Chapter 48

My back ached as I continued scrubbing one of the many bedsheets of the manor. The sun blazed down at me, sweat building under my neck as I heaved a long sigh and continued scrubbing away.

I knew why I sat here, and I only had myself to blame.

I had been relieved of laundry duties since the duke's death—one of the many changes Cain had made since he became the duke.

But this morning, as I walked, the few maids who threw me looks of annoyance and disgust because someone of such low status was somehow above the jobs maid for those of such class.

So I had lifted that basket right out of their arms and declared that I would do them.

Naomi didn't stop me. Nobody stopped me.

But in the forest. By this familiar lake. I wish they had.

It must've taken me hours when I had finally finished the mountain of clothes.

"Now I just have to take them back", I heaved, standing up with much difficulty. Butterflies blinded me for a moment, and I faltered back, eyes seeing the dimming blue sky before I realised I was falling back.

I felt a strong hand pushing my back, holding me back into place. My back was not meeting the ground, and instead, my brown eyes met a curious pair of... Purple eyes.

I had cringed at the sight of it. Straightening up as I looked at the tall man behind me.

He was large, not fat, but pure muscle. He towered over me, long hair lowering above his shoulders, but what had me stunned wasn't any of that. Not the cape. Not the strange tattoos were covering him. But the glowing purple eyes.

The eyes of a sorcerer.

I hadn't known much of magic. It had no significance in my life at the manor. I doubted I'd have to deal with it, or my family would or anyone I met would.

Yet here I was.

"I didn't mean to frighten you. I just saw that you were stumbling and helped" his voice was not that one of a young man's like his appearance presented. But if rumours were anything to go by, sorcerers never showed their actual bodies.

"T-Thank you. I'm sorry I took your time up at my incompetency" I wasn't at all sure what to do. Part of me screamed to run—another accepted inevitable death.

"Don't be. This place is such a bore that I was hoping to run into some entertainment" he gave me a tight-lipped smile.

"I'm afraid I won't be very helpful. I'm just a slave, sir" I could feel my legs threaten to give out. My breath became shallower with each second.

At my words, his face darkened.

I'm going to die- I'm going to die!

"You probably do not know this. But this dukedom is the only one that has yet to abolish the slavery system. Of course, it denies those of common blood enslaved people, but the greed of the nobility is too much to do the same for themselves".

I hadn't known that.

"It- It is?" I blinked.

He gave a sympathetic look.

"Have you ever... Left this place?" he hadn't looked at me as he asked, but instead, he stared at the trees as if he saw something beyond it.

"I can't".

"I see".

He looked towards the heap of wet laundry, looking from me to the pile and then revealed a completed normal hand from his long sleeves and held it out to the rise of laundry. It was then that I felt it.

Static.

The hair on my neck rose. But my body was still. Unmoving. Petrified.

And then the clothes moved. As if worn by people and hung themselves on a string that appeared magically hung through the air itself. Just like that, like a dream and in less time than I could ever dream, the wet clothes were hung up.

I turned to the strange man who gave me a smile with a wink while I still couldn't process anything.

"Your welcome", was all he said while looking from him to the clothes multiple times.

"How?" I croaked.

He shrugged.

"Who knows" he sat on a chair that appeared beneath him. And then another right next to him. He gestured to it, "you don't need to get anywhere now, do you?"

I didn't. Everyone knew the laundry took a day to do. Hanging it alone took a few hours. But even if I did, I knew I didn't have the guts to say no to a sorcerer.

I shook my head and sat down. Hesitantly turning to the scenery of the lake and almost gasping. The lake was sparkling. The familiar static dancing on my skin. Magic.

"It's different when you admire it, right?"

When did I ever look at this place properly?

I couldn't recall a moment where I did. Or rather... I had a chance to.

"It is beautiful. I've lived here my whole life, but I've never seen it".

"You haven't lived. You've worked", he clicked his tongue, a dormant bitterness awakening in his voice, "I knew a woman like you once. Beautiful and full of so much potential and all of it was wasted in a place like this".

It seemed like the woman was someone special to him. Perhaps a lover.

"It isn't as bad as it seems", I replied.

"You don't know any better", he shot back.

"I wouldn't know about that but, I've been treated well by many people. Not that I haven't been treated horrible, but... Who hasn't" I muttered, the image of my mother flashing in my mind.

He was silent after that.

"You haven't asked about me at all", he suddenly bought up.

I looked at him, surprised.

"Is that okay?" I asked, leaning forward.

He laughed at my words.

"Of course".

"Why are you here?" it was the most prodding question I have.

Here was a sorcerer in a place where magic might as well not exist.

"I was close with the duke many years ago, but due to the nature of my work, we became... distant" he scratched the back of his hair and then, as if he had just realised his hood wasn't on his head, he pulled it over. He was covering his eyes.

"What is the nature of your job?" I asked.

"Have you heard of adventurers?" he spoke the word slowly as if he wasn't sure I was familiar with the term.

I had heard it in stories. Or in just the many words of gossip that the maids hushed among themselves.

"I know of it. I don't know what that means?" I could feel my cheek flush. I rarely admitted to not knowing things because, in truth, I knew nearly nothing about the world beyond the walls of the manor.

The duchess told me tales of her homeland at times, but looking back, they must have just been stories to entertain young children.

"Adventurers are people that travel the world and seek out treasures. Sometimes apart of a guild, sometimes not. And sometimes for a price, but not all do it for a price" the way he spoke was simply informative. There was no jilt of condescension, those of which I suffered considerably growing up. But he didn't care for it.

"So you must have seen a lot of beautiful things" I looked again to the view of the lake. One had always been there, but I had never noticed it until now.

He didn't reply for a long while. Eyes conveying an emotion that was undeniably raw yet still so cold. As if year's of pain fostered but never healed.

"Yes. Many beautiful things, but that's enough about me. How did you come to be enslaved here?" he waved a hand around, the look in his eyes gone and replaced by a facade—a compelling one.

I had opened my mouth to answer. I was very willing to share my past that I duly forgot about on purpose. As if I were giving up some coin for a commodity.

But I said nothing. Because terror suddenly drowned out my mind as my eyes caught sight of a figure, barely a smudge, perched on a tree. But what had me feeling the stillness of prey near a predator wasn't the strangeness of that. It was the gleam of the arrow pulled along a bowstring. It was aimed straight at the man beside me.

And the person who drew it. With their undeniably dark hair. Those gleaming green eyes I recognised from any distance.

I must've been dreaming.

Because in that tree.

Stood Justin.