each, and beckoned at Louise to take the remaining one.

"The sun doesn't bother you." Was Louise's first observation, noticing that they didn't bother to hide their exposed skin.

They shared a confused look. "No, it doesn't. Why would it?"

"Because most vampires I met were hurt by it. I once killed one by blowing up the roof of his castle and letting the sun shine directly over him. He burnt like a torch."

Amethyst pressed a finger against her temples. "Well, we're not affected by it. And you don't seem to be affected by it either, for that matter!"

"Yes, but I am a mutation." Louise replied throwing a thumb at herself.

All things considered, that was a problem. If the vampire she was hunting didn't behave like the ones in Nirn, she couldn't be sure of where -or who- it could be.

"That was one of the things we wanted to talk about." Amethyst continued. "Your eyes glow red, and that magic-"

"It's different from anything we've seen before." Daphne finished.

"That's what you want to ask about? Not my teeth?"

"Well, that was a surprise," Daphne said rubbing her shoulder, where Louise had bitten her, "But we can shapeshift, so it wasn't that strange." And to prove her point, she turned her hands into claws, and then back to normal again.

"Well, good to know. To answer your first questions, my eyes are part of my uniqueness." At least that was how Serana had put it. "And to answer your other questions, I was sent to a different world and turned into a vampire there. Vampires there are different." She told them with no small amount of satisfaction at their confused expressions.

"That raises even more questions than it answers!"

Louise's lips curled into a teasing smile. "Blood is also not enough to satiate me, and I need to eat flesh too."

"That… that does explain some of the things we saw investigating your crime scenes." Looks of apprehension flashed through Daphne's face. Then her eyes opened in surprise. "Wait, what do you mean with blood not being enough? We don't need blood."

"You don't?"

"Well, it's better. Compare it to drinking a fine wine instead of plain water, but we can live on any body fluid."

Louise pressed her lips into a thin line, remembering what the body of Count Mott had looked like. All trace of water had been drained from his body, turning him into a brittle mummy. A vampire that fed on water would explain that. "What do you mean with any bodily fluid?"

And then they blushed. "Do we really need to answer that?"

"No, you don't." Silently Louise thanked the fact that she hadn't been turned into one of those. She'd have died of embarrassment long ago, and didn't want to think what Kirche would say to that. She also remembered that thing that Daphne had tried to say about them and her mother, but immediately killed that line of thought. "I guess now is the part where I told you the details of my story."

Daphne and Amethyst exchanged a look. "No." They replied in unison.

"No?" That wasn't how Louise was expecting that conversation to go. "I thought you'd want to know more about it."

Amethyst released a sigh. "We do. Even more so now. Seriously, another world?" She muttered under her breath.

"But we talked about that last night and decided that we don't care." Daphne continued. "Even with all you told us now, we realize that this is not the best time for all of it. If you want to tell us, once things are calmer, we'd be thankful. But we won't interrogate you about that if you don't want to share."

Louise blinked. "That… thank you. I appreciate that."

"But even if we aren't going to ask you about the 'how' we do want to ask you about why. What led you to start acting like this?"

And there was that question again. Louise didn't bother to hide her discomfort as she rolled her eyes with a dismissive wave of her hand. "I told you last night, I did that because it was the most convenient course of action."

"How many people did you kill because it was 'convenient'?"

"I don't know." She shrugged. "I don't keep the count any more. And in my defense, those I purposely killed deserved it."

Amethyst recoiled as if sick. "That… do you even hear yourself?"

"It's painful to hear you dismiss that, like the lives that you take by accident."

The muscles of Louise's neck tensed as she pressed her teeth together. "We are going after a vampire that could easily kill an entire town if he put effort into it. Collaterals are to be expected. What else do you want me to do?"

"What do- you could ask for help!"

"I didn't know you were here!"

"I'm talking about the local authorities!"

"I didn't know how many were thralls of this vampire. I wasn't going to risk him getting away!" Was it that hard to understand?

Louise didn't know if Halkeginian vampires could suffer from headaches, considering their insane regeneration, but Amethyst did look to be going through one. "You keep talking about stopping the vampire before things get worse, but you're destroying everything in your path to get to him. Don't you think you're causing just as much destruction?

"No." Louise deadpanned, shrugging her shoulders. "I don't think so. And I feel offended that you do. I saw entire villages razed by dragons, banquets organized by vampires and horrors that could drive you insane." She aimed a finger at them. "I know how bad things can truly get, and nothing I did gets even close to it."

