A splendid dinner accompanied with clinking of plates and silent swirls of beverages came and went by.

  Anaphol’s appetite filled to what he wished it to be. Inri thanked the maids and the manservant as they left.

  Yet again, they were left alone in a hall in preservation wing of Plora’s wing. Bulwark alongside them just far away enough and yet close.

  True realization hit Anaphol. And it hurt much the same as when he nearly got trapped in an avalanche once, the time when he chose to travel across Tarna for the first time.

  And the realization? Emperor Stelart nor anyone from the council that surrounded him had come here till now.

  “They…they haven’t completely decided the lesios I am supposed to learn!?” Naph screamed through gritted teeth.

  Inri quipped, “Ohh! Such a disaster!” Naph couldn’t understand her words because she spoke a very different language.

  “Sorry, sorry!” Pursing her laughter with quivering lips. “Heheh, I really just wanted to hear me make that…hehe, noise.”

  Wiping a tiny tear off her left eye, she said. “Yeah, they haven’t decided which ones you will learn. The only one that has been solidified is that you will learn the lesio to flight.”

  Next, to Naph it looked, Inri attempted to pluck something out of air to her left. At first there was nothing, but on the second try she had a book.

  It fell next to her.

  Naph’s brows furrowed, “How did you,” he imitated, “do that?”

  Inri picked up the book with an elaborate back cover. “Oh, that?” Her lips held a mischief of its own. “You will learn.”

  Naph’s furrowed brows chose to furrow more. “When-”

  Inri smacked her forehead with a palm. “Right! This one is harder than the easier ones from Rian no Tera’s easiest lesios.”

  Naph heard the same name again. One he had no understanding of. At the same moment, Inri waved away with a drooping, languid wave of her hand.

  However, her dismissal of what Naph wanted to ask felt like salt to his butchered soul.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  First, today he made one of his hardest kill thinking it would be a step toward his goal. But no, the world did not care, so then a battle he could never have thought or could have existed just came to be.

  Which in turn when he reached Jhorime turned out to be a prelude to a war for entirety of Sevenren as a territory.

  He was stung by the way Keyriftrin Empire’s royalty, nobles and many others have treated him. Now, her too.

  Naph’s quips hadn’t flew out to hurt people more today except a few cases since Bulwark’s gruesome death by his hands. And Inri did not predict a dry one to hit her.

  “Is that a trait that comes with being Plora? Or am I witnessing a noble?”

  His tone dropped. His eyes spoke instead, ‘Like the rats they are.’

  Clack.

  Inri closed the book she had plucked in one fell swoop. Her eyes staying on the front cover of the book and then lifted to glare at Anaphol.

  “Just because you are a guest of the Keyriftrian Empire,” Inri leaned slightly forward, “does not-”

  Rather than completing, she held a sweet smile over her lips.

  Leaning back, Anaphol turned to face at Bulwark. Inri backed up as well.

  Moments became minutes once more.

  Anaphol broke the silence of the hall. “Why are you accompanying me?”

  “Because you are my guest,” Inri said her eyes closed.

  “Huh?”

  Breathing in heavily, Inri said. “Lady Izne chose to dedicate Plora’s wing to act as the guest house for you. And I am its sole occupant and owner, thus you are my guest.”

  Anaphol became ambivalent on the truth being told. He had noticed earlier how there wasn’t literally anyone, until the maids and manservant came.

  Rolling his thought within, he chewed on it and gulped it. Naph stood up.

  “I am going back to the room I woke in,” he said.

  Inri let him walk a few steps and added, “I still have to come. You are a guest of the Empire but you are also my guest.” Her head turned to face his back. “And I like changing my rules.”

  Irritated, Naph iterated. “I am just going to sleep.”

  He had turned to answer that. But still his eyes peeked at Bulwark.

  “Have you even considered what you have to let go?”

  “And?”

  “Tell me were you not going to sneak back here after a while?”

  Naph did not have an answer.

  “You care about her even when you are her murderer. Why?” Inri genuinely asked.

  Naph’s jaws worked. Taking a step to Bulwark, he stared at her resting place. Only for a moment to him it felt only he was here. Then his breath came back and he turned around to the door.

  “You should know,” Inri non-chalantly said, “it is possible to-,” she considered something as she kept him in her vision. “No, I don’t think you should be considering about that for now.”

  Leaning on the sofa backrest, Inri said, “What do you think lies ahead for you here?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Anaphol walked with a slow pace, his mind thinking of the incidents that happened one after another today. “I have to convince your Emperor for stopping the war in Sevenren.”

  “You will have to leave something behind then,” Inri stated matter-of-factly.

  “Hmm,” Naph nodded.

  “Do not follow me.”

  “Hmm, it is my inheritance. I can do what I want here.” Inri Plora argued.

  And then Naph was gone from the hall that contained Bulwark and his ride. Inri Plora stayed there with the book she had plucked via teleporting it. She opened it to the very first page of the book.

  It had a title. “List of Rian no Tera’s Lesios”

  A book that detailed every lesio ever proven to have been attained by Rian no Tera over the course of their life as noted in the myths that his life’s accomplishments became.