Lirian left school immediately, it was still early and the first class of the day hadn't finished, but he doubted if anything would happen after all the entire school had been evacuated earlier.
On the ride home he completely ignored Anya's existence he was furious at her, he had killed people for much, much less in his past lives but he couldn't feel that angry at her and it baffled him, 'When did I start turning soft.'
He looked at Alastor who was bound by Anya's energy and took out a little of his fury on him by stamping on his already broken bones.
After a while, it felt like all the pain he inflicted couldn't relieve his anger, he looked out of the window in silence until he saw the food trucks he had become very familiar with over the years.
While everyone in the manor disapproved of him eating such cheap food, made on the corner of the street, he couldn't care less.
He had come to enjoy it, and most importantly so did his mother.
As the limo slowly pulled up, the people noticed the two flags with the Clovis symbol and made way for him to go first.
He went over to the food truck and got a couple of burgers, after paying a very generous amount of credits to the owner he offered a pleasant smile to everyone that gave him way while returning to the limo.
---
Lirian sat in contemplation as Anya explained what happened to Taliyah as well as the other aides, this time the incident was very serious.
It was considered as an assassination attempt from a very high member of the society and the political implications were worrying, to say the least.
In the entire empire only one person had the authority to eliminate a candidate, besides the other candidates, and that was the reigning leader of the empire, in the current Clovis empire that was none other than Emperor Albus himself, there were several instances where an entire noble line was erased for killing a promising candidate of the empire.
It was a curious punishment to Lirian, candidates had no real political power or influence, and yet the punishment for killing them was one of the most severe.
Even more curious was the fact that as one increases their influence and they become a prince/princess that unbelievable protection weakens, the higher you climb the less invisible protection you receive.
He assumed that it was because as your rank increased, it became more and more likely that you would enter into scuffles with different powers, as you try to establish your own power.
When that happened the empire couldn't allow the princes and princesses to run around doing as they please, they would have to face the consequence on their own.
The aides began discussing the punishment, with Lirians talent, destroying the Jane family was a very possible outcome.
If not for the empress's long-standing friendship with the Jane family, they would have probably been making preparations to attack already.
Anya glanced at Lirian with that he told her they had to change their approach, but she couldn't just bring it up in front of the other aides, at least not without exposing the truth about Lirian and the fewer people that knew that the better.
Taliyah was listening to her aides with furrowed brows, she be lying if she said she wasn't furious and she was going crazy just thinking about what might have happened.
Had she heard that her baby died forget about a plan, she would have been on her way to the Jane family's homeworld, with only a single goal in mind.
She looked at Lirians unperturbed face as if this didn't even affect him in the slightest, it was at times like this that a child was supposed to need their parents, yet he was completely unfazed.
It served to remind her of how little he truly needed her, and made her heartache.
'Just what did you really go through for all those years little one?', she wondered glumly as her heart ached for him.
She soon noticed Anya's odd behavior of looking at between her and Lirian, "Clear out the room," she ordered everyone.
As Anya got up she quickly added, "Anya and Lirian stay I want to speak to you about what happened privately,", she put up a front about being really concerned about Lirian and wanting to see if he was okay before continuing the discussions.
It wasn't a lie at all of course, when she got news from the school about the attack, she abandoned her meeting and rushed towards the school, only seconds passed before Anya contacted her and told her that everything was okay.
"All right tell me what it is?" she asked with concern.
"To put it simply Lirian believes that this was the work of a diviner," Anya said carefully, the effect on Taliyah was instantaneous and her fists tightened.
Lirian pulled a burger out of his bag and casually took a bite out of it, "Not just any diviner, a bloody powerful one at that, to be able to manipulate a seventh-grader without them even realising it, they would have to be nothing short of the sixth-grader but I'm betting that their level is even higher."
The very very idea of a diviner left a foul taste in Taliyah's mouth, and she immediately knew who it was, who else would it be if not Efrideet Capriska.
"How would she even manipulate someone into doing something like that?" she asked forcing herself to stay calm, never had she regretted sparing that wretched woman's life so much as she did right that second.
"I've never heard of a diviner being able to manipulate someone and if she is able to manipulate people how do we know who we can even trust?" she further asked a slight tremor passed through her causing the hair on the back of her neck to stand on end as soon as she thought that far.
"Slow down," Lirian chuckled, he pulled a burger out of his bag and set it on the table.
Over the years eating the burger in a carefree manner had become Taliyah's guilty pleasure when she was alone with Lirian and a look of desire could be seen in her eyes and she even slightly licked her lips as she looked at it, gods it was cheap food truck food but it tasted so amazing.
Or rather, the taste was so different from what she was used to eating that it made it taste amazing, not to mention the fact that anyone that caught her eating it would look down on her.
Lirian didn't fail to notice that look of desire in her eyes and smiled inwardly, "It's not so easy to manipulate another and it's not as simple as you're thinking."
"I can show you what she did mom, but it's going to be a group effort and I need your help to do it," she looked at him with raised brows but didn't reject him.
"What do I need to do?" she asked.
"I'm going to do a form of manipulation on you, but because of the difference in our life levels it's impossible for me to do it without you allowing me and if you resist even in the slightest the connection is going break," he quickly added, "If I do anything that I'm not supposed to Anya will stop me immediately."
"There's no need for that I trust you dear, but if you try to get my clearance codes to the empires server again, you'll be grounded till your trial begins," she said quickly with a smile on her lips, she lost count of how many tricks he played to get the clearance codes.