The suffocating tension on the altan peaked, pressing down on Emerald's chest like lead, before Greta broke the silence with a soft, dismissive sigh.
"Don't give me that look, little one. It's a mind thing, it just happens," she said, her voice dropping its sharp edge.
Emerald forced his posture back against the cushions of the couch, systematically calming his racing thoughts. He looked out toward the open air and let out a long, slow breath to ground himself.
Greta watched him, a sudden, hollow amusement flickering across her features. "I'm a wanted man, Emerald. I don't know what I'm needed to be done for everyone to please them." She let out a sudden, melodic laugh that didn't match the gravity of her words. "I'm not gonna kill you. If that were to even happen... who could even kill you?"
Emerald kept his eyes locked on her, his surprise bleeding through his usual mask of indifference. "What kind of wanted?" he asked, realizing the sheer depth of intelligence hidden within this isolated house.
"Wanted means wanted," Greta replied simply. Behind her, the cool air glazed the dark forest, where the thick, ancient shrubs seemed to grow for the sole purpose of keeping secrets hidden from the rest of the world.
"I can read minds, kid. That's my purpose, and it is a need for me to serve the king, you see," Greta revealed, her eyes reflecting the dying embers of the fire pit. "It's not easy for normal folks like me to get a gate of heaven. Being powerful has its flaws, too. Just because you can hammer a million, it doesn't ensure you can save one."
Emerald absorbed her words, processing the logic. "But the kingdom doesn't do any evil like us humans. So why fear?"
"What was the purpose of your anger a little while ago?" Greta countered politely.
Knowing the intense perseverance required in this situation, Emerald kept his mouth shut, refusing to give away any more of himself.
"People have things they want to protect," Greta continued, looking out into the dark trees. "If it can be torn down by my mere subconscious, what is the purpose of a term called privacy? But you seem to underestimate the kingdom. Do you know anything of the Elite Guards of the kingdom?"
"What's so staggering about them?"
"They're mercenaries who work for the human governments," Greta stated bluntly. "Do you really think the governments you trust are telling the truth?"
"Nah," Emerald admitted, his mind pivoting. "But what do you mean by mercenary?"
"To keep the existence of our kind in check, we struck a deal with some particular people a long way back. We help them with some of their needs, and in return, we get to live without our information and existence being leaked. The Elite Guards are for helping them. See, Emerald... the king has blood on his hands, and he desires to continue doing so, knowing very well he needs to stop."
Emerald sat frozen on the couch. A profound, heavy sense of trauma settled over him from the sheer volume of secrecy being unraveled in a single evening. The reality of the world he was entering was far more fractured than he had ever imagined.
"So all this... is it the king's doing, Mrs. Larsson?"
Greta paused, her eyes darting around the dark perimeter of the altan, ensuring the shadows weren't listening. "I'm entrusted by a force I cannot even fathom to fight back."
"What's my part?" Emerald asked, his voice steady despite the chaos in his chest.
"You're the seventh vessel I have witnessed so far. That's your part."
Emerald's eyes widened. A flood of questions rushed to his tongue—truths he wanted to demand, answers he desperately needed for his own salvation—but he chose to remain quiet. He would not pain another soul just to ease his own burden.
"Vessel..." Emerald pondered the word silently.
Margareta didn't offer an explanation. She only returned a warm smile paired with an astonishingly pitiful look, keeping her lips sealed.
Realizing that staying any longer would only complicate things for them both, Emerald stood up to leave. But before he crossed the threshold into the house, he paused and looked back at her. "This force you say... is he a good guy?"
Greta locked her eyes with his. The answer lingered on her tongue for a few moments, heavy with hesitation, before she finally spoke. "For me, Emerald... he is a kind soul."
Emerald turned and walked inside toward his bedroom. Passing through the hallway, he saw Maria sitting with Eva, flipping through a stack of old books. As he passed, they exchanged a warm, unprompted smile, choosing not to disrupt the quiet night with unnecessary conversation.
The hours blurred into the late watch of the night.
Inside, Greta sat at the wooden table, a thick book propped open before her. The reading glasses perched on her nose gave her an intense, textbook bookworm energy.
Maria walked up slowly, her footsteps deliberate so as not to startle her. Pulling out a heavy wooden chair, she took a seat directly across from Greta. For a long time, neither woman spoke. Maria simply stared, her gaze drilling deep into Margareta's profile.
Feeling the insufferable weight of the silence, Greta closed her eyes and asked, "What is it, sister?"
Maria didn't answer with words; she merely shifted her gaze toward the empty seats out on the altan.
"We didn't discuss much," Greta said, answering the unspoken accusation. "Where's Eva?"