Daphne narrowed her eyes. "So you'd never do any of that? You'd never feast on an innocent or destroy a town?"

"Of course I-" An image flashed through her mind. It was Londinium in flames, people screaming and flying. She had seen many images like that in Nirn, in Hammerfell and Cyrodiil, but it had been different. Back then she had been with the defenders, this time she had been one of the attackers. "I would never do that."

"You are lying."

"I'm not! I wasn't responsible for what happened in Londinium!" But she had been, hadn't she? All that happened because she failed to kill Cromwell.

"You…" Amethyst took a deep breath as she pinched the bridge of her nose. "Then tell me, in your words, what happened there."

"I went there to kill Cromwell and I succeeded." She emphasized the word as she felt her mouth running dry. "I killed him and the entire leadership of Reconquista. But then he somehow came back!" She had failed. She had failed at the one bloody thing she was good at. "I don't know if it was necromancy, magic, a puppet or even a bloody actor pretending to be him! But people believed he had come back, and he started a manhunt for me! The city ended up tearing itself to pieces in the chaos that followed."

"And that was it? You didn't make things worse or kill any innocents in the process?"

Innocents? No, they hadn't been innocent. "No."

Daphne pressed her lips together into a thin line. "Allow me to rephrase that: did you kill any civilians?"

"Yes!" She yelled, extending her arms. "I told you, Cromwell organized a manhunt for me. The entire city was after me, and I defended myself."

"By killing them."

"What other option did I have? A woman started screaming that she had found me and I shot her." Her jaw had been shot off her mouth in a thunder of smoke and gunpowder. "Then a mob charged me and I punched through them to escape." Limbs being ripped off their joints under the power of Unrelenting Force.

"And you couldn't have escaped without killing them?"

"It would have been more difficult."

"Bullshit!" Amethyst screamed, standing up. "You stood your ground against both of us! Are you seriously telling us that you didn't have a way to evade a mob of commoners without killing them?"

Louise stared back at her, turning her face into an emotionless mask. "Ways? I had several." She kept her voice even and polite, but couldn't stop her fingers from twitching. "But, as I told you, they were more difficult to execute and I had a mission to fulfill." Options ran through Louise's head. Dismay could have worked, even if many would have died trampled under the stampede. A combination of Become Ethereal and Whirlwind Sprint could have done the trick too, but none of that changed an important fact: "Why risk it?"

"Why ri- just listen to yourself! Don't you care about human lives?"

"Yes, I do. A lot. I care about the lives of those that matter to me. But everyone else, whose names I don't even know?" The facade broke and she raised her voice. "Why should I care about them? This was a military operation! Lives are lost during those!"

"A military operation authorized by whom?"

"By me!" She yelled. "Sometimes I feel I'm the only one who knows how to get things done! Why does no one listen to me?"

Daphne's face was filled with sadness as she said her final words. "Because you speak like the monsters you claim to fight."

Everything came to a screeching halt around Louise as her mind went to a full stop. Her mouth flapped like a fish, hardly believing what she had just heard.

Amethyst stood up, walked to Louise, and locked her in an embrace that Louise didn't return. "Please, think about what you want. Think about what you're doing, and think if this is the right way to get it." She let go. "No matter what happens, Louise, we will always love you. Never forget that." With everything said, she gestured at her sister and together they left, leaving Louise alone with her thoughts.

Louise's fingers curled and twitched as her mouth ran dry. She tapped them against the table as her aunts' words bounced inside her head. Her heart drummed inside her ears as her neck stiffened.

They were wrong. They hadn't been there, who were they to judge what she had done?

'What do they know?'

They knew nothing! They knew nothing about her or what she went through. Who were they to judge her? Her mission had been greater than any small sacrifice. What she did had been the necessary thing, what other options did she have?

She had been right!

But then, why didn't she believe that?

Her teeth ground against each other as her fingers curled and uncurled, making her joints itch and snap.

"So, is this a bad time?" The voice startled Louise, making her flinch in her seat. "Wow, did I sneak up to you? You must have been really out to not see me there."

"Kirche." Louise hissed. "Since when have you been there?"

"A while. I was hiding behind the door." She shrugged, throwing a thumb over her shoulder. "I followed you three after you left."

Louise averted her eyes. "How much did you hear?"

