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Chapter 164: (12/25): Rekindling

“She left…”

With Lucienne’s departure, Camilla heaved a huge sigh as if a huge weight were lifted from her shoulders. With one last look at Lucienne’s rapidly shrinking form, she went back inside the café and looked toward a customer sitting in a corner.

From behind, the customer didn’t stand out at all. Her long black hair was plain with no eye-catching accessory. Despite being rather tall, she managed to escape Lucienne’s attention. The whole time that Lucienne and Camilla talked, the former didn’t even spare a glance toward her.

The customer in the corner was none other than Kagriss who Camilla dragged along to the meeting. After all, Lucienne didn’t care whether or not Kagriss came, so there was no good reason to not bring Kagriss.

After ordering one more drink from the bar to go, Camilla reached out to tap Kagriss on the shoulder, but before her fingers could touch the cloth of the cloak that Kagriss wore, the lich turned around. Camilla froze in surprise and took her finger back.

“How did you know?” she asked.

The timing was too close to be a mere coincidence.

Kagriss smiled. “The wind let me know what you were doing.”

The smile was so pretty that Camilla was a bit dazed looking at it. Although she wasn’t used to Kagriss’ smiling at first, even finding it creepy and uncomfortable to look at, eventually she came to accept it. It helped that Kagriss made the effort to fix how her smile looked so it wasn’t as scary as before. Now, it had become pretty that whenever Kagriss smiled at her, Camilla just wanted to stop whatever she was doing and just look.

She had half a mind to do just that, but she quickly shook herself out of it, since there were more pressing matters. Camilla waved away Kagriss’s nonsensical answer and beckoned toward her. With a shrug, Kagriss got out of her corner booth and followed Camilla out of the café.

Like before, the streets were mostly empty with no one in earshot. After handing the drink she bought to Kagriss and watching her lover put her lips to the straw, Camilla pressed the tips of her fingers together nervously.

“You heard everything right?” she asked. “How did I do?”

Kagriss eyed her. “I can’t get used to how different you act. Which of you is the real Camilla anyway?”

Camilla tilted her head, unsure what Kagriss was getting at, but to her, there was only one answer. “The one that is with you is the real Camilla.” Before Kagriss, she dared not hide anything, even if she could get away with it. Kagriss alone is worth baring her entire self.

As she sidled closer up next to Kagriss, Kagriss moved aside, making Camilla miss her target and stumbling. Camilla looked up to find Kagriss side-eyeing her.

“Really?” The word dripped with skepticism.

A chill went down Camilla’s spine. Kagriss didn’t believe her. Her eyes went wide. “Of course…” She didn’t know what else to say to prove her innocence.

A second passed, then two, they stared at each other’s eyes. Camilla tried her best to make her sincerity show through her gaze.

Finally, Kagriss cracked a smile again. “I believe you. You’re so gullible.” Then she pulled a still-frozen Camilla close and patted the top of her head. Camilla’s eyes remained wide as she processed what had just happened and she was speechless as she realized that she had been tricked.

“Don’t use that kind of thing as a joke!” She waved her fist.

“Okay, okay, I won’t.” The smile on Kagriss’s face grew and then disappeared like the ephemeral brilliance of a butterfly and Camilla found herself wishing it would remain. If she could see it again, she might even forgive Kagriss, but since the smile was gone, she turned around in protest for having her feelings played with, refusing to look Kagriss in the face.

“Really… you really are different. If the person that is here right now is real, then that means you’ve been hiding your true self for decades.”

Kagriss tried to circle around to look at her face, but Camilla turned away.

“Maybe.”

“You’re being really immature for someone your age.”

“I don’t care. I look like this anyway, so it’s not like I look out of place.” She still refused to look at Kagriss. She was fully aware of her actions, but she didn’t care. No longer was she going to hide how she felt behind a mask, and she did promise herself to act true in front of Kagriss. This was just a natural result.

She really was upset that Kagriss took advantage of her for entertainment, so she refused to look at Kagriss or even show Kagriss her face, turning away from whichever direction Kagriss was in. However, she couldn’t stay angry for long and after a few times, all the indignation sitting at the bottom of her heart was all but gone and the whole thing became a game since it was rare that Kagriss was so persistent.

Without even needing to open her eyes, Camilla knew that Kagriss was smiling again, and although she wanted to look, she didn’t open her eyes.

At the same time, the game was an implied demand for Kagriss to do something to make up for tricking her.