"Sleeping, Greta," Maria replied, her eyes still narrowed with deep suspicion.
"Ok, well... I did tell him about my husband."
"Why, Greta?" Maria's voice sharped. "You're not supposed to do things like that. I guess you went on a rant about how corrupt the king is."
Greta immediately put on an innocent face, letting the silence serve as her confession.
"Oh, my God," Maria groaned, rubbing her temples. "What else have you said to him?"
"I told him he's the seventh vessel."
"Why?"
"Because he is not a 'he.' It's 'them.'"
Maria frowned. "What do you mean by that?"
"Nothing. He just has different faces, I think," Greta said, casually waving her hand to shove the doubt away.
"You think he's got a mental disorder, Greta?"
"It's not a mental disorder, sister. More like he knows exactly what he's doing. It's acting. He knows the way of an adult life. He talks like an adult and acts like a kid. A mystery boy."
"And why do you think he is doing this acting?"
Greta closed her book with a soft thud, a rare, unshed tear glistening in her eyes as she looked at Maria. "He has seen too much for a boy."
"Fear of losing," Maria muttered, her voice stuttering slightly as she looked away. "You get too attached to the young ones, Greta. You've got to do more than this."
"It's not fear, Maria. It's the pain of not being understood," Greta said softly. "The subtle mind of a young child is being torn apart by a centuries-old woman. What kind of nerdy little worries would you be expecting from him?"
Maria remained entirely silent.
"You don't seem to care about the consequences your actions bring forth to you," Greta continued, her voice gaining a sharp, diagnostic edge. "Well, I do, sister. Always have been. Understanding a living soul takes too much of a stake. You taught me that, yet you decay from yourself. Why?"
Maria stood up abruptly from her seat, carefully avoiding Greta's piercing gaze. She turned and began walking out toward the front yard, the screen door clicking shut behind her. Greta followed her out into the cool night air.
"Stop, Greta. Just quit," Maria snapped, keeping her back turned.
"Huh. Going to his majesty?" Greta asked, her voice tracing her down the path.
"Have any words to pay?"
"Nothing more than what they already know," Greta said smoothly. "Solid family, cut off connections with every single friend he knew, a clean slate. All by himself."
Maria stopped, her shoulders tensing. She couldn't hide the realization that Greta was reading her thoughts, picking up on the hidden anxieties she was trying to mask.
"The king will be pleased with this answer," Greta noted. "Need not worry, I am not hiding anything."
"You are, Greta," Maria said, finally turning around. "But I'm not gonna persuade you for your answer. All I got is a why."
Greta stood firm on the grass, forcing her chaotic mind to calm, letting the turbulent memories settle into a smooth flow. "When I hung myself, I knew everything was gonna end. But I am here now. You knew, Maria... you knew that I was taking my leave from the world. You knew I was going to be entirely alone without Larsson. Still, you did that."
"It was the least I could do," Maria whispered defensively. "And you're getting at it now, after all these centuries? You've just gone insane."
"The least, huh?" Greta's voice cracked with centuries of suppressed resentment. "You could have comforted me, but you didn't. You chose to mix your blood into my drink, hoping I would share an eternity with you because you were suffering from loneliness. You can't lie to me, Maria. I saw your face widening with relief when you saw me gasp for that first, horrible gust of immortality. All these years I didn't ask you this, solely for the respect I had for your kindness... but now I want to know. Why me? I want to know why."
The defenses vanished from Maria's face. She stopped calculating, stopped hiding behind her duties to the crown, and let her heart speak the raw truth. "You were suffering. You were in pain... and you reminded me that we are exactly the same."
The silence returned to the front yard, absolute and heavy.
Greta nodded slowly. "You have your answer for the boy, sister. And tell the king... I'm teaching him the way of the Final Sword."
Maria gasped, staring at Greta in absolute shock. "The Final Sword? You've got to be joking. A human learning that? You're the only living soul on Earth who even knows how to execute it."
"Well, I have my own intuition," Greta said, a cold, confident smile returning to her face. "And it says it's possible."
Maria stared at her for a moment longer, realized there was no changing her mind, and waved a silent gesture of best luck. She turned and walked away, her figure dissolving into the black silhouette of the forest.
The Way of the Final Sword was not a standard martial art; it was a legendary, flawless combat system completely devised by Margareta Stenbock during her centuries of isolation.
For centuries, ancient swordsmen considered the style an impossible mathematical ideal—a theory that could never exist in real application. But Greta had defied the laws of combat, weaving the theory into a lethal, living reality. It was a style with a 100% efficiency rating, a masterwork of slaughter that only the great Margareta Larsson of House Stenbock had ever mastered.
And now, she was going to pass it to a human boy.
(To be continued)