Mariha Baelir

"It's the last day," said the lordling as I walked into the parlour.

He is here, along with the adviser, Vanis and the lawyers. We have been negotiating for the last two days, and this will be the last one.

The lord had set the timeline of three days.

He wants to bond the legacy with Velvet Garden as soon as possible. I can't blame him; the condition of the legacy isn't good.

There are two to three weeks before the waning begins, but things happen.

"Only the last thing remained to be negotiated. If we succeeded, it would be a huge success." Stated Adviser Fisk began to discuss the strategy.

Vanis and I watched, speaking only when asked, otherwise remaining silent.

It's about us, but without us.

My inn, beautiful inn, was taken away from me. I was forced to merge it with the Vanis Tavern, an average legacy. My inn may have been small, but it was special.

It possessed a unique skill that even Vanis's Tavern lacked.

But I didn't have a choice; Barbarians were coming, and Halih wanted to get as much out of me as possible, without considering me or my legacy.

Lord of Inam offered the best deal, and they gave me an order.

I hated it then, and even now, it fills me with deep rage. Even decades after reaching Grade III, I held hope that I could take my legacy to Grade IV.

There was a small chance. I might have if it happened before, but they took it away from me.

My legacy merged with Vanis's Tavern, and in the merge, I fought hard for control. However, since my inn is merging with it, with Inam as the location, Vanis has more leverage.

If it had been a free merge, with the victor taking all. I would have come out victorious.

The merger succeeded, and I obtained secondary control, but it failed to achieve the goal that they had tried to force through the merger of the legacies.

It didn't push back the waning. Instead, it had made it worse. The waning, which was supposed to have been months away, shrank to only weeks.

On top of that, aspects of our legacies aren't working well together. They are clashing, which has reduced their emotion absorption.

Even I could barely stand in that grating atmosphere, where two different aspects clash against each other.

Now, Velvet Garden is going to come in the mix. It could resolve it or make it even worse.

I was in thought, while they were strategizing, when a man entered the room.

"This had come from the city hall," said the man, handing the letter to the adviser, who looked at it before turning to me.

"It's for you, Lady Mariha," he stated and handed the letter to me.

Seeing it, I felt joy and opened it, and the smile on my face widened.

I got the appointment with him.

For three days, I have been trying to get an appointment with him. I met his people, including his whores and people in city hall, but not him.

It's an hour later. It will only be for fifteen minutes, which is less than I liked, but I could manage with that.

Time passed, and soon it was time to leave. We all got out and sat in our carriage.

Usually, I go with Vanis and others, but today, I wanted to go alone.

"Do you think he will agree?" he asked. "I don't know, but everything I heard about him tells me that he is a reasonable person," I replied, to which Cendan laughed.

"Everything you have told me about the negotiations makes me feel he is the most unreasonable person," he said. I didn't reply to that.

The proposal is both the most outrageous and generous one I have seen.

He wants the legacy, and one might think it will be his, considering he will be master, with control superseding ours, but he wants far more than that.

He is also giving a lot. If those in Halih knew about it, their eyes would turn red in envy.

They have no business in the contract; their sole purpose is to receive the predetermined number of emotion essences every month for a decade from the Lord of Inam.

It is the same amount of essence that my legacy used to produce.

Vanis Tavern used to produce more.

After merging, and due to the clashing aspects, the legacy is producing far less essence. It is why Lord of Inam never had a choice.

He accepted the proposal despite the outrageous demands that wounded his honour because, without it, he wouldn't have any essence as every drop produced would go to Halih.

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In the proposal, Silver is offering far more, and this offer would increase even further if the conditions he laid down are met.

Which made me wonder, how much essence does his legacy produce?

This is the most asked question in hushed rooms. Nobody knows. Silver never told anyone. The only ones likely to know are his whores.

The whores used to work in my inn, but I never trusted them; they were the most untrustworthy of the lot.

People might not know the exact amount of emotion essence Velvet Garden produces, but everybody understands that it's a lot.

I turned my head and saw the tower; the most enormous Grade IV legacy on the continent. Bigger than most Grade IVs; only those arenas could compare to it.

It's big enough to house over ten Grade III legacies easily and several Grade IV and more.

The question everybody is asking after the advancement, whether its size has increased further. Everyone knows Silver has that envious skill.

The legacy expansion skill, which is typically associated with a throne, is very rare because he obtained it before that.

Nobody had sensed it yet, but I had walked around the legacy, and I didn't sense it at all.

It's very easy to sense, but there was not even a hint.

It's extremely rare for a legacy skill to disappear, but it happens. The legacies are all about vision. If it changes drastically, the skills disappear and change too.

I was lost in thought when the carriage stopped, and I realized I had reached the city hall.

Seeing that, I got out.

"See you later at the conference room, Lady Mariha," said the lordling. "Yes, my lord," I replied. He is my lord, but only for a day or two.

After the legacy became the subject of Velvet Garden, I will become the subject of Silver. It is on the contract; both Vanis and I will be citizens of Greltheaven.

I entered the city hall, which seemed to grow more crowded each day. There weren't as many people here on the first day, but now, on the third day, they seemed to have doubled.

I followed the directions and soon reached Silver's office.

"Lord Silver will see you in ten minutes, Lady Mariha," said the teen girl with a professional smile, before she returned to her work.

