"May I ask a question?"
It was the day that Cedric finally wanted to have that one question answered. He stood in front of her, watching her tie a bandage onto her forearm after having been bullied brutally just recently. He was always up around this time, but it was odd that it took her earlier today.
"Go ahead." Aefia answered while gritting the bandage with her teeth.
"How do you live acting like you have the most luxurious life in the entire planet? But in reality, you have to be resilient enough to not cry after being physically wounded... Just because you think it is pointless."
Her gaze lifted towards his face in a suspicious tone, with a hint of confusion. "It is pointless. What good does crying do to solve a problem?" She tied a small knot on the bandage with her fingers first, and spoke again.
"I don't quite understand what you mean by that, truely. However, from what I can make out from that question... I will answer it regardless." She let out a sigh as she shut the kit in front of her. "Because people tend to have a mind that always looks for their enemies weaknesses, I am speaking of what I have grown up seeing. I am currently in a state where if anyone knows what I am going through, they will use it against me. So I need to keep my guard up all the time, and that high alert environment I force myself into, acts as a wall that separates me from the rest of the world. I call that wall, a luxurious life.
"For me, my wall is made of bricks and cement, where my bricks are my main barrier and my cement is my concealer. If there is even a simple flaw in the cement, the entire wall would crumble and if I were a prey, my predator would immediately gnaw me down. That is when I know I have been defeated.
"In the wall though, the bricks are the few things about my life that I and the other people know. Like how I belong to the Imperial family now and so on. My enemies can't destroy my entire barrier by removing one brick at a time if I keep stacking it, right? But what if the part that people pay the least attention—which is also something that keeps your entire wall up—what do you think will happen if the enemy comes to realize of the small mistake that I had left behind?"
Cedric took a moment to truly understand what she had just explained. And it took him another moment before he answered too.
"The entire wall collapses?"
"Exactly. Do you see the reason why I try to be flawless with everything? That is the answer you wanted, didn't you? I wanted to keep myself sheltered from my enemies as much as I can. So I keep myself locked up behind a barrier which needs to be precise to the tiniest millimeter to ensure my own safety."
That was enough to make him understand it finally. However, people have different personalities, and so did he.
"But what even is the cement supposed to represent?"
"My own life that I am trying to hide from the others. My plans, my mental illnesses, my personal problems—all that. Anything which has a permanent miniature flaw, and is the base that can't be destroyed."
"But if the enemy is smart enough to trace out your weaknesses, what about then?"
Aefia was silent. She looked down at her own hands, ones she used to kill people back then, and the same hands she wanted to get revenge for Ms. Avry.
"I guess then... I would have to become the predator and use my prey to conceal my own structural flaws."
"But you can't use the human body to make cement."
"You can't—but metamorphically—their ashes do yield calcium phosphate, sodium, and potassium. Which are good minerals for a structure you want to shape. I would have to go through a lot of extraction, but that is a good thing. Since it would cause me to dig deep and find what my cement was lacking and what my true weakness was to properly conceal it. Just enough to know that it won't break again the next time. Over the time, it would eventually become stronger than most walls. Since damages make the wall stronger."
"..."
Aefia let out a deep breathe while standing up, walking over to hide the medical kit under her bed. "I know it is a bit too much to take in right now. But soon enough, you will come to realize it truly has a deep meaning. Maybe it seems like all that explanation puts you to no points, but in truth, you will come to realize you need that advice more often in your upcoming hardships."
It was as if she had read his entire past, present and future for him. And was trying to give hints of what was going to happen next and what he needed to prepare for. Regardless, he didn't ask anymore questions. He knew she must have meant it, since she had struggled quite a lot, and always ended with positive results. So he decided to use her advice, and start building his own wall.
But just as he was about to walk out...
"Do you—for short—know that sometimes people can trick with their weaknesses."
It was odd coming from her so suddenly, so he looked back in question.
"It is because, if you make a strong point as the weak, you are creating an illusion for a trap." She explained, seeing his questioned look. "I have used it personally, and am continuously using it to fool the people around me. So I would want you to be careful about it too. You don't want to step up a boundary one day, do you?"
He didn't know what she had meant that day—with a smile that said she knew everything—but she also didn't reveal what she knew. So he just nodded and left the room. It didn't mean anything to him currently. But he was sure she meant something directly pointing a finger at one of his future actions.
It was during that time too, that he got into rethinking about his revenge on his siblings. He had gathered multiple evidences and news, that his family was currently fighting the Empire to take its throne. And it could be told that he was expecting it to be his brother. However, it was his father's actions. Then again, his brother could have asked his father to do it, since by looks and rules, his brother would claim the throne next. He felt a bit guilty that his family was going to this extend, but his need for revenge overshadowed every other thought.
He was desperate to get pay back for the hardship he was forced to face, and the betrayal he had seen through his younger ages.