"Enough to feel a bit envious of your mother."

With a snapping sound, a piece of the wooden table broke under Louise's grip. "I will kill you."

Kirche's reply to that was a mischievous smile. "So, how did it go?"

Louise ignored the question as she grumbled under her breath.

"That bad?"

"What do you care?"

"You know, I could go on about how I really care but I respect you more than that. I'm just here to make sure you don't do anything we'll both regret."

"Like what?" She asked, bile mixing with her words. "Biting my fingers and pulling out my hair? Or what about cutting myself just because it feels nice?"

"Yeah, that." Kirche said sheepishly scratching the back of her head. "Or dragging the first girl you see into some crazy adventure because the one you were interested in dumped you. Mind you, that did work for me in the end."

Louise's eyes widened and then she shook her head. "I really want to strangle you sometimes."

"See? You're in a better mood already!" Kirche placed her arms under Louise's armpits, making the Tristanian flinch at the sudden intrusion. "Now follow me!" She pushed Louise up to her feet, then tried to take her by the hand but Louise struggled and broke free.

"Where do you want to take me?"

"To the baths! Have you seen them? They are huge! Even bigger than the ones we have at the Academy!"

"I…" She sighed. "Yeah, okay. I could use a bath."


The Academy of Magic had been built in the Romalian style, and amongst other things that had included a communal bath big enough for thirty people to use comfortably. The idea behind that was that it would become another center of social interactions for students to get to know each other as equals, but there was a more practical reason behind it. With the Academy having been designed to host more than three hundred students, it would have been unrealistically expensive to design individual baths for all of them. A single communal bath was cheaper to build and maintain.

Not like the practicality had made Louise hate them any less. It was embarrassing and left her feeling vulnerable.

"I can't remember the last time we shared a bath!" Kirche commented as she disrobed.

Before the baths proper was a dressing room, its walls covered by wooden panels. Cedar, as suggested by the rich smell. Nailed to the walls were also shelves for nobles to leave their clothes in.

"The day before the summoning ritual." Nostalgia lingered in Louise's voice as she recalled that event. How many years had already been since that? "I had stayed at the library for extra time studying and arrived later than usual." Book after book, desperately trying to ensure nothing would go wrong. She remembered the anxiety and the sleepless nights as the day drew near. "You were already there."

"Oh, you're right. I rarely saw you at the baths."

Next to the shelves there was also a cupboard full of towels. Louise picked one and draped it around her body. "That's because I memorized at what times every day the baths were empty. That way I knew when to go so I could evade you." She took a deep breath. "Not just you in particular, mind you, but everyone. I liked being alone."

"Yeah. I also liked messing with you there, didn't you?"

Louise turned to look at Kirche. Unlike her, Kirche hadn't bothered to cover her body and had opted to carry her towel over one shoulder, while in one hand she carried a small box full of bottles.

"That's in the past." Louise felt a shiver as she forced herself to stare at the Germanian's face. "Now I know I can hurt you back if you try something." The training she had forced Kirche through was already showing as cords of muscles were starting to line her skin..

"That's the spirit!" Kirche beamed. "So let's go have some quality bonding time." She locked her free arm around one of Louise's own, and dragged her forward and into the bathing area. "See what I told you? This is bigger than the one at the Academy."

Louise found herself silently agreeing with a nod.

It wasn't just big, but it was beautiful too. There were three pools shaped like a clover, a waterfall in the middle, and the surroundings were carved in stone. The effect made the baths looks less like a man-made construction and more like a natural fountain found inside a cave.

"Take a seat, please." Kirche said aiming at one of the pools. Underneath the water, there were stone steps for people to sit, leaving half of their bodies above the water.

"Why?" Louise asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Come on, trust me in this one. Please?"

Louise humored her, diving into the water. Kirche then kneeled behind her so she could inspect the content of the box.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm going to wash your hair!" Kirche explained as she unloaded her cargo, orderly setting dozens of bottles on the ground from bigger to smaller. Each one was of a different size and shape, and the content was of different colors.

"Why?"

"Because your hair looks like the busy end of a broom. Seriously, it's all nice and fine that you look after your hygiene, but why don't look after your beauty too?"

Louise took a lock of hair and dragged it in front of her eyes. She shrugged. "I never saw the point. Not when I get covered in entrails on a daily basis, and when my body looks like someone tried to use it as a chopping block."

