CHAPTER 59
POV - Azra'il
〈I'm free!〉
[Terminological correction required. You were not unilaterally liberated; you were formally dismissed by Madam Edna after fully completing the pedagogical portion that fell to you. These are legally distinct concepts, even though the practical result produces the same sensation of epidermal relief.]
〈I'll accept either definition, Eos, with equal enthusiasm. I don't intend to wage a semantic battle at the exact moment I've just escaped an entire room dedicated to the millimetre-precise angle of a noble bow.〉
The dance hall door closed behind me with a sound I chose to generously interpret as fate's own symbolic applause. I'd spent several days teaching Eris to recognise the fundamental difference between her own rhythm and someone else's, to stop interpreting physical lead as a hostile threat demanding an immediate offensive response, to let her body finally listen to the music instead of merely enduring it as a prolonged attack disguised as social art.
The remaining portion of that entire process, formal entrances, bows calibrated to the exact degree of inclination, the elaborate choreography of etiquette that the local nobility classified as refined civilisation and that I classified, with all the historical fairness accumulated across countless lives of sociological observation, as a particularly sophisticated form of institutionalised torture, simply no longer required my presence.
It did require, however, Rudeus, who'd already accepted his own fate with the characteristic resignation of a younger brother who knew, deep in his weary soul, that he'd never manage to negotiate a strategic exit equivalent to mine.
I dedicated the rest of that day entirely to doing exactly what I chose to do, with no outside interference, a luxury rare enough to deserve being savoured with the deliberate attention of someone who recognises, through centuries of accumulated experience, that genuinely one's own time is the scarcest resource available in any existence, regardless of how many reincarnations a person has already lived through.
I started with cultivation, seeking out the small stretch of woodland at the edge of the property where the dense vegetation and running water still preserved a trace of natural energy stronger than anything available within the manor's ornamental gardens, a detail I'd already learned, over the course of our stay here, to account for whenever I needed sessions more serious than simple daily maintenance. The city of Roa, surrounded by decades of urban development, carried a natural mana density well below that of wilder regions I'd inhabited in past lives, and that patch of woodland, modest as it was, offered the best environment available within the Boreas property's practical limits.
I sat beneath the densest canopy, letting my mind settle deeply into the inner rhythm of my own breathing while I assessed, with clinical precision, my cultivation's most recent progress. The Foundation had consolidated a few weeks earlier, the meridians finally stable enough to withstand volumes of mana that, only a few months before, would have required redoubled caution not to rupture my own internal structure. My body now accepted that energy with a new naturalness, almost roomy, like a vessel that had finally grown to fit its own contents.
〈Eos, progress assessment.〉
[Foundation fully consolidated. Mana retention capacity expanded consistently with the new stage.]
〈Faster than I expected, given the local circumstances.〉
[This region's natural mana density is lower than that of more favourable environments you've inhabited before. The supply of pills from your inventory compensated for part of that limitation.]
〈Partially being the operative word.〉
[Correct. Without the pills, the estimated time required would be considerably longer.]
〈That fully justifies the investment.〉
[I agree, though I recommend caution. Progress accelerated by external support tends to carry more instability than progress earned entirely naturally.]
〈Agreed, and I'll proceed with due caution.〉
After the meditation session, I passed by the small shampoo production workshop, where the beast-folk maids were already operating with an autonomy I'd deliberately built up over the past two months, a system running almost entirely on its own, requiring from me only occasional supervision instead of the constant intervention that had characterised that venture's first weeks.
"Miss Azra'il," said one of them, ears erect with the genuine pride of someone reporting good results. "We managed to produce forty-three complete bottles this week alone."
"Excellent news."
"We only broke two during the whole process."
I paused briefly, deliberately theatrical. "What was the exact cause of the breakage?"
"Lady Eris turned up here, unannounced."
Absolute silence settled between us for an instant.
"Perfectly understandable," I agreed, with no need for any further questions on the matter.
I tested the viscosity of three different samples, carefully smelled the most recent batch to confirm the essential oil ratio remained within the technically established standard, and made a small adjustment to the storage method that would, by my own calculations, reduce product wastage during any future transport to Hilda's points of sale.
I devoted the remaining afternoon entirely to personal study, a few more pages of the demonic language coursebook Roxy had sent us with such care, a few additional hours reviewing the book Philip had lent me about the complex, bloody history of the Greyrat family's four branches, a subject I kept putting off fully processing, because each new reading revealed yet another layer of political complication I still wasn't, honestly, prepared to face head-on with all the attention the matter deserved.
It was a genuinely good day. Complete in every relevant sense. Entirely mine.
