Christie felt awful for not having prepared anything for Agatha’s birthday. Sure, she hadn’t known it was her birthday, and the redhead hadn’t told her that it was her birthday either, but it still bothered her greatly. She should have done something for her ladylove! Alas, she knew better than to dwell on such thoughts, for the time had already passed. And technically speaking, I did gift her the dress…

  The redhead had expected that her arrival to the estate would be marked by days of absolute dilly-dallying as she would be allowed to rest for the first time in a year, but her dreams were shattered the moment tailors started appearing during the morning of the first day.

  “Oh, how much you have grown, Miss Christina!” The somewhat old tailor announced with glee as he raised his arms. However, the truth was that Christie couldn’t recognize the man.

  She turned her head to the side to look at Miss Diorite, and she seemed to recognize the man, or at the very least, she wasn’t alerted by his presence.

  “What can I say?” Christie said with a fake smile. It was surprisingly easy to perform; her body was suddenly alien to the concept of shame and nervousness. “I have hit a growth spurt recently.”

  “Yes, yes, I can see that!” The tailor said with glowing eyes, but the daughter of the nouveau riche was quick to realize that it wasn’t out of joy or the radiance of her paramour, but rather greed. Eyes glowing with the thought of platinum and brass. “But from what I am seeing, that spurt is not quite done, is it now?”

  “No, I am afraid not,” the tall girl said calmly, even as the man looked at her from head to toe. Christie was used to being looked at – downright inspected – but what made it bearable was knowing that there weren’t any dark intentions behind that gaze.

  Beyond greed, that was.

  “It must be a shame to grow out of so many dresses, is it not?” The man commented as if existing clothes couldn’t get confectioned again. A service her dear Agatha had provided Christie with many times already.

  If it wasn’t for the radiant blonde, the redhead doubted she could have used half of her wardrobe as she grew out of them in the last year. She had to get her academy uniform refitted three times in a single year, for crying out loud! Fortunately for her sanity and her beloved’s time, Christie’s growth had slowed down significantly, but it still showed signs of continuation.

  “Truly,” Christie responded with a cordial smile, her hands clasped before her.

  “Fortunately for both of us, your father is a great patron!” The tailor chuckled as he moved some pins in a premade dress to account for Christie’s sizes. There was a blessing in having her sizes taken preemptively by Agatha’s mother, as embarrassing as that situation had been.

  “Yes, my dearest father definitely favors us,” though you more than me, apparently. The redhead left that part unspoken.

  She had loathed these exchanges with tailors – if not outright hated them – since she was young. Many faces, some who recognized her and others who didn’t, would come to her, trying to win her favor. Even when she was a little girl, Christie had understood that her dearest father was rich. But now… now she knew the patriarch of the Valasela House held real power and influence. Whether this was solely because of his status of miner or more.

  And politics… that was a thing she didn’t like at all. She had been instructed by both Miss Diorite and private tutors on etiquette, subterfuge, and conversational maneuvering, and in all honesty, she didn’t want to have anything to do with it. In a way, that was why she decided to go to the Skyscraper Academy. Soldiers were exempt from that kind of battlefield, even if she would probably wield words more lethally than agates.

  “So,” the tailor spoke after a long silence, “which dresses do you want to take? Only the red one?”

  “Hmm,” Christie ruminated audibly, a part of her thinking that it was worth it just to waste this man’s time. Unfortunately for me, he gets paid for it. Significantly more than any time I can make him lose. “Yes, the red is definitely a must, but that dark-blue one is making me ponder.”

  “The dark-blue dress, Miss Christina?” The man nearly gasped in surprise. “I do not mean to offend you, miss, but I do not think it will match you.”

  “Oh, I am well aware,” but it would fit Agatha superbly. The dress was a bit too big for the petite blonde, but Christie had the feeling her inamorata would have fun with the dress, if just to tinker with it. “Do you also happen to have more casual dresses? Or better yet, outfits?”