"This way, Lady Mariha, Mr. Baelir," said the blond woman in her early twenties, and led me toward the waiting room.

I could tell she is a whore. My class is quite attuned to them, as long as they are using the skill or keeping the class open, I could tell.

The teen girl is also using the skill; her control is surprising, but most astonishing is her level.

It is shocking even; she is Lv. 30; a girl who is barely eighteen is Lv. 30. I heard that whores of Silver are high level, but I expected only those with a high position.

I didn't expect his secretary to be that powerful. It is sobering.

"When we had our legacy, we rarely waited for anyone," said Cendan, breaking me out of my thoughts. "Not anymore," I replied softly, with longing.

It is one of the reasons why I came here. I am worried about my position.

Minutes felt like hours before, finally, it's time.

"Lady Mariha, Lord Silver is ready for you," said the blond woman. I got up with Cendan and was about to follow when the woman looked at Cendan.

"Lord Silver has only requested Lady Mariha," she stated. Cendan opened his mouth, and I could feel he was angry.

He got too used to the privileges that the legacy brought. He is having a hard time adjusting without them.

"Stay," I said to him. He opened his mouth, but closed it a moment later, before sitting down, while I followed behind a blond woman.

Soon, we reached the door, and the guards opened it before I walked inside.

There I saw the man, a young man. Lean and handsome, he does not look like a lord. He looked like a mage, actually, but he is not.

I heard he doesn't have even the slightest of the mage talent.

Seeing me, he turned from the file he was looking at. His eyes felt sharp as a sword, despite having a polite smile on his face.

The spirit of this continent had given him the high title, first in this era, and when I looked at him, it felt like he deserved every bit of it.

"Lord Silver," I greeted. "Lady Mariha," he replied, before waving me toward the seat.

"Thank you, my lord," I thanked.

A silence stretched, and I was about to open my mouth when he spoke.

"What can I do for you, Lady Mariha?" he asked. I was going to start with a polite chat, but he started directly, which put some pressure on me.

It's better this way. I could directly tell him what I want.

"I hope that you keep me in the secondary control of Vanis Tavern," I requested. It is for this reason that I had been asking for an appointment with him.

I have secondary control over Vanis Tavern, and even Vanis couldn't remove it. It will be a different thing after the legacy becomes the subject of Velvet Garden.

The lord's contract didn't mention control, and they didn't care. The only thing they care about is the essence and the other benefits they will get from it.

It wouldn't matter to them if I got thrown out of the legacy.

I want to be part of the legacy; it is my life, it is my vision that was born in the worst part of Kalnil. The Taven might have absorbed it, but I am still connected to it and want to remain connected to it.

He didn't speak for a moment.

"I like a strict hierarchy; shared control only brings chaos," he said, and I felt like my world was getting crushed. "Though I am not totally averse to it," he added slowly a moment later, lighting a hope in my heart.

I calmed my emotions. This young man said he could do it, not that he would do it.

"What do you want, my lord?" I asked, he wants something; I will give it to him if I have it.

To me, my legacy is more important than anything else.

I have money, a lot of it. Enough that my grandchildren, even their children's children, won't have to worry about it.

He seemed to understand what I was thinking as he laughed.

"No, I do not want or desire anything materialistic. However, that trinket artifact you had in your legacy would have been fine. Unfortunately, you don't have that," he replied.

It relieved me, but also made me more worried.

"What I mean is, what can you do for the Velvet Garden?" he asked, and his eyes turned very serious.

Seeing his young age, I nearly forgot that he is no ordinary man, but a master of Grade IV legacy, the biggest and most powerful on the continent.

He achieved something in less than two years that I couldn't achieve in over fifty.

"I am a master; I am very familiar with the aspects," I stated, but he just smiled.

"I could understand them myself. If I didn't like them, I could remove them during the process." He replied. It stilled my heart for a moment.

I am such an idiot; of course, he needs something more.

He chose Vanis's Tavern as his subject, which is the most idiotic choice; many in the synod are saying so, but a few can see the real reason.

It is political.

I need to give him something that could help him with that; something that will convince him not to break my connection with the legacy.

"I am good with the underworld. I grew up in it and facilitated it in my inn. Many aspects of my legacy are related to that," I replied, and finally, the smile on his face widened a little.

It had brought hope to my heart.

"You are far from your home," he said, and this time, it was my turn to smile. "I may be, but the underworld is the same. I have already made a few connections in Inam," I replied.

I grew up in the worst part of the city; my husband was a gang member.

The inn served the gangs and other elements that civilised society considered distasteful. Even after it turned into a legacy, I continued with it.

It was born with that vision. So, no matter how much the guardian raised his nose toward it, most of the time, they let me follow my vision.

The worst thing one could do is not let the legacy work wth the vision, which gives it birth.

"Good. I will keep your connection with the legacy, and I trust you will serve me well," Silver said. I also noticed the 'else' in his sentence.

There was a threat. If I didn't do the job well enough, he will cut me.

"Thank you, my lord," I thanked, bowing deeply.

"There is another thing I want you to do," he said to me. "Anything, my lord," I replied. I am going to be his subject; I might as well start acting like it already.

"Contact your kingdom and ask them if they are willing to sell that trinket artifact you had; it seemed quite interesting," he said, and a smile appeared on my face.

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