The servants led Uriel to a vanity beside the window of her chamber.

From there she had a good view of the city in all its splendour.

Majestic fountains, statues and waterways littered the streets, it was a glittering and beautiful sight to behold.

She sat in a chair and let the maids comb her curly blonde hair.

They picked out her shoes, her dress and so forth.

She had hated it at first, it wasn't normal for her to be fussed over like this, but like everything else she had slowly gotten used to it over time.

The statues in her sights included spear wielding men and the fountains adorned vase bearing women.

The waterways depicted statues shaped like fish, and even the buildings were made of a very pure white stone.

One would question how such a city could border such a terrifying forest.

When the city seemed so bright and lively by itself, she often forgot that unwholesome neighbour.

The forest, the Ragnarok, spanned the entire southern centre of the continent, and it was filled with monsters which the people of Artemis had no choice but to keep constantly contained.

Every day was a struggle to survive for them, so it seemed only natural that every young man and even woman born to this city fought hard to have that right.

For a while then Uriel simply let the maids work while she stared blankly into the streets down below, what she was thinking of only she could know.

That didn’t mean however that those same maids couldn’t try to guess her mind.

“Lord Mourn is very impressive...isn’t he?” One of the girls said to her, and Uriel could only express frustration at the blatant bid to probe her interests.

These girls looked at her and Mourn, her co-conspirator and the young Lord of Mercury, as two unmarried youngsters who were unusually close, albeit purely platonically, and let their thoughts run wild with romantic gossip.

She was but thirteen, and five years his junior, so she wished they'd give it a rest.

What she didn't understand was that it wouldn't be uncommon for a girl living in this hazardous land to be constantly thinking of her wedding at that age.

She'd have been quite disgusted were it that she to knew.

Furthermore, it was not in any way normal in their minds for a man of Mourn's rank to be unmarried like he was.

Truth be told, by now he should have been taking in a mistress or two, he should already have settled down with a proper legal wife quite some time ago.

She turned her gaze then upon the maid who spoke the question as Mourn’s form appeared in the back of her mind.

“Is he?” She asked, “He could not even put a scratch on your lord, remember?”

“True,” Said the servant girl who was combing through her hair, “But managing to go toe to toe with Lord Aden, even though he has been with us for less than a year, is still very impressive.”

Uriel could at least nod to that.

Back when they first got here without a doubt Mourn wasn’t Aden’s equal at all.

Nowadays the lad had clearly improved by a level or two and he was even starting to catch up to the old Lord of Artemis, who on that note had been putting quite a bit of effort into training him.

The Pillar of Cain couldn’t help but wonder what was on that old codger’s mind.

She turned to face the maids beside her and then finally asked them flat out,

“Why does your lord treat us so kindly?” The maids paused, no matter what they were doing before.

Their usually chipper expressions became just a little bit awkward as they turned towards one another.

With their eyes, they asked the rest of the group what they should say to that question.

“Princess Era of Jupiter,” Said the taciturn Head Maid who they’d expected least likely to speak a single word.

“She was our lord’s wife...he misses her very much. I’ve watched him these many years and I think I can say that if they’d had children, they’d surely have treated them about as well as he is treating the two of you.”

Uriel sat to ponder those words in silence.

She and Mourn were too big to be Aden’s kids, but that didn’t mean the sentiment did not exist.

She pulled back her hands and freed herself from the grasp of the maids.

She turned her gaze upon the Head Maid, albeit only briefly. Her gaze wandered towards the office where the tired and old Lord of Artemis should be at this early hour.

“What happened to that princess?” She asked.

She had every need to ask, after all she had never even heard of Princess Era of Jupiter.

For all her wisdom she knew of only one Princess of Jupiter and that was Lucretia, other than her there was her brother, Erus, but no other royals except the Sovereign Julius himself existed at this time.

The servant girls turned quiet and solemn, Uriel naturally guessed that this princess was no longer of this world, even still she had to know the details.

