Chương 125: 38 - A NEW DAY

She sat up in her bed, holding the side of her head because of the phantom pain that came before. Looking around the room, she remembered where she was. Her bedroom. It was at the top of a three-story house where she lived. A few servants took up the rooms on the bottom floor, but otherwise she lived in the house alone. There was a family photo on the nightstand. It was of her and her mother in her favorite garden.

The woman was her mirror image with a head of long, firmly pressed red hair, a full face, and a thin-lipped smile. She hugged her daughter lovingly as they both held matching pink hydrangeas. It was the first thing she saw whenever she woke up. And it always reminded her who she was. Tyene Demue-Corlander. The Fourth Redeemer. The door to her bedroom creaked open as one of the maids peeked inside. It started as a peek until the old woman saw that Tyene was sitting up.

"Oh. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to wake you, Lady Tyene." The woman said, bowing.

"I only meant to check on you." And those were always the first words that she heard. Tyene placated her with a gentle smile.

"It's okay, Maimy. I just had a bad dream." It's what she always told her. It wasn't really a lie. It was the end of a dream and the start of another, marked by the numbers of midnight on the clock. Maimy suddenly looked worried.

"I'm sorry, dear. Would you like me to get the sleeping pills again?" Tyene shook her head.

"No thanks. Would you mind getting Vienna for me instead?"

"Vienna?.. Oh, isn't that the name of your bodyguard? Is everything okay?"

"Yeah. I just need to talk to her."

"Yes, ma'am." The door shut lightly behind the woman as her footsteps disappeared down the corridor. She was a sweet woman. Her favorite of the maids. She often acted as Tyene's nanny when she was little, and her mother couldn't be around. Tyene had a few fond memories of her. In about 12 hours, she would be dead, along with most of the world.

"Oh well." She got out of bed, fixing the spaghetti string tank top so it stayed on her shoulders and dragged her hands through her hair so it could pretend to be straight. She caught her reflection in her vanity and turned her head, pressing her finger where the bullet had torn her skull apart.

"Whoever said getting shot in the head was painless is a liar." She could still hear the ringing in her ears, but like always, there wasn't a scar to prove it ever happened. There was a hurried knock at her door.

"And thinking Tyene may be in trouble, Vienna runs straight to the door with a gun in hand. But too nervous to intrude on the lady's privacy, she knocks anyway… You can come in, Vienna." Vienna opened the door, wearing her own form of night clothes, which was an all-black skin-tight suit, which would've made everything but her face invisible if the lights were off. Her eyes were wide as she stared at Tyene. When she saw that there was no physical damage to her, she lowered her head.

"You called me, ma'am?"

"In her head, she thinks that this has never happened before. Lady Tyene has never personally requested her, despite her years of service. Her heart starts to pound as she holds her breath. Why am I so nervous, she thinks." Vienna raised her eye at her.

"Umm, ma'am?"

"It's called prose, Vienna. I'm adding a little color to this same old routine."

"I don't understand." Tyene took a deep breath, preparing her lungs for a very long explanation.

"I'm about to tell you a very long story. I need you to remember everything I say very carefully. Can you do that?" Vienna nodded, curiosity painting her face.

"You might want to have a seat." Next thing they knew, a couple of hours had passed, and Tyene had been talking for the entirety of it. Her mouth was dry, which is why she was glad when Maimy showed back up with a couple of cups of water. She swallowed hers in one gulp and handed the other to Vienna, who just held it there silently until the maid left again.

"It's okay, Vienna. I'm finished." Tyene said. Vienna rubbed the side of her glass with a pained look on her face.

"So, in approximately 10 hours from now, a comet will shatter upon entering our atmosphere, spawning demons that will destroy society as we know it. My lady is a Redeemer, which allows her to time-travel back to midnight, 12 hours before the comet, when she or one of the other Redeemers dies. But only her mind. So her body is mortal, but her mind is immortal."

"That's the big picture."

"Understood. I will make preparations accordingly." Tyene softly patted Vienna on the head, making the woman's face turn red.

"You know you should really be more skeptical when I tell you crazy, off-the-wall shit like that. But I guess it makes my Zero Day simpler, that you do believe me so easily."

"I don't understand. I don't believe my lady would lie to me." She said it so genuinely that it made Tyene cry and squeeze her tight in a warm hug. A hug that Vienna didn't know if she could return. No one had hugged her before now. She didn't know what to do.

"I made my lady cry. I will reprimand myself at once." She tried to pull away, but Tyene didn't let her go. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

"I'm so sorry," she cried.

"I'm so sorry I got you killed. It's better now, though." They awkwardly sat on the bed like that for a moment until Tyene said, "If you want to make me feel better, then hug me back." Reluctantly, Vienna lifted her hands and wrapped them around Tyene's back.

"Do you… feel better now?" Tyene pulled her back and smiled at her blushing face, which was surprisingly cute for the trained killer that Vienna was.

"I do."

"So what should we do about the other Redeemers, my lady?"

"Just Tyene is fine…" She stood wiping her face and stretching like she had just woken up from a long nap.

"One of them will probably be by soon. He grabbed my ID before I died, which was the same thing that Monan did."

"Then I'll prepare the house's defenses and arm the traps in the yard."

"Nah. I think this one's a little different. We should be fine."

"Are you sure?"

"Not a hundred percent, but if he isn't, what's one more death?"

"I know my lady is immortal, but—""Tyene."

"I know… Tyene is immortal, but I don't believe you should think that way."

"Now you're speaking in the third person, you dope." Tyene laughed.

