Repercussion and an Afternoon with Lord Glade

"Your Highness, get your hands off my participant." High Lord Volanti said.

"Your participant? I think we can dispense with the pretense now my Lord." I said laughingly.

"I am in no mood for your games tonight, miss Adamare." High Lord Volanti looked back at Prince Blaize. "Prince Blaize remover you hand or lose them." Prince Blaize stiffened and released me. Turning his attention back to me, the High Lord ordered, "Get inside now."

I swallowed hard. He was definitely angry. Hanging my head, I walked into his study. When I heard the door slam behind me, I flinched.

"Well, what do you have to say for yourself?" The High Lord asked coldly. I felt like a bucket of ice water was thrown over my head. I shivered.

"I left a note." I said weakly.

"Yes, I remember. 'I have business. Will be back soon.' It was very informative." High Lord Volanti replied.

"I was in a rush?" My inflection turned my statement into a question.

The High Lord walked from the door to face me. His face was still dark.

"Is that all you have to say for yourself?" he demanded. I didn't know what to say to appease him. "Are you aware that your absence coincides perfectly with the murder of the Nolanese Minister of the Coffers?"

I grimaced. The High Lord crossed his arms over his chest.

"I - I - no one can prove it was me!" I stuttered.

"Damnit Kylara! If you had come to me, I could have helped you. Did you at least change your appearance?"

I lowered my games to the floor, "He was going to hurt my people. I had to do something." I protested weakly.

The High Lord gave me a searching look, then said, "I was able to guess where you were going, at least. I made arrangements."

He sighed heavily. My eyes darted to him. "You went to White Oak Stand, my son's estate." I blinked. "I had Glade absent himself while you were gone. You will need to hide out in your rooms until I tell you otherwise."

I bit my lip and nodded slowly.

"I hope you realize that you are now deeply in my debt and when the time comes for my son to claim you, you won't resist."

I swallowed again. A saying about a frying pan and a fire came into my mind. I opened my mouth to protest.

The High Lord cut me off, "I am in a foul mood tonight, Kylara. It would be wise for you not to fight me on this."

I bit back my words and lowered my head again.

"You may go to sleep now. I'll send breakfast to you in the morning." I sighed at the clear dismissal in the High Lords words.

With heavy feet, I made my way back to my rooms.

Surprisingly, I slept well that night. I was simply so exhausted that I couldn't be bothered by the High Lord's troubling words.

At 9 am, I woke up and had breakfast. Without anything better to do, I sat down and began to read.

Three hours later, there was a knock on my door. I answered it to find High Lord Volanti and Lord Glade. I greeted them as calmly and cheerily as I could manage.

I was very uncomfortable I had been unable to find my ring of illusions when I woke up this morning.

I could tell them fury was still running under the High Lord's cold facade. Lord Glade on the other hand was staring at me as if he'd never seen me before, which he hadn't.

"Who is this?" he asked after we were all silent for a moment.

The High Lord stiffened, "Obviously, this is Lady Adamare." He answered.

Lord Glade let out a short breath as if someone had punched him in the stomach.

"Now that you have actually seen what she looks like, I suppose you are less reticent to do your duty." The High Lord added with an angry look at Lord Glade.

Lord Glade stood stock still as High Lord Volanti reached into his pocket pocket and pulled out my ring of illusions. I took it in placed it on my finger again.

"Good. Now, I'd like the two of you to spend the day together. You may do whatever you like as long as you're together." High Lord Volanti said, before turning and walking from the room.

Lord glade and I stared at each other in silence.

Finally, I said, "I'd like to train."

Lord Glade's expression soured. He tried offering several alternatives, "We can go for a ride, practice archery, have tea-"

"No, I want to train." I said firmly. I walked into my bedroom and quickly got changed.

***

Two and a half hours later, we were surrounded. Someone had thought it was a good idea to bring Poison Fang Horse Rabbits as monsters into the training grounds. Maybe it was a bad joke. I didn't really know.

However, what I did now was that the rabbits were the size of horses, yet they still bred like rabbits and their bites were poisonous. Even a graze could kill you.

One on one, they weren't dangerous, but the population had been growing secretly for days. Now there were 50 of them glaring at us from all sides.

I sense that one was about to jump. I grabbed Lord glade and pulled him into my chest.

"What?" he gasped.

