She straightened, her posture regal, as if preparing to tell a tale rather than relive a traumatic experience. Her tone softened, taking on a deceptive air of vulnerability as she continued. "You rember , don't you, Master? I was just a young, curious girl back then. All I wanted was to find a cure for my little sister. She was sick, you see.
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Deathly sick. And I... I was desperate to save her."
Her voice was low, almost sorrowful, and for a mont, the tension in the room seed to ease—though only slightly. But Adrian, watching the scene unfold, could sense that beneath her story, there was sothing darker at play.
Veda's gaze remained steely, her lips pressed tightly together, though her eyes flickered with the faintest hint of recognition as Evangeline continued.
"I searched for healers," Evangeline said, stepping further into the light, her hands lifting as if to paint a picture of her past. "From guild to shops and hotels, I went to every healer, herbalist, and alchemist that I could find. But all of them rejected —or those who had kindness tried and failed. I had no money. No family, except my father... when he wasn't gone for months at a ti."
A twisted smirk curled at the edge of her lips as she spoke the word 'father', the bitterness unmistakable. "He rarely ca ho, and when he did, he'd bring nothing but more problems. No one cared about a poor, sick girl with no powerful connections. Not even the kind ones could help, despite their best efforts. They were all useless."
Adrian remained frozen, bound by Veda's magic, but his mind raced as he absorbed Evangeline's story. There was no mistaking the undercurrent of venom in her words, despite her attempt at sounding sorrowful. And Veda… she was standing there, silently listening, her own emotions tightly guarded.
Evangeline sighed, shaking her head as if in disbelief. "But then... I heard about you." Her eyes glead as they locked onto Veda's, a mocking gleam of reverence in her gaze. "The legendary Veda—an alchemist and healer, known far and wide. A woman whose skills could defy death itself. I thought, 'If anyone could save my sister, it would be her.'"
A pause lingered in the air, heavy with unspoken aning, as Evangeline tilted her head slightly.
"But there was a problem," she continued, her voice dropping lower. "You were unreachable. Your status was far above mine. A girl like —poor, alone, with no connections or relatives—couldn't even get a glimpse of soone like you."
Adrian could feel the tension in the room rise again, as if Evangeline's words were slowly tightening a noose around them all.
"But fate," she said with a wicked grin, "has a funny way of working, doesn't it, Master? You see, I wasn't completely hopeless. I had sothing, after all. A gift."
Her eyes glead, and the smile beneath her veil widened. "I awakened a powerful ability. Not just one, but 'three' affinities, all suitable for either battle or alchemy."
"Oh, how quickly people began to notice . The academy, the nobles, the factions... They all wanted . And suddenly, the world that had once ignored started bending to my will."
Evangeline took another step forward, her voice softening with a kind of false sweetness that sent shivers down Adrian's spine. "But do you know what I did, Master?" she asked, her eyes never leaving Veda's. "I rejected them all. The academy, the nobles, the promises of wealth and power... none of it mattered to . Because all I wanted was to et 'you'."
Adrian's gaze flickered between the two won, the story beginning to unfold with a deeper complexity than he'd imagined. The distance between Veda and Evangeline wasn't just a rift born of power or betrayal—there was a past they shared, one that seed to dig its claws into them both.
His curiosity grew further as the novel only revealed little about them.
"With my newfound fa," Evangeline continued, her voice now carrying a note of triumph, "I finally had the chance to et you. And this ti, I wasn't turned away. That was when we first t, Master. Do you rember?"
"..."
Veda's breath hitched ever so slightly, the cold exterior she had perfected for years starting to fracture as Evangeline's words dug deep into her mind. She could feel it—the creeping presence of old mories, clawing their way back into the forefront of her thoughts. mories she had buried, sealed away behind walls of logic and pragmatism.
But now, under the weight of Evangeline's voice, those walls began to crumble.
"Yes," Veda whispered, almost involuntarily, her voice barely audible. The single word slipped from her lips before she could stop it, a betrayal of the control she fought so hard to maintain.
And just like that, the past ca rushing back—unbidden and relentless.
Her vision blurred for a mont, reality giving way to mory. The room, the present, Adrian, Evangeline—it all faded as she was pulled into the echo of another ti. In her mind's eye, she saw herself, younger, standing in a grand but sterile room filled with the scent of rare herbs and concoctions. And before her, standing anxiously yet determinedly, was a girl.
A girl who looked nothing like the woman now standing in front of her.
That was Liora.
But this was no veiled villainess.
No dark figure wrapped in malice and bitterness.
This was a girl of sixteen, pale, beautiful, and fragile, like a porcelain doll on the verge of breaking. Her eyes were wide, filled with desperation and hope. Her lips trembled, but she forced them into a smile, trying to mask the fear that lay beneath.
Veda could see her now, as clear as if she had stepped through ti itself.
Liora's face, so young and earnest, was marked by sleepless nights, worry lines etched around her eyes, her cheeks slightly hollow from days spent caring for her ailing sister without rest.
Her long, dark hair cascaded around her shoulders, disheveled but unheeded, and her once bright eyes were now haunted, clouded by the weight of responsibility too great for soone so young.
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