SIDE: Auretta

Hale was an idiot. Hale was a HUGE idiot. So was Ernest and mom and dad. Even though I thought about exchanging these stupid brothers for sisters about 10 times a day, I still loved them and our parents.

Our parents were great lords. The Tenebris territory wasn’t prosperous and couldn’t even begin to compare to the capital Phasmopia but we were well-liked by our people. And this liking came at a price.

Money.

It all, bore down to.

Money.

Generation after generation, the Tenebrises had a great talent for spending. They lowered the taxes, improved the standard of living for the commoners, fed them during famines and treated them during plagues. That was all and well, except. Generation after generation, the Tenebrises didn’t have any talent for business. So the finances declined and because the people grew reliant on their ruler, they declined along. And now they relied on selling cemetery spaces to the wealthy but how long could that last?

“On my, is that rags you’re wearing, Ms. Tenebris? Wait, I forgot your family can’t even afford rags!”

That was only one of the many insults I heard. And the stupidest of the bunch. Of course, I wasn’t wearing anything remotely related to rags. It’s just my fifth time wearing the same dress to a party and anything the public had been more than once was, to them, rags.

I didn’t care. I didn’t need a wardrobe full of dresses only worn once.

But I cared that the lords of other territories laughed at my parents and I cared that Ernest had the makings of a swordmaster but was hampered by a stupid reason like not being able to buy a proper sword that could withstand mana injection.

And I cared that Hale had to start some shady business behind our backs when he could have done it above board if we were more powerful.

ↂ

Hale was an idiot. He thought William Thanatos proposed to me because he wanted something from us. Well, Hale wasn’t entirely wrong.

The liches came to power during the early days of the Cataclysm because they were a great war asset. They could turn the enemies’ dead brothers and sisters in arms against them and the battlefield always had fresh supplies of corpses. But after the Pact, they became some of the most useless undead. Maybe because they played too great a role in the war, the Pact restricted them from bringing corpses under their control, unless their owners agreed to the contract before they died. But even if they managed to get such consent, where would they use these reanimated corpses nowadays?

So I believed that whatever Will wanted from us would surely help the liches and this crumbling monarchy recover. I still hadn’t figured out what it was but did that matter? I didn’t think we had something that great anyway, and even if we had, by the time Will wanted to reap the rewards, I’d have made us strong enough to resist. With the very money he provided.

Because Hale was an idiot. He thought Will proposed to me and I accepted it because I liked him, that I fell for him when we met at the Homecoming Festival, or because he saved me during my Initiation.

But it was I who proposed to Will.

And what I liked and fell for was, his.

Money.

It all, bore down to.

Money.