Activate SKILL Deep Freeze lvl 1? Y or N.

"Yes." I thought.

My hope was that by having Lord Glade right next to me, he wouldn't get caught in the spell.

To be honest, I wasn't sure what Deep Freeze would do. I had unlocked it not too long ago when Freeze had reached level 10.

A blue cloud formed just outside of the area that Lord Glade and I were standing in. It spread outward in a blink, leaving behind flash frozen grasses and rabbits in the meadow.

"Activate Lightning Storm lvl 1." I thought. I wanted to make sure those rabbits were really dead. They had fur coats after all.

Suddenly, the air was filled with dozens of lightning strikes. The massive rabbits exploded when they were struck.

The sight actually made me feel a bit of pity for them, but then I remembered that they'd wanted to eat us, and my pity evaporated.

As the Lightning storm faded, Lord Glade stepped away from me. He had an eager light in his eyes, "What system is that?" His voice was breathless.

I frowned at him. He continued, "You've used weapon skills, Earth, Lightning, and now Ice." I blinked in surprise at his excitement. "What system do you have?" He asked again.

I was saved from responding by the sounds of galloping horses. Turning, I saw a party of two dozen adventurers riding towards us.

"The rabbits?" The male in the lead asked hurriedly. "We'd heard you'd been surrounded."

I nodded, "Lord Glade took care of them, but there may be more." Lord Glade stared at me with a slack jaw for a moment.

The lead adventurer smiled heartily at him, "As expected of a Lord. I am glad we do not have to return your corpse to you family. Will you go further with us?"

Lord Glade glanced at me and I gave a small shake of my head. Those two final skills had taken at least half of my magic and I'd only been at 70% before. I wanted to continue but couldn't.

Lord Glade smiled up at the male, "I am sorry, but taking care of these ones has nearly wiped me out. Will you be alright?"

The adventurer scoffed, "Of course. They're just big rabbits. If there's too many we'll roast 'em."

Lord Glade nodded, "Alright, then. Safe hunting." He took me by the hand and led me down the path toward the exit.

***

Lord Glade was silent for our walk back to the horses. When I looked at him, he appeared lost in thought. Bored I checked my time keeper, it was only 3:30 pm. Dinner wasn't until 8 pm.

I sighed heavily as we reached the horses. I still had until 6 pm before I could excuse myself.

Lord Glade wasn't as boring as I'd expected and we'd fought rather well together, but I knew with certainty what the High Lord intended for us. I just didn't think about him like that, nor he about me.

My stomach rumbled as I mounted up. Lord Glade didn't bother to hide his laugh. I lifted an eyebrow at him.

"How about we stop for tea on the way back?" He suggested. I nodded.

An hour and fifteen minutes later, I was devouring bacon and cucumber tea sandwiches in front of him a cute cafe in town. I was trying hard to ignore the lavender and pink surroundings as I stuffed my face.

Eventually, I ran out of sandwiches and had no choice but to speak to Lord Glade.

Before he could start asking about my system again, I asked him about his estate. We had to get our stories straight after all.

He reluctantly told me of it. As the name White Oak Stand implied, the estate was forested with mainly White Oaks. In fact wood from these trees was the primary source of income for the estate.

I frowned at this as I realized that in a woodland nation, the sale of wood would not make Lord Glade very wealthy. Furthermore, from the way he was talking of the estate, it sounded as if he were embarrassed.

I asked him if it were large and he blushed. He admitted that he was only a Leaf Lord, the equivalent of an Viscount in Viceria.

I smiled brightly to myself, suddenly understanding why the High Lord was so insistent on our mating. The situation was purely financial. I was a Twig Lady of Nolanar, the equivalent of a Countess, and I had many other lucrative investments. If Lord Glade claimed me, he would gain those assets and his future would improve. High Lord Volanti's actions made total sense now.

We had just finished discussing what we had done on my visit to his estate, when the bells in town started chiming 6. We hurriedly paid and raced to the palace.

When I got back to my rooms, I quickly wrote two letters, one to Thomas, and one to Mr. Brickman. Only after I sent them did I shower and dress.

I beamed all the way through dinner. Prince Pharon started when I entered the Dining Hall. He hadn't expected to see me, so he had no special meal planned for me. I, therefore, got to eat what I liked and it was delicious.