"Well, that's what you have me for!" Kirche opened one of the bottles to sniff its content.

The smell was sweet, and reminded Louise of the fields around the Imperial Capital. "What's all that?"

"I have some olive oil," Kirche signaled at the bottle she had just opened. "Lye soap, some vinegar rinses-"

"What do you use vinegar for?"

"Commoners like to use it. It cleans the hair while also bleaching it."

Louise's eyes widened as her muscles tensed. "Don't you dare."

"Of course I don't! You most definitely don't need it, your hair is beautiful as it is."

Louise bit her lip. It had been a long time since someone had complimented her for her looks. They usually did so for her strength and skill. Her ability to survive and kill whatever it was in front of her.

Was Kirche being serious? Maybe she was. After all, the only thing she had left that could be considered 'beautiful' was the hair she had inherited from her mother. The rest was a mess of scar tissue, bad memories, and worse decisions.

Her train of thought was interrupted by Kirche's following question.

"Do you prefer mint or thyme?"

Louise lowered her body until her mouth was barely above the line of the water. "Do you…" She paused, licking her lips while thinking about what to do. "Do you have rosemary? It's the one Mother liked to use on me."

"Yes, I do! Now, let my magic fingers do their work."

"To how many people did you say the same thing?"

"Oh, many." At least she was being honest. "But if it makes you feel better, you're only the second person I ever washed her hair. The other being Charlotte."

There was the sound of a bottle opening and Kirche rubbing her hands together. Then a finger brushed against Louise's hair and she flinched.

The hands retreated.

"Do you… do you actually want me to do this?"

Louise's jaw stiffened as she pressed her teeth together. Was Kirche pitying her? "Continue." She hissed.

"Are you sure? Because I don't want to-"

"I told you-" Louise took a breath to keep her voice low. "To continue."

"If you say so." Once again Kirche's hands got back to work, massaging Louise's scalp and combing her hair.

Louise's back straightened and her shoulders ached with tension.

"You aren't enjoying this, are you?"

"I'm trying to." Louise admitted. This had been a mistake. What had she been thinking? "And it's not you. I don't like when people touch me in general."

"Wait, you don't? You didn't have any troubles handling me when we were training."

Louise snorted. Kirche's choices of words never failed to trigger a reaction in her, be it amusement or anger. "That was different. I was in control, I could move." She pressed her hands together. "Now I need to stay still and let you do whatever." Underwater, she made her knuckles crack. "I don't like having someone at my back. It's distressing. I don't know what you could be doing."

The massage got more energetic. "Come on, I'm not going to do anything perverted."

"I honestly wouldn't mind if that was it." Louise's fingers dug into the skin of her thighs. "But if someone gets this close to me it usually means that they are going to try to kill me. I just feel that any moment now you could pull out a knife and slit my throat. Or strangle me. Or break my neck." Her breathing became more energetic as she forced those words out through clenched teeth.

"Do… do you really think I'd try to kill you?"

Seventy-one prime pain centers. "You, personally, right now?" More for Altmer, less for Argonians. "No. Not anymore at least." It was easy to destroy a body with just fingers, if one knew how. "But that doesn't matter. You could and that's enough to make me uncomfortable." She could do it easily.

Kirche hummed to herself. "I guess that's why you never liked parties. You were always there but I never saw you enjoying it. You were always alone in a corner. You're awesome, but sometimes I feel sad for you."

"I don't care."

"I know you don't." Kirche sighed and continued working. A moment passed before she spoke again. "Well, I think that we can both agree that the mood was thoroughly ruined."

"Sorry if your dastardly plan to seduce me didn't work."

"Would you believe me if I told you this wasn't a plan to seduce you?"

Louise's reply to that was a snort.

"Come on, it's the truth! You just looked like you needed it."

If Kirche could see her face, she'd see Louise rolling her eyes. "Are you telling me that you dragged me to the baths, a place where we'd both be naked, and you weren't planning something?"

There was the sound of Kirche clicking her tongue. "When you put it like that, it does sound bad. But, in my defense, I'm not good at doing nice stuff for people I'm not planning to have sex with. Well, except for Charlotte."

"You're a horrible person, do you know that?" Not like Louise was any better.

"Yeah, I do." Kirche's fingers moved to Louise's ears. "Seriously, the things I could do if I had your hair! It's so full and fluffy!"

