Chapter 67

Noise.

Scrabbling, dragging, and heavy thumps as distant voices raise.

Livia's forehead crinkles. She turns over, her limbs heavy and sore as she tries to curl up further into the bed, ducking down into her covers to avoid the light behind her eyes.

“What are you doing!?” Amaya sounds angry.

“What is going on?” Beth sounds confused.

“Father? What is happening!?” Liliana sounds alarmed.

Livia frowns. Her dreams flicker and change around her at every noise. She tries to chase the quickly fading edges, to wrap it around herself and dive back into the pleasant strangeness. To not let reality drag her back up.

“Don’t touch her!”

“Beth!”

“It’s alright. Amaya, put that down.”

It has been so long since Livia had slept for more than two hours at a time after all. How long has it been since she has woken up and actually felt a hint of restfulness? If only she could just drop back into the thick of it. All she needed to do was ignore the sounds coming from all around her.

Just a few more minutes.

Please.

She was so tired.

“Beth!”

“Stand back.”

“Where are you taking her!”

Something clatters to the floor. A voice abruptly cuts off.

Livia sinks further in the warmth of her cover. She clings desperately to her dreams, to the weightless sense of the nonsense.

In her vision, she had returned.

Back to Earth, back into the world where magic was only a thing of fantasy.

Her family had been around her, congratulating Livia as she recovered in the sterile room of a modern hospital. Her son had been taken out of the crib the hospital had provided by her mom and was soon passed around as everyone fawned and cooed at the newest member of the family.

Everyone had come. Her sister, her aunt, her uncle, her grandmother, her nieces, and her nephew. Everyone had been shocked and pleased all in one go. They teased her, cracked jokes as the mood turned into something pink and so utterly warm that Livia had not wanted to ever leave.

Then Liliana had appeared.

“No, don’t come any closer! Father, what is all this!? Why are the royal guards taking Beth? Why are you even here? Why aren’t you saying anything!?"

In the back, casually sitting on the couch was her little sister. Liliana had been a bit separate from the rest of the family, playing a handheld game with a bent head. Black glasses had been perched low on her nose and her hair had been done up in a mess of white curls falling into her eyes. She had not worn her usual dresses. Liliana had been in black pants and wore a graphic shirt displaying an old anime. Her expression had not been bright and happy, but distant and mildly bored.

It should have been jarring, to see her on Earth.

But Liliana blended so well into the dream Livia only noticed her the third time she had glanced about.

Then Amaya had appeared as well.

“Both of you, calm down. I am sure there is a reason for all of this.” Beth's voice was faint.

“That reason better is put into word within the next five seconds or I will not be responsible for what happens next.”

“Wait...what are you doing!? No! Get away from him!” Liliana sounds panicked and much closer.

Amaya busted into the hospital room with balloons and a grin with her arm looped in Livia’s best friends. The both of them looked like they had barely rolled out of bed, in scruffy, wrinkled clothing, looking the part of tired college students. The two shuffled in and gawked about, a bit intimidated with all the other folks milling about. Dream Livia laughs at their expression and offers them a proud beaming smile as she gestures to her son cradled into her cousin's arms.

The noise level rises, more scrapping, thumps of feet.

“Amaya!”

“Get her out of here.”

“Step down, maid. Know your place.”

“You bastards...If I wasn’t-”

Beth laughed, walking from a dark corner of the stark white room and taking their gifts, and directed the two women closer to Livia, somehow looking elegant in high-waisted mom jeans. Sen had also been suddenly brooding by her hospital bed, seemingly coming into existence between one blink and the next. He looked like someone had dragged him kicking and screaming into the room and there were a million other places he would rather be.

Livia had teased him, poking at his pouting cheeks.

She hadn’t been able to stop smiling.

Not when her older sister had drawn Amaya and her best friend into the conversation. Not when Beth had retreated and resumed cooing over her newborn son swaddled in blankets with her mom. Not when her twin nieces climb onto the ugly green couch alongside Liliana and lean over her shoulders with sparkling eyes, clearly impressed by whatever was on the screen lightening up their faces.

Not when she manages to drag a reluctant smile out of Sen, a small, shy little dimple appearing on his left cheek as he tries to hide it with a roll of his eyes.

Livia did not want to leave.

She curls up into a ball and begins to sink back down as darkness surrounds her. She ignores the pressure and dampness at her chest, she ignores how every part of her body seems to be screaming at once, and she ignores all the sounds, letting it fall into the far distance.

“Move aside, Liliana.” Her father's voice was authoritative and held a note of coldness that was usually never directed at his favorite child.

Livia's stubbornly closed eyelids flicker as the corner of her mouth pulls down further. At the back of her head, something has been constantly hammering away, trying to gain her attention.

“Stop. Whatever it is that you are doing, please, just stop,” Liliana begs.

“Remove my daughter from the room. She shouldn’t be here for this.”

“No, wait! Let go of me! Father! Father!”

The door slams, there is a heavy drag of wood, something else falls and it shatters onto the floor.

“Sir.”

“Take the baby.”

Livia’s eyes snap open.

Muffled darkness.

