Aefia knew everything about it, despite being in a clumsy state of mind. Victoria was not just tricking her. She was timing it as well.
However, she wasn't strong enough to avoid it right now.
"Aefia?! Aefia, stay with me!" Matthew's panicked voice echoed through the hallway, his hands tightening around her shoulders as her dead weight slumped completely against his chest.
His fear of losing another 'niece' was screaming inside his head. Making him drop any respective titles.
Puppet zipped out from beneath her collar, hovering frantically around Matthew's face, its tiny tail puffed out in sheer terror. "Don't just stand there, you idiot! Get her to her bed! Her brain is literally frying!"
Although it said that, it used a bit if teleportation magic to place them all inside her own bedroom. Which looked untouched for many days or so. With a bit of dust settling at the corners and frames.
"Where did she come from?!" Matthew asked in question as he half-scooped, half-carried her towards her bed. Laying her down and checking her temperature using the back of his hand against her forehead.
"The basement..." Puppet answered grimly.
He immediately turned to face the tiny creature floating mid-air.
"She went down there... Where even Seraphina would never go..." Matthew whispered, horror dawning on his face as he remembered the rumors surrounding the lower sub-levels. "She actually went down to the to the death zone."
"She closed it! She used an illusion to break the trap!" Puppet squeaked, landing heavily on Aefia's chest, using its small paws to pat her burning cheeks. "She is tough! She's fine! She just needs to wake up!"
"But that doesn't change the fact that whatever was inside, didn't target her powers." He spoke in, completely frozen.
However, that also doesn't change the fact that Aefia was also on the verge of dying if she wasn't taken good care of. He clenched his fist and knealed against her bed.
"What are you doing?" The tiny pet asked.
Matthew silently took off his gloves and set them aside on the bedside table. "Due to reasons, the Honorary Knight faction can yield certain types of magic. I have the ice magic which can help in cooling her temperature down."
The centre of his palm started to mist. It instantly plummeted the room temperature down by a couple degrees. Without wasting another second, he pressed his hand on her forehead. The process would be long, but it would give good results.
He turned towards Puppet. "In the meantime. If he comes around, tell him to lock the office and not enter it unless Sovereign Aefia wakes up." His voice dropped an octave, but was still extremely serious.
With a slight hesitation, Puppet zoomed out the door and rushed towards the place it was assigned the guard of.
***
For three agonizing days, Aefia remained suspended in a hazy, fever-ridden coma. In her unconscious mind, the grotesque image of the dripping keyhole, the black ink creeping up her boots, and Victoria's mocking laughter looped relentlessly. But beneath the delirium, her subconscious was only thinking back to how her magic was being continuously drained out of her.
Her skin was still dangerously pale, dark violet shadows bruised beneath her garnet eyes. Regardless of being sick, there was nothing an Aethalgard could use as an excuse to dodge the High Sovereign's summons.
Her memories were full of those things she had seen downstairs last week. Her eyes hollow of any thoughts. She zoned out, the words from Astraea were a bunch of muffles as she tried to recollect on the sight.
Of course, Victoria used this as an opportunity.
"My Sovereign, it seems like the third Aethalgard has something inside her mind." She spoke, her arrogant smile plastered on that irritating face. Aefia looked up finally.
"What might it be?" The first Aethalgard asked.
Victoria pasued for a while. Then tears started to fall of her cheeks as if she was sad about something.
"I am not trying to assume or accuse anyone... But I felt something wrong about the Death castle." She murmured, though the words were still clear enough.
"What could it be? My Sovereign?" Aefia asked this time. Her eyes staring knowingly at the woman opposite to her.
"I suspect... That the third Aethalgard is hiding something inside her basement." She gravely said.
Aefia of course didn't say anything. Just leaned her chin on her palm while smirking at the woman. "Really?"
Oh well? Guess I was right all along.
"I would need you to elaborate." She added along to tense up the situation.
