Chapter 165 – Cassie
Isolde didn’t waste any more ti in that disgusting place. After ordering Maxim to find an Architect capable of properly forging Cristo Steel, she took Emma with her and disappeared.
She didn’t go straight ho. Before that, Isolde felt the need to alter Emma’s appearance — just to be more certain no problems would arise.
She did exactly that by changing the girl’s eyes through an artifact. They were no longer brown, but a light purple now, shining with the innocence befitting a child.
The young girl was strangely excited, feeling as though she had stepped into so kind of adventure, like the ones her mother used to tell her about when night ca.
During those tis, Emma had always wished to not be like those princesses waiting for a prince to save them. But like those warriors — her mother had called them Warmaidens — who fought for themselves and for those they loved.
In most of those stories, the beginning was always strange but consistent. It always started with one event that shifted the character’s entire life.
Emma might only be six years old, but when your mother was a spy inside a hidden and peculiar cult, you ca to learn many things about life early...and to be prepared for it.
Those teachings were what allowed Emma to adapt to this strange situation faster than any normal girl her age.
Even now, as she was led by Isolde toward her new ho and her new life, the words of her mother drifted through her mind — calm and instructive.
’Emma, my sweet daughter, you must do what I am telling you, alright? A day will co when I am no longer here. Do not look sad. Do not cry. I will have gone to look for your father. You rember him, right? Yes, I will do it for you. But it may take a very long ti. When that day cos, your life will change, and I need you to do one thing for , my daughter...’
Emma had nodded hard at that ti, her heart releasing a quiet whimper of pain without fully understanding why.
’...I need you to live on strongly. I want you to beco the best. And for that, I need you to be reborn.’
Emily Stone had spoken those words hoping that, when Emma grew older, she might co to understand the deeper aning behind them.
She had underestimated her daughter and the strangeness of the world.
Emma might have been lost when those words were first spoken...but now, in this situation, with Isolde leading her toward a new ho, she understood everything completely.
She must be reborn. And to be reborn was to no longer be who she had been. She needed to be different. She needed to be like that princess in the story written by MasterofPaths, the one who could change her appearance every three years.
At that thought, Emma instinctively lifted her head and looked at Isolde guiding her through streets thick with people.
"Can I have a new na?" She asked in a small voice, her new purple eyes blinking rapidly.
Emma’s eyes were strangely magnetic. Yet those eyes, in that mont, lacked sothing fundantal.
An identity.
And the young girl was desperately trying to reclaim it — to be reborn — starting with a new na.
Isolde was montarily fascinated by her.
How could soone so young be this pragmatic and clear-headed?
Did she instinctively understand that she needed to change her entire identity?
Isolde sighed inwardly with amazent laced with quiet excitent. She had already seen potential in Emma. Now she was even more certain of that assessnt.
If she played this correctly, she might have found her first true subordinate.
She almost offered a quiet prayer for Emily Stone’s soul as a gentle smile appeared on her lips.
"You want a new na?"
"Yes, big sister."
"Why? Do you not want to keep the na your mother gave you?"
"Mother told to be reborn once she was no longer here, gone to find father." She replied with complete innocence. "Don’t... don’t I need a new na for that?"
Isolde smiled faintly. "I suppose you do." She nodded. "But do you want to be the one to na you? If I na you..." she looked at her with steady eyes, "...it would be like I am your mother, wouldn’t it?"
Emma paused and visibly considered that, realising Isolde was not entirely wrong.
But then...
’Doesn’t being reborn an a new mother?’
Her childish but sharp mind was interpreting her mother’s concept of rebirth in a way Emily herself would never have anticipated.
And that interpretation made Emma nod at Isolde with complete seriousness, smiling and accepting sothing that would change her life forever.
"Yes, you can be my mother!" She squealed.
Isolde almost burst out laughing. She could not help finding the situation absurd. And yet she would be a fool not to make use of it.
"Not mother." She shook her head at last. "I am too young for that, and I have a husband who might not be pleased. What about big sister like you have been calling ?"
Isolde then stopped in the middle of the bustling street and crouched down in front of Emma.
"I will be your big sister and your new family." Isolde said, her eyes looking directly into Emma’s false purple ones. "I will love you, and you will love . You will listen to my words, because I want only good things for you. I will feed you. I will give you a roof. I will teach you. And I will protect you until you can protect yourself."
She paused, letting those words settle.
"Do you accept?"
"Yes, big sister!" Emma said without a mont’s hesitation.
"Then from this day forward, you are no longer Emma." Isolde smiled faintly. "I will na you Cassie. My own little sister."
Emma — now Cassie — nodded with overwhelming joy, already loving her new na.
"Cassie!" She squealed. "I love it, big sister! What is my family na?"