  “N-no, I do not.” Suddenly, the tailor didn’t appear as confident as before. “I was informed to bring and design high-fashion or ballroom dresses, Miss Christina. No one informed me of ‘casual’ outfits.” He spoke that word as if he dreaded it.

  “Ah, what a shame then,” the nouveau riche said absentmindedly as she stared at her nails. There was nothing interesting about them, but it was a trick she had learned from Christina – Christina Rivera, a noble classmate and not herself in some kind of manic episode – in one of their occasional meetings. Apparently, people who wanted something from you really panicked if they thought they had lost your interest, and looking at one’s nails was the best lady-like way to portray so.

  “Uhm,” Christie could see the man breaking a cold sweat, and she struggled to hold her smile. Ah, mock sapphire. You have spoiled me too much; I am beginning to enjoy the suffering of others. “I could bring a bigger selection from my workshop; it is not that far away.”

  “No, there is no need for you to make the trip.” A polite yet ruthless way to say she wasn’t interested. “I will get that red dress, but I am still dubious about that dark-blue one. Perhaps getting word out on my updated tastes and selection will tip my choice.” Alright, that one was as subtle as a behemoth, but I think it has gotten the job done. Christie was well aware that her acts of… persuasion still needed a bit of polish.

  “But of course!” The tailor clasped and nodded repeatedly. “I will make sure that any seamstress or tailor coming to this estate is aware of it!”

  “I will appreciate it if you do so,” she smiled. Ah! That is what I should have said! That I would appreciate it if he did it. That way I would implicitly state that he would be in my favor… Well, now I know it for the future.

  Thankfully, there was only that single tailor during the first day, but Christie knew she wouldn’t be so fortunate in the coming days. Now that she was free for the rest of the afternoon, the first thing the redhead did was to look for her inamorata. She hadn’t seen Agatha for the whole day, and it took her a while to find a trace of her. Only because Adrien tipped her off that she was able to find the petite girl alone in a clearing.

  “So, what are you doing here?” Christie asked, announcing herself with a grimace as a dress wasn’t the best thing to be walking around in a forest.

  “Christie!” The petite girl who had previously been panting and resting her arms on her knees now exploded with vivacity and rushed toward her.

  “Mind the dress!” She announced before the blonde had the chance to lunge at her.

  “Oh, sorry,” Agatha smiled awkwardly as she stopped on the spot and looked at her dirty dress.

  “I meant mine, not yours,” Christie sighed and approached her. “You mock sapphire,” then kissed her on the top of her nose.

  “I still got it dirty,” the sapphire-eyed girl responded meekly.

  “Nothing that a thorough wash cannot fix,” the green-and-red-eyed girl smiled. “And at least this dress is more… outdoorsy. I cannot say the same with the mountain of fabric I am donning.”

  “You could have changed,” Agatha giggled and nuzzled against the side of Christie’s torso.

  “I preferred to see you first,” the redhead combed her fingers through the blonde’s hair. It was a bit longer than usual. And humid. “So, mind answering my first question?”

  “Right, right!” Agatha separated from herself with a leap. “Your father is surprising, Christie. He has introduced me to aspects of lithorica that I had no notion of!”

  “Such as…?”

  Her beloved summoned her whole sapphire on her hand. “So there is this command called Protect.”

  “Right,” Christie nodded, even though she had never heard about it. It was probably in the lithorica command textbook, but she had been too preoccupied to just get a hold of her agates this last year to research commands.

  “The thing about Protect is that it makes an agate more durable. Not impossibly tough, but certainly able to take more of a brunt. I wish I had it against the behemoth.”

  “Why?”

  “Oh, I did not tell you?” Agatha slightly tilted her head and arched a brow. “The reason why I collapsed – amongst many others – next to the behemoth was because the stupid crab destroyed my agate.”

  “How? Did you shoot at it too fast?”

  “I guess that was a possibility… But no! The behemoth grabbed my agate between its pincers after I shot it for the… fourth time, I dare to say?”

