“No, you cannot come in right now. Just return to your room and leave me alone.” Aurora picked up the vase and threw it at the door. She just wanted to be left alone.
The sound of that porcelain breaking startled even the shadow doll who was standing at Aurora’s side and she felt something wet flow down her hand.
‘Of course, I am bleeding. This would just be the cherry on the top, right?’
Blood was flowing down Aurora’s hand at a considerable speed which made her hand wet and sticky. A broken shard had managed to embed itself in her hand.
At the same time, the door to her bedroom opened with a bang and Clove looked back at her with a sickening expression.
She looked between Aurora and her hand before looking back at Aurora again with a determined expression.
“Someone, bring me the first air box and every healing potion you can find. We need to treat her hand–”
“There is no need to fuss. I can take care of myself. Just remove me from my restrictions and I will take care of it myself.”
Aurora was not sure if Clove would fold under the pressure or not but it was worth asking for.
Aurora was sure that she could do something if only she had her system’s support for a second. She could even send a message about her whereabouts back.
But from the stern looks, the shadow doll was sending Clove and her, this would not be possible. How the doll managed to be this stern even without a face was beyond Aurora at this point.
And she was also too tired to ask anyone. She had long lost interest in anything to do with this place.
“Sorry, but you’ll have to make do with the potions we give you for now. Don’t worry because they are not poisoned. See, I’ll even take a sip to ensure that they are safe.”
Clove drank down a considerable amount of potion before handing Aurora the rest.
If she meant to assure that this potion was safe for consumption then she was doing a poor job of it.
After all, just how much can a potion affect a goddess’s constitution?
“See, not poisoned. You can have it without any fear.”
Aurora wanted to sigh at the unnecessary fanfare Clove was going through for her sake. She had not once thought that the potion she had been handed would harm her.
She just did not want to take the potion because it would make her feel sluggish until the ingredients kicked in and Aurora felt better.
It was always like this with her after all.
“I told you I will be alright. See, the bleeding stopped already. Now leave the room and leave me alone if you are not going to be of any help to me.”
Aurora wanted to be alone with her thoughts but Clove pushed ahead without any warning.
The hand on Aurora’s face startled her enough to make her face go slack. She wanted to turn away but Clove held her face gently in her hands and did not let go.
“Clove, let me go. I told you that I did not want to see you.”
Aurora complained as she tried to pull away. She was done with these emotions and the mess they were making out of her.
It was not a new feeling to feel her anger and disappointment dragging out of her body as Aurora got more and more used to Clove’s hand.
“Still so defenseless. You say that you don’t want me to touch you but you still lean into my touch quite desperately. Your heart and your mouth are not singing the same song, Aurora. Isn’t it time you forgive me?”
Clove whispered those words in her ear. Aurora knew she should feel embarrassed to be putting up this show in front of the shadow doll but she felt warm inside.
Her insides were tingling after having that warm presence behind her for so long.
The only thing that broke the illusion was the feeling of those small hands shifting her face to meet Clove’s young face.
She was too young for Aurora currently, her body not having reached the maturity it needed. It was plain wrong on so many levels for Aurora to even be entertaining these thoughts.
“Are you turning away from me again? Very well then. I will leave today but I promise to visit you again tomorrow. Hope you have a good day as well.”
Clove walked off to go out of the room. She gave Aurora one last desperate look to be called back but Aurora was not going to bulge.
Clove realized that as well as she walked past the threshold. And then it was Clove alone in her room with the shadow doll.
“Can you leave me alone as well? I don’t want to see your face as well.”
The shadow doll gave a shallow bow and left the room. It was too quiet and serene after she left. Not a single thing looked out of place from what Aurora remembered her room being.
Even the stains on the wall had retained their shape.
It was like Aurora had stepped back into time with her body. Even the limitlessness she felt in this place was the same.
‘I should go to sleep for now. The more I think, the worse I will feel.’
Aurora tried to close her eyes and relax but sleep was tough to come by. Visions of her past being locked inside this room flashed by. Somehow, the time she had to spend here felt like centuries.
When Aurora finally had a chance to go out, she had all but run from this place.
It was poetic for her to end here of all places because of the person who had helped her escape the clutches of her nightmare in the first place.
The door to her bedroom jiggled a bit and Aurora felt her senses sharpen all at once. She knew someone was entering the room and she got ready to throw something at them again.
“Clove, I told you that I did not want to see you-“
“Hey, be careful. You will alert people that I am here. Hurry, I am here to get you out of here.”
That voice did not belong to Clove or anyone else who should be here. But the familiar voice did belong to someone who could help her out.
“You? What are you doing here? Do you know how much trouble the tower will get in if the south finds a god of the tower sneaking around in here? And how did you find me in the first place?”
It was Karan who had come to get her. The long-haired man was cross-dressing as a shadow doll and he was scarily efficient at that.
“This place is not as complicated as I remember it being so it was easy to sneak around. As for how I found you? There is only one way I remember your room being so I followed my memories. Luckily, I remembered enough to get me by.”
Karan seemed to have taken a huge gamble in coming after Aurora.
Whether he knew about the core-sealing power these people had or not, he had come for her, and Aurora could not help but feel happy about it.
This was the first time in her re-setted life someone had outright risked themselves to come after her without gaining anything in return.
“Now hurry up and let’s get moving. We need to get out of here before the tower launches its assault.”
Karan extended his hand toward Aurora to help her up. And just like the person she was, Aurora accepted it and helped herself stand up.
“By the way, how did you even know where to find me? Or even about me being here? I am not sure even the Rocx Academy knows that I am missing.”
They would not know anything for now since Rex trusted Aurora enough to know that she could take care of herself.
However, even he would have to get worried when Aurora failed to show up after a few days. This time frame did not make sense in her mind.
“Oh, about that? Believe it or not, I have my spies in the South and everywhere else who tell me what is going on. As soon as they told me about someone being held captive here, I had a feeling it was you.”
Karan said that as if this was the most natural thing in the world.
And it might be because this was how his world had been before he reincarnated. Knowledge had been power and power was something everyone carved.
“Now, we’ve talked enough for today. We really should get going before we are caught. I don’t know about you but I am terrified of your mother and what she can do. That woman is not stable.”
Karan’s words had a mixture of truth and lie in them. But they made Aurora smile nonetheless.
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