Chapter 10

Teleporting was strange.

One minute she was standing in a guild on a mountain in the Eastern Empire, staring at Blake or Sen wide brown eyes in a stuffy room with wooden floors and walls, and the next minute Livia was outside, surrounded on all sides by trees while trying to hold down the meager amount of dinner she had managed to scavenge last night.

She stumbles a little, her vision spinning and turning upside down before she falls to her knees and dry heaves in a bush. Her body felt like it had been pulled on, starting at her core, and her stomach cramps up because of it. Livia squeezes her eye shut as she heaves one more time before her stomach finally settles.

Her food stays down this time.

Livia wipes at the corner of her mouth with a grimace, and slowly gets to her feet and takes a look at her new surroundings.

There was no doubt about it. She had returned to the continent of Asor.

It was another forest, but as opposed to the one in the Empire, the trees weren’t overly tall. They were also much vibrant in color and glittered with freshly fallen rain. The air was humid and hot.

It was also much noisier and teeming with obvious life.

Livia flinches a bit at the sounds she hears and pulls her cloak tighter around her as she eyes the wall of trees a bit warily. Who knew what was beyond them? She had never encountered a monster before in her life, and all magical creatures she had interacted with had been bound as a familiar. There was no telling what they would do or how they would act in the wild.

Outside of civilization, the world of Etheria was completely feral and unforgiving. Even a highly skilled and high-ranking adventure could die at any moment notice if they weren’t cautious.

It was no place for a sheltered woman such as herself.

Even when she was in the harem, she remained mostly inside like a piece of expensive jewelry stuck behind a glass case. They hadn’t been allowed outside and were restricted to the Rose Palace unless the Emperor specifically summoned them. The Rose Palace had a large garden attached to it, but it was always overrun by the other woman of the harem so Livia tended to avoid it. It was the main stage for gossip, drama, and pointless rivalries that she had wanted no part in.

Instead, Livia would stay holed up in the small library that the Rose Palace had with her nose shoved into a book. All the books in the Rose Palace library had been pre-approved fictional works only meant for entertainment, but even from those, she gleamed that the world was no easy place to survive in.

So, one might wonder why she chose to teleport herself smack dab in the middle of danger and not say, at the doorstep of her beautiful and very safe childhood home?

Well, for starters, Livia was still exiled. She couldn’t waltz into her old Kingdom without doing something about that annoying fact. Not without running the risk of being captured again. Staying hidden from a gaggle of soldiers and one general without magic was completely different from those who had it. She lost some of the advantages she had in the Empire. Old One's magic was still lost to time, and therefore unknown and undetectable, but she had no illusions. Or at the very least, she was erroring on the side of caution.

She was powerful, but she was still lacking in skill and finest. Her second life sheds light on the magic in Etheria, but her memories from that life weren’t completely restored, in fact, it was far from it. Because of that, Livia didn’t want to rely solely on Old Ones' magic. She wanted to be as physically strong as she was magical.

Looking down at her thin, stark white arms that practically glowed in the dark, Livia frowned in disapproval. She knew just how weak she was physically, how easily she could be overpowered if her magic was stripped from her again. It was a real threat the loomed heavily over her.

She didn’t need to become stronger physically. She gained new memories of both of her past lives daily, it was only a matter of time before remembered everything. With two lifetimes of knowledge at her disposal, she would become magically stronger than ever before and have a unique advantage.

But it wasn’t enough. At least, not to her.

Livia thought she knew what true hopelessness felt like until she woke up on that boat.

But then she had arrived in the Eastern Empire.

She had thought that she was strong enough to prevail, that the fate forced upon her wouldn’t break her down and tear her apart.

She was wrong.

The things she had been forced to endure. The things she had seen in the dark corners of the Rose Palace, away from prying eyes. It was enough for her to almost lose all faith in humanity. She had little choice but to adapt. She had fought it at first but was quickly reminded of just how little her life meant to the Empire. She was replaceable. If she rebelled than she would be killed.

Even knowing that Livia had refused to back down completely. She fought back in small insignificant ways. She refused to wear makeup. She never did up her hair and wore the plainest clothes. She didn’t mingle with the other women and girls and avoided the Emperor whenever he visited. She had thought her disobedience went under the radar.

There were hundreds of other women in the Rose Palace, after all.

Who cared for one dumb girl?

Apparently, the Empress did. She was in direct control of the harem, and it reflected badly on her when one refused to step in line.

In a harem, and in one as large as the one in the Empire, not everyone would gain the attention of the Emperor. There would be many who would be sitting idly in the gilded cage. The Empress dowager had thought to put them to use.

As bargaining tools.

Two months into her stay in the Empire, in the dead of night, Livia had been woken up from a light sleep by the sound of the curtains around her bed being pulled back. Before she could turn, a heavyweight had settled over her body and a meaty hand had clamped over her mouth.