  “Are you telling me a hill-sized monster caught a supersonic flying object the size of a pebble?”

  “I was more surprised than you,” Agatha sighed. “And hurt.”

  “Uh, I cannot say I know of the pain of getting one’s agates shattered.”

  “And I wish you never do,” her seductress prayed with a warm smile. “Though I doubt it will ever happen, considering the pain is proportional to the percentage of your total shattered agates. But we are digressing. Protect command.”

  “Protect command,” Christie reiterated with a smile of her own.

  “If it is not linked to other commands, it just does that: protects the agate. But when linked to others… it does curious things.”

  Christie would like to argue that it was more curious that the command that increases the durability of an agate was Protect instead of a hypothetical Endure or Reinforce, but she also knew better than to speak out of line when she didn’t even know what those ‘curious things’ were.

  As if she had personally commanded her consort, Agatha did… something. One moment, everything was as normal. The next one, Christie’s sight darkened. It wasn’t as if night had fallen upon her or that she had been enclosed in a room with a faint source of light, but rather, it was as if light itself had changed. The colors had become muted, but still recognizable. In a manner, it was even easier to see now. A replica of the existing drawing that was reality, only that with shades boasting less contrast and brightness.

  “So…” Christie mouthed with a bit of hesitation. “What is this?”

  “The Protect Light series!” The mock sapphire announced enthusiastically. “Instead of my agate becoming a second sun, the Protect command makes it so we are guarded against the negative effects of light! And Light!”

  “Huh,” the nouveau riche looked down at her dress and found it less vibrant, yet as she peered far away, she did not have any more difficulties with her gaze. It truly wasn’t that less light was making it to her eyes, but rather, that it hurt her less. “Is this a volume around your agate, or how does it work?”

  “Yes, it has a radius of effect,” Agatha nodded. “You can walk away and check it by yourself, just… do not look directly at my agate.”

  Christie walked away from the blonde, and instantly she comprehended why she had said that. She was still looking away from the agate as she had the presence of mind not to walk backwards with such a pompous dress on, and she still got surprised by the sudden luminosity.

  It wasn’t that the effects of normal light that now seemed more intense after having been protected from them for a while, but rather, the presence of Agatha’s bright Light seemed more intense.

  “Huh,” the redhead hummed again as she squinted and looked directly at the grass, nearly coated in blue with all the light from the sapphire. “The Protect command does not affect the Light command outside its sphere of influence.”

  “That is right!” Agatha shouted as, apparently, Christie had walked further away from her than she had initially thought. Then the petite girl took down the blue sun. “This alone has a lot of applications already, and it is only a single command! With some commands, Protect outright blocks them!”

  “What do you mean by that?” Christie frowned and blinked repeatedly. Her eyes had gone from no light damage to optical burning too suddenly, and they were still adapting to the change.

  “Uhm…” Her ladylove suddenly fell silent and blushed. “I would rather not talk about it just yet.”

  “How so?” The redhead squinted. “Are you hiding something from me, Agatha?”

  “No! Nothing at all!” She raised her hands in a panic.

  “That sounds rather… incriminating,” Christie smiled, which made Agatha pout.

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  “I know you are teasing me, but no,” the blonde sighed. “I am not hiding anything; it is just that I am not sure how to do it. A single lesson was not enough, and I do not want to… divulge wrong information.”

  “Did you hesitate because you are truly hiding something or because the word did not come to you?” Agatha blushed, and that was more than enough of an answer for Christie. “I will leave you for now, then. You better practice to divulge that information with me.”

  “W-will do.” Cute, the tall girl thought as she left her darling alone in the clearing.

  ***

  These days were torture for Christie, a far cry from the holidays she had expected, but she pushed through them. It was unfortunate that she didn’t have much time alone with Agatha, but she knew that this onslaught of tailoring would be over soon. At least she is enjoying herself, Christie pondered as she saw her inamorata come back to the mansion after another day of training. The redhead was just resting in her room, reading a book on her rocking chair.

