Chapter 352: My Aunt Leaving III
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Then Seraphiel added the line that mattered most. The line that will shock everyone. She says; with a clam face, "After we get back to your house, I will pack everything and leave the Lower Domain."
That landed harder. They know she is leaving. She already mentioned it in the meeting with Mihos Dawn. But they didn’t guess that she will leave tonight.
Sekhmet’s gaze sharpened slightly.
The maids all reacted differently. One looked surprised. One looked disappointed. One looked relieved because powerful guests always complicated household breathing.
Bat Bat looked openly upset. "You will leave tonight? So soon."
Seraphiel’s expression softened by half a degree. "That is because the world continues to exist with work. A lot of work. And I need to get back to my work. I got my own responsibilities in the middle domain."
She paused and then added, "My family called me many times. I can’t delay my return any further."
Bat Bat looked unconvinced but accepted the responsibility of her.
Seraphiel continued to Sekhmet, "You must send Lily back in three or four weeks. No longer. More than that will invite trouble. I won’t be have to handle that."
No one in the carriage misunderstood the weight under that word.
Trouble did not mean only a worried father.
It meant the city lord’s house began to ask harder questions. It meant Seraphiel’s name being tested. It meant Lily’s unexplained absence became a path for pressure. It meant the arrangement losing elegance and becoming suspicious.
Most importantly, if they look into it (the training) they will found out that Lady Seraphiel already leave the lower domain of Null. That alone will cause a panic.
Sekhmet nodded once. Because he understood everything.
Elena watched him thinking, "He understood the structure."
Then Lady Seraphiel said, "Elena."
She responded immediately. "Seraphiel."
"See that it is handled. If Sekhmet forget about it. You must remind him. You must sent lily back before any chaos happens. "
There was no elaboration. There was no doubt. There was a strong statement from a friend to another friend. It was about her honour as a God. She must keep her word.
Elena understood it. So she inclined her head. "Yes. You can count on me."
That settled the matter. The carriage rolled on.
The city proper began to gather around them again in familiar shapes. Road stone. Outer lamps. Better-known walls. The pressure of the western merchant route faded behind them.
Soon the Dawn House approached.
For the remainder of that stretch, conversation moved in smaller lines.
Bat Bat asked whether god-level women always solved custody problems by declaring ownership over promising girls. Seraphiel informed her that the word ownership was crude.
Bat Bat replied that the practice sounded the same. One maid nearly laughed. Elena looked at Bat Bat once and the discussion died immediately.
By the time the carriage reached Dawn House, the night had gone deeper and quieter.
The gates opened at once. The carriage entered the main gate of the Dawn House. The inner courtyard lamps threw gold light across stone.
And there... waiting near the front hall entrance as though she had spent the last stretch of time listening for wheels with every part of herself, stood Lily.
She looked up the moment the carriage stopped. Her eyes found Sekhmet first.
That mattered more than it should have.
Then she saw Lady Seraphiel descending behind him and immediately understood that whatever had happened at the meeting had come tangled with her own situation too.
Lily stepped forward. Then she asked, "How did it go?"
Sekhmet came down from the carriage first, then turned enough that she could read his face. He did not look wounded. He did not look pleased either. Which, in his case, often meant the night had gone exactly as badly and as usefully as expected.
"It is done," he said.
That was not enough for Lily. Of course not.
Her eyes shifted to Seraphiel. "Did something happen?"
Seraphiel came down from the carriage with the smooth elegance of someone who had stepped between two nearly colliding bloodlines less than an hour ago and still somehow looked as if she had merely visited a garden.
"Yes," she said. "And one part of it concerns you."
Lily looked from her to Sekhmet and then to Elena.
The maids, of course, were all listening while pretending not to. Bat Bat was listening while making no pretense at all.
Seraphiel spared them all by giving the simple explanation.
"I spoke to your father."
Lily stilled.
"He agreed that you may remain under my authority for a short period of time. It is to train."
Lily’s expression changed quickly. Relief came at first. Then suspicion, because she knew enough now to understand that fathers did not ’agree’ to such things cheaply when god level women were involved.
She asked, "And after that?"
"You return to him," Seraphiel said. "Or more accurately, to your mother’s side."
Lily’s eyes shifted once to Sekhmet. The line of that future clearly displeased her already.
Seraphiel went on. "You may stay here for three or four weeks under the claim that I am training you. But no longer. Because I told your father that I will train you for a month."
Lily understood it. Good for her.
She nodded slowly. "All right."
Bat Bat whispered, "Everyone keeps giving deadlines to romance."
One maid stepped on her foot.
Bat Bat made a small outraged sound and then understood why only after the fact.
Seraphiel looked at Lily for one more moment and then said, "I am leaving tonight."
That got a more immediate reaction.
Lily blinked. "So soon."
"Yes."
The answer held no softness this time. Only necessity.
"There is work waiting for me in the Middle Domain."
Lily’s face fell by a fraction. She and Seraphiel did not know each other for long. But blood, danger, and rescue made strange bonds quickly, and god-level women who stepped into your life and rearranged your husband’s disaster before leaving tended to leave marks behind.
Sekhmet watched the exchange in silence.