Then her senses come alive.

Magic.

It sparks, hums, and dances along her skin as it greets her heftily. Livia can feel it bubbling inside her, spilling over messily and rising up all around her.

She doesn’t even need to call it forth.

When she sits up, the covers fling themselves away from her without command and crawls to the edge of the bed. She pays it no mind. Her attention instantly falls right beside her, to her son's occupied bassinet. She could see small, jerky movements inside.

And hovering above it was a muscular arm dressed in the uniform of the Valentine company.

“Ah, you are awake,” Cool eyes, identical to her own glance over her, “Good.”

“What are you doing.” It was said low. Dangerously.

“I am doing what needs to be done,” Duke Valentine replies calmly. He stands in the middle of her room, looking for all the world as if he had every right to be here only a few hours after she had just given birth.

“There is no need for worry,” He states flatly, eyeing her, “This child will not weigh you down any further. I have ensured that he will be taken care of by distant relatives. When asked, you will say that the child passed away at birth.” He informs her. 

Somehow, the words are spoken as if they were supposed to be reassuring. As if Livia was to feel relieved or even grateful for the effort her father put into making his own grandson disappear in a blink of an eye.

Livia had known there was a possibility of this happening. She had known, and yet, she still felt like the rug had been ripped right from underneath her feet.

Then Duke Valentine inclines his head curtly at the knight, and says, “We must make haste. The child should be gone before everyone awakens.”

The knight nods and reaches into the bassinet.

Livia did not think.

She reacts on complete instinct.

“No!”

Her face twists into a snarl as her arms fling out. Her magic slams into the knight like a toppling mountain. He flies through the air like a ragdoll and crumbles into the wall like a crinkled can, denting it. On his way down, he knocks over a few old pictures, creating a smear of blood as he slumps to the floor.

Livia does not waste a second. She darts out of her bed at breakneck speed and gathers up her whimpering newborn carefully into her arms. Only when he was secured and out of harm's way did she lift up her eyes and take note of her surroundings.

Her room...it was a complete mess. Livia stares at the turned over chair, the broken glass, and half-torn curtains. It looked like an obvious struggle had taken place.

Standing amongst the debris was her father, two royal guards, and one other knight.

Amaya, Beth, and Liliana were nowhere to be found.

Livia's hackles rise up further as adrenaline raced through her veins. Her heart drums in her ribcage as her eyes dart around. Her back was to the wall. The door was behind the men. With her baby in her arms, she was very limited to what she could do. Her mind races, thinking on an escape route.

“What did you do,” Duke Valentine ground out as he lifts his eyes up from the unmoving form seeping out blood.

The door was her best bet. The nursery and the bathroom were a dead end. Livia just needed an opening. But then her mind freeze.

She couldn’t leave behind her memory stones or her handwritten historical books. Where was her sack? Ever since Livia had been forcefully moved to the north wing, she had kept everything stored inside it. Somehow, she needed to also make a grab for her sack on her way out.

“What did you just do,” Duke Valentine growls out as he steps forward threateningly. The three men behind him were on high alert with their fingers inching towards their swords.

All of them look at her with unnerved caution.

Livia glances down at the man she just killed then back up at them.

Well, shit.

Now she really needed to go.

Now.

Livia stares emptily ahead as she tightens her arms around her baby, bringing him close protectively as if she could shield him further. He whimpers and whines in her arms, wiggling constantly as a few tears run down his round little cheeks.

She wanted to cry with him.

Because he didn’t deserve any of this.

Her baby wasn’t even a day old.

“You don’t have magic,” Duke Valentine throw the words up into the air like a shield, “You do not have the power to do anything like this,” It was as if he was trying to reassure himself. He turns his head, staring behind him.

“Check up on him,” The duke orders coldly. The knight nods and moves to do as he is ordered.

“Do not move,” Duke Valentine states, turning his head back around when Livia inches to the side, “I will get to the bottom of this. What was it?” He questions suddenly, “A charm? A delayed spell?”

Livia keeps her mouth shut.

Behind the men, a shadow appears in the doorway of the nursery. Over her father's shoulder, purple locks onto glowing yellow. Livia’s eyes flicker down to her bed. The one in which she had been silently urging Noctis to stay underneath.

“Sir, he isn’t...” The knight's eyes dart over to the duke, warily, “He isn’t breathing.”

Of course, he wasn’t. Livia had crushed him from the inside out. The man had been dead before he had even hit the wall. All that was left was a pulp of a corpse.

She stares down coldly. Eyeing a stray trail of blood now staining the old rug.

Lucky bastard.

If Livia had not been pressed on time. If she had been given a moment to think properly, the knight would not have passed into the afterlife so quickly.

Her son suddenly lets out an angrily little warning cry. A short little bleat that gains her attention instantly. The shadow over her face lifts as she hushes and rocks him. He needed to be fed again. His little frowning mouth was smacking hungrily.

Livia understood. She was hungry too.

“Shh, it’s alright. You will eat soon,” she says in a raspy voice that is still rough from sleep. She uses the motions of rocking her baby to move closer to the bed.