  Ten days had gone by in a fell swoop, and she felt far more tired than on the road. I had forgotten the delight and comfort of loneliness, she chuckled to herself as she closed the book and readied for a bath. Her mind and body were exhausted, even if she had barely done anything. I definitely could not be training daily with all these tailors on my trail, she ruminated whilst preparing her hair for the bath.

  “Ah~” The redhead melted on the porcelain bathtub, enjoying herself in the warm waters. “How marvelous baths are. I have been bathing each day of my stay and I have not grown tired of them yet…”

  The lullaby of comfort treacherously sang for her, but the water cooled down before sleepiness overtook her, prompting her wakefulness. With a groan, Christie got out of the bathroom and readied herself for supper. She had ignored her hair during the academic year, and now she felt almost guilty for it as she combed and treated her hair every single day. Her mane had grown as big as her this last year, and it needed far more care than her outgrown attires.

  “Should I have Miss Diorite cut it?” She picked up the tip of a bang and extended her arm. Short-limbed was not an epithet attributable to Christina Valasela, and yet the bundle of hairs still hung without being in tension after her arm was fully extended. “Hmm, it feels like a waste. I know I am a soldier, and it sometimes gets kind of hot, but… I put too much effort to give up now.”

  The sunk-cost fallacy: the weakness of any sapient being, and the gambler’s best friend.

  Crestfallen, Christie sighed and let her hair fall free. “A sea of stones and a sea of hair,” she murmured before getting to the dining room.

  Supper was as menial as always. It mostly consisted of retelling some of the girls’ misadventures at the Skyscraper Academy. Three different times had they already asked about the behemoth encounter. Christie didn’t blame them; it had definitely been an experience – and one she kept close to her heart – but it also got tiresome. This time it had been Adrien, and much to Christie’s surprise, her dearest father didn’t jump in. He loved headbutting, especially since he could boast of his dearest daughter’s might, but not tonight.

  He looked somber.

  Christie became aware of the reason on the reason after Miss Diorite knocked on her door of her room. She stood up from her bed, now wearing a nightgown and slippers.

  “Mister Valasela wants to see you, Miss Christina.” Christie’s expression instantly turned solemn. Miss Diorite seldom refers to dearest father by the family name…

  “It is a bit late, do you not think?” She turned her head to face the windows. Night had already fallen, but fortunately, she was continuing the book from the afternoon as it was rather… interesting.

  “I am afraid that does not concern me; I only follow the orders of the master.” Alright, something is seriously wrong, the redhead squinted.

  “I will make my way at once. He is in his office, is he not?”

  “As always,” Miss Diorite bowed cordially.

  Christie walked to her dearest father’s office with a fist on her chest. She was tense and didn’t enjoy the current atmosphere in the slightest. That feeling only got worse when she walked inside the office as the door was already open. Her dearest father was sitting on an armchair in front of the chimney with a bottle of alcohol in his hand. Plain with ice, his favorite.

  That posture and lost gaze chilled Christe. Has he found out…? She felt a tight knot forming in her throat.

  “I-is everything alright, dearest father?” Suddenly, she felt like a child again. Gone was all the confidence she had mustered this whole year at the academy and with Agatha.

  “Ah, dearest daughter,” Hasel looked at her and took a sip of his glass. “Please sit down.” He pointed at the other armchair next to his with the glass.

  “Y-yes…” He has found out. He has found out! She panicked internally, even though she portrayed total composure outside as she sat down.

  “I must tell you something, Christina.” He said slowly, his eyes locked on the crackling fire.

  “You must?” Her surprise betrayed her. Is this not about Agatha and me?

  “Yes,” the patriarch nodded. “An old story dating more than a decade and a half ago…”

  ***

  Cordellia was sweating profusely, her fiery mane glued to her skin, but that didn’t tarnish her beauty in the slightest. In any case, it was only amplified. His dearest wife was breathing heavily after having given birth. He grabbed and massaged her hand as Diorite cleaned the newborn, who was still connected to her mother by the umbilical cord.