From this, it could be said that negative emotions were a heavy impact to someone's mentality and sanity. To get revenge on particular, someone would go to the darkest route. For anger, one burn an entire house down. For resentment, one could kill someone. All to achieve a pointless goal which meant sacrificing everything they had, and after they get what they wanted, they would end up cursing themselves for giving up their entire point of life for such small amount of pleasure.
In the midst, Aefia's word of advice took a different turn inside his mind. One day, he sat by himself and decided to think of it a little differently.
'If I will have to become the predator from a prey to get my revenge... Doesn't that mean I can turn any of my predators to my prey?'
'An enemy is a predator in terms of Aefia's words. An enemy on my terms, is anyone I can use to my own benefits. A master is a predator. Aefia is my master. So what if... I used Aefia to get my revenge?'
She has a very powerful political position. As the Imperial Crown princess who would next become an empress. Right now, I am just a butler and she is still young. Maybe she is busy right now, but maybe she will become much more free in the future.
She may not be into such things right now, but in two or three years, if I can change her to my liking and get her to—maybe I can somehow secure a proper political position for myself.
Somehow, if I got her to marry me, I would become the crown prince and in the future, the emperor. What is a better revenge then that?
So he tried to get to her good side, trying to scout her using small, non-sensical handwritings or just anyway he could find. It was a mind-eating thing that he would go to such extends to get his revenge. Even if it were his role model and who he looked up to. In the midst of all that, he was also aware that if Aefia ever found out, she wouldn't spare him.
To betray her, was going to cost him his life. And so, he needed to make it seem as original as he could. But the simple things that made him recoil from his plan, was that she was a traumatized human herself. What was the point in trying to coax her into a toy he could use where she was already a toy the empress was using.
A toy who was broken just like he was, and then left to just magically self-heal by day, then broken again. To think, one day, he would have to use his role model and then dispose of her just like how the empress was. Then he wasn't any different from her enemy.
This too, made him realize the thing she had told him. That sometimes you can create an illusion for the enemy, to lure them into a trap they can't escape. Knowing how she worked, he knew the trap set up for him wasn't going to be an easy thing. But then also, she was a psychological manipulator who was born in human shape.
What if, she told him about the wall theory knowing full well that he was going to think such a ridiculous thing. Because she knew he would end up thinking to himself like this just when he was going to use her. This made him realize about her other potentials too, manipulating at a distance without anyone ever realizing. And maybe that thing about an illusion on the wall which is actually the strongest point.
So he stopped his proceeding. Sooner or later, she would end up asking him about his origins too, since there was no saying what else she knew about his mind.
But also, just maybe, she would help him get his revenge just like how she helped him with the banshees.
During that time that he was sent away to stay at Elanor's place, he used to sit down by himself and think about what he had done in life so far. A decade was long enough to have done many things to make his life better—and yet, he chose this path to start off with the beginning stage of learning about reality.
Being blind in revenge, leading to so many people's lives taken. Then heading over to us his own role model and almost losing his head. He was truly ashamed of himself for his gruesome truth.
How was he going to answer... When she asked him that she had trusted him to not use her?
Was he going to be speechless like always, or explain that it was only a momentary thing. But also, he should still be ashamed that someone he looked up to almost lost the meaning of life due to him.
Obviously because he knew already that she didn't want to proceed the throne. That she didn't want to be pulled into any more trouble while she was trying to cope up with the ones she was currently handling.
And to top it off, he was going to use her to his own advantage then discard her like a tool with no use. Then make her question, what was truely the meaning behind the name Aefia and the reason of this person's life.
Because back then, he could already tell how low she was at to have chosen by herself to go to an asylum. He saw how she struggled in the middle of the night.
If he was able to, he wanted to kill himself for the amount of shame he carried.
However, looking back at Aefia—he thought that he was going to apologize to her first. Then lay his situation transparent and ask for a second advice.
Of course she was younger than him, but it wasn't wrong to ask for help from someone who is still struggling more than him and walked down the same path as him.
And besides, he wanted to get to know more about Aefia as a person. How her childhood was, what made her do such things... And how her lifely truly felt right after she realized about her actions back then.
Even when looking at her now, he knew Aefia was rather a very secretive person.
She only told him about her recent past life. All that he knew about. He wanted to know how she was orphaned and how she was taken in by the Imperial family.
How she was so calm yet dangerous. And whether she ever wanted to get out of that life.
Maybe he knew the answer, but maybe he didn't.
But curiousity was more dangerous. Because knowing the reason is sometimes harder than questioning about it.
He knew though... That Aefia was not from here. But he didn't know where exactly. He didn't want to ask either. In fear that whatever closeness they had, it would be disrupted.
Of course he was going to ask her to help him get back to his family. But it seemed like she had already planned on helping him doing so.
That was a relief for him.
For once, he had a friend who knew how to help him and who shared almost the same trauma as him. He was happy, that Aefia was a person who existed.
His life happened to have been getting better, right after he met Aefia.
End of Volume 2.