"Claudina…had reversed time?"
We sat side by side on the pews.
Previously he asked me cover all the surrounding area with a sound proof spell. He said that what he was about to tell me was something I should take it in my grave.
After I had done so he patted the seat beside him. I promptly sat down, taking off my cap.
"At that time there was also a threat towards the Five Nations. Claudina had…stopped, no killed 'her' and… " He stopped again, looked at me and groaned in his hands.
"How do I say it when I swore a Binding Oath?!" His words came out as muffled.
A Binding Oath.
My eyes widened in surprise. Who in their right mind would make a god swear a Binding Oath? A soon as the contents of the Binding Oath is leaked the one who swore will die while the recite of the oath will face extreme pain on their side. Though he does get angry, I have never seen Lord Chronos so frustrated.
"You don't have to say the details."
He signed deeply. "No it's fine since you are heavily involved in those details. You deserve to know the truth. However I will tell this beforehand after hearing it you will rethink weather you wish to reverse time."
I nodded.
He fidgeted with the clocks' chains. He took a long time before he said anything again.
"Before time was reversed Claudina was known as the 'Saint of Black Rose,' the 22nd Saintess of the temple. And one of the strongest as well. At the age of 15 just after the rite of passage for sainthood, her resurrection powers increased tenfold that the King ordered for her to go to frontlines to resurrect soldiers that had died. She would single handedly seal Fable Grade demons at the age of 17. By the time she was 20 there were hardly any demons left in any of the Nations. I believe she was 23 when she demanded I reverse time."
I trembled in my seat. Claudina had not only reversed time but she had been the 22nd saintess. She had been younger than me yet strong enough to accomplish impossible feats.
"Did she reverse time so I could have her rightful seat?" I asked in a shaky voice.
If she did then I have done a terrible job as 22nd saintess. I did not do half of what she has done. I always knew that I am undeserving of this position.
Lord Chronos shook his head. "It was something entirely different. She was still greedy and jealous as a saintess." He signed again. "What I am about to say is Claudina's mother Madam Sofia's life story to you first. The true story of what really occurred."
Duchess Sofia was the eldest daughter of Count Verr. She was a beautiful lady with midnight black hair and dreamy blue eyes and a voice lovelier than a siren. When she debuted she shook up high society and had been unanimously crowned as the Queen of social circles. She gained countless suitors which included the then heir to Crowley dukedom Ivan.
Ivan was the most persistent of her suitors alongside the emperor of the east continent, Ezra. Both men had been young bachelors, a face that would make anyone swoon, extremely rich and a position in society where they cannot be ignored. The other men who participated in the match were unable to compete with the amounts of gifts she had been receiving from the two.
However before Sofia could accept either of them the truth about her birth came to light. On her eighteenth birthday the life she knew so far crashed into millions of tiny pieces.
It turned out that Sofia had been conceived through demon rituals and Hevia a race that was assumed to be extinct. Her father, Count Verr and his mistress had the count's wife birth chimera like babies for an experiment. One of them had been Sofia. The count's wife was driven mad by the grotesque features of the three babies. She tried to kill them but the count had shot her dead in the laboratory where she gave birth. Later on the mistress assumed the count's wife role.
The older two of Sofia's siblings were sold to different people in a black market auction. No one knew what had happened to the babies. Sofia on the other hand was raised as the Count's daughter.
With the truth about her birth revealed, the once belle of the kingdom was shunned to a leaper. She cursed her fate as an anomaly and almost ended her life. Ivan abandoned her without a moment's hesitation. Her father who had participated on the demon rituals with his wife the main culprits abused her. Her friends left and talked behind her back. Once people on the street felt their day brightening up at the sight of her had started to throw stones at her.
She would have killed herself hadn't been for the emperor of east. He took her in when her own family had pushed her to the streets.
But here entered a new form of torture.
The previous emperor had an obsession with the Hevia race which followed through the current emperor.