Louise grunted an unintelligible response. Her sister Cattleya used to tell her the same.

"But, hey, a question." Kirche continued. "If you were so sure that I was going to do something naughty to you, then why did you follow me?"

Now that was an interesting question. Had she started trusting Kirche? Maybe in part she had, and the experience would have been enjoyable if she had managed to actually relax. She just couldn't do that yet, not with Kirche.

She wanted something, but she simply didn't know what.

"I'm not sure. I guess it reminded me of when I had baths with sister Cattleya, or Henrietta." She rolled her tongue through her teeth as if pretending to think about it. "Yeah, I think that's it: I'm so starved of intimacy that I'm willing to settle for the likes of you."

And then a buckle-worth of water fell on her head, washing away the soap.

"Har-har to you too, Vallière." Kirche laughed and then climbed down to the pool, taking a seat next to Louise. She carried a mirror that she made sure to keep above water. "Now, what do you think?"

Louise received the mirror and raised it to her face. The reflection surprised her. Her hair no longer was a mess of broken strands, but wavy and full like it had been back during her times at the Academy. Shorter, yes, but similar. It was like seeing a picture of the past, if it wasn't for the sharper lines of her face that signaled maturity. And the scars, of course. She couldn't forget about those.

She wondered how long it would last.

"It's nice."

"Yes!" Kirche's yell almost made Louise drop the mirror. "Louise liked it!" Then she locked her in a hug. A moment later Kirche realized what she had done and pulled back. "Sorry, sorry."

"It's okay."

"I am trying to get better." Kirche said pressing the tips of her fingers together. "It's just that this is how I show my affection to people. I like hugging, and kissing, and holding hands. And I don't mean sex, I do that with Lotte too. Not that she reciprocates." She laughed as she scratched the back of her head. "How do you show your affection?"

"By killing the enemies of the people I like." It was kind of funny how easy it was to answer that question. Apparently Kirche thought the same as she started laughing. "That's not a joke."

"I know it's not but it's still funny." She swiped off a tear of her eye. "You did try to impress Henrietta that way, didn't you?"

Killing was easy for her. It was what she was good at, how she had earned respect, so of course she had wanted to show off. What better way to do that than to stop a war before it even began?

Not like she had succeeded.

But she had also been angry and Reconquista had presented itself as the perfectly valid target. Also confused. Lost. But braving the unknown with a sword in hand was something she could understand, something she had gotten accustomed to and that she had already survived time and time again. There was a comforting familiarity in it.

"Not like it worked." Louise's words were muffled by her hand pressed against the corner of her mouth.

"Don't worry." Kirche said with a palm on Louise's back. "I'm sure you two can work this out."

Work it out? Towards what?

The more she thought about it, the less sure Louise felt about anything. Not like she was going to tell Kirche that, though. "Don't you want to be my girlfriend? Why are you trying to help me with her?"

"No idea." Kirche replied with a shrug.

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, believe it or not I do many things without thinking them through that later come to bite me in the ass. I say it's one of my charming qualities!"

"Charming alright." Louise deadpanned.

To her silent gratitude Kirche went quiet after that, and the weight of her sleepless night returned to Louise's shoulders. She closed her eyes and let her consciousness drift away.


"Hey, Louise, do you know what I look like?"

"Please, don't say-"

"A raisin!"

Louise felt the need to slap a hand against her face.

It was close to noon when they finally got out of the baths, their bodies clean and their fingers wrinkled by the water. After dressing up, they went in the direction to the main lobby.

"So, what will the plan be for today, boss?" Kirche asked and Louise realized that she didn't have a clear answer for that. Continuing their hunt was a given but she wasn't entirely sure how to move forward with it. The idea of attracting the vampire to them was a solid one, but after the talk with her aunts there was something that was worrying her. In Nirn there were many strains of vampirism, each one with different powers and characteristics, but they all share some common traits. Their weakness to sunlight being the most noticeable one. If Halkeginian vampires weren't susceptible to it, she lacked one of the main methods for tracking and identifying vampires. Heavens only knew what other nasty surprises they'd be holding in storage for her.

She needed to update her knowledge and do it fast.

Before she could voice her concerns to Kirche, a cry of alarm came from somewhere above them. "Careful down there!"

The warning came almost a moment too late as Louise saw the glimpse of an object entering her peripheral vision. The size of a bird, it was moving as fast as one, but what revealed its nature was the fact that it hit the ground only to bounce back up, straight towards a painting. The work of art was saved by Louise's fast reflexes, who captured the ball mid-flight.

