"Wait a second! Aren't you...?" She stuttered.
Viola flashed an indignant look. "Took you long enough, Lisa."
Horror struck her like lightning. "Oh my god! What have I done? I am kidnapping her sister!" She wailed while walking in circles.
Looks like Amy was right about her. Viola thought. She remembers this girl. Her sister describing her as good-natured and honest but also slow and has her head in the clouds sometimes. Her instincts have dulled due to lack of sleep, but she is alert enough to see that this girl is trustworthy.
"We have to get you home right now!" She exclaims.
"Keep it down!" she whispered, "You're gonna wake up the others!"
"They are normally good people and wouldn't harm the innocent. So why are you captured?"
"You tell me." Viola got off the carriage and stretched. The relief from being in that tight carriage all day is really helping her aching body. "I'm the so called saintess of Solin. What do you think?"
Lisa pouted at the sarcasm. "You are nothing like the person that your sister describes you as."
"Maybe being stuck in a tight carriage for several days would leave a person from happy and normal to being irritated and murderous." Viola shot back. "So, where am I going?"
"You're going to Hekaton." she replied.
Viola didn't have to think too much from that. Hekaton isn't hiding the fact that they covet the purification powers. It isn't just because of how powerful it is or the historical importance it has to the country. Hekaton is an extremely cold nation with very little usable land and ferocious monsters that hunt for anything edible to survive. Despite their improving technology and expansion, it is slow and cannot completely combat the freezing winters and monsters who attack them. Every few centuries, the frozen land is purified to become farmable land to feed and protect its people. Every purification user before her and Amy are all from Hekaton so this is the first account that the power user came into another country much less having more than one other user existing at the same time. News of her power have spread so they probably decide to kidnap her. If she is captured, it would only be a matter of time before Amy gets captured too.
"Everyone else is asleep by now. Grab a horse and escape while you can." Lisa said.
"I'm not going yet."
Lisa's expression changed from worried to enraged. "Are you nuts? Whoever captured you wants us to keep this a secret. Whatever plan they have with you is not good. You would either be killed or locked up somewhere until you die."
"You're friends with Amy so I'll let this pass only if you help me." Viola says to her calmly, "Who on earth has ordered this?"
Lisa shook her head while rubbing the back of her arm slowly, "I don't know. My uncle might know since he is the one that accepted the deal, but I do know that they paid us incredibly well for this with promises of more payment once we deliver you. That money is enough to feed our families for an entire year. But I always had a bad feeling about this particular job."
Viola furrowed curiously, "Why?"
"Getel has plenty of mercenaries, but they hired a smaller team to take care of this not knowing if we would succeed or not. Our jobs are usually small like guarding and escorting merchants. Kidnapping a foreign noble is a matter that we cannot handle the consequences of." Lisa explained.
Viola ate some food while she states, "You seem to be scared of something else other than what you described."
"I have seen Amaryllis fight. I'm terrified. Unknowing or not, I did aide in your capture. She is going to kill me when we get found." She groaned, "I just want to move into Solin and only a few people decide to come with me. This was supposed to be my last job before I leave too."
"Then help me." Viola says, "If you support me through this whole journey and help me find the answers I need then you can return with honor and I can go home."
Lisa, who was previously nervous, appears to be listening serious, "What do you have in mind?"
*
Amy woke up with a sharp headache and grasp her head in pain.
"Oh Fuck!!"
Either her head hit the ground too hard and got a concussion or the instant loss of her energy and magic gave her a splitting migraine.
She immediately noticed that she's back in her room and the view outside is dark with moonlight shining from her window.
"Language! Finally, you're awake. You've been asleep all day."
She groggily stares at the direction of that voice. Leon is at the end of her bed creepily staring at her. Undeterred due to exhaustion, she sat comfortably in her bed.
"You missed out quite a bit, Ryllis." Leon then tilted his head. "You had quite the fall and gave Mellie quite the scare." he chuckled. "You were taken back here while she is busy healing everyone. Whatever you did, it gave her quite the boost while sucking out all your magic. I had to transfer some of mine to you."
Her eyes widened in disgust at this. That would explain the headache. Sharing foreign energy is not a smooth process.
Leon laughed at her reaction, "Relax. I didn't do anything weird. Our energies just happen to be extremely compatible for transfer."
Liar
Their magic affinities may seem compatible, but that statement couldn't be any more dead wrong.
"What are you doing here?"
"Is it wrong to check up on a cherished friend?"
Are we really friends? "Yet you pushed your other friends away even though you are closer to them than with me." she replied.
His expression was unreadable, but she must have hit a nerve.
"I hope that you make up with the others and not let anyone get hurt because of your issues. I already lose sleep over my sister. I don't want to lose sleep because of you either." she snapped.
Leon expression slight darkens though remains cheery in his own way. She returns the expression with a dark one of her own.
"Easy now. Do you really think I am just going to take your word for it?" She tilts her head at him, "I am not your pawn that you can take advantage of. No matter what you threaten me with, it will not keep away from what I think is most important. You are not my priority. She is."
He then smirked sheepishly at her insolence. "Well, I shouldn't be surprised that you are packing a lot of hate against me."
"I never held any open feelings towards you, Leon. I could simply just not do what you say but that won't make much impact wouldn't it? I could easily kill the girl and not even you can stop me."
Leon looked completely enraged at her words and broke her bed post with a crush of his hand. "Say that again." But before he could attack her, she binds him using the shadows without moving her body but a finger. Leon looked puzzled at this.
That is the reaction she needed to see.
"I am more than capable than you'd ever know. I am confident to say that even you are no match for me when it comes to tricks, and this isn't even the only one. I could be spending my time here looking for Viola but instead I have to be both babysitter to you and tutor to a girl who knows nothing about the world you exposed her to. So, what are you doing?" she finished menacingly.
For once, Leon is defeated. Unlike Rufus and the others, he knows that Amy has no actual respect or loyalty for him. He has done nothing to earn it other than having privilege. He respects her so much for it and yet he's a hypocrite when he tries to use his status to force her to follow his orders. Whatever relationship they have is not of mutual respect or friendship. This is why he likes to tease and anger her because this dynamic is both fun and the times when they actually interact outside of subordinate and master. With a scoff, he uses his power to repair her bedpost. "I am in house arrest right now, so I won't be able to protect Jenna in person. If anything happens, I want you to protect her from anyone no matter who it is, and I will work with Rufus involving her investigation."
He says it quite formally. she thought.
She dismissed him with a wave of her hand. "You don't need to force yourself to work with Rufus. As long as you don't stop me from searching for her or stop causing unnecessary trouble then I will do just that."
Without a word or a moment's notice, he disappeared.
He's quite emotional. What kinda love spell is he under?
"Why did you do that?" Boris asks.
I did a bit of reading on different love potions. Each one has different durations, side effects and differences. Leon is more emotional than I had ever seen, ostracized from his friends and while he hasn't lost his core personality, he has devoted himself to her yet with effects that don't come with a love potion.
"Effects?"
"He wants me to train her. Not just so she could have a smooth move to Solin but he enjoys the idea of her becoming a fighter."
"Does she have that capability? She is quite small and delicate looking." Boris commented.
"You're affected by her appearance too?" Amy scoffed, "Women like her are either two kinds of people: schemers or idiots. We'll just see which one she is soon."