Chapter 34: Tea with An Old Friend

“Good morning, Milady! Are you excited for the party tonight?”

Once more, I woke up on the same morning to the same greeting and the same breakfast waiting for me, but on this day, the queen’s words were reverberating in my head. She told me that Aster didn’t help the lazy, and as disheartening as it was, that had described me pretty well before all this started. I had put in the minimum work needed to pass my classes and fulfill my duties, so I could spend more time reading. Of course, he’d view me as lazy.

Still, I had come a long way since then, and despite my unlimited free time, I now spent most of my time training and studying. I was sure he’d see that, so I sent a letter asking for an urgent meeting so I could ask for advice on intermediate-class void magic. I chose that element both to emphasize that I’d been studying enough in private to already reach beginner-class and because void magic was famously difficult to learn. However, I also included the queen’s threat in the letter to make sure he’d see me.

That seemed to work as a reply arrived almost immediately, informing me that Aster was available to meet within the hour. This irked me a bit as he had initially claimed he was too busy to meet for three days. Still, I suppose that response was somewhat deserved, considering my past behavior. Plus, he had agreed, and that’s what mattered.

Some time later, I found myself sitting across from Aster, while his attendant poured us tea. He still hadn’t spoken, but his sharp gaze told me that he was less than pleased about the queen’s threat, though he didn’t mention that. Instead, his first words to me in five years were a question.

“I know you haven’t bypassed basic-class void magic, so why are you really here?” he asked, sounding just as annoyed as he looked.

He wasn’t wrong, but the way he asked that still irked me, so in response, I cast Weight Consumption on a nearby chair and then threw it across the room. Aster and his attendant both stared at me with wide eyes, while I sipped my tea.

“I’ve had a lot of time to study lately, but you aren’t completely wrong. I didn’t come here to talk about void magic. I’m here about the prince. I take it you know what he’s planning tonight.”

“Given your tone and the fact that he’s been avoiding me for the past several weeks, I assume he’s got something stupid planned.”

“He’s gonna execute me so he can marry Holly, who’s already pregnant,” I replied with as casual a tone as I could muster.

“That is...far stupider than I expected,” Aster muttered as he put his head in his hands.

“Not to pile on, but the queen did seem to imply that it was your job to keep him from doing stuff like this.”

“It was all of our jobs! We were all supposed to keep him in line, except Roman was fine letting the prince go wild, and Atlas never had any idea what was going on. That meant I always had to be the wet blanket of the group, so of course, he wouldn’t tell me if he was doing something as colossally stupid as this.”

At that point, whatever anger I was still feeling at Aster for ignoring and betraying me basically vanished. He was a child who’d been tasked with being the only person who would ever say no to a spoiled brat. Of course, that had gone poorly, especially when the people who should’ve been supporting him were doing nothing to help him, though that did leave one question.

“If you found out at the party tonight, would you have done anything to stop it?” In every loop, he had remained silent when the prince killed me, only stepping up in my defense when I had the law on my side. I needed to know why.

“Liliana, you are my friend, but even now, there is nothing I can do,” he replied, looking drained and defeated. “My church is viewed as nothing more than power-hungry fools, desperate for death and destruction, and things have only gotten worse since the prince removed me from his inner circle. Neither my father nor I has the authority or influence needed to directly object to the prince without facing serious consequences.”

“So that’s it?” I asked, defeated. “I’m just gonna die no matter what?”

“You could try arguing that you’re a better saint than Holly, though I doubt many people would back you on that.”

I couldn’t help but laugh as, in mere seconds, Aster figured out the plan that I’d spent ages deciding on. Somehow, that felt comforting, as if it was proof that the plan was actually decent and could’ve worked if not for Eros’s interference. Still, it wasn’t like I could become saint without her...or could I?

“Aster, how close are the laws of your church and the Church of Eros?”

“At least as far as the early laws go, they are identical,” he explained with a confused turn of his head. “Lord Logos’s first law...”

“States that no existing law can be removed or modified,” I interrupted.

“Yes,” he said, somewhat impressed. “How did you know that? It’s not a well-known part of our doctrine.”

“That doesn’t matter,” I said as I bolted upright from my chair. “But if the laws are the same, that means you can have a saint, right?”

“Technically, that should be possible, but...”

“And that saint should be just as above the law as Eros’s saint, right?”

“Again, you are technically correct, but you can’t be serious. Even if I received permission from my father to do this, it would turn my entire church into an enemy of the prince and the people. I’m sorry, Liliana, but I can’t do that to my congregation.”

“What if you didn’t have to? What if making me your saint could actually turn the people to your side?”

“How?”

“If I can demonstrate exceptional talent in multiple classes of magic, as well as perform a feat that is considered impossible by our current understanding of magic, would that be enough?”

“Arguably, yes, but I couldn’t give you any public support until I actually witnessed that myself.”

“That’s fine,” I said, as I felt a smile cross my face for the first time since Eros killed me. I had a path forward now. I had a way to survive, and I had an ally in Aster. “Let’s get started.”