The tension was such that it was about to become something palpable; Tristessa felt her legs tremble, and the urge to vomit from the uncontrollable anxiety that skyrocketed to the heavens.
Those questions generated others in the girl's turbulent head: was it normal for people from another world -Strangers- to come to Nekrom? Were there people from Earth living here? Do they know how to return to their original world? Is it even possible to return? Many more doubts, more questions and few answers. Much less if those answers were linked to direct risks to her life.
She had no evidence, but something inside her told her that confessing and confirming Tiara's suspicion was going to end badly. Very badly. Possibly worse than when she revealed her Dark Resurrection. It was a Russian roulette in which she was not willing to participate, but the pregnant woman was waiting for an answer; every second counted, every second fueled her suspicions, and the hunting knife on her belt became a more solid and more real focus of danger…
Finally, unable to resist her hostess's inquisitive gaze any longer, Tristessa took a leap of faith into the void by opening her mouth and saying almost without thinking:
"I don't know."
A simple, improvised, fragile answer, in front of Tiara's relentless gaze. So simple to break with the slightest breeze…
"You don't know, huh…" At the peak of tension, at the moment when Tristessa's legs were about to give way under the weight of her own body and the crushing atmosphere, Tiara snorted with her nose and walked away. "The perfect excuse, but logical in itself. It's up to others to judge you... For my part, I believe you when you say you don't remember a damn thing."
She gathered everything Tristessa had chopped with the blade of the knife and put it in the pot. She mixed it with the ladle and with the other hand she brought the steaming aroma of the soup to their faces.
"It smells good. With a little chopped garlic it will be better."
Silently, Tristessa nodded, with a discreet hand resting against her chest to feel the unbridled beating of her own heart, which was not willing to calm down. She felt like she had just dodged a bullet that would have killed her, she had no doubt about it.
"Miss Tiara…" she managed to articulate after a while, finding her voice again and thinking in record time of some topic to change the conversation. Anything at all. "Can I ask you something? That photo in the guest room…"
"It is none of your business. Pretend it doesn't exist," was her instant response, her focus on the quick and expert cuts to divide two cloves of garlic.
"I understand what it's like to want to keep something like that, even if it brings up not-so-nice memories. I had a photo too, but I lost it. I wonder if it's still there, in the woods, next to..." She had to bite her tongue: Tristessa was about to say my remains. "…a jacket I lost too."
"Ha! You don't lose your head because you have it glued to your neck. However, I have nothing to talk to you about that photograph, girl. Not about it, not about that room, not about my family. You sleep there because Jin insisted on it until I couldn't listen to his damn voice any longer, so have a little consideration and mind your own business."
But Tristessa pushed forward, in order to take the pregnant woman to a place far from that idea that she was from another world. Even if she had to play with fire to achieve it.
"I just want to understand why you hate me so much, Tiara," she said, for the first time speaking to her without formality and with impudence, almost as if demanding explanations. Her hostess ignored her, despite her manner; if she wanted a reaction, she had to press just a little more. "It wasn't intentional, but your husband gave me clues. I can guess that there is a connection with the Coven, am I right? The witches of the forest and that photo have something in common. Something bad…"
"Something bad…? Something bad?!" Tiara suddenly stabbed the knife into the wood, in a fit of rage that made Tristessa jump, terrified. Her hand gripping the handle trembled, making the wood creak; her eyes perfectly matched that crimson color with the infernal fury that had been unleashed. "They took my son, that's what happened! Worshippers of the fucking Shadow Queen took my Mellion from me. The same lunatics who prey on the Sea of Trees, enjoying on our suffering and of all of those whose children they have stolen. And hiding like rats in the dark, waiting to ruin our lives again, and again…"
The black-haired girl had expected a tragedy hidden in the abandoned photograph, but not one so malicious. The Coven was an isolated group of fanatics of the enigmatic Dark Lady, operating in Imperial territory, she could understand that; but what was unheard of was the level of evil associated with the kidnapping of children. She was afraid to even ask what they did with the children…
"Aren't there any authorities or police who could have helped you?" she asked in return.
"I don't know what the hell is a police is, but if you're talking about the Imperial militia, of course they weren't going to help us. If Eramisaptor or the Imperial government had wanted to help me, they would have brought a battalion of elemental-fire thaumaturges from the Frontier and reduce the entire Sea of Trees to ashes," the woman replied, darkness tainting her voice. "But no. All we received was banishment."
"I don't understand… Why? What's the point of such a decision? It's as if you were the ones who committed the crime!"
At Tristessa's exclamation, her indignation known, Tiara responded with silence. A silence that only fueled the girl's confusion even more.
"If you don't understand, you'd better ask Jin. He has an easier time talking about the past, while myself…" Tiara let out a tired sigh, and bit her lip to keep from crying. Her escape was to continue cooking, turning her back on Tristessa. "Go away, leave me and my baby alone."
The conversation was over. Tristessa knew she wasn't going to get any more information, especially since Tiara hadn't finished lowering her defenses around her. And it made more than sense, given the unexpected situation that had arisen and that she had managed to successfully avoid. Being suspected of being a visitor from another world, a Stranger, sounded like something that separated her life from Death. She still felt the latent panic that wanted to destroy her under the pressure Tiara subjected her to… At last, she could declare victory, even if only for the moment.
"Tristessa."
When the girl was about to return to the courtyard, taking advantage of the opportunity to escape that Tiara had given her, the same woman stopped her dead, with one foot inside the kitchen and the other in the atrium.
And the only thing she said to her was something that did nothing to ease her constant worries about the Coven, the Dark Lady and the other unknown dangers that inhabited Nekrom. What Tiara told her fueled that black fire known as fear:
"When I asked you days ago to leave this house as soon as possible, it was not only for the safety of my family. For the sake of everyone, I hope you are not a Stranger. If you just turn out to be a simple and unfortunate girl… It would be best if you run and don't look back."