Chapter 158 - 153. Guarantee
"Why don’t you use your mother’s name?" Zein asked as they climbed to the topmost level of the burial ground.
There were only a few lots here, each with the gorgeous landscape of the valley as a backdrop. Zein supposed that was why the maintenance cost was astronomical.
"Well...she was already thrown her name away. That’s basically the reason why she made the deal with the Vaski,"
"Deal..." Zein stared at the white stone path below them. He wondered who made the deal with Marshal Todres; Lucia herself, or his father? He looked at Bassena, wanting to ask about the deal the esper’s mother made, but Bassena already gave an answer before Zein could speak.
"My mother came from the South, a runaway...rich girl," Bassena told him. There was a slight pause, along with an awkward gaze, that prompted Zein to think she was more than an average rich girl. Zein didn’t want to probe, however, and just continued listening to the esper. "But it’s quite hard to earn citizenship in other areas if you have no job or guarantor, and my mother also not exactly wanted her family to find out where she was running away to..."
"So came the Vaski," Zein concluded, to which Bassena responded with a nod.
"Yep. She met them at a continental party, and my mother...used to be so random and reckless," Bassena chuckled slightly; it was a sound filled with nostalgic melancholy. Bassena leaned down slightly and whispered to Zein, as if they were talking about someone who walked in front of them. "To be precise, she was wild."
Zein glanced at the grinning esper, and recalled the face of his mother. It was actually not that hard to imagine that fiery eyes and energetic smile making impulsive decision.
"Long story short, she made a deal to be smuggled out of the South, in return for a large sum of money, which she took from her inheritance," Bassena continued. Here, his expression turned rather forlorn. "They married my mother to the youngest son; someone younger than my mother, and sickly."
Different from how he talked about his mother, Bassena spoke about his father with a dry tone, as if he was talking about someone distant. That being said, Zein didn’t detect any hatred that Bassena usually showed when the members of the clan were mentioned.
"It doesn’t feel right to say it, but...I am always glad he was born sickly, so he didn’t have a chance to grow up rotten like his brothers," Bassena smiled bitterly. "Well...that also means he couldn’t survive long."