“Now, would you care to join me for a drink?”
Paying no heed to the intense showdown transpiring, Cecilia stood between the two girls and offered them each a cup of tea.
“Shut up! I didn’t come here to— Ah!”
A faint metallic clank reverberated through the room. Sharon’s knife knocked against the beautiful teacup being offered and a few drops of tea spilled onto the floor.
It was an honest accident, yet Cecilia’s smile turned from warm to unsettling. She just stood there, quietly holding out the cup of tea to Sharon.
“Ah, um, I didn’t mean to...”
Sharon hurriedly took the cup from Cecilia’s hand.
Is she afraid of Cecilia? I wouldn’t be surprised. This could get ugly.
“Thank you, Miss Cecilia.”
Feena got the message and took her cup as well.
“I’m honored to— Ah!”
Something crashed on the ground.
“Ah... I’m... sorry...”
Feena turned pale in an instant. Cecilia again stood there quietly with an unsettling smile on her face.
Feena understood the situation after Sharon grazed the cup with her knife, but she was perhaps too tense. Her shaking fingers had dropped the cup as she was taking it, and it had shattered upon impact.
Okay. This is definitely going to get ugly.
The tension in the room was palpable. You could nearly see the anger seeping out of Cecilia. Get too close to it, and it would tear you apart.
“Oh my... It’s one thing to ruin the extravagant furniture my father collected and cared for over his entire life, but how dare you break my tea set?”
In the midst of this suffocating situation, Cecilia made her move.
Crap, this is bad. This is really bad!
The three of them held their breath in front of Cecilia’s unnerving smile.
Then, a few minutes later...
“There’s plenty of tea left, so drink up!”
Cecilia watched on as Al, Sharon, and Feena sipped their tea, her smile as unsettling as ever. The three of them bowed and complimented her.
“It’s delicious!”
Their smiles were stiff. It was a thin rope they were walking across.
“This tea comes from plants from my personal garden. How do you like it?”
“I-It’s very... aromatic...”
Sharon answered with her mouth forcefully curved into a smile, while Feena answered in a quivering voice.
“It’s... delicious.”
“N-Nothing beats your tea, dear sister!” Al responded.
The three of them tried their best to placate the still-smiling Cecilia.
“I didn’t do anything! How did I get mixed up in this?!”
Al whispered his complaint to Sharon and Feena the moment Cecilia turned her back.
“How would I know?! Why didn’t you tell us your sister turns into a monster when she gets mad?!”
“Not like I had the time. You jumped on me the moment we entered the room!”
Their quiet argument was on the verge of turning into another full-blown fight.
“Oh, would you like seconds?”
As Cecilia turned back, all of them straightened up again.
“Ah, I forgot the cakes!”
Cecilia rushed out of the room. Sharon waited a few seconds, then snapped at Al.
“Explain yourself to me right now!”
“Huh, what are you talking about?”
So many things had happened between the two of them already. Al struggled to pinpoint what, exactly, Sharon was talking about, though he could make some educated guesses. Why couldn’t her attacks ever hit him? Why did she intensely heat up when he held her in his arms?
“Did you really think that I would overlook you fondling me?!”
You tried to kill me, and I accidentally touched your chest a little when you fell on top of me! Which of those two do you think is worse?!
“Ah... I want to hear about that too.”
Why are you betraying me, Feena?!
“Please explain yourself, nice and slowly.”
Sharon stood up and walked towards Al. He looked away, overpowered by Sharon’s unforgiving crimson eyes.
Cecilia returned to the room and stood next to Al. She took a sip of tea and then addressed the other girls.
“Were you talking about how the Demon King and the Divas are related?”
“Cecilia!”
She held up her finger, stopping Al’s interjection.
“It’s okay. It would be unreasonable to have them stay here for a month without knowing anything.”
You’re right, but...
“And by my power as a messenger of God, I’ll have them swear to never talk about this to outsiders.”
She turned towards Sharon and Feena and started chanting a spell in a melodic tone.
Cecilia was not only Althos’s Diva, but a priestess as well. She had been a cheerful little girl, but after a certain point, she had become unable to erase her smile from her face. And so everyone in the kingdom—be they peasants, nobles, or naval officers—praised her as the eternally kind Smiling Diva.
Of course, everyone had expected her to become the next monarch of Althos. But after her father’s death, Cecilia insisted on becoming a priestess instead.
It wasn’t rare for Divas to join the church, which revered the Valkyrie, but Cecilia had her own very special set of reasons. One of which was so Al could succeed the crown. But her main reason for abdicating and becoming a priestess was...
“Once I become a priestess, we won’t be recognized as brother and sister anymore. I can finally marry Al!”
Becoming a priestess would nullify her legal ties to her family, rendering the two of them brother and sister no longer. Even better, the church conveniently allowed their clergy to marry.
But Cecilia had failed to account for how gentle and caring Al was towards her. One day, when she was pretending to be devastated over their relation being nullified...
“Don’t worry, Cecilia! God may not recognize us as siblings anymore, but you’ll always be my big sister in my heart!”
It was a critical blow to her aspirations. But building on that experience, she was now working behind the scenes to make her dream of brother-sister marriage a reality, a fact unknown to all but Lilicia.