The emperor knew about the birth of Sofia so that is why he started to court her. He pretended to love her and showed that even if no one wanted her he still would and that her origins never mattered.
Sofia none the wiser believed him. She believed him when he first hit her. She believed him when he started those same experiments as the count on her. She believed him when he came back to bed with a different smell of perfume every night. She believed him when all the experiments failed and he took out his frustration on her. She continued to believe him when the divorce papers were handed to her by one of his many mistresses.
In the end she returned from the continent to the kingdom. When she arrived in her parents' doorstep she was led in a rushed manner and made to kneel in front of the count. The six years she had been away the count had fallen to ruin, his wife left him and his children were good for nothing. She was ordered by the count to work as a servant for the rest of her live if she wanted to stay here and Sofia with no other option, accepted.
The next two years she worked as a servant for the count before she was spotted by Ivan. During the time she was gone, Ivan became the duke but he never married. He was looking for a noble lady that won't be a threat to his position and Sofia fit the description. So despite the rejection he gave those years ago he asked her father for her hand in return he would help the count from his bankruptcy.
Within a month they were married. However before they married Duke Ivan set up a contract. Sofia could continue to stay in the duke's manor even after birthing an heir. She was not to meddle with his affairs as he would not as well. She was free to use the duchy's money as long she doesn't bother the duke, show the outside world that they loved each other and lastly have nothing to do with one another. They would only maintain a cordial business like relationship. Sofia grasping on any sort of hope married him.
Any noble that attended the wedding secretly scorned Sofia. Instead of the warm welcoming the high society had turned into a hostile area. Behind their warm smiles was a sharpened knife, ready to cut her open. Afterwards Sofia rarely ever left the manor.
The duke and his wife were the perfect example of a political marriage. To the outside they were a happily married couple who were very much in love with one another just as stated in the contract. But behind closed doors, they are anything but that.
After what she had been through the kind, gentle Sofia had become Madam Sofia, a materialistic and self absorbed woman while Duke Ivan had no care for his wife for he kept a mistress right after their marriage. The rare times they had to go together as a couple to a party were something Duke Ivan would force on Madam Sofia.
They performed the duties that were expected of them but not once did they show the other an ounce of love. They hated one another, wishing curses and misfortune to befall them.
They continued in this way until Claudina was born.
I gaped at his words.
"Lord Chronos that…"
"This incident has does not match what reality is."
"Yes." Something like this never happened.
Madam Sofia is indeed a materialistic woman but this history of her birth in not even known to the king. What everyone knows that Madam Sofia was married against her will by her greedy father and his wife. She loved the emperor of the east continent but someone had killed him so his brother became the new emperor. Some say that the Duke Ivan killed off his competition. Others say that Claudina is the love child of the former emperor Ezra because the duke has grey eyes and chestnut colored hair.
"You see before she reversed time for you, she did the same for herself." Lord Chronos' face was swirl of emotions.
That is certainly something else. Not once but twice.
"Did you reverse time?"
"This is something even I don't understand. I only helped her when she wanted to reverse time for the second time. She herself reversed time the first time."
I was stunned. "That's…impossible."
"You know that when I reverse time my conscious of the current timeline is never affected so I can always tell if something has changed. Claudina was surprised that she could reverse time so she came to me. I couldn't understand how she did it. I will never forget her face full of absolute fear. She came back in time when she was not born. Or to be more exact a year after Madam Sofia debuted."
I shivered this time not from the cold. A timeline where was she not even born. Naturally you are supposed to disappear and your future gets altered the moment you are born.
"I asked her if she remembered anything before this happened and she said that one minute she had been preparing for a test in the academy and the next moment she found herself in the Capital. She said she had no idea that she could do it."
I shifted uncomfortably.
"Strangely enough I wasn't able to turn time back. No matter how much we tried nothing worked. We were completely stuck in that timeline."
"I see. What happened next?"
I bit the inside of my cheek.
Claudina...what more are you hiding behind the façade?