“Camilla.” Kagriss’s voice came, soft and pleading. Camilla almost opened her eyes a crack. “Camilla, I’m sorry, okay?”

When Camilla gave no response, she heard a sigh.

“Fine… you asked me how you did just now, right? I’ll answer you right now if you look at me.”

“But you said you’d tell me if I talked to Lucienne.”

“Please?”

In the end, Camilla relented and opened her eyes, jumping a little as she did. Kagriss was so close, standing right in front of her, stooping down so that their eyes were level. When she saw Kagriss’s eyes like a bottomless pool of violet crystals, sucking her in, she forgot to breathe.

She struck out, pushing Kagriss away, turning and taking a deep breath to calm herself. “Okay, okay. So how did I do?”

Although she was shoved away, Kagriss didn’t look perturbed in the slightest. She merely patted herself down and returned to her usual spot by Camilla’s side and they continued to walk again in the direction opposite the way Lucienne went. They didn’t have a destination in mind since they were just waiting for the validation of the completion for their commission. After they receive it, they’ll do one or two more commissions before heading off toward Celrantis.

“In my opinion, you were way too blunt. Couldn’t you have worded things in a more roundabout way?”

“…I could.”

“Things turned out fine this time, but it might end badly if you’re this blunt with everyone,” Kagriss said.

Camilla lowered her head. “It’s true though. Except for you, I don’t care about anyone else. There’s no two ways about it, so why mince words and risk a misunderstanding? I’m sure that Lucienne knows this as well as I do, which was why she was upset in the first place.”

“She was upset because she felt like you weren’t doing your job as a leader and neglecting part of the party.”

“And that’s true. I doubt I will change either.”

“In that case, Lucienne won’t be the only one you’re going to miss,” Kagriss said softly.

Camilla paused as she realized she heard Kagriss say this before, but not exactly when or in what context. The words gave her a bad feeling. As she tried to remember, Kagriss continued on. “You’re confused? Do you really not get why?”

“The twins?”

“No,” Kagriss said with a sigh. “Someone else… someone you haven’t been talking to recently. She’s really going to leave, you know.”

A name and a figure appeared in Camilla’s mind. She knew who Kagriss was talking about. “Elyss…”

“Yeah. Lucienne isn’t the only one you’ve been neglecting in your duties as a leader.”

“…” Camilla didn’t know what to say. She had no excuse. She didn’t have an excuse for Lucienne except that she didn’t care, and she didn’t have one for Elyss. Although she had been the one to capture Elyss and bring her to the Order stronghold, she was also the one to keep Elyss captive in all those years that she was gone.

Their feelings for each other never ran particularly deep, and they only reunited and got this far together because she managed to defeat Elyss and convinced her to come along with them.

“Don’t tell me you don’t care if Elyss leaves?” Kagriss asked.

Camilla flinched. Kagriss’s tone was harsh, dangerous, as if she were admonishing a child. But if Camilla was being honest with herself, then no, she did not care if Elyss ultimately left or not. After all, their temporary union was one more akin to an alliance than a true master-servant relationship or one between friends.

“I…” She looked up and saw something flash in Kagriss’s eyes, though it quickly disappeared. “Kagriss?”

She couldn’t be sure, but she thought she saw Kagriss with a devilish smile on her face, and the delight she felt from Kagriss through their connection only deepened her suspicions. But she saw it for only an instant, and the expression was gone so fast that Camilla was left questioning her eyes.

“What is it?”

“Just now, you…” Camilla hesitated. “No, never mind. We should probably go look for Elyss.”

“Are you letting her go too?” Kagriss asked. Her tone was strange, but Camilla didn’t really know what was wrong with it exactly.

It was just something about Kagriss’s voice that sounded gleeful for some reason.

She shook her head. She was probably just imagining things. “I promised to bring her to the arena, but that’s only because staying with me is restricting her freedom to do what she wants and pick the exciting fights she likes. The arena is an okay place that also provides healing for wounded fighters as well as prizes for winning, but ultimately, I don’t think Elyss would like that kind of structured life.”

Kagriss laughed. “Why does it sound like you’re just making excuses to get rid of her?”

Camilla blushed. “It’s true!”

“You know her that well?” Kagriss asked.

The teasing in her words was evident enough, but although it was just teasing, the element of truth in it still hurt. Camilla looked down at the ground. There just happened to be a stray pebble in her path and she kicked it down the road, keeping herself busy as she avoided having to answer Kagriss’s question.

