The Dread Knight's Rage

Jiaoying shakily brought a hand to her neck.

The simple, flower-like tattoo that had been present ever since she bonded with Fury had spread like an infection.

Discarding her shirt, she found that her neck, shoulders, back, arms, and even most of her legs were all covered in black tattoos.

However, Jiaoying barely cared about that. She cared about the fact that she had just gone up a cup size and gone back to an appearance that she hadn’t seen in almost two decades.

She naturally turned to stare at her shadow on the floor.

"Speak up! What did you do to me?!"

Jiaoying had spent many days wishing that Fury would be silent and not get on her nerves. It was only her luck that today of all days was when she finally decided to listen.

"My Lady?" Ryth called from the other side of the door.

Jiaoying gnashed her teeth together as she snatched her coat and shirt back on.

"This is certainly not over, you barbarous little demon..!" She hissed.

Once her shirt was back on, she opened the door and found her oldest attendant outside.

Ryth wasn’t like other people. Nothing ever really seemed to rattle him, and that included the spontaneous sight of his mistress looking twenty years younger.

"...Had I known the benefits of taking a younger lover were so great, I would have tried it some time ago. Or is this an effect that only elven women can bring about?"

Jiaoying rolled her eyes. "Cute."

"Not until you wash your face, you aren’t."

"Shut up, Ryth. Just tell me what’s so important you’re waking me at this ungodly hour."

Ryth faltered for a moment. The first indicator Jiaoying received that told her something was genuinely wrong.

"...The young lady and the young master have returned. They are asking to see you."

Jiaoying wouldn’t have lost her balance so quickly even if she were drunk walking on a tightrope. And yet, a few simple words caused her to stumble like a heavy blow.

"N-No... you have to tell them to leave." Her voice had no strength. Nor it’s usual candor.

"...I am not going to do that."

"I just gave you an order, Ryth O’Sirius!!"

"And I am refusing said order." Ryth gave her a look that seemed to say ’What are you going to do about it? Fire me?’

It was far more likely that she would throw him through a wall. Luckily, he could survive something like that.

"The Young lady Liora came by many times while you were away. You may not be her mother in blood, but she and her brother are heirs to this estate. You have a responsibility to hear her out."

"I cannot do that, Ryth, look at me!" Jiaoying gestured to herself. "I have no conceivable idea of what is going on, that beast could wrest control from me at any moment for all I know!"

"It will not come to that. But if it will make you more comfortable, some of your personal knights and I will stand guard. Now..."

Ryth stepped aside and held out his hand as a guide.

"Right this way, my lady. You have a very important meeting to get to."

-

Jiaoying’s career as a knight had taken her almost everywhere in the world.

She had been to the desert lands. To the deep sea and the arid flats.

But it was in the forest lands to the far west that she found parts of herself that she hadn’t known were missing.

In an effort to expand Eirbane’s influence beyond the boundaries of their continent, Jiaoying, fresh from the academy and recently married, was sent to a foreign nation to acquire farmland, purchase mines, and search for resources that were not native to or difficult to obtain in their homeland.

It was on that journey that Jiaoying discovered two young orphans, by simple accident. And her life had never been the same. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

She loved them. She raised them. But now, she was also deathly afraid of them.

Ryth had scarcely ever seen Jiaoying this rigid. Like a sheet of ice on a lake, it seemed as if the slightest bit of pressure would cause her to cave in.

Ryth knew he had to get things underway before Jiaoying changed her mind.

The butler pushed open a set of double doors, and light poured into Jiaoying’s eyes.

The subtle scent of tea wafted into her nose—a single scoop of sugar, three teaspoons of lemon, and a drop or two of whiskey.

Sitting at the dining room table were two young individuals.

One was a young man. He was proud and strong, like a miniature mountain. His skin was like sun-warmed amber, with subtle copper undertones in his cheeks.

He wore the armor of the Eirbane army. With the symbol of the empire on his chest plate, he was acknowledged by the emperor as being worthy of a higher station.

His hair was such a dark brown that it was nearly black. Two thick strands were bound in simple braids while the rest was allowed to run free down his head.

He’d started growing a bit of stubble along his jaw since Jiaoying had seen him last. It made her feel slightly nostalgic, remembering the way a four-year-old boy had delighted in having a beard made of bubbles.

But when Jiaoying laid eyes on the woman sitting next to him, her chest tightened up until it threatened to burst.

She shared the same copper skin tone and dark brown hair as her brother. However, her face was slightly doughier, making her look rather innocent and adorable. She was as beautiful as the setting sun.

A pair of circular glasses sat on the bridge of her nose. With just one look, Jiaoying could tell that it had likely been weeks since she’d remembered to clean them. Again.

Like her brother, she had two braids that sat on her shoulders. But where he wore no adornments, hers were fixed with small colorful beads.

She wore a simple blue dress adorned with tribal markings around the neckline and sleeves. In her lap sat an old, frayed book that she never really went anywhere without.

When Jiaoying’s eyes fell upon the wooden wheelchair that supported her, she all but crumbled then and there. Ryth had to place a hand on her back so that she wouldn’t run away.

The siblings looked up once they felt her enter. Though, their faces naturally gave way to an immense shock when they saw what had become of the woman they had known.

"By the gods..."

"Is that.. you, mother..?"

Jiaoying smiled nervously, a single tear falling from her cheek.

"After all that has happened... I’m surprised that you would still want to call me that."

She met their stunned gazes, and her voice cracked as she tried to welcome them.

"Liora... Tavian... I-"

"Oh, my. Am I interrupting something?"

All of a sudden, Jiaoying came crashing back into reality.

A voice she could never have mistaken in her wildest dreams.

She whirled around suddenly, finding an older man in black standing between two of her maids.

His white, sinister smile was infuriatingly deceptive to all but Jiaoying. A demon would always recognize another demon. Even if they happened to be in the form of a seemingly harmless old man.

"Apologies." Raidis bowed his head. "I don’t mean to disrupt a precious moment. It’s just... I seem to have misplaced something and I was hoping that I might find it here."