The Head Maid then recounted the bitter tale with the height of indifference to her tone.

“It has been said that when her twin brother, the Crown Prince, Erus, was mortally wounded and not long for this world, the Princess returned to Jupiter and came to see him. Then the Prince emerged unmarred...with our Lady’s body in his arms.”

Uriel creased her brow.

There could’ve been any number of explanations.

These mere maids might well not know the full story that took place behind those closed doors, but the basic gist of it would never change.

Era did something to save her brother’s life, and it had probably cost the girl her own.

Uriel turned to look away from the maids, her heavy gaze veered off into the distance, but she wasn’t really looking at anything in particular.

Instead she was thinking about Aden, his thoughts and feelings.

“Lady Era’s wish was to save her brother’s life,” Said one kneeling maid, “Yet...Lord Aden...he...” She shook her head, the words just wouldn’t come out, she couldn’t say them for one reason or another.

“He blames her brother, right?” Uriel inferred.

The Head Maid said nothing, but she gave the girl an affirming nod.

‘That explains it then,’ She thought, ‘That explains everything.’

She had thought that Aden was the same as Mourn, that is to say a man driven to oppose Jupiter’s rule through desperation and necessity.

Now she knew that Aden was not the same.

The Lord of Artemis was not driven by desperation, what he wanted was something much more primal; revenge for the loss of his bride.

What’s worse was that it was even a familiar and misguided sort of vengeance to her, the type that would only leave him feeling empty in the end.

She’d seen the pattern before, and not only once or twice.

Uriel wasn’t just a name, it was a title passed down through the ages alongside the memories of every single one of its previous bearers.

She knew that men like Aden could not be swayed so easily until their vengeance was carried out, only then would Aden start to calm down.

However by that time all that will be waiting for him is the realisation that by killing Era’s brother he has only rendered her sacrifice void of all meaning.

She wondered for a moment if she could let him do that.

Her predecessors would’ve never faltered, if they could make use of this man’s hatred then they would surely do it without heeding any moral sentiment.

However could she really allow a man to make that sort of mistake even to serve her own goals?

Her nails dug deep into her palms as she asked herself, time and time again, could she go on like this?

She felt sick, a churning sensation in the depths of her stomach that she could not make go away.

She raised her hand to cover her aching head and then put on her shoes a moment after.

She took one final glance towards the office where Aden worked.

She needed time to think. She needed time to be alone. She told them so, then left the maids and walked out the door on her own.

The maids fell silent. Half of their number turned to the other in doubt.

Then, finally, the one who’d been brushing through Uriel’s curly golden hair looked upon the head maid, their leader, with an uneasy expression.

“Miss Hannah,” She said, “Was it really alright to tell her about this?”

“There is merit in telling her,” Said the Head Maid, Hannah.

“But...what if Lord Aden finds out?”

“You let me worry about him.” The young maids fell silent, they all felt that their senior was being far too brazen, indeed very few lords would’ve put up with such secrets being spoken of behind their backs.

They feared the worst, but still the Head Maid dismissed their concerns.

“Someone go and inform Master Mercury that the young Lady has gone over to her usual spot again,” She said in a loud and demanding tone that kicked them all back into action.

They fled the chamber, then she turned to face the window.

There on the hill she spotted a field of gravestones, the usual spot where Uriel likes to go when she wants to sulk and be alone.

She eyed that place for but a moment before turning on her heels to depart the empty bedchamber.

She did not fear reprisals from her lord nor any other.

Lord Aden might cut an imposing figure in the eyes of those younger maids, but it was never so in her eyes.

The man may have been fast approaching forty, which is to say he was nearing the end of a Platinum Class’ average lifespan, but a Silver Class like herself could live to even see the age of sixty.

She’d served two full generations of Lords of Artemis, indeed it felt like she was burping that man over her shoulder just yesterday.