297. Laila’s Story From The Past Part 2

“Ah-ah... Laila, Yo-Your Highness,” Laila replied, her voice trembling. She remained rooted to the spot, completely bewildered by the fact that the most feared "Raven" of the palace was before her and had just saved her life.A heavy silence stretched between them for a few seconds. Ravenna let out a soft sigh, turning away and walking toward a dusty sofa nearby.

“Ah… Your Highness… why did you save me?” Laila finally managed to ask, her confusion getting the better of her.

Ravenna chuckled, the sound sharp in the quiet room. “Don’t go thinking of it as some grand gesture. I simply found you amusing,” she said, dusting off a patch of the sofa before sitting down and crossing her legs.

“A… amusing?” Laila asked, sinking down onto the floor by the entrance, her legs finally giving out from the adrenaline crash.

“Think about it. If you were truly capable of sneaking into the heart of the Imperial Palace and infiltrating Serena’s private chambers, shouldn't you be walking away with more than just a single, cheap gem?” Ravenna pointed a slender finger toward the small stone clutched in Laila’s hand. “It’s quite amusing to watch such pure stupidity in action.”

Ravenna leaned back, spreading her arms across the back of the sofa in a relaxed, dominant pose.

“I… I didn’t come here to steal! I’m just taking back what belongs to me!” Laila blurted out, a sudden spark of frustration overriding her fear. “Princess Serena saw this heirloom left by my late mother and claimed it was a rare magic gem. She just took it by force, throwing a few miserable gold coins at me as if that made it right! I’m just here to take it back!”

Pfft… Ravenna began to laugh, a genuine, rolling sound that filled the stagnant air. She seemed to be brawling with herself just to catch her breath at the girl’s perceived idiocy.

“Is that really the reason you risked your life? For a piece of rock?”

“Of course I would risk my life for my possessions! Doesn't everyone have the right to protect what is theirs?” Laila replied, standing up as her indignation grew.

Ravenna stopped laughing abruptly. She looked taken aback by the statement, her dark eyes searching Laila’s face. Then, a slow, different kind of smile formed on her lips.

Laila turned back to the door, peering through the crack. “If that’s all, then thank you for saving me. I think the guards are starting to thin out, so I’ll be leaving now, Your Highness.”

As she turned to head toward the stairs to find her way out, Ravenna’s voice drifted over her shoulder. “You’re right. Everyone should treasure their possessions.”

Laila stopped in her tracks. She hadn’t expected the haughty princess to agree with her on anything, much less stop mocking her for a moment.

“But the guards won’t be decreasing anytime soon,” Ravenna added, tapping her fingers against a cloth-covered side table. “In fact, they’ll only increase. The perimeter will be on high alert for quite a while.”

“W-why? I didn’t take anything truly valuable…” Laila gripped the gem tighter.

“Oh, don’t feel so conceited. It has nothing to do with you,” Ravenna replied with a small chuckle. “It’s because I’m being confined to this mansion starting today. That security detail is for me—arranged specifically to ensure I don’t escape.”

“Ah…” Laila whispered, the realization sinking in. An awkward silence fell between them for several minutes. Laila shifted on her feet, unsure of what to say. “Why would a Princess like you be confined in a place like this?”

As soon as the words left her mouth, Laila felt like a fool. “That was a stupid question,” she thought. “Everyone knows about the Princess’s attitude and her unruly behavior. This is probably just another one of her many punishments.”

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Ravenna looked at her through the dim, dusty light as if she could read the self-reproach on Laila’s face.

“It’s true that I’ve frustrated the Imperial Family more than a few times, but this time, the order didn't come from my father. It was my Master who decided to punish me for skipping my training sessions,” Ravenna explained. She stood up and smoothed her black shirt. “So, let go of any thoughts of escaping for at least the next month.”

She began walking toward one of the inner rooms, calling back over her shoulder, “That is, if you don't wish to be caught by the heightened patrol and end your days in a cold jail cell.”

“A month?!” Laila was stunned, but Ravenna didn't seem to care for her shock.

She paused at the doorway, looking back at Laila with a nonchalant shrug. “Hmm… having the company of a cute girl might not be such a bad idea after all.” With that, she vanished into the room.