Isolde’s smile faltered slightly. She could not give Cassie the Amaris na, and certainly not the Desdemona na.
She would need to create sothing, but Cassie might feel less connected to her without a shared family na.
The mind of a child could work in strange ways.
So in haste, sothing ca to her.
"Isolde." She said. "You are Cassie Isolde. I give you my own first na as your family na. This is the proof that you are mine, and that I am your family. Are you happy now?"
Cassie would have died of happiness if such a thing were possible. She imdiately threw her arms around Isolde, calling her big sister...and cried.
Crying because sowhere deep inside her, part of her knew she had lost sothing precious.
Crying because she now had a new family. Soone to call her own after being thrust headfirst into a completely different world.
Crying because a new adventure had begun, and just like the ones from the stories, Cassie was excited to see how it would end.
Isolde said nothing and simply accepted the embrace, her mind turning over multiple thoughts, wondering if this had been a wise decision.
But it was too late to hesitate now.
She had another little sister. And in a part of herself she chose not to examine, she quietly vowed that this ti, at least, she would be a good one.
"Well, Cassie, let’s go. I will show you your new ho."
"Yes, big sister!"
Isolde took the small hand of Cassie and walked on, already thinking about how she was going to explain this to Cassius.
...
Isolde arrived at Amaris House half an hour later.
As always, neither of her parents bothered themselves to co et her after such a long absence.
She wondered, just for a mont, whether they ever sat and thought about how she was doing when she was not ho.
But the thought did not last before it was burned away by sothing that resembled indifference — though was not quite.
She took Cassie, who was looking around at everything with wide and dazed eyes, and brought her inside her room.
Aissatou was already there.
The old maid had been faithfully waiting for her young Lady, and was visibly surprised to see her arrive with a young child in dirty clothes.
She was even more surprised when Isolde told her she was taking the young girl in as her little sister.
"Go inform my parents, and use our connections to create all the docunts needed for her new identity. Her na is Cassie Isolde. Her only family is — Isolde Amaris — her big sister and guardian."
Those were the first words Isolde directed at Aissatou, without bothering with greetings.
The maid glanced briefly at Cassie, who was pressing both hands into the soft, silky surface of Isolde’s bed with a wide and beaming smile.
"So soft~" she whispered, then promptly rubbed her cheek against it in a foolish but undeniably cute way.
’Vorn’s breath, what is happening now?’ Aïssatou thought with quiet alarm, then obeyed without question and exited the room.
"Now," Isolde’s lips twitched as she looked at her new little sister, already half-lying on the bed and clearly about to fall asleep. "Cassie, before you sleep you need to take a bath first."
Almost five full seconds passed, then...
"...later~"
"No." Isolde said flatly, then reached down, grabbed Cassie by the collar and lifted her as though she weighed nothing. To Isolde, she very nearly did.
"Big sister!" Cassie shouted, startled, struggling uselessly.
"Stop squirming and stop shouting in my ear, Cassie. I will wash up with you, alright? I also need a bath."
Cassie relented eventually, then proceeded to enjoy the bath so thoroughly that she refused to get out. It quickly beca apparent she had never experienced a bathtub before, or hot water.
Back in her previous life — as she cheerfully, innocently called it — it had been a small bucket of cold water every morning that froze her ass.
Everything was new now.
And Cassie felt like she was living inside a fairytale.
Afterward she fell asleep almost imdiately on Isolde’s bed, once Isolde gave her a shirt to wear. Her small, ordinary but genuinely cute face was peaceful, her chest rising and falling steadily.
Isolde sat on her chair, wearing a simple black cotton robe, her hair pulled into a bun and secured with a black hairpin.
A cup of green tea sat in front of her.
Aissatou returned shortly after, having completed her task.
"What did they say?" Isolde asked imdiately, lifting the cup.
"I only t Lady Sophia. She simply asked where you found the girl, my Lady." Aissatou replied. "I told her she was an orphan you had taken in out of compassion. She did not care enough to ask anything further."
"Knowing my mother, she will still look into the girl’s background."
"Almost certainly, my Lady."
"Build a background for Cassie through the Fangs, that is their area of expertise. Make it ordinary enough to be unremarkable, sothing you would encounter every day. But with just enough detail to explain why it might have moved my compassion."
Aissatou nodded. "I will see to it, my Lady."
Isolde humd in answer, sipping her tea and letting a quiet silence settle between them for a few breaths.
Then slowly she set the teacup down, applied her Soundless power around the sleeping Cassie, lifted her gaze to Aissatou and opened her lips.
"The task I gave you before I left." Isolde said, tilting her head. "Did you find anything regarding my parents?"
Aissatou went still.
Several emotions moved through her eyes in quick succession before she exhaled, her voice tight.
"I did, my Lady."
—End of Chapter 165—
User Comments
0 comments from readers