"I just felt something rather off about it. Like how... The presence was that of... Many Guardians combined." The second Aethalgard answered, wiping her tear away with a tissue paper—much like a French noble lady in the Medieval era.
"Besides, just yesterday when I visited, I saw a set of keys laying around recklessly with the same energy as the basement floors. I just fear the new Guardian isn't up to something... Malicious. I just want to preserve the way the Realm is right now."
Aefia and Astraea stared at the only other woman in the room with a suspicious look on their face. Only here, Astraea's suspicion was on Aefia and her's was on the second Aethalgard.
"Sovereign? Is that true?" The first Aethalgard finally turned to look towards his left where Aefia was secretly thinking of ways to get this woman's drama put on live back on Earth. (It would gain much views! At least then this situation won't feel as much irritating.)
"Hah! Well... May I ask when we met again? I am sorry, but my memory is a bit foggy."
"Yesterday evening?"
"Right... So yesterday evening you came to my castle and I gave you a tour," Aefia started speaking. She straightened up on her seat while tapping her fingers against the hard wood of the table. "But I am unclear of something. Yesterday evening, I was still unconscious from my high-fever. I still haven't recovered and my face must be telling the story right now."
A moment of silence stretched within the meeting room.
"Besides... I haven't even stepped into my study room in three full days. I don't even know what key you are talking about. More then that, I hadn't even walked into the basement. I don't know what is there... But if you mention it to me right now... That reminds me that I was going to renovate the castle soon... I need to get inside the basement soon to check what needs to be improved." She continued while tapping her chin.
If Victoria was going to play a game with her, she can play it along with her too. Afterall, a game isn't predictable and sometimes the new player can be a pro-player as well.
Whether it was Seraphina or Aefia, both of them shared one thing in common. An enemy named Victoria, who loved picking up meaningless fights.
And in video games, if you have played the boss fight long enough... You start to know their moves.
That caused Victoria a disadvantage, since she had ran out of ideas a little too soon to continue the game her way. Leaving her with only one option... Just be highly-aware.
"Now what is your say? First Aethalgard?" Aefia asked while leaning forward with her chin resting on the back of her laced hands.
Astraea looked between the second and the third Aethalgard. Then let out a deep sigh after a long moment.
"Second Aethalgard... Can you provide evidence that the third Aethalgard is truly guilty?" He asked while looking away. "It would only be fair that way since the Guardian of Death already provided hers."
Meanwhile, Victoria set with her jaw clenched at Aefia's direction. Mentally shouting at her for ruining her perfect plan. However, for the sake of her court presence, she let out a deep breathe and looked away.
"No my Sovereign. I believe I shall take back my words. It was my mistake. I promise it will not happen again." She smiled, bowing when head low until it grazed the table.
Astraea looked a little annoyed by it. Then turned away permanantly from either of the two of them. He seemed to have been finally out in a bad mood, and without any greetings, he left the room with the door slamming shut behind him.
SLAM!
Aefia stayed stood while watching as the first Aethalgard took his anger out. The sound of it leaving her deaf for a few seconds before she turned towards Victoria who was already clenching her fists so tightly, her nails cut through her palms and left indentations.
She waited for a few fleeting seconds before adding more to the fire.
"I hope you are alright. But if I am being threathened wrongly, I am not taking the punishment." She stated before picking up her belongings and heading out of the room. That left only the second Aethalgard and her frantic sobs.
Aefia didn't even bother watching Victoria's pathetic breakdown as she walked out. Her head was still pounding, the residual heat of the fever buzzing behind her eyes.
She walked down the long, arching hallways of the council hall with a steady pace, hiding the faint trembling in her knees. This was the first step of the final stage. The stage which would determine who won and who didn't.
Once she returned to the Death Castle, the sharp scent of damp stone and polished mahogany greeted her. Matthew was waiting in her main office, standing by the window with his arms crossed, his face still drawn tight with worry from the three days he had spent keeping her alive.
"My Sovereign," he spoke, turning to face her the moment the heavy double-doors clicked shut. "You look like you are about to collapse again."