"What the-?"

"Sorry about that!" Siesta rushed to Louise's side. "We were playing and we might have kicked it too hard and…"

Louise reached out and placed the ball in Siesta's hands. "Here you go."

"...oh, thank you. Thank the Founder we didn't break anything or Miss Isabella would have been furious."

Louise turned to leave with a shrug but was stopped by Kirche taking her by the arm. "So, who were you playing with?"

The answer to that question came in the form of a figure rushing down one of the hallways. It took Louise a moment to recognize the person. It was Odette, the youngest of the sisters that had asked them to find their parents.

"Miss Siesta, you-" The girl froze on her track, an expression of panic in her face.

"Oh, dear. Come, come here." The younger girl dashed towards Siesta, gripping the maid's skirt and hiding behind it. "Sorry, she's timid. Now Odette, say hi to-"

"We know each other already." Louise interrupted. "Her older sister asked us for help finding their parents."

Odette peeked from behind Siesta, took one look at Louise, and then went back to hiding.

That sent Kirche through a fit of laughter. "You aren't good at this, are you Louise?" She took a knee next to Siesta and extended her open arms towards Odette. "Come on, come here." Tentatively the girl reached for her, only for Kirche to grab her and hurl her over a shoulder. Odette yelped, but soon it turned into laughter as Kirche started spinning around. Then she dashed away, Odette's laughter getting lost through the hallways.

"She seems good with children."

Louise didn't reply to Siesta's comment and instead moved to something she was more interested in. "What's she doing here?"

"Her sister, eh…"

"Lucina."

"Lucina! That. She's talking to Guiche. I didn't want Odette to be alone so I started playing with her."

"I see." Louise made a mental calculation about how long it would take her to go into the city and find the sisters. The result made her scratch her head in confusion. "How much time did we spend in the baths?"

"Eh?" Siesta asked with a cocked head. "I don't know but I think that Lord Gramont didn't go to sleep last night and spent the time looking for the sisters."

"He didn't sleep at all? That's not healthy."

"I know, and Miss Montmorency is super worried about him too. She told me that he has been like that ever since the Queen recruited him."

He wanted to show his worth to the Queen, that was a mentality that Louise could understand very well. It was a behavior that both Lydia and Serana had tried to hammer out of her. "I'll talk to him later. I should be able to-"

Her voice was immediately silenced by the sound of a crying infant and Kirche's voice of alarm. "Girls! I have a problem!" The problem in question was that of Odette crying and Kirche's shirt stained with vomit.

After a second stop by the baths, and one at the laundry room to get Kirche some new clothes, the group headed towards the inner courtyard where they could have room to toss the ball around. At least that was what Kirche, Siesta, and Odette did, as Louise chose to remain in the sidelines looking at the trio play and laugh.

After several minutes of kicking the ball around, the trio took a break and Kirche proceeded to tell the story of their arrival at Honfleur to a wide-eyed Odette. "We jumped through the window and charged at the villains!" Kirche had the talent to spice certain parts in just the right way to make the slower parts interesting, while also leaving out the ones that would horrify most audiences. Particularly underage ones.

It reminded Louise of, well, herself. Dorthe and the other children of Whiterun had loved to hear her stories, but as time went and she found herself staying less and less in the city, she simply stopped.

She didn't even remember the last time she had a child listening to her.

"Odette!" A young voice called for the even younger girl. It was her sister, who was walking to them with Guiche at her side. "There you are."

The girl dropped the ball and rushed to her sister's side, gripping her arms around one of Lucina's legs. She smiled when the older girl patted her head.

While that happened, Louise walked to Guiche. "Long night of work?" The rings around Guiche's eyes were all the answer she needed. "I might be one of the worst persons to tell you this, but careful with your own limits. You won't help anyone if you fall asleep during combat."

He smiled while suppressing a yawn. "Yeah, I know. But there's so much to do and so little time."

Louise put a firm hand on his shoulder. "Did you manage to find something of interest?"

"Oh, yes, I have our next objective." He yawned again. "But, if you don't mind, would you like discussing this over a cup of tea? I haven't even had breakfast yet."

"I'm fine with that."

Guiche then turned to the sisters. "You two can come with us too if you-" But his offer was cut short by the sound of armored feet and a commanding voice.