No, she didn’t know Elyss all that well, because she didn’t truly care about Elyss and never made the effort to close their distance, even after reuniting. Because of how far apart they were, the image of a proud and aloof king of beasts never disappeared from Camilla’s mind, but thinking about it now, that image was just as shallow as the one Lucienne formed of her.

And to think she had been giving Lucienne trouble for just that a while ago. She should be ashamed of herself. Camilla even felt a twinge of guilt, both for being a hypocrite and for her terrible leadership.

“I guess not. I’ll remedy that when we see her.” Camilla bit her lips and picked up the pace, heading toward the gate that led toward the forest where Elyss lurked.

But far from looking happy at that, Kagriss looked a bit miffed.

It wasn’t just her imagination this time. Camilla really did feel displeasure coming from the connection she had with Kagriss. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re upset.” It wasn’t a question, but a statement, and Camilla made that very clear that Kagriss wouldn’t be able to trick her with a simple denial.

She was also looking for an explanation, but Kagriss just shrugged. “It’s nothing you need to worry about.”

“What do you mean I don’t need to worry about it… Your problems are also my problems. Didn’t we agree to help each other when one of us is troubled?” She glared up at Kagriss, who held her gaze evenly.

“Some things must be taken care of by ourselves. You remember that I said that to you, right? This is something that you can’t help with.”

After a moment, Camilla sighed and gave up, looking away and resuming her walk. Kagriss really was stubborn, and she did have a point. After all, Lucienne was a problem that Camilla had to solve by herself and in the end, she came out better for it and learned a lot of things. Perhaps Kagriss’s problem was the same.

Although they agreed to share their troubles, it didn’t mean Camilla was going to pry, so she left Kagriss to her own thoughts. Perhaps the light in the dark was that the displeasure she felt emanating through the connection slowly disappeared, but Camilla didn’t know if Kagriss was just no longer upset or she really did solve the problem at the root.

They quickly found Elyss using the tracker. The huge lion was once again laying on her side in the middle of a clearing with the sun shining down through the gap in the trees, illuminating her fur. Her mane was like a brilliant flame.

Had Elyss been a normal female lion, if she didn’t turn into a mana beast one day, she wouldn’t have looked like that. But because she became a powerful mana beast, she ruled over her own pride, aided with an imperious appearance granted by her transformation.

When Camilla saw Elyss lying stretched out like that, bathing in the sun, she always wondered if she had been wrong to take Elyss from her home. At the time, she had been forced to eliminate her in some way given her duties as the commander of the Order, but now, she couldn’t help but feel regret.

“Elyss.”

The lion stirred, flipping around to expose her other side to the sun and at the same time facing the two interlopers to her napping. A pair of amber eyes focused on Camilla and she yawned.

“What is it?”

“Lucienne left.”

Elyss blinked. “I see. I’m not surprised.”

“Why not?” Camilla asked, a bit startled that Elyss was able to guess. Was everyone here more perceptive than she was?

“That one always had the air of being dissatisfied with something. I entertained her a bit, but it seems it’s not enough. Oh well.” She yawned again, nonchalant to the limit, seemingly unperturbed.

But Camilla heard the sadness in her voice like undercurrents in a lake. Despite how Elyss looked, she was still affected by the news of Lucienne’s departure.

It really did show how little she knew of Elyss, because the image of Elyss in her mind would just nod and go back to sleep. The real Elyss, however, had feelings and friendships. She became happy when around her friends and sad when these friends left.

The realization left a feeling of tightness in her chest. “Elyss, I’m sorry. It’s my fault.”

Elyss met her eyes and then closed it again, putting her head back down, not saying anything.

The tight feeling in Camilla’s chest twisted. She couldn’t get Lucienne back though, not after everything that had happened. But why would she even consider trying to get Lucienne back? It was for Elyss’s sake.

For some reason, Elyss found a place in her heart. While she didn’t take up as much space as Kagriss did, it was still sizable. During a time when she did nothing but sever relationships or forge shallow alliances, to have someone burrow into her heart like that was something new and Camilla clutched her chest in wonder.

It was too late for her and Lucienne, but perhaps the bond she had with Elyss could be made anew.

As she took a step forward, Elyss opened her eyes again, blinking slowly. The eyes didn’t close when Camilla sat down next to her, leaning against her stomach. It was how Lucienne liked to sit.