Chapter 795: Charade’s End
In the back corridors of the Summer Villa, used almost exclusively by servants, Samira crept slowly along the wall of a hallway that led to the kitchens.
Her legs burned with fatigue from all of the walking she’d done, and her back ached from the strain of supporting the weight of her belly. Just the number of times she’d climbed up and down stairs had already pushed her limits, but trying to remain quiet and undetected made every step more exhausting.
When she’d reached the store rooms near the kitchens, she was startled to find a pair of burly men already looting the place. Clearly, she wasn’t the only one who was looking to run away in the confusion of the demon attack, but she hadn’t imagined that there would be people stealing food when the battle had only just begun.
Owain had always said that real battles could last for hours and that he fought for half a day at a time. Fortresses like the Summer Villa were supposed to be even harder to attack with prolonged battles that could last for days, weeks, or even months. She knew that the Summer Villa wasn’t a proper fortress, but there should still be a good deal of time before the walls fell and anyone was in enough danger to think of fleeing, shouldn’t there?
She didn’t know. All she knew was that if she went to the storerooms, she’d be discovered, and so she made her way to the kitchens instead. More than anything, she was afraid that the attack really would drag on for days. If it did, reinforcements from Lothian City could arrive before she had a chance to make her escape with Noomi, and if the Church came with those reinforcements, even if she managed to survive, Noomi and Saku were certain to die.
Her friend had nothing to do with this attack, but the Church wouldn’t care. There was a captive demon in the dungeon, and there had been an unprecedented demon attack on the Summer Villa at the start of winter.
Those two facts would combine into a death sentence for her friend, and Owain would do nothing to save them. After all, while he might want to raise Saku as some kind of captive demon pet, he would never risk the ire of the Church over the lives of demon infant and his mother.
Now that she had almost reached the kitchens, however, she heard the sounds of many voices speaking at once, so many that it sounded like all of the servants had gathered in the kitchens at once!
"...only what fits in a single bag, treasured things that can’t be replaced..."
"...see the giants over the walls? They’re larger than a house and..."