"That won't be necessary." A dozen armed and armored soldiers marched into the courtyard, with Isabella and Charlotte at their helm.

"Lady Isabella!" All signs of exhaustion banished from Guiche's face as the adrenaline kicked in. "To what do we owe the honor of your visit?"

The Gallian princess laid her eyes on them, one at a time. "I came to ensure that you keep our end of the arrangement and that you don't spit on my hospitality." Then she looked at the sisters and her expression shifted as if she had smelled something foul. "By, for example, inviting vermin to my home."

"My Lady, they have useful information that-"

"Didn't you just finish interrogating them? If that's the case, they have no more reason to stay here."

To Louise's side, Kirche's fists started shaking, but in a display of level-headedness, she stood her ground. Louise wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not.

"I understand, but even if they are commoners-"

"I care not about their station or lack thereof." Isabella said through clenched teeth. "You're all equally insignificant to my eyes. The reason why you and your group are tolerated is because, according to my sister, you can still be useful to us. As the same can no longer be said of these two, then I have no more reasons to suffer their presence."

"But-"

"Enough! I made myself more than clear. Those two will leave the premise by force if necessary."

The soldiers started moving, encircling the group. Louise's hand moved to her sword, but there wouldn't be a need for it as Lucina took a step forward.

"There's no need for violence. We understand when we're not wanted."

"That actually makes you better than most." A mocking smile scarred Isabella's face. "My toy soldiers will escort you out, and will even carry you to the alley of your choice."

"How nice of you. Let's go Odette." Lucina took her sister's hand and dragged her away, but not without stopping to address the group. "For what it's worth, thanks for listening to my story. I also thank you for playing with Odette. I haven't seen her this happy in a long time."

Two soldiers walked to the sisters' side and led them away from the manor.

Once they were out, Guiche raised a finger at Isabella. "My lady, I respect your authority, but as nobles we should strive to take better care of the commoners under our care."

The Gallian Princess chuckled at him. It was a dry laugh mixed with a snarl. "Nobility never helped me." She said dismissively with a wave of her hand. "Why should it help anyone else?"

She turned around and left escorted on her way out by a pair of maids.

"Your sister is a massive bitch, did you know that?" Kirche told Charlotte after ensuring that Isabella wasn't in earshot.

Charlotte's expression didn't change, but neither did she object to that comment.

"Well, I'll go help in the kitchen!" Siesta's voice trembled. "I don't think you need me for everything so I'll go see how the other girls are doing!"

"I'm going too." Charlotte followed, quickly telling Guiche to keep her informed before departing with Siesta.

"And I will…" Kirche declared, but her expression of determination turned into shameless awkwardness. "I have no idea. What should we do?"

Louise shook her head. "Well, it seems we depend on Guiche now. What's the plan?"

"Oh, yes." Guiche coughed into his fist. His posture suggested that he was still feeling bitter over what had just happened. "Miss Lucina confirmed what you had already told us. She told me about how her father worked at the tunnel's expansion and his disappearance. She didn't know why it was ordered but she told me who her father used to work for."

"I didn't think about that." Louise rubbed her chin in deep thought. "Maybe we can find something about who ordered the expansion and why."

"My same thought. It's not much but it is the only lead we have right now."


Surrounding the table in the middle of the room, five mages dressed in white inspected the patient. They were wearing white masks, and on their tunics they carried the symbol of a pentagram pointing down, signaling them as members of the Inquisition. Their uniforms hid their features, and a spell masked their voices, making it impossible to tell their ages or even sex.

The girl they were inspecting was Minnette: the same girl that Louise had saved from Whitehall and Matilda had brought from Albion. The same girl whose mind, according to Louise, had been killed and rendered like little more than a puppet.

In one corner of the room, Henrietta, Tiffania and Jean Colbert waited patiently while the inquisitors did their job.

The Queen's veil of silent determination was contrasted by her cousin, who kept fidgeting with her dress.

"Remain calm, my Lady." Colbert told her. "I'm sure everything will go fine."

Tiffania didn't reply with words but with a single, nervous nod.

The bright light cast by the wand of one of the Inquisitors shone over one of Minnette's eyes. The sound of quills scratching paper followed as the mages noted down how her pupils contracted and relaxed. They poked her sides, checked her pulse and then the interior of her mouth. Then one of them brought a needle.

