At the Fields of Fire and Blood

Chapter III

Kayla rested her hand against the dark wood of the door, taking a deep breath to steady herself. She would have to knock and go in, eventually, now that she was clean and bandaged up, her broken right arm in a sling, her bruises covered with makeup to make her presentable to a Dame. Dame Victoria wasn't the worst she could have gotten and she was grateful for that, but she was still shaken from the fight, the image of the demon trying to douse its burning limb playing over and over in her head.

Limb?, she thought, furrowing her brow. It was clearly a root, not a limb. The way it had acted was making her think of it as being closer to humanoid than it actually was. Or maybe it was the foot connected to that same root. Or the face. Or the faint connection her brain kept trying to make between it and angels and the Tower of God, that was rumored to also be a giant tree, and whatever else.

She laid her head against the coolness of the wood, trying to get her mind under control. Her head was a mess. It always was when coming down from the magic high induced by the direct connection to the Archon, mixed with the effects of the demon panic. The pain in her entire body, the detached scrutinizing of the healers and how that made her feel vulnerable wasn't helping. That was all it was. Too many things happened in such a short amount of time when she was used to having none for so long. She just needed to get the talk with Dame Victoria done and over with and she could lie in her bed for as long as she wanted until she was fully recovered. Or until she was needed again.

Quickly, before she lost her nerve, she rapped her knuckles on the door and barely waited for a response before she went into the office. Lady Victoria was standing close to the fireplace, a gold letter opener on the small table next to her, a bundle of papers in her hand that she discreetly tossed into the fire as Kayla walked in.

"Scion," she said, a fake tone to her calmness as she turned to face Kayla fully. "Yet another clean victory."

If she called a wrecked arm, several lacerations and a broken spine that, luckily, miraculously healed itself "clean".

But Kayla was more focused on the fact that she was trying to hide how taken aback she was by the Scion's quick entrance, on the bundle of papers she had discarded into the flames. Kayla tried her best to keep her pace on the thick rug steady as she walked forward, towards the two armchairs and the small side table next to the fireplace. Her mind was focused on shifting the fire just so, enough that it wouldn't be noticed, but that it wouldn't consume the parchment as fast, either.

Victoria didn't offer her a seat and she didn't take one. That wasn't how this went, some maternal talk to make sure she was fine or to comfort her. At best, she wouldn't get scolded for making some blatant mistake she had overlooked while being beaten close to death.

"Was the team able to get a lot of parts?" Kayla asked.

She often worried about it. More demon blood and body parts meant more fuel, which meant that those outside the House would be able to get it as well. Yet, she wasn't allowed to go out and hunt for demons and extract them. She had to wait until the most stubborn or the most powerful, she wasn't sure which, were able to get in, kill them, and only then would a team be sent to collect everything they could. It didn't seem like the most logical or viable option to her, but they never seemed to go without. So, she had only offered to go out to hunt a few times and, after being rejected all of them, had eventually given up. She sometimes heard murmurings among the recently converted Maids and Knaves about how certain people had fallen to a demon due to not having enough fuel to light their doorway and keep them away, had seen how the city seemed to shrink upon itself towards the House's castle like a fetus huddling around its umbilical cord. But the reality of what transpired outside -- outside the House and outside the city -- was too alien for her to fully comprehend and, so, she worried and asked, but didn't insist.