Free Web NovelChapter 20: Chapter 20: Being Summoned.
Celestia braced herself on the journey back.
House Alwyn. Whatever was waiting.
Her thumb moved absently over the ruby ring on her finger as the carriage rolled forward, feeling the smooth, worn surface of it, the warmth of the stone pressing faintly against her skin.
She pressed her lips together and looked out the window at the passing morning. Nature was really beautiful, she thought, feeling the wind brush lightly against her face through the narrow opening.
And then — she remembered the voice she had heard last night, just before she fell asleep.
"Sleep, foolish master."
Celestia’s jaw tightened slightly.
She had slept immediately after.
IMMEDIATELY. Like her body had simply received an instruction and decided, without consulting her first, that compliance was the correct response. No deliberation. No resistance. Just—
Out.
She pressed a finger lightly to her temple.
That insufferably ancient, damn Genie, had spoken into her mind like he owned the space between her thoughts, and her body had simply—
Obeyed.
She was going to have words about that. Many words. Even though she had struggled to sleep the night before because of the noise of her own thoughts, it did not mean he could simply issue commands into her mind like that.
"What if he did that to help you?"
Celestia scoffed at the thought that slipped through her own mind.
"No. No, no..." she murmured under her breath. "He hates practically everything. Why would he do that to help me? Unless he has an ulterior motive."
"Once we meet again, I would have to talk to him about that."
She leaned back and looked out the window once more.
The ring caught the light again on her finger — ruby warm and familiar — and she turned it slowly, once, twice, before saying nothing more.
House Alwyn received her the way it always did.
Like a house that had been waiting for someone to return, only so it could remind them of their place within it.
Celestia stepped through the front door with her head held level and her expression arranged into something pleasant, controlled, and entirely unreadable. She found Lady Tiana in the entrance hall.
Waiting.
She had clearly been waiting for some time. There was a particular stillness to her — the kind belonging to someone who had rehearsed this moment in their mind, who had decided exactly how it would unfold and had sat with that decision long enough for it to harden into certainty.
"You," Lady Tiana said, with the quiet precision of someone selecting a weapon, "have embarrassed this family for the last time."
Celestia said nothing.
Lady Tiana stepped forward.
Her hand moved.
Celestia’s hand moved faster.
She caught it — Lady Tiana’s wrist mid-motion before the slap could land — with a grip that was calm and entirely unhurried, as though she had simply reached out and stopped something she had already known was coming.
She held it there between them.
Then she looked at Lady Tiana with an expression that was not anger, not triumph, but something quieter, colder, and more permanent than either.
And then she smiled.
"Oh, Mother," she said pleasantly. "I really don’t think that is a good idea. Not on this face."
Lady Tiana’s eyes widened slightly.
"How dare you."
She pulled at her wrist.
It did not move.
Something subtle shifted in her expression — past composure, past cold certainty, into something that had been buried beneath it all.
Something that looked, just briefly, like the unease of someone who has reached for something familiar and found it no longer responds the same way.
Celestia held her wrist a moment longer, then released it.
She stepped back, smoothed the front of her dress with one hand, and waited quietly for whatever came next.
From the upper landing, Belle watched.
She had not meant to be there. She had simply been passing — or had told herself she was passing — when the sound of voices in the entrance hall pulled her feet to the railing before she had fully decided to move.
And now she stood there, looking down at Celestia — at the red hair, the ruby eyes, the strange way she held herself like she was the most unbothered person in any room she entered — and felt something cold and insistent shift inside her chest.
Why does it feel like—
She pressed a hand lightly against the railing.
Why does she remind me of—
"You look like you’ve seen a ghost."
Belle startled so violently she nearly stumbled sideways.
Sophia was leaning against the wall behind her, arms folded, wearing the expression of someone who had been there long enough to observe several things and was mildly entertained by all of them.
"Don’t DO that," Belle said, pressing a hand to her chest.
"I barely moved," Sophia replied, entirely unbothered. "Why are you so jumpy? Is it because of yesterday?" She tilted her head slightly. "The vision?"
Belle said nothing.
Sophia straightened and moved to stand beside her at the railing, looking down at Celestia in the entrance hall below.
"Why are you looking at her like that?" she asked.
Belle’s eyes stayed fixed on Celestia — on her ruby eyes, the way the light seemed to bend around her differently, as though it recognized something in her that the rest of the room did not.
Wings, Belle thought.
I saw wings.
"Belle," Sophia’s voice lowered slightly. "Why are you looking at her like that?" she asked again.
Belle opened her mouth. freeweɓnovel.cøm
Then closed it.
"I don’t know," she said finally.
Which was not entirely true.
And Sophia, who knew her better than anyone, did not look convinced.
The royal messenger arrived before Lady Tiana had fully recovered from what had just happened in the entrance hall.
He appeared at the door with the posture of someone delivering something important and fully aware of it — a sealed letter bearing the King’s crest held carefully in both hands, presented with practiced gravity.
Lady Tiana received it, opened it and then read it.
Something shifted across her face. She controlled it instantly — a flicker, there and gone — the expression of someone receiving information they had not expected and immediately calculating what it meant.
She looked at Celestia.
Celestia looked back at her pleasantly.
"It appears," Lady Tiana said, her voice stripped of everything except fact, "that you have been summoned to the Royal Castle." freēwēbnovel.com
The entrance hall went very quiet.
Celestia blinked once.
Then the corner of her mouth curved slightly.