Her wide purple eyes had met black pebbles leering over her. Livia had tried to fight him off, but the difference in strength was too great. He was compact muscle while she was just long boney limbs. She had screamed and struggled, her sharp nails clawed into rough skin as her nightgown had been torn off her. Her legs were forced open, and he had groped roughly at her body. He hadn’t been gentle. He forced his way inside her, and all she could do was lay there and cry as she struggled weakly as she was raped.

Livia had always known being forced into having sex was inevitable, but it had been weeks since she had arrived. She let herself fall into a false sense of security once she had been placed in the harem. She had thought only the Emperor could touch them. She had been very wrong.

Her virginity had been stripped from her that night.

After he was done, that was when he told her about the arrangement he had with the Empress. For his obedience, he was gifted a woman of the harem.

Livia had been the one chosen.

The days after were her darkest.

She didn’t leave her bed. She didn’t sleep or eat.

Days went by and that man returned, but Livia had barely noticed.

It was only as she had been dragged down a stone hallway did she finally come back into herself. Livia had come to life then, and the first emotion she felt in days was a sudden and all-encompassing blind rage. She had been weak and underweight, but she fought with unexpected fierceness that took the guards by surprise. She had shrieked obscenities and bits and clawed at anything within range. The guards fought to get her under control, and the ruckus they were making gained the attention of those nearby.

The soldiers came running as the Emperor stumbled onto the scene.

Just as she was being subdued, the Emperor intervened. He ordered the guards to release her and told the soldiers to take her to his palace. Livia was nursed back to health by the Emperor himself. Even when she snapped back and got violent when he came to close, Elias remained patient.

Eventually, Livia had managed to gather the shattered pieces of herself and taped them back together. The picture hadn’t been perfect. It would never be, ever again, but it was still her.

She never revisited what happened that night after Elias took her in. She didn’t talk about it; she didn’t think about it. It happened, but now it was over. She had refused to let it have a hold over her.

But when was life ever that easy?

She didn’t want to think about it so she never did?

Just like that?

No.

That wasn’t how the brain operated. That wasn’t how it was wired. But for her own sake, Livia pretends that it is that simple. She pushes everything behind a black door. No matter how many times it reappears, she forces it back and closes the door firmly shut.

Again, and again, and again.

It was fine.

She was fine.

She would be. She would make sure of it.

That’s why she is here, in the middle of a forest that is teeming with things that can kill her in a blink of an eye. Livia wanted to be strong, so she would be. But becoming strong wasn’t something that can happen in a single day. She needed to work for it.

Above her, the sky was dotted with clouds that showed a sliver of slowly brightening sky. Now across the ocean, and in another country entirely, the sun had barely started its ascent into the sky.

Livia takes out the small compass that Blake had stuffed into the bag he had given her, before closing it and heading in a specific direction. She moves slowly, her head turning at every noise she hears until she finally hears the sound of rushing water.

A small stream breaks up the forest floor, and Livia quickly moves to it. She rinses off her face and gurgles water before she starts plaiting her hair into a long braid. Just as she almost finishes, she hears a rustle of leaves behind her, before something slams into her, making her fall into the stream.

She splutters, but quickly gets to her feet, spinning around as she fumbles with the bow on her back. She loads up an arrow and aims it at a pink slime that is already charging at her again. She steps out of the way, and out of the stream, and launches an arrow at the same time.

It barely hits its mark. Even with no enchantment, the moment the arrow plunges into the slime it implodes, causing pink goop to go flying.

Livia hastily puts up a blue barrier, and the goop bounces off it.

Looking down at her first kill, because there is no denying that she just killed it, Livia grins. Her heart was pounding in her chest, and her hands were still shaking from the scare the slime gave her, but a bit of her uncertainty ebbs. The way she just moved; it was almost instinct, like launching an arrow was second nature to her.

On a whim, Livia loads up her bow and draws back her arrow. Her target is a tree across the stream, she spreads out her legs, and closes one eye to better aim before she launches the arrow. It flies in the air, soaring in a small ark, before landing slight off the mark.

It was close though.

Really close.

Livia had never touched a bow and arrow in her life, but somehow...

She laughs, bright and almost mad, and does a little dance. She plucks up the arrow still stuck in the ground were the pink slime used to be and returns it to the quiver on her back, before jumping over the stream and retrieving the arrow in the tree.

The sky was much lighter in color now, and bright blue peaked between white fluffy clouds. She had hours before it got dark again and she had to set up camp (which she also apparently knew how to do). But even then, there was the next day, and then the next one after that.

Until then...

Livia loads up an arrow and slowly steps deeper into the forest, her eyes wide and alert.