Closing her eyes, Lyse could just see it. The spiraling white pillars and grand walls of the palace. Swaths of blooming flowers. A veritable rainbow of magic in use. And all this against the backdrop of a golden, glittering pillar of radiance that beamed toward the heavens—the Light of Origin, the remnants of the light that the gods brought into the world at its conception. The beautiful scenery of the Razanate Empire was burned into her soul...
Even after she was reborn.
“I wanna go back...” she thought, but that longing whisper never left her lips.
The fact that she couldn’t return only made the feeling all the stronger. For, you see, Lyse now lived in a neighboring country, the Kingdom of Olwen.
And before her at present was a carriage waiting to take her to Olwen’s royal palace. She nearly let out a despondent sigh at the sight, but quickly suppressed it. Her uncle, Baron Winslette, was standing just behind her. She couldn’t have him thinking she didn’t want to go.
Lyse had managed to land herself a position as a lady-in-waiting through a most fortunate stroke of luck. If she were ungrateful enough to turn the opportunity down, Baron Winslette would be at the end of his rope and suggest that again: “If you’re not going to be a lady-in-waiting, I’ll just have to marry you off to the butler’s son.” He’d threatened as much before she was hired. As for the reason he’d selected the butler’s son, that was simple—he was in no position to refuse.
In essence, Lyse was more of a bad debt than a niece to Baron Winslette. No girl who spent her days swinging a sword, taking out boars and ruffians alike, would ever be considered a proper bride amongst the nobility. Thus the baron had sent her to work instead. Even though Lyse had been born in this very manor, her father’s death a year prior had put her uncle in charge of the estate. He was the master of the house now.
Just as Lyse was about to board the carriage, the front door of the manor opened. Out stepped a thin, middle-aged woman wearing a dress made of beautiful fabrics.
“Oh, you’re still here?” she said. This was Lyse’s aunt, the current Lady Winslette. Not even trying to hide her contempt, she continued, “If you don’t hurry back, the lady-in-waiting position you managed to earn through your barbaric boar slaying might disappear. And you haven’t found anyone who would marry you, have you? The likes of you never will.” She laughed as she looked Lyse over from head to toe.
Lyse knew what she was trying to say—she was calling her plain. Her waist-length light brown hair and blue irises were common. Her large eyes managed to give her an air of attractiveness, but she wasn’t the kind of beauty that turned heads. And because her aunt kept taking a cut of Lyse’s finances, her clothing was of barely acceptable quality. Lyse had always wanted to object, but she knew it would only send her aunt flying into a rage. She’d kept her mouth shut accordingly.
“You should be a bit easier on her. She’s just lost her father,” Baron Winslette scolded, raising and lowering his arms worriedly.
“It’s been a year already. You’re the baron now. Just how long do you plan to keep babying her?” Lady Winslette replied with a glare, unhappy with her husband’s intrusion into the conversation.
Watching them, Lyse regretted ever coming back to the manor after her appointment to the palace. All she’d wanted to do was go to her late father’s grave.
Lady Winslette soon disappeared back inside the house, not wishing to get into it with her husband. The baron was a mild-mannered gentleman, however, whose timidity kept him from ever doing more than scolding his wife. He took her retreat as the end of the argument and smiled at Lyse, who said nothing more on the matter. Precisely because of her uncle’s personality, she knew that he would never throw her to the wolves.
“Well then, uncle, I wish you good health until we meet again,” she said, bowing before stepping into the carriage as if nothing had happened. Once it pulled away from the estate, Lyse finally felt like she could breathe again. “There’s no peace for me, no matter where I go...”
Ever since her father’s death, Lyse had felt ill at ease in her own home. She’d managed to get a job as a lady-in-waiting after saving one of the king’s magistrates from a wild boar in a decidedly unladylike way, but she felt no more at home at the palace than she did at the estate.
It pained her to hear her aunt speak of it, but Lyse had indeed hoped to find a suitor at the palace. Once she arrived, however, word quickly spread of the boar-slaying incident. The dutiful magistrate she’d saved had personally told the king all about it when he recommended her for the job, after all. And with that, Lyse instantly became known as the unmarriable sort.
“I gave up on getting married a looooong time ago... If I were in the empire, no one would treat me like a weirdo for using a sword.”
The Razanate Empire welcomed women as knights, and it was considered quite normal for a noblewoman to wield a sword. Lyse dreamed of moving to the empire and living out her life as a commoner... If only she could.
She looked out the window and sighed, ruminating on the reason she would never be able to return.