"I'm fine. Rather, you should be the one resting instead." Aefia replied flatly, stepping over to her desk. She didn't sit. Instead, she pulled a clean sheet of parchment from the top drawer and dipped her quill into dark black ink.
He only watched on pure sadness and she engrossed herself back to work.
Her fingers moved swiftly, tracing short, precise lines across the paper. She didn't write a lengthy explanation—there was no need to. Erebus already understood the assignment. She folded the parchment twice, sealing it with a drop of unrefined wax without stamping her official crest onto it.
She then held the letter out to Matthew.
"Send this to Erebus," Aefia instructed, her voice dropping into a low, commanding register. "Secretly. No servants, no envoys, no intermediate portals. Deliver it directly into his hands, and ensure no one—especially not Victoria or her eyes in the corridors—sees you do it."
Matthew looked at the unsealed, plain letter, then at Aefia's unyielding garnet eyes. He didn't ask questions. He simply took the parchment, tucked it neatly inside his inner coat pocket, and gave a brief, firm bow. "Consider it done."
An hour later, in the quiet, white-marble quarters of the second Aethalgard's domain, Erebus sat near the window sill, idly twirling a small dagger between his fingers. The air in the castle was tense, heavy with the quiet fury of his mother's return from the meeting.
A subtle ripple in the background near his desk caught his attention. Matthew appeared for merely a fraction of a second, sliding a small, folded piece of paper onto the wood before vanishing back into the shadows without a single word.
Erebus stopped the blade in his hand. He stepped over to the desk, picking up the parchment.
Unfolding it, his eyes scanned the sharp, deliberate handwriting:
Hey Erebus,
It is me, Aefia. 'I am sorry about what happened earlier'. I had been stressed out and sick, so I couldn't think well while I was 'talking' to you the other day. The thing is... Just today, I found out the basement radiated a strange presence and I thought that since you were the only one who knows about this palace, could you 'help me'? I just need a small 'detail' of it.
A faint, sharp smirk touched the corner of Erebus's lips.
Although it seemed like she was merely talking about that argument that never happened... It was actually just a request to spread a rumor across the entire Guardian Realm.
He held the edge of the paper over the burning candle on his desk, watching the fire consume the parchment until nothing remained but fine gray ash, which he brushed away into the draft outside his window.
Turning on his heel, Erebus straightened his collar and put on his usual solemn, quiet expression as he opened his door and stepped out into the bright white corridors.
The first person he went to, were the Guardian of Wrath, Space, and Time.
***
"No..."
Victoria's voice echoed against the walls of her own room. Her nails scratching at her sculp as she received a letter from one of her right-hand that there was a rumor going on.
"The third Aethalgard was curiously roaming the castle for inspection and found out that the basement was enveloped in a strange presence."
"No, no, no! Ugh!"
She smacked books across the floors. The frustruation engulfing her mind made it unclear to think. She stumbled toward her vanity, her chest heaving as she gripped the gilded edges of the mirror. Her reflection stared back at her—eyes wide, hair unspooling from its immaculate pins, completely stripped of her usual noble composure.
"She knew," Victoria rasped, her manicured fingers clawing at her own throat as if the air in her private sanctuary had suddenly turned to poison. "She knew before she even stepped into that council room..."
It hadn't been a random defense. It had been a execution. Aefia had deliberately lured her into making a public accusation with constant silence—knowing full well the rumor would break immediately after, framing Victoria's outburst not as vigilant concern, but as the desperate cover-up of a culprit caught trespassing.
The fear of losing her entire reputation was loud inside her ears. But she was sure she felt the presence release for a fraction of a second and even consuming a bit of Aefia's powers.
So that either meant... No, there was no either.
Victoria froze, her heart dropping into a cold abyss. Slowly, she turned toward the door, her breath hitching in her throat as a horrifying realization bloomed in her mind.
Aefia hadn't just survived the trap in the basement. She had handed Astraea the key to the truth without even speaking about it.