  “It is a girl!” The old woman announced with glee.

  Hasel couldn’t help but smile at that, yet he still waited patiently to the side of his dearest wife. He was well aware that birth was a long procedure which had yet to end, and even more aware of the fact that he couldn’t do much to help but bring comfort to the exhausted redhead.

  Her skin and red eyes glinted beautifully under the agatelight. Hasel had always known how beautiful Cordellia was, but now he just had his breath taken as it reached new heights. Red mane. Red eyes. Red cheeks. She is truly a carnelian… He thought to himself as he picked up a towel and washed away some of the sweat.

  “Thanks, darling…” His dearest wife said softly.

  It was an odd sight seeing her so weak when she had always displayed massive and peerless strength. Captain Valasela was a might to behold both on the battlefield and the depths, her success so paramount that it made her brother, the actual head of the Valasela House, fume in anger. A stupid boy he was, and his wrong decisions were even more foolish.

  After Hasel’s recent success in the depths and the growing depths of the Valasela family, he had basically closed a title to buy the family’s title and accolade. Fernando would be destituted but freed of his debts and made out with his weight in brass.

  “Here,” Diorite offered him his daughter after her post-birth ministrations were over.

  Hasel carefully grabbed her, as if he were holding the world’s most valuable yet fragile item. The babe weighed nearly nothing; even his lightest agate weighed more, though it was true he wasn’t exactly average. Lovingly, he approached the child to his dearest wife's visage, though not before putting another pillow behind her head so she had a better line of sight.

  “She is beautiful,” Cordellia whispered.

  “Of course, she is your daughter,” Hasel smiled and kissed her on the forehead. Both members of his family.

  Their newborn daughter apparently didn’t appreciate that as she broke into a bawl.

  “Oh my,” the exhausted mother chuckled, “not even one minute into being a father and you have already made your child cry.”

  “Our child,” Hasel corrected with a scoff, “and to be fair, it has been more than a minute.”

  “I am so exhausted that time is just… flying,” Cordellia uttered with a glossy gaze as she stared at the ceiling. “Diorite, could you leave us alone for a moment?”

  “At your service, mistress,” the recently retired commander bowed dutifully and left the room.

  Hasel knew what was coming, and he feared it. “Are you sure, Cordellia?” He asked his dearest wife with the slightest of tremors in his voice.

  “Hasel, we have something wonderful here,” the pale redhead slowly turned her head to face him and her daughter. She softly caressed the infant’s cheek. The weeping instantly disappeared, and it was substituted by a giggle. Truly the power of a mother, no matter how recent.

  “And you want to threaten it,” he spoke with great lament. That was not how he wanted to speak to his dearest wife, but sometimes limits had to be established.

  “We stand on the verge of greatness, darling. Not only am I going to be the head of my family after all this time, but your assets alone are enough to rival small countries and big Houses. And that is without considering your current influence as a miner. Hasel, we only need one more push. One last one. And our Christina here can be it.”

  “Christina?” Hasel arched a brow. “Are you really going to name it after the old man?”

  “Old or not, Cristos is the most powerful lithorist in the world, and his name carries a lot of power. Christina,” she kissed her daughter. “The appropriate name for someone with the tools, the heritage, and the instruction to become the new Shining Knight.” Hasel could only scowl at those words; his dearest wife had become too drunk on power, yet at the same time, he was powerless to tell her no.

  Love was a double-edged sword.

  “And besides, I got naming rights because she is a girl,” Cordellia pouted, and the miner couldn’t help but snort.

  “I have lost this bout,” he caressed Christina’s cheeks with the back of his hand. “We did have that promise. Though now I am regretting it.”

  “Just out of curiosity,” his dearest wife smiled as she accepted the child into her hands. “What were you going to name her if she were a boy?”

  “I was thinking along the lines of Héctor,” the redhead frowned. “What?”

