As soon as they exited the brothel, Sigrid turned to Brolin. "Go, you already have the location of most of her children, feed them the pill and make sure that she knows. If I don’t see that property deed to this brothel when I open my eyes tomorrow morning, find me a means to close down her business.
A woman like her, she will not let her business die, she would sooner die than watch it crumble to dust."
Sigrid dusted off her cloak with gloved hands, there was neither dust nor diet on it. Her servants assumed that she was doing so because she was somewhat disgusted by the air in and around the brothel.
"Let’s go," she told Lanai and Lama.
When she turned on her leg, she bumped into a man and almost lost her footing. He put his hands on her shoulders, holding her up steadily.
"My apologies." he said.
She raised her hostile eyes through the mask and pushed him away. The reason for her hostility was because she recognized him, he was Lord Lysander Windrider, the second son of the prime minister and second male lead in the novel.
His father the prime minister was also a noble, a Marquess; Marquess Tobias Windrider. They were a powerful political house in Eldoria, very wealthy and heavily influential.
Lysander Windrider had provided the wings which launched Emmah into the air and allowed her to fly, he had gone around with her everywhere, introducing her to other nobles and enabling her to make connections.
Every business that she started, he promoted far and wide, supporting her in everything where Roland naturally fell short as he was neither the first or male lead.Come to think of it, her husband was basically a canon fodder whose only role in the novel had been to introduce Emmah to the world.
Sigrid caressed her fan and looked around for witnesses, wondering if she could just decapitate Lysander and get it over with.
"You cannot." the system informed her.
She did not ask why, she stepped around him and walked away, followed by her maids. Brolin had already left to do as she had instructed.
Lysander Windrider looked at his hands, and he chortled. He had never met a woman that was so hostile towards him that the hostility spilled through her bones to the point of chilling him.
She had thrust his hands away from herself as if he had boils or poison that she did not want to be infected with.
"What? Are you interested in her?" Kane Windrider asked. "She is coming from the direction of the brothel, she is probably one of the ladies of the night."
He was Lysander’s younger brother who was on his first visit to a brothel, which was why they were where they were.
"I don’t think so, she is draped in a cloak that costs at least one hundred silver coins, the two women walking behind her are moving like maids of a noble woman in terms of distance and most importantly, all three are wearing masks. Ladies of the night have no need for masks unless they are being used for entertainment." Lysander replied.
"I reckon its a noble woman that has come to warn some foxy mistress to keep away from her tilted husband." Kane laughed.
Lysander shrugged. "Let’s go, and keep in mind our agreement, if father or grandfather asks, we went out drinking at Ironwood tavern."
The two brothers continued on their way, not knowing that from the shadows, Sigrid’s eyes were stalking them. Even though she could not kill Lysander, she wanted to cause him some injury.
Roland would soon return, with him Emmah would arrive and she would meet Lysander. Sigrid thought that it would be best if she could delay that meeting as much as she could.
"Have you considered stealing his loyalty?" the system asked.
Loyalty test
Subject: Lysander Windrider
Percentage: -100
Probability of switching loyalty: Unknown
Conclusion: He hates you, you must have offended him. What did you do?
Sigrid scoffed as her horse dashed through the streets once again, racing against the night wind. The ridiculous system was asking her what she had done to offend Lysander, but how would she know? All these hidden plots which were not written in the novel were new to her.
In the original Sigrid’s memory, she could not recall any meeting or connection between the two. While she did not have the answers, she was certain that if it came down to it and it was life or death, she would have to eliminate Lysander.
"Or just turn him and Emmah against each other the way you are doing the king and Rina, if they are killing each other, they won’t have time to come after you." Cosmos suggested.
As always, she had his voice in her mind.
"Have you dealt with the spies that have been watching me?"
"All dead and I even cremated their bodies, you can thank me later by buying me some wine from the bank." Cosmos replied. "Oh, before I forget, your husband is going to arrive sometime tomorrow."
The news took her by surprise, Sigrid pulled on the reigns of the horse tightly, it cried out and raised it’s legs in the air, almost throwing her off.
It scared the people that were walking near by, a few even started to run in fear of a mad horse trampling over them.
Sigrid calmed the horse first and resumed the journey to the restaurant where her carriage was parked. She found Cosmos sitting on top of the carriage with his legs crossed as if he was meditating.
She ducked into the carriage, settled down and started questioning him.
"Why is he returning?"
"Because he lives here, where else do you expect him to go?"
"Damn it Cosmos you know what I mean, why is he returning now? It’s too soon, it doesn’t match the time line in the novel. I thought that I had some more time to make more preparations." she huffed.
"Your highness..." Lanai started in a worried voice.
"I am fine Lanai, I am allowed to huff, puff and sigh like any other normal person." Sigrid cut her off.
Cosmos had a response crafted, "The halo is not not going to sit back and not fight back. It can sense that some changes are occurring that do not favor Emmah so it is finding means to escalate things so that she can make her way to Doria faster and begin her path to glory."
"I figured as much." Sigrid muttered.
As soon as Cosmos said Roland would be arriving the next day, she figured the halo had something to do with it.
"It’s not all bad news." Cosmos informed her. "Because Emmah has been rushed into returning, she has not healed Roland’s wounds completely. His gratefulness to her is not at the percentage it originally should have been."
"But she still saved his life." Sigrid replied.
"Yes." Cosmos confirmed.