"But what I'm saying is it's fine. How about we just go downstairs and watch movies until he gets here?" Tyene always liked this part, whenever she had the chance to do it. She had the privilege of being able to show someone their favorite movies before they even knew they were their favorite movies. Vienna understood few things about social society, so she never took to comedies or anything like that.

But every time Tyene showed her Terminator or John Wick, she wouldn't take her eyes off the screen until every one of the movies was finished. She's a sucker for an action flick, and Tyene loved seeing her face each time she discovered it. Tyene had seen the movies a hundred times at this point, but she owed her for getting her killed, so this time, it was Vienna's movie night. It was about 6 in the morning when Maimy interrupted them, lying under a fleece on the living room couch.

"Ma'am, there's a man here to see you by the name of T'balt Ferrier. I've never seen him before, but he says you know who he is." Tyene wiped the lazy from her face after a long night of staring at a screen and munching on ice cream and potato chips.

"You can send him in."

"Yes, ma'am."

"And Maimy… you should get some sleep. You must've only slept a couple of hours last night. I know you're tired." The woman looked surprised by that.

"But there's so much to clean, and you have a visitor. Mr. Corlander would be very upset if he knew I was slacking on the job."

"It's fine." Tyene said, suddenly annoyed, "he's not gonna care. It's gonna be a long day… for everyone." Maimy paused at the cryptic statement but decided not to question it further. She let the man in and then found her bed on the first floor. Tyene and Vienna stood from the couch, the latter reluctantly pausing John Wick 2. They watched T'balt walk in, ogling the furniture like it was a brand new museum.

"This place is huge," he said.

"Even bigger than my grandparents'." Tyene took note of him. He was skinny, in a black T-shirt and sweatpants. She wasn't the only one still dressed for bed, apparently. She frowned at his tone, as if this place were just some friend's house.

"I feel like I've delivered food here a few times." She walked over to meet him, deciding to adopt the same casual tone.

"So you're telling me one of the great Redeemers is a delivery boy?"

"It paid the bills."

"They must not have been very high." T'balt almost jumped to explain himself, but based on Tyene's sly smile, she was ribbing him. He decided not to comment further. But when she stood in front of him, he took a strong measure of her. He realized he hadn't properly looked at her for a whole iteration and wondered if his eyes were deceiving him. Because she looked…

"Hey, stop ogling, lover boy," she snapped at him.

"Sorry," T'balt blushed.

"It's... It's nothing like that. It's just… I guess I didn't notice before, but… How do I put this… did you lose weight?" Looking at her now, she was nothing like the plump redhead that he remembered meeting before. In fact, she was slimmer than he was by the looks of her midriff showing under her thin shirt. Her face immediately flushed red.

"Shut up, okay. I didn't know I was gonna be meeting any new Redeemers that iteration. Cut me some slack, alright. I tried to tell you I didn't usually look that way… Food is just one of my guilty pleasures, and it's easy to… let's say overindulge when there's a magic reset button." She turned her head from him.

"You should just... forget about that image of me. It wouldn't be good for my self-esteem if you didn't." Tyene paused, thinking to herself.

"When was the last time I had to ask someone to forget something?"

"Consider it done," T'balt said.

"I'm trying to get better at seeing the things right in front of me." He turned to Vienna, who had been standing only inches behind Tyene, staring daggers into him.

"Nice to meet you, Vienna. I'm T'balt."

"Understood." She said.

"If I get the sense that you ever even thought about hurting Lady Tyene, then I will rip your spine out through your mouth."

"She actually means that," Tyene added.

"I know," T'balt said. Tyene gestured for them to sit at the kitchen table, which had been prepared by the maids with an assortment of snacks for movie night. Tyene and T'balt sat on opposite sides of a red velvet cake in a case as Vienna stood watching over them like an overlord.

"Speaking of noticing things… I'm guessing you knew that I was the Redeemer when you were saving me."

"It was the little things. Well, a big thing… namely Monan." he saw Tyene's jaw tighten when he mentioned the name. A feeling he was glad to be speaking to someone who understood.

"He was with us in Graceland. When Vienna came, she didn't react as if she recognized him. Which I thought was odd since he was the whole reason she locked me in a basement the first time we met. It took me a while to think about it, but… I do the same thing."

"And what thing is that?"

"With my own people, I don't always tell them everything. Especially if it's something I don't think we'll have to deal with. Sometimes I leave out all the bad things just so they can have a little bit more peace of mind. And then there was your speech about the moon. About it always being in the same spot every single life. No offense, but… Vienna doesn't seem like she has deep thoughts like that. I doubt that's an idea you got without experiencing it yourself." Tyene looked up at Vienna.

"Are you offended?"

"My thoughts are not deep. They're thoughts. Not water," Vienna said too straightforwardly.

"Well, there you go…" Tyene rested her face on her hand.

"For the record, it wasn't my idea to hide my identity from you. As I'm sure you've noticed, Vienna can be a little overprotective at times. I wanted to tell you, but she convinced me that it'd be better to let you believe she was the Redeemer. At least until we knew we could trust you."

"Can you?" T'balt asked.

"Well, you did at least try to save my life. But I'm really over it at this point. Even if you did do anything, we'd just end up back here tomorrow, wouldn't we?"

"Yeah. I guess you're right. For the record, I'm not here to kill you."

"That's what I thought." She grabbed a bottle of expensive-looking wine on the table and filled a glass next to her, all the way to the brim.

"So then I'm guessing there are some things you want to ask me."

"There's a lot I want to ask you."

"Well, we've got about 6 hours till the world ends. Plenty of time to have a nice, long chat."