Aria looked at the ceiling in a daze after Swan disappeared.
It didn’t take long for her to regain her strength. She began to take continuous deep breaths as she was worried that her heart would stop beating anytime soon.
She scratched her shoulder and realized that Swan had fully healed her scar but still let her suffer from the burning and itchy sensation until the next month.
She sat on the bed, staring at the window where the sun was rising in silence before a knock on the door snapped her out of it.
"Good morning, Princess. Your carriage has been prepared," the bunny maid said.
Aria opened her mouth, but no voice came out. Sure enough, Swan wanted to prevent her from speaking until she arrived at Holy Achate.
Aria was boiling with rage.
At first, she thought she could play around and bully Swan while she was in the Kingdom of Beastmen, but Swan’s witchcraft was far too powerful.
’Where did she learn how to do witchcraft anyway? I never thought it was real before I saw it with my own eyes,’ Aria pondered. There was a lot of witch hunting and burning in Holy Achate, as it was part of the tradition to kill witches whenever there was a disease or famine around the kingdom.
Aria thought it was just stupid superstition, but since the church ordered it, she couldn’t say a thing about it.
Most of the time, all she did was watch these women—little girls, young women, widows, and elderly women—to be burned in the city square. It was a form of entertainment for her anyway.
But now that she had witnessed firsthand how powerful that cripple had become with her witchcraft....
’I want to be a witch too,’ Aria entertained that thought. ’If it’s real, then I just need to become a witch and kill her. I can charm the Beast King to be mine, and I don’t need to worry about getting captured in Holy Achate as a witch. I’m their soon-to-be queen, after all.’
Thus, Aria returned to Holy Achate with a newfound determination. She had to find a way to study witchcraft if she wanted to stand a chance against Swan.
**
Swan woke up at noon because she slept near dawn today. When she woke up, Gale was no longer by her side, so she guessed he was in the throne room right now.
The door was knocked from outside, and she could hear the catmaids’ voices from behind it. "Princess, we are here with your lunch."
"C-come in..." Swan replied weakly. The cat maids entered the bedroom and quickly arranged the lunch on the table.
Swan watched over them, and there seemed to be nothing wrong with them, so she asked, "H-how about my sister? Is she still here?"
"No, Princess. She already left at dawn," Maya replied.
"Then, is there something wrong with her?"
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