Chapter 186

I woke up the next morning before everyone else. At some point while I was asleep Morrigan had joined us in our, much too small, bed. Bella had rolled over and was hugging her while Mimi was still curled up in my arms. She noticed me stir and slid off the bed to help me escape without waking the others. Unlike everyone else, she never actually slept and just enjoyed spending the peaceful time passively recharging her mana.

"Good morning, Lilith," Mimi whispered.

"Morning, Mimi." I pulled her in a quick hug and kissed her on the cheek. "How are you doing?"

She smiled. "I'm doing good. Excited about seeing the new city."

I frowned for a moment as the sight of the bazaar briefly passed through my thoughts. "Mmm, hopefully other parts of the city will be a bit nicer to look at. I'm going to see if breakfast has been made yet before everyone else wakes up. Are you gonna stay here?"

Mimi nodded. "Yeah, I wanna wait for the others to get up."

"Alright, see you in a little bit then." I patted Mimi on the shoulder and got dressed in my casual clothes. I'd probably want to dress in my armor once we started walking through the city but this is fine for breakfast.

I heard Silva talking to someone while I was walking down the stairs... Her tone was hushed and quiet so I stopped to listen in before they noticed me. "—the genuine article, I'm sure of it."

"You can't be serious..." The other person Silva was talking to was Lorriene, the twins' aunt. She let out an exasperated sigh. "And what's this about you courting my niece? This isn't some ploy to get back at me is it?"

"I didn't know you were related when we met. ...It's purely a coincidence," Silva replied defensively.

"Coincidence, right. You expect me to believe that?"

"Look, I admit that she reminded me of you when we met, but I just thought you just looked similar, I swear. I wouldn't sleep with someone just to piss you off, that'd be weird. Besides, I didn't even know you were going to be here, Lorriene"

There was a long pause. "I didn't either. Sophin brought me here last minute, I've only been in the capital for less than a month. I'd be surprised if this place doesn't go down in flames within the week the way things are accelerating though. How did you link up with Lilith anyway, what brought your new mistress here?"

Silva chuckled. "I'd say she's my 'mistress' in name alone, much like Sophin. I met her by complete chance. I was escaping Goldenhearth with the Baron's daughter when we ran into her at one of the forts on the way to Traehall. It was good timing too, the girl almost bled to death. I barely got her out at all. When I met Lilith my curiosity got the better of me so I handed her off to an elf of Silvergrove named Tarklin and manipulated the situation to travel with Lilith instead. She's a titled [Dungeon Destroyer] so she's doing something here for the adventurer's guild."

"Tarklin Silvergrove? I've heard of him actually. That's good, the elves will keep her safe. I've heard Tarklin can be ruthless when he wants to be, things are likely to turn bloody. That almost guarantees they'll enter the conflict soon though," Lorriene replied.

"It'll be fine. Things will heat up soon one way or another. How do the Tamin church's movements look?" Silva asked.

"They're distracted by the demon cult that killed Morrister. It seems this same group was the one that killed Count Korland and his wife recently too. The Tamin bigots have made it hard to move through the city but they are too focused on shaking the tree for demons than any of the other bullshit that they usually cause problems over." Lorriene seemed to be a lot more frank than she had been when talking to me.

"Good," Silva replied. "They should leave us mostly alone since Lilith is a demon hunter. We fought directly with the Cult of Amphores in Goldenheart, that'll give her plenty of cover from them."

Lorriene huffed. "That's so weird... So, should I be worried about the niece that she's dating, or just the one you're dating?"

"You don't need to worry about either," Silva grumbled back. "Lilith seems like a good person, probably too much for her own good. Lilith doing something to hurt them should be the least of your worries, I think the bigger risk is that Lilith's bleeding heart will put all of them into a dangerous position."

"Do you think they love each other?" she asked.

"Seems like it to me, they spend a lot of time together. Lilith is really interested in magic and Morrigan's obsessed with it. We had a Sorsette librarian teaching them on the way here so they've been talking incessantly about it for the last week."

Lorriene sighed. "What about the pecking order? Is she near the top of Lilith's women at least?"

Silva snorted. "Actually, they all share. Morrigan, Bella, and Mimi are considered on equal footing with her, in theory anyway. Morrigan and Bella are a bit submissive to Lilith in general and Mimi is too naïve to worry about all that. Lilith is the defacto leader of the group so they often just go along with whatever she says most of the time. I think everyone prefers things this way though, they act more like advisors to her than anything else."

"What about orders?"

"If she's ever given them an order using the collars I've never seen it. She's earned their loyalty the old-fashioned way. I'm sure she's as disgusted by the collars as we are, maybe more. Bella apparently was a slave too at one point and Lilith freed her the day they met. I've also heard she was irate when she found out she couldn't free the twins, Torien told me that was the time she had looked the angriest to her. She did buy them properly through the slave's guild though so there shouldn't be any problems with them at least. Torien told me all about the night it happened," Silva replied.

"So what about you, Silva?" Lorriene asked. "Do I need to be worried about how you'll treat Torien?"

I heard Silva shuffle around for a moment before answering. "I really do like her Lori. I swear none of that is about you. I approached her because I found her attractive and I like her personality, not because she looks like you."

"I wonder what she would say if I told her that we had coupled before."