  “No, nothing. At least it is decent… Powerful, I guess.”

  Hasel squinted but said nothing. Instead, he opened a drawer and took out a shining agate. Big as an eyeball yet perfectly smooth. Its perfection couldn’t be understated, as it was truly spherical down to the molecular level.

  One of a kind.

  Its color also didn’t lag behind, as it was a carnelian of the most homogeneous and vivacious red he had ever seen. A luster and shade so constant that the object didn’t appear to be from this world, but rather, an abstraction. A primeval idea of what red should be. There was no way to confirm if that powerful color was still homogeneous inside the agate without breaking it open, but his instincts told him it was.

  “Cordellia,” Hasel said with lithic gravitas as he held the perfect agate before the three of them. “Are you really sure you want to do this?”

  “Hasel,” Cordellia smiled, yet it wasn’t warmth behind the expression but scorching heat. “I have carried this girl nine months in my belly. I have never been surer of anything in my life.”

  That was the greatest fallacy Hasel had heard of in his life. This sacrifice wasn’t Cordellia’s to make, and he knew it, but he still went forward with it as he loved her too much to say no.

  A decision he still regretted.

  Instead of grinding the massive agate – relatively speaking – in a mortar like nobles would do, Hasel approached it to her daughter’s lips.

  There were three known variables in the consumption of an agate to awaken one’s own:

  Quality. The better the agate was, the better the chances of awakening something worthwhile.

  Time. The sooner the agate was consumed, the better the chances of awakening something worthwhile.

  And…

  Integrity. The more whole the agate was, the better the chances of awakening something worthwhile.

  So he shoved the eye-sized, perfect carnelian down his daughter’s throat. He had practiced many times to avoid hurting his child or outright killing them. Yet no matter how much time and effort he had dedicated to maximizing success and minimizing pain, he still was sick with worry.

  Childbirth was already dangerous; adding extra difficulty was downright malevolent.

  At first, everything seemed to go as planned. Their daughter coughed a bit, her young and frail body not meant to be ingesting stones, but otherwise, fine.

  Cordellia smiled at that and brought the newborn Christina to her bosom to feed her for the first time. If he was the babe, he would also like something to drink to ease such a demanding meal.

  “See?” His dearest wife said mockingly as the child started suckling on her tits. “Nothing to worry a-“

  Hasel didn’t hear anything more; both his sense of sight and hearing failed. When he recovered consciousness, he was feeling unbearable pain as all the bones in his body were being pressed as if a behemoth was stepping on him.

  He couldn’t see. His ears were ringing. And still, his mind remained sharp thanks to his training and experience. For better or worse – though definitely for worse – he had a hunch on what had just happened.

  Protect Summon! Amplify Invert Summon Range!

  He shouted mentally, applying those intensive series to all of his agates. Six commands to a dozen agates. His mind felt like exploding, if his body already hadn’t with all the fractured bones.

  His command instantly took effect, removing any nearby unprotected agate from existence, and he collapsed on the ground. He had been pinned against a wall, and his body plummeted after no longer being sandwiched.

  Hasel and Cordellia’s bedroom was completely ruined, as if a fractured behemoth had truly marched through. But destruction of property didn’t matter to him, only his family.

  The miner looked around for the redhead as he fought his concussion, and he saw red.

  But not of hair.

  Of his dearest wife, only a puddle of gore remained. A baby was crying her heart out on top of it.

  “I heard a noise!” Diorite barged into the room. “What has happe…”

  She saw Cordellia. Or what remained of her. The old maid puked right on the spot, and he didn’t blame her.

  With great difficulty, Hasel stood up. He fought his myriad of broken bones, his concussion, and his red-tainted gaze. He reached the place where the bed his dearest wife had given birth in once was and basically collapsed next to it. Yet that didn’t stop him from picking up his untouched daughter from the pile of gore and cradling her.

