It was times like this, when she made thoughtless assumptions as though she were still in the warm region, that she realized she still wasn’t – and perhaps never would be – a winter region person.
“I will be fine without the sand,” she said to Etra, “I’ll go out.”
“Ma’am,” Etra replied, stepping in front of Ilyin, “the weather is especially cold today.”
Even with Aden’s divine power, the days were not always the same. Some were colder than others.
“I’ll be fine,” she told Etra, “I’ll only be a moment.”
Though if it were a colder day, that made her blunder worse. Ilyin didn’t want to trouble the Delrose people in such weather.
“Then I will go tell them to stop,” Etra said. Ilyin glared at her, but she knew to expect no less from her.
“You’re going to pretend that you already brought me sand, correct?”
She knew that servants had no choice if someone of her rank made a request. She understood the ecology of the system, and what lies Etra would need to stop them.
“I can tell them to come inside myself,” she said with a smile. “There’s something else I want to try.”
She went out with quick strides. She disliked taking Etra out into this cold, as much as she disliked having sent the maids out. But as the Mistress of Delrose – no, more than that, as the owner of the divine object, there was something she had to try.
‘It’s not hard to use the divine object,” Rippo had said. “So long as the person trying to use it has divine power.’
“Isn’t it only the Duke who holds the divine power?” she had asked.
“Those from the direct line probably have it,” Rippo replied as she handed Ilyin the Mille’s divine object, Setoze. “Being able to activate it is the question.”
Otherwise, how could only the direct line use the divine object, if it didn’t travel though the family? Rippo seemed a shy, meek girl, but however small her voice, she never held back her words.
Rippo’s response made sense, but it raised another problem.
“Well, that wouldn’t include me,” she had said. “I’m from the warm region.”
Rippo had given her a strange, almost admiring look that embedded itself in Ilyin’s mind.
“That should be fine,” she said, ‘Since you were part of the succession with His Majesty…. you should have enough divine power of your own to use it.”
Though that wasn’t always the case, she had cautioned. Then she told her how to use Setoze.
“Fine, thank you,” Ilyin had said, unable to hide her curiosity. “But… Why are you being so helpful? So nice?”
While Ilyin had noticed that Red Delrose and Blue Nos were the most adversarial, that didn’t Green Mille and Delrose were allies. If anything, Blue Nos and Green Mille were closer, and Red Delrose set as a check on the other three families.
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Then why was Rippo, Mille’s direct child, helping her?
“Well,” the girl had said, “it’s because…”
Ilyin could scarcely believe what Rippo had said next.
“Oh my god, ma’am!”
Ilyin was pulled from her thoughts the moment she stepped out the door. The cold wind of April at Biflten felt enough to freeze her head. And the maids, as soon as they saw her, exclaimed as one.
They looked flustered, as though afraid to go near her lest they spread the cold they were suffering. But she grabbed each maid’s hands, in turn.
Even with gloves, their hands were like ice.
“From now on, don’t….”
As the people of Delrose couldn’t refuse her requests, she caught herself before saying “don’t listen”.
“If I set you a task that is too difficult, let me know.”
Don’t just listen and obey, she thought. She clasped a maid’s frozen hands, and her warmth spread through them.
Ilyin felt the cold rush into her own hands. The maid looked as though she didn’t know how to react to it.
“If it’s an absurd order, tell me it’s absurd.”
She grabbed another maid’s hands. Hers were also frozen.
The maids and knights in Viscount Arlen’s mansion all tried their best to follow orders, but not blindly. They would push back as best they could against an awful job, or an absurd command.
Everyone had found her annoying, so they hadn’t tried to do even normal daily responsibilities for her. But as always, it was very different with Delrose.
“I don’t want my people to get sick or hurt for some petty errand.”
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My people. The words spread a special warmth among the maids shivering in the cold. The bond between the attendees and master was especially close in Delrose, one seldom felt in the suppressed atmosphere of the other families.
“We’ll keep that in mind, ma’am,” Etra said on their behalf, drawing a laugh from Ilyin.
“Then those who are cold go inside,” Ilyin said. “The rest of you come with me, as warmly dressed as you can. I’ll show you something amazing.”
Will they really think so, Ilyin thought, or is it only I?
The maids looked at each other. Not one thought to let their lady go alone. All stayed with her as she headed for the Delrose knights’ ground.