A grand hall spread high and wide, swallowing the entire space like some kind of gluttonous monster. In its stomach lay vicious and power-hungry monsters of all shapes and sizes.
A red-haired woman and a black-haired boy sat just a couple meters shy of a set of twin staircases. Lieren looked as if he was about to puke.
"What… what is this?"
Mysta glanced at him from the side, her eyes filled with nothing but suspicion. She said succinctly, not intending to repeat her words again:
"This is what you call a ball, Lieren. It's a gathering for high-ranking socialites and aristocrats to, as the commoners say, make merry."
"Commoners don't say that. We, or rsther they, call it fun, enjoyable, or a book reading session. This isn't a book reading session."
She eyed him narrowly, as if teeyhering on the very border of her sanity. Her hands behind her back were clenched so tightly that it was actually bleeding. And yet none of it dropped on the carpets. What a pro.
…Or just somebody really bad at biding her emotions.
"Probably the latter."
She raised a brow.
"Excuse me?"
Lieren looked away and onto the "merry" down below, immediately regretted it, then looked back at her with a sour face.
"No, nothing. It's nothing important. Besides, aren't you a commoner yourself? Why are you acting so high-and-mighty?"
Her fists bled even more. Straining her voice as to not raise it, Mysta said in a hoarse tone:
"I'm afraid you're mistaken about something. Us high society individuals, loyal retainers and trustworthy vassals, are at the top of the socials caste. Far above what you commoners can ever—"
"But you're none of these thing, are you? You just act like you are, and everybody follow suit. It's not just that either. There's also the fact that, while you may be the personal attendant of the only heir of the might Exousis famiglia, you're still just an attendant in the end. Until Alice succeeds her father, your position is as precarious as a paper balancing on a spoon. Sooner rather than later, you'll fall, and somebody will take your job from you, and do it even better."
"You really are…"
Glaring at him with a palpable feeling of complete indignation and utter disdain, Mysta let released her fists and inhale deeply, closing her eyes.
"Listen here you little—"
And when she opened them again, she found herself all alone.
"That brat!"
◇◆◇◆◇
Laying down on the cold, hard floor, Lieren let out an exaggerated sigh and slumped back, dust and grime settling on his new suit. Not that it mattered, he was never going to wear it, anyways.
Distant chatters and boisterous conversation could be heard just a few minutes' walk away. He ignored all of then with a bored expression and looked down, at his hands, which felt bruised and battered from all the weird handshakes he had to do since the beginning of this stupid charade.
Sighing heavily, Lieren looked aside and scratched the back of his head, a headache permeating his skull as the past four minutes came rushing at him like a raging bull.
Why did everybody have to lie?
In a place as insidious and malevolent as the great hall of the mansion; endless trickery, misdirection, and deception were said and performed, as if it was a play with no end nor complete structure to it. His intuition buzzed like an angry bee over and over again. So much that he had to physically run away just to get some semblance of reality. Even then, he still caught several snippets of idle conversations here and there.
And what he heard truly shook him to his core.
Kidnapping, murder, fake suicide, homicide, burglary, insurrection, actual suicide, illegal dealing, human trafficking, slavery, tax evasion, unfair trials, one-sided court hearings, smuggling, and an infinite number of lies weaved a complicated and disgusting web of endless trickery, boundless misdirection, and never-ending deception.
The sky, at least, was the same. The soliloquy that he made when he was flung several hundred feet into the stratosphere. A wry smile appeared on his face.
'That was the goof ol' days, wasn't it?'
Granted, that happened just a week ago. And he wasn't even old enough to be allowed such reminiscence. Right?
'…Oh, what do we have here?'
Distant footsteps made him turn to one side. One-half in curiosity; the other just for the heck of it. He was very bored.
His brows immediately rose.
'Whoa… is that even legal?'
Right there, on his right side, was velvet red dress that fitted perfectly to the bodacious figure of the woman wearing it, curving in and out in proportions that seemed to be border on impossible. But even that paled in comparison to the aspect that he first took notice of:
The slit. Starting from the bodacious woman's left lumbar all the way down her left iliac region and, thigh, leg, and high heels, was over a meter long slit that ever-so-slowly parted like the red seas and boldly showed the pale white skin beneath it.
Raising her brows, the woman spoke:
"Would you like to be stepped on?"
He shook his head.
"No, it'll hurt. Plus, considering your sharp heels and thighs, you might puncture my body."
She shifted a little.
"Did you just call me fat?"
Lieren shrugged and lay on his side, facing his back to the woman.
"No, I'm just saying that I hate being in pain all the time."
Though he couldn't see her expression, he was able to guess a few things based on her tone.
"And why is that? That seems to be quite an odd thing for a candidate to say. Especially one as mysterious."
And there it was, the thing he most dreaded of. Talking with liars.
"Would you mind standing up? I'm not quite fond of talking to people below me."
'Yeah right.'
Standing up to his feet, Lieren stretched and let out an exaggerated, yawn and taking a quick peek at the bodacious woman's face.
She was a beauty, that much he was sure even without looking at her face. Still, fiction and reality are often in opposite sides of each other. Almost always, even. But what he saw was truly something to behold.
Pale skin, luscious lips, soft yet sharp eyes and a temperament that demanded to be seen. Not by the owner of it. No, no. That was what the world wanted. Her eyes, in particular, were very mesmerizing.
'Huh.'
And yet, at the very next second, Lieren felt himself slowly calm down. The bewilderment that overcame him slowly dissipated. As if digested by a hungry beast.
Patting his butt of accumulated dust, Lieren sighed and offered a hand.
"Lieren, I guess. Nice to meet you."
He eyed the woman palpably. But the bodacious woman, in all her malevolence, merely smiled slightly and accepted his hand.
"Blessen Exousia. A pleasure."
He scoffed inwardly.
'A pleasure what? What does she mean?'
"You can just call me Bless."
Turning on her heels, "Bless" slipped his tiny arm and practically dragged him over to her side. When Lieren tried to say something, she merely put her finger over his mouth and smiled coyly, winked enchantingly, and faced towards the ongoing noise that permeated the air.
The party, it seemed, was still in its peak, with no intention of slowing down.
Taking a step, and therefore dragging him like a ragged puppet, she said pleasingly:
"Well, should we? It's about time that we have a party of our own."
Lieren's faced visibly paled. What did she mean by that?
Giggling like a young maiden, Bless moved inside and dragged the tiny boy with him. An alluring yet mischievous smile on her beautiful face.