Laila stood alone in the dusty lobby, her mind spinning. She was officially trapped in an abandoned mansion in the middle of the Imperial Palace with the Empire's most notorious princess.

“What a bizarre situation…” she muttered to herself, staring at the gem in her palm.

The days in the mansion bled into weeks, the silence of the abandoned halls replaced by the rhythmic clink of Ravenna’s training daggers and Laila’s soft voice reading aloud from legal texts Ravenna had ordered Keneric to manage to sneak in. They fell into a strange, domestic rhythm. Ravenna, who lived a life defined by cold ambition and the constant threat of assassination, found a peculiar grounding in Laila’s stubborn presence. Laila, in turn, began to see past the "Raven" persona, realizing that the Princess’s cruelty was weirdly far more straightforward, peacefully just.

One rainy evening, as the thunder rumbled over the palace spires and the only light came from a single, flickering candle, the two sat on the floor of the library, surrounded by dust-covered tomes. Laila was staring at a page on Imperial Common Law, her expression pinched with a familiar, weary frustration.

“You’ve been staring at that same paragraph for twenty minutes,” Ravenna noted, not looking up from where she was sharpening a blade. “Is the law suddenly written in ancient script, or are you just brooding again?”

Laila let out a long, heavy breath, leaning her head against the mahogany leg of a desk. “I was thinking about my father and grandmother back home. They think I’m studying to be a prestigious clerk, but I want more than that. I want to be a defense lawyer. I want to stand in those marble courts and actually win for the people the Empire forgets.”

She looked at her hands, the ones that had trembled while stealing back her mother’s gem. “Protecting the weak is something I have always wanted to do, Your Highness. But the failures far outweigh the victories. My sense of justice always makes me pick fights I can’t win. Sometimes I feel like I’m just hitting my head against a stone wall, hoping the wall will break before my skull does.”

Ravenna stopped the sharpening stone mid-stroke. She looked at Laila, her dark eyes unreadable in the shadows. Then, she let out a dry, hauntingly beautiful laugh.

“‘Sense of justice’? ‘Protecting the weak’?” Ravenna shook her head, leaning forward until the candlelight cast sharp, dancing shadows across her face. “That’s just your greed talking, Laila. You just want to feel self-important by having a clear conscience that you protected someone.”

Laila opened her mouth to argue, her face flushing with indignation, but Ravenna cut her off with a flick of her wrist.

“Don’t look at me like that. There is no such thing as a ‘sense of justice.’ It’s a fairy tale told to keep the masses quiet. You just want to feel like a hero for your own ego. You want to look in the mirror and see someone ‘good’ to justify your existence in a world that is fundamentally not. There is nothing wrong with that, greed is an honest human emotion. But don’t dress it up in holy robes. You’re doing it for yourself, and once you admit that, you’ll actually figure out a way to victory.”

Laila sat in stunned silence. It was a selfish, cynical worldview, yet it weirdly stuck with her compared to what anyone had ever said to her. It stripped away the guilt of her failures. If her justice was just her own desire, then she didn’t need the world’s situations to be considered to fight for it.

Ravenna stood up, the movement fluid and predatory. she walked over to Laila, reaching down to tilt the blonde girl’s chin up. The air between them grew thick, the heat of the mansion’s stagnant air suddenly feeling electric.

“You have a fire in you, Laila. It’s messy and idiotically idealistic, but it’s bright,” Ravenna whispered, her thumb brushing against Laila’s jawline. “I’m going to need people like you. People who are greedy enough to want to change the world for their own satisfaction.”

She leaned in closer, her voice dropping to a low, intimate murmur. “Situations always change to constitute what is right or wrong but it’s your desires that are the only thing you can control.” she paused with a smile “I will build something. An Empire where our desire can be rewarded and where you can win those fights because I will be the one holding the wall up for you.”

Ravenna’s eyes searched Laila’s. “Stay with me. Become mine. I will give you the power to be as ‘just’ as your ego desires. What do you say, my little thief?”

Laila felt her heart thundering. The offer was scandalous, dangerous, and entirely life-altering. She looked at the Princess and she didn't see a villain. She saw a destination she always wanted to arrive at.

“I think,” Laila breathed, her hand reaching up to catch Ravenna’s wrist, “that I might be just as greedy as you are.. Your highness”