When Stars Collide

Chapter 49- Loyalty knows no bounds - Lida

She had the nerve to ask for my resignation as treasurer. 

How dare she? I was trying to help her out and all I get is an offer to leave? It wasn’t my fault that Sanderran caught me through the illusion I was weaving and it certainly wasn’t my fault that Magelion’s potion had faded out.

While Maia Tolan was gallivanting through the mortal world as if she were on a pilgrimage, I was trying to deal with the exploding chaos in the heavens. Like the fact that the Priestess Meridah was found dead in her cell. Or the fact that Council leader Gianna had a secret lover.

I hid around the treasury hall, sneaking around to find Gianna leaving the council room and heading towards the servant quarters. We had butlers and servants here, but why did she keep coming here? 

The answer was Leah Samerrie, the servant who took care of Maia. When I found Gianna kissing her lover hidden in a powder room, I used a little of my own magic to capture the memory, using an old water spell to capture the moment and when they were lost in each other’s arms, I left the room with a smug smile on my face.

Maia could kick me out all she wants. But at the end of the day, I still had power left and I was the only one who could clone myself into looking like her… which practically meant that I could do whatever I please. She still had no idea that I was cloning her this entire time.

I go back to my little cramped office and I sit down, staring at a black fan with the inscriptions of my name. The fan had a little message from Mason and I read the message that stated that he wanted to talk. I grab the fan, walking halfway across the royal court into the wing of the valets where I suppose he’d probably be at. When I found one of the maids that attended him, I quickly stop the maid. 

“May I help you, milady?”

“You’re Mason’s attendant right?”

“Attendant? Oh dear, you must have mistaken me. I’m Jade and yes, I take care of him… but I’m just his tutor,” she blushes and suddenly I feel stupid.

 I thought she was his attendant… and by extension his concubine. Somehow many gods catered to many different women who fulfilled their needs and I simply assumed he was like the rest.

“Goddess, forgive me for that. Do you know where Mason is?”

“He’s by the garden next to the drawing room to your left,” she points before dismissing herself and when I find Mason’s red head staring at a fountain, I open the fan and sit next to him on the fountain.

“I am amused by the present although I must say, black is a very… interesting color to choose for a fan,”

“The fan is a key, Lida. Your mother had that hidden in her chambers.”

“M-my mother? Are you sure you’re not trying to admit that you have feelings for me?” I ask him and he blushes furiously.

“Goddess, no! I-I mean I do like you but no, that’s not what the fan was for. I was supposed to get some documents the other day when I found the fan. The bottom of the fan is a key to a vault of relics and I thought it might help you-” I kiss him in the cheek, grinning from ear to ear.

Mason knew that the traitor was up here and if he had interrogated Der after Tristan’s trial… then he must have uncovered more about Sanderran and his intentions. But.. What did he mean by my mother? I had been born without one. 

I grew up in the royal nursery, daughter to nobody and raised to become either a servant or an attendant. I didn’t want any of those fates and so I made my own path. To change things around here and to become someone different. Becoming treasurer was only the first step into becoming a more affluent member in the court of the Holy six.