Which, in hindsight, and with the wisdom that only comes after the fact, should have warned me more clearly about exactly what was about to happen next.
The following day, I was sitting calmly with a book open on my lap when my bedroom door burst open with a violence only Eris could produce without literally breaking her own hinges, thanks purely to accumulated statistical luck across repeated similar occasions.
She walked in dragging Rudeus by the collar, with no ceremony whatsoever.
He looked as though he'd personally and non-transferably gone through every known stage of human grief, denial, anger, bargaining, deep depression, and had finally arrived at something I can only accurately describe as total catatonic acceptance.
His eyes stayed fixed on some vague, undefined point on the ceiling, his whole body being dragged along with no perceptible active resistance, as if his very soul had quietly decided to take early, unpaid leave from the physical body hosting it.
"You abandoned me!" Eris announced, with no social preamble at all, dropping Rudeus onto the floor like someone discarding a flour sack that had already fully served its practical purpose.
"I completed my share of the teaching," I replied, without even lifting my eyes from the book's pages. "That does not constitute abandonment under any reasonable definition. It constitutes efficient delegation of responsibilities."
"EDNA MADE US GO INTO THE HALL TWENTY-EIGHT TIMES IN A ROW!"
"She takes her own professional work extremely seriously, which should be cause for respect, not complaint."
From the floor, Rudeus lifted his head just enough to contribute minimally to the conversation, in a voice that sounded as though it had been used to the absolute physical limit of his own vocal cords. "She corrected even the exact speed of my breathing during the formal bow."
"That demonstrates a genuinely impressive level of professional dedication," I said, with complete sincerity.
"IT ISN'T IMPRESSIVE, AZRA'IL, IT'S PURE AND SIMPLE TORTURE!" Eris crossed her arms hard enough to make her own dress, already visibly crumpled from some recent fall, creak faintly from the tension of the gesture. "The dress weighs an absurd amount. My hair hurts from being tugged into that ridiculous hairstyle. I deeply hate high-heeled shoes. And you just left and abandoned me completely alone with her!"
I heard the entire list of complaints without interrupting once, grievances piling up on one another with the energy of someone who'd been storing all of it up the whole day, patiently waiting for the right audience to finally unload onto. Rudeus, still sprawled on the floor, murmured occasional agreement, increasingly more decorative than functional by that advanced point in the conversation.
And it was exactly when she stopped, momentarily out of breath to continue, that I fully grasped what was really behind that entire emotional outburst.
It had nothing to do, in any way, with technically needing my physical presence. Eris didn't need me there to survive the etiquette lessons, however genuinely unpleasant they were for her temperament.
It had to do, rather, with the simple fact that I'd left without her.
〈Perhaps my strategic withdrawal was too efficient for everyone involved's own emotional good〉, I thought, without saying it aloud, feeling something uncomfortably close to sincere guilt settle in a way I usually preferred to process in complete privacy, away from any witness.
"Fine," I finally replied, closing the book with deliberate care.
Eris stopped mid-breath, visibly disarmed by the complete absence of any argument or defence on my part.
"To make up for it properly," I continued, "I'll prepare a special performance for your birthday."
Even Rudeus lifted his own head off the floor at that sentence.
Eris's eyes lit up at once with renewed brightness. "That sword dance again?"
"No."
"Then you're going to fight someone for real?"
"Also no."
"Are you going to do some kind of impressive magic?"
"Partly, yes."
She waited for more details. None came.
"Then what, exactly?" she pressed, natural impatience already returning at full renewed force.
"A surprise."
"AZRA'IL!"
"The louder you shout my name, the less additional information I intend to reveal. That is, essentially, the complete logical structure of this negotiation."
Rudeus, finally recovered enough to actively join the conversation in an upright position, asked: "What exactly are you planning to do, then?"
"A surprise," I repeated, with no variation whatsoever.
"That answers absolutely nothing."
"That was the answer's intended purpose."
He sighed deeply, acknowledging complete defeat with the same weary resignation he'd already applied to the entire day of etiquette lessons, and Eris, though clearly unsatisfied with the excessive level of mystery involved in the whole conversation, seemed to genuinely accept the promise as sufficient compensation, the abandonment forgiven, at least temporarily, in exchange for the growing anticipation of something big enough to fully justify that conditional forgiveness.
I went to find Philip and Hilda that same afternoon, without wasting any further time.
I found the two of them together in the main office, reviewing some lengthy document related to the complex logistics of the approaching birthday event itself, and waited patiently for both to look up from the papers before saying anything.
"I would like to prepare an artistic performance for Eris's birthday," I said, with no unnecessary preamble.