  “Everything will be fine,” Hasel rocked Christina in his arms, allowing the babe to cry for him as someone had to remain strong. “Everything will be fine, my dearest daughter.”

  ***

  Christie was petrified. She had remained petrified listening to her dearest father’s narration with raptured morbidity. Her fingers were trembling. Her breath was ragged. Her pulse was erratic.

  “I am sorry I have not told you this sooner, Christina,” he looked at her with veritable warmth.

  He loved her. And I… killed her. Actually killed her. She felt like puking. Her arms remained petrified yet, at the same time, Christie felt them reverberating with potency; shaken by the pain of the truth. It was not a complicated childbirth… It was outright murder…

  The redhead opened her mouth, but no words came out. She realized that only excuses and lies would have come out, so her mind just subconsciously stopped her from speaking such a farce. She was left agape, her lower jaw trembling.

  She was cold, so cold, no matter if she was in front of the chimney.

  I robbed him of… dearest mother. Dearest was the epithet her family used, a touch of proximity and love, yet now it only portrayed remoteness. And Christie preferred it that way. Her heart couldn’t tolerate closeness to her mother when she was the one who extinguished her life. The one who murdered her.

  Tons upon tons of stone.

  Christie thought of that gruesome description her dearest father had given her, that of what remained of the one who gave birth to her. Some would have considered this unsavory and unnecessary to tell such things to one’s daughter, but in all honesty, that was what Christie had needed to hear. How brutal of a murderer she was. It brought her the slight peace of mind that she desperately needed.

  “Christina, are you… alright?” The murderer raised her head to look at the widower. The man looked tired and feeble, not the image Christie remembered of her dearest father. But at the same time, he was looking at the one who killed his dearest wife.

  She felt the bile gather in her throat. No words of response came out, only a drowned gasp. Drowned, that is what this is. Drowned in a sea of stone. Her arms trembled. Her throat knotted. Her agates screamed.

  Christie cried.

  She didn’t want to, but her stupid body didn’t obey her. They were slow and heavy tears, silent ones accompanied by drowned sobs.

  “I do not blame you, Christina. You are my dearest daughter.” I am your only daughter. Because of me. Those words hung on her throat, weighing her down and making her unable to speak. “From start to finish, this was Cordellia’s idea. And I do not blame her either. This is how life is. Sometimes…. death happens.”

  Not like this, she truly wanted to utter those words, but her jaw trembled so much that she only got sobs out.

  “Please, if you have to blame someone, then blame me,” he offered with a pained expression. “Now come here, you do not need to suffer alone.”

  Hasel stood up and walked toward her, kneeling down on the ground and welcoming her with open arms, but Christie didn’t move. He took the impasse as hesitation and approached himself, but when he did so, the redhead flinched viciously. Terrified.

  She slapped those arms away.

  “I…” That was the first word that left Christie’s mouth during the whole exchange, and not another one. She had assaulted her dearest father. For the first time in her life. How long until I hurt him again? Christie thought as she remained petrified once more, now the patriarch reciprocating the gesture in bewilderment.

  She ran away.

  Looking at the dismayed face of her dearest father… that was something she couldn’t do for a second more. Couldn’t hurt him anymore.

  She ran and ran.

  Christie didn’t have a destination in mind; she only walked where her feet guided her, rushing across the dimly lit corridors of the mansion in her nightgown. Her feet would have once guided her to the stables, to Fran?ois. They were intelligent, those feet of hers. Yet now she found herself before a random door in the mansion, instead of the stables. She opened it without hesitation.

  The room was dark, no agatelight illuminating the place. But it wasn’t uninhabited.

  “Who go… Christie?” Her radiant ladylove looked at her in a mixture of confusion and drowsiness. Then the blonde’s eyes shot wide open when she saw the tears in the redhead’s cheeks. “Is everything okay?” She cried out in alarm.

  The murderer was still unable to let out any words, so without any care in the world, she threw herself atop the bed, her head falling on her dearest’s chest.

  And then she bawled her eyes out.

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