“Livia,” Duke Valentine's lips were pressed into a thin, displeased line, “Give me the child.”

Her son's lips pout and tremble, his eyes large and watery. It had to be the most adorable and heart-wrenching thing she had ever seen in her whole life. Her poor baby. She would do everything in her power so that he wouldn’t make such a face again.

“Livia-”

“I need to feed him,” She talks right over the duke.

“That is unnecessary,” Duke Valentine dismisses the idea, “The wet nurse will attend to him.”

As if summoned, a woman appears in the doorway of her open bedroom door. Her head was lowered and her hands were clasped submissively in front of herself. She wore a uniform befitting of a servant, but it was not the one the Valentine household issued out.

“Attend to the child,” Duke Valentine orders of her.

The wet nurse gets a single foot inside the room before she is suddenly thrown out of it with a cut-off scream. A second later, the thud of a body hits the floor.

This time, Livia is just as startled as the other men. Even as their heads whip back in her direction her glare drops off and her face goes slack in surprise.

She hadn’t intended to do that.

Well.

She did, but she also didn’t.

Livia’s magic swims around her, overflowing. Then it hits a wall and bounces back into her, filters through her core, before continuing the cycle once more.

It wasn’t a strain to reach out to it. It did not react slow and sluggishly like it had when Elias had broken the seals around her wrists in the past. If anything, it was as if she was pressing on a sensitive trigger. It was eager to lash out and responded to even the smallest hints of intent.

That...was a bit troubling.

But right now, Livia could use it to her advantage.

“Another delayed spell?” Duke Valentine guesses, his eyes darting around the room when Livia just stands there with a dumbfounded expression. Then he tenses up, his eyes narrowing suspiciously.

“Where is your guard, daughter.”

Livia's eyebrow twitches upward as she blinks owlishly.

“Behind you.”

Livia turns to snatch up the sheets of her bed as blue glowing arrows arch in the air from the direction of the nursery.

Before the two royal guards closest to Sen could even turn, they were stumbling back and clutching their dominated arms with groans of pain. Sen dissipates the arrows and dashes forward in a low run. He easily evades the clumsily, left-handed swords swinging into the air and use their fresh wound against them, digging black claws into the flesh wounds and using it as leverage to drag one face down to meet his knee with brute force while the other is simply hurled over his shoulder and thrown into a mirror as if he weighs nothing.

The last knight standing manages to trade two blows with Sen before the front of his knee is kicked in and he goes down with a scream, clutching his leg.

Livia finishes wrapping her wiggling baby up in the sling of sheets against her chest. Once she is sure it is sturdy with the help of a bit of magic, she places barriers around her son. She is pleased to see his whimpers drop off a bit from the close contact. She cradles his head, brushing back soft dark hair, trying to soothe him further.

At least now her hands were freed up.

“What should we do with him?”

Livia looks over to see Sen casually tightening his grip around the duke's neck, holding him up and off the floor with a single hand. The duke struggles like a worm on a hook. If it were anyone else, Livia was sure Duke Valentine could have easily escaped.

But Sen wasn’t human.

And it took little effort for him to restrain one.

“Knock him out,” Livia decides.

“Y-you cannot do this to me!” Duke Valentine manages to get out, his voice strained, “There will be consequences.” To his credit, it certainly sounds like a promise more than a threat. Especially if his dark and deeply affronted glower was anything to go by.

“You won’t get far,” The duke threatens before Sen's fingers dig into his throat, cutting off his air supply. After a few short minutes, he goes limp. Sen releases him and lets him fall to the ground. Without sparing him another glance, he steps over the body of the duke and right up to Livia.

“I’m alright,” she says before he can even ask.

Then she looks down, "Noctis.” The feline darts out instantly. Before he can start scaling Livia, Sen grabs him.

“Thanks,” She nods and turns to grab her sack.

Unceremoniously, Livia begins to stuff things inside it as she walks around the room. She pauses at her wardrobe, staring at it, before shrugging and dumping it all inside. Like a never-ending vacuum, the whole lot of clothing disappears into the unassuming brown sack. Then she goes then nursery and clears that out as well.

While in the privacy of the small room, she takes the time to feed her fussy newborn. Once her son is done, she wipes off his mouth and burps him. By the time Livia has her baby wrapped up comfortable on her chest, making sure his head was supported, he is fast asleep. She wipes off the drool and kisses his downy soft hair with a stupidly soft smile on her face.

When Livia steps back out of the nursery, Sen is by the window with Noctis perched on his shoulders

“We need to go,” she tells him instantly.

Livia refused to stay under this household a second longer.

She was also very concerned about the whereabouts of Amaya, Beth, and Liliana. Hopefully, they had just been removed to other rooms in the north wing. But given what she recalls hearing earlier.

They needed to hurry. 

“The other servants are up and are beginning to attend to their duties,” Sen informs her, moving away from the window, "No doubt your father also had made sure the royal guards had occupied themselves elsewhere. They will be returning to their stations shortly."

“Is that so? I suppose that will make things a bit more complicated,” Livia says with a smirk, then turns and walks right out of the room.