Hilda smiled immediately, genuinely delighted by the initial proposal. Philip nodded, with the same spontaneous enthusiasm.
"I intend to be personally responsible for that performance," I added, right after.
A charged silence settled between the three of us.
Philip exchanged a quick, meaningful glance with Hilda, the kind of glance that communicated considerably more implicit information between the two of them than any complete sentence could ever verbally convey.
"Azra'il," he said, slowly and with deliberate care, "any child your age who publicly demonstrates this level of exceptional talent inevitably becomes the subject of mandatory conversation among the noble guests for entire subsequent weeks."
"And we're still, actively, keeping you and Rudeus reasonably shielded from that kind of public attention," Hilda added, with the calculated seriousness of someone who'd already reflected on that problem more deeply than I'd initially suspected.
I considered that objection for a deliberate instant, then replied: "In that case, the solution is fairly simple."
Philip already looked genuinely suspicious before I'd even finished the sentence completely. "I always grow deeply worried when you use exactly those words in that order."
"The guests present don't necessarily need to see Azra'il."
He raised one full eyebrow, awaiting the inevitable continuation of the explanation.
I explained the full idea: an entirely different identity, carefully built from scratch, typical travelling performer's clothes, a long cloak covering the silhouette, a mask concealing half the face, hair completely hidden beneath an appropriate accessory, a deliberately altered voice, a body posture different from my own, naturally too upright and restrained for any convincing travelling artist. Some travelling bard, casually passing through the region, hired anonymously for a single special performance and then vanishing without leaving any identifiable trace.
"Have you performed before?" Hilda asked, genuinely curious about the level of detail in the plan.
"A few times," I replied, technically true in every word, though conveniently vague enough about exactly how many "a few times" actually involved, in complete historical reality, several hundred public performances across one particular entire lifetime that no one present in that office would ever know about.
I described the basic initial planning, strategic lighting placement, a carefully calculated entrance rhythm into the hall, subtle magical effects that could plausibly be attributed to any genuinely talented travelling artist without raising any real suspicion about the true origin behind that performance. Philip and Hilda kept watching me with that recognisable expression of adults recalculating, once again in that conversation, the real size and full depth of the person sitting in front of them.
"Paul never once mentioned that his children had genuine talent for this kind of performing art," Philip remarked, more to himself than actually directed at anyone else present in the room.
Hilda looked straight at him. "Paul also never once mentioned that Rudeus already reads like an experienced adult scholar at such a young age."
"...You have a point there."
"Nor that Azra'il runs entire businesses with the natural efficiency of an experienced professional merchant."
"Nor that the two of them, together, can already teach members of the local nobility."
"Nor that she personally fights like a war veteran."
Philip remained silent for a full instant, absorbing the entire accumulated list of revelations.
"I'm seriously beginning to suspect," he said, finally, with an almost philosophical expression, "that not even Paul himself knows exactly what he helped create."
No one in the room openly disagreed with that statement, which, in itself, already communicated quite a lot of relevant information about the actual situation.
"And what exactly will this mysterious artist's stage name be?" Hilda asked, genuinely curious, just as the entire conversation already seemed to be naturally heading towards its conclusion.
I stayed quiet for several prolonged seconds.
Not because I didn't know the answer.
But because that particular answer had already existed for a very, very long time, carefully kept in a corner of memory I rarely chose to revisit voluntarily, and saying it aloud there, in that ordinary, mundane office, felt too premature for the genuine emotional weight that name carried with it.
I merely smiled, in a way I strongly suspected came out more nostalgic than I'd originally intended to show.
"I'll reveal that on the day of the event itself," I said, and neither Hilda nor Philip pressed further, perhaps recognising, with sensitivity, that particular smile wasn't territory open for questions.
I received formal permission from both of them, gave a brief, appropriate bow, and left the office with my mind already entirely occupied by a long list of practical arrangements requiring careful attention before the birthday drew too close on the calendar.
That night, I opened a brand new notebook and carefully wrote, at the top of the first blank page:
Performance plan.
Below that line, I began listing, item by item, with no additional explanation that might prematurely reveal the full scope of what I was so carefully planning:
Mask.
Complete traveller's costume.
Special lighting crystals.
Appropriate musical instrument.
Discreet, functional set design.
Formal invitation to the household's resident musicians.
Rehearsal sessions, held strictly behind closed doors.
I put the notebook away carefully, blew out the candle beside the bed, and left the rest of the details for the weeks still remaining, knowing, with a quiet, deep certainty I rarely allowed myself to feel about anything new in my current existence, that this performance was destined to mean considerably more than anyone present in that manor, Eris included, could possibly anticipate.