Tiffania took a step forwards to stop them, but Henrietta held her back with a hand on her wrist. With a grim look, Henrietta silenced her, and let the examination continue.

With the needle, they pinched the tip of her fingers, and then underneath her armpit. Minnette didn't utter a single word.

The process continued for several more minutes until one of the inquisitors brought a red-hot iron rod.

"You're not doing that!" Tiffania yelled, but the inquisitors ignored her and pressed the rod on one of Minnette's thighs.

Once again, there was no reaction, and with that the Inquisitors brought their inspection to an end. While Tiffania rushed to heal Minnette, the conclusions were presented to the fourth witness of the operation: Julio Chesaré.

"According to my experts." The envoy of the Church said as he read over what the Inquisitors had written. "The mind of this poor girl was twisted by some powerful dark magic."

All that Henrietta already knew, both Louise and Tiffania had told her the same. The only reason why this entire charade was arranged was to fulfill the Church's demands and ensure their support against Reconquista. "So, do you believe us now?"

"Oh, I always believed you, Queen." A smile split his face. "But as representative of his holiness, I can't let my personal opinion color my work. The proper procedure has to be followed."

No matter how many times Henrietta interacted with him, she couldn't shake the feeling of wrongness that clung to the man. It was his eyes, not only their different colors but the lack of emotion behind them.

Julio reminded her of Louise, and that scared her.

"In that case, can we expect to receive Romalia's blessing once we launch an invasion on Albion?"

"Oh, but we can do more than that! The Inquisition is ready to mobilize in situations like this."

After the fall of the Romalian Empire at the hand of Gallia, Romalia had been forbidden from raising armies of conquest. How convenient it was that, on paper, the Inquisition wasn't such a thing.

She didn't want to have them in her territories, much less close to Tiffania.

"Is that really necessary? This is a situation that Tristain can solve on its own."

"I'm afraid I must insist. Knowing now that Albion is practicing such dark spells, it is our sacred duty to ensure their eradication."

It was a result that she was expecting to happen, one that she had been already planning around, but she still found her emotions taking the best of her. "You mean that you don't trust us to destroy them and not use them."

"Oh, my Queen, you're as wise as you're beautiful."

The smile never abandoned Julio's face, his eyes remaining as cold as ever. It was as if he was a cat playing with his food.

The door to the infirmary opened, and in came Agnes. "My Queen! We need your presence in the throne room."

"I'm busy, Agnes."

"It is an emergency, your Majesty."

Henrietta took a deep breath. "Fine! Tiffania, you finish here!"

"M-me?" The girl asked in confusion.

"Yes, you! If you have any doubts, ask Jean." And saying that, she followed after Agnes, slamming the door shut on her way out.

They started walking, and once they were a sufficient distance away, Henrietta allowed herself face to relax.

"Thanks for getting me out of there, Agnes."

She didn't like sending Tiffania to deal with Julio, it felt like sending a virgin maiden to feed a dragon, but her cousin had chosen this path. She'd have to learn to deal with those like Julio or worse, and it wasn't like Henrietta herself was going to get anything more out of that discussion. Romalia would intervene, there was nothing stopping that, but Tristain still had a chance to arrange for favorable numbers and disposition of troops.

Her cousin was most certainly not ready to negotiate such things, knowing even less of military matters than Henrietta did, but that was why she had Jean Colbert. He was someone that the Church shouldn't know about, as records of his involvement in d'Angleterre had been erased, and who had a sharp mind and decades of experience. If there was someone who could see past any trickery, it was him. And if by any chance Julio did recognize him, well, that would reveal some valuable information.

"It was my pleasure, your Highness. But I must confess I do need your presence in the barracks."

"Oh? And what would that be?"

Agnes led her to a stone building behind the main training area, a place always rumbling with the sound of hammers against anvils. It was the Royal Guards' smithy, a place that Henrietta had recently ordered redesigned for the mass-production of muskets.

Crossing the doorway, Agnes presented her discovery to Henrietta. Resting on a desk surrounded by the military engineers, was a mess of what looked to be clockwork.

"Is that…?"

"We found it by pure luck amongst the wreckage surrounding Tarbes. It's broken, and some pieces might be missing, but the Engineers think that they can get some good ideas out of it."

The object in question was Louise's repeating crossbow.

...

A/N: Another chapter on the slowish side of things, but rest assured that will change in the next one! Take care you all during these difficult times.