"Gods, please no. Do not tell her that I've slept with you. I'm not sure how she would react but I can't imagine she'd be happy about it. In fact, I would prefer if none of them knew that we know each other. Too many questions I don't want to answer yet."

I frowned, not really sure what to make of this whole conversation. Silva was hiding things from me and it seems like she's known the twins' aunt for a long time. Lorriene also seems well-connected here and much tougher than she let on. The woman doesn't seem like a simple innkeeper but it also doesn't seem like she would be at odds with me based on the things they were talking about. Should I confront Silva about this? Why would knowing Lorriene lead to questions she doesn't want to answer?

Either way, I think it would be better for me to slip away from this conversation without drawing attention to myself. They've moved onto more mundane topics now anyway. I'm not sure if I can trust Silva anymore and I'd rather the two of them not know that I overheard this conversation. I wasn't that stealthy a person but 70 Finesse is nothing to sneeze at, I could perfectly control my movements to quietly walk back up the stairs without making any noise. Looks like I'm going to skip breakfast after all.

I quietly let myself back into the room. Morrigan and Bella were still sleeping but Mimi sat up when I returned. "What's wrong? No breakfast?"

"Ah, no. I just changed my mind. I think I'll wait for the others to get up before worrying about that." I sat on the bed next to her.

"Wanna keep cuddling then?"

I laughed. "Sure, Mimi."

I spent the next bell relaxing and waiting in bed with Mimi before I started to get the itch to get up and get moving. I wanted to take care of Meena's delivery before meeting with the head of the guard to get it out of the way. I needed to get it off my plate as soon as possible, I already have too many other things to worry about.

The other two girls weren't hard to wake up but Bella took a while as usual. I wouldn't say she's being lazy, just that she actually had a hard time waking up for some reason. Come to think of it, I'm not sure we've ever had the chance to sleep in for a long time. I wonder how long she would keep sleeping if no one woke her up. It was a funny thought. Despite being the most difficult to wake she was also the first one to leave the room to see how the others were doing.

While I was finally changing into my armor I couldn't help but drift back to that conversation I overheard. I felt conflicted about it. Silva is hiding stuff from me but... how much should I really pry? It didn't sound like she was planning on hurting us or trying to get something out of us... she just didn't want to tell me everything.

I grimaced. I could force her to tell me what she was hiding with the collar but that felt wrong. It would be different if she had malicious intent but I didn't get the sense that was what it was about. I also didn't think she was only hiding things because she didn't want to have an embarrassing question about dating Morrigan's aunt though. How old was Silva anyway? I had assumed she was early to mid-twenties but if she dated Morrigan's aunt maybe she's actually older than she looks.

I'll just have to keep an eye on her. She's saved my life before and she hasn't really given me a reason to distrust her so I don't think she's trying to hurt me or our group. But it did sound like she had some ulterior motives for becoming my slave. Did she freak out Fae just to push me to buy her? Had she suspected I wasn't actually a beastkin from the beginning and that was why she was interested? There's just too many questions...

"Are you alright?" Morrigan asked. "You seem really lost in thought... more than usual."

I smiled and pulled her into a quick hug. "I'm fine. I just have a lot on my mind. How about you? It was a big surprise running into your aunt here I bet. Did you enjoy talking to her last night?"

"I did!" I let go of her and she sat next to me on the bed. "She's apparently found a kind master who gives her a lot of freedom too. They uh, don't have a relationship like us but she said she was good friends with him. A human man named Sophin. I told her about you a little but I don't think she trusts you yet. I tried to tell her I was happy and that you were good to both me and my sister but she seemed really concerned for us for some reason... a lot more than I expected based on the servant's uniforms you've given us honestly," Morrigan finished with a sigh.

"Are you close to your aunt?" I asked.

Morrigan looked down sadly. "Yeah, Mother died when Torien and I were pretty young from an illness. My aunt is younger than she was but she immediately volunteered to take care of us afterward. Aunt Lori wasn't interested in becoming an adventurer like we were so she was being trained to become a personal assistant and maid, our trainers thought it would be good experience for her to take care of us, so they let us stay together for a long time. About four years before Torien and I finished our training, Aunt Lori was sold off to a noble somewhere. It was hard having her taken away but it was around then that our adventurer training really started getting difficult. ...They thought it would be better for us if she wasn't coddling us anymore and they wanted to sell her while she still looked pretty."

I pulled Morrigan into a hug which left her a bit flustered but she didn't resist me. I got the impression that I was more sad for her than she was. She acted like it was... normal for her to be separated from family like that. She seemed to barely react to it at all...

Morrigan gave me another squeeze before pulling away and continuing, "So yeah, Aunt Lori basically raised us for as long as I remember. I really missed her so it was nice to stay up late and talk with her. I asked if she would get in trouble for spending so much time with us but it turns out that she's basically in charge here when her master isn't around. Torien was happier than I had seen her in a long time too. She doesn't like to show it but she really loves Lorriene a lot." She laughed. "I was hanging all over Aunt Lori but I think Torien actually missed her more. I had to basically drag her away last night or else we wouldn't have gotten any sleep."

I patted her leg. "Well don't worry, I'll make sure you have plenty of time to spend with her. I'm sure we'll be here for a while."

Morrigan leaned over and kissed my cheek. "Thanks, Lilith."