Chương 81: “Even the Sweetest Bitch Has Teeth”

"What?! Suspended?!" Serena's voice cut through the tavern loud enough that two tables over, a man with a tankard flinched and spilled ale down his front. The evening crowd was thick, mostly adventurers and students, and the noise level was already high, so it didn't really bother anyone other than its suddenness. She was standing half out of her chair, both palms flat on the table, staring at Arthur.

"You got suspended?! For a week?!" Arthur held up both hands.

"It's not as bad as it—""A week, Arthur! What were you thinking?!"

"If you'd let me explain—" Serena's head snapped toward Liana.

"And you? What were you doing? Couldn't you have prevented this?" Liana lifted her mug and took a sip. The ale was warm, slightly bitter, and she took a moment before swallowing.

"I told the truth in my statement," Liana said, "Did you want me to lie to protect him?" Serena's expression twisted.

"Hah! Why are we keeping this bitch in the party anyways? We could always just get ano—""Stop." Arthur's voice was firm. Eryndis, seated at the far end of the table, continued cutting her steak without looking up. Arthur continued, "We're here so we can talk about Floor 10 tomorrow. The suspension doesn't affect our plans. The timing actually works out, the week-long trial lines up with it. By the time we're back, we'll all be past it." Serena stared at him.

Her face tense for a moment, clear that she was unwilling to just accede to the suspension, and then she dropped back into her chair.

"But Arthur...!"

"It's fine." He looked at the table.

"It's the truth anyways. I should've judged the situation better before acting." A brief silence settled over the group. It was broken by the sound of a knife scraping across a plate. Eryndis had cut another piece of her steak and was chewing slowly. She reached for the salt, added more, and continued eating. Serena exhaled through her nose and leaned back. Her arms crossed over her chest and she muttered, just barely audible, "If only I wasn't bogged down by some family matters, I could've helped..."

No one responded to that. Liana took another drink. The ale wasn't good, but it was doing its job. The warmth spread through her stomach and she could feel her shoulders relaxing. She had been thinking about it all day, regarding the recent conversation with Celestia. —'That is the thought process of a caretaker, not a friend.' At the time, sitting in that office with Celestia's crimson eyes fixed on her, Liana had wanted to argue.

She had wanted to say that caring about someone wasn't the same as caretaking, that worrying about Arthur didn't make her his mother. But the words hadn't come, because somewhere underneath the defensive reflex, she knew Celestia had been right. And now, sitting at this table, she could feel the truth of it in real time.

Whenever Serena and Eryndis would argue, It would start over something small—a comment about tactics, a disagreement about formation, a look that lasted half a second too long, and within minutes, Serena would be shouting and Eryndis would be ignoring her, which only made Serena louder. So Liana would step in, try to calm Serena down, and coax Eryndis into responding; she did what she had to do to hold the group together. —'Are you his mom?' Liana's grip tightened on her mug. It wasn't just Arthur.

It was all of them. She was the one who absorbed the friction so the rest of the group could function. She had told herself that this was her role, that every party needed someone who kept the peace. But when was the last time she had actually enjoyed spending time with them? She thought about Anna. About the afternoons in the ground-floor room, mixing solutions and testing applications, Liana strapping a rat for controlled experiments while Anna scribbled notes with ink-stained fingers.

They talked about healing theory. About the limits of mana-based recovery versus alchemical approaches. About what kinds of injuries could be treated with potions alone and which still required a healer's direct intervention. Anna would get excited about a result and grab Liana's wrist without thinking, and Liana would laugh and tell her to be careful with the vials. It was a breath of fresh air, fun and fulfilling. If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author.

Report it. But here? At this table? She felt exhausted. Serena was talking again, explaining something some tips she had heard about Floor 10. Eryndis was still eating, minding her own business. Arthur was nodding along, trying to keep the energy positive. And Liana was sitting in her chair, holding her mug, wondering where exactly this things gone wrong. Or was there ever a time it was actually right? Serena wanted her gone. That much had been obvious.

With her feelings for Arthur no longer hidden behind pretense, Serena saw Liana as the obstacle between them. The childhood friend. The girl who had been there first. It didn't matter that Liana's own feelings had cooled, Serena didn't know that, and even if she did, it probably wouldn't change anything. She lifted her mug and drained it. The ale went down in big gulps. She slammed the empty mug back on the table with a solid thud. Arthur glanced at her.

"You okay?"

"I'm fine," Liana said.

"Just thirsty." She signaled for another.

"Two more ales here!"

'A few more months… I'll hang on for a few more months, and if nothing changes, I'll leave the party. It's the least I can do for Arthur since he's my childhood friend.' she thought to herself as she drank down another mug in one go...... That was the last thing she remembered. The first thing she became aware of was sunlight. It hit her right in the eyes, sharp and direct. She squeezed them shut and turned her head, but the movement sent a spike of pain through her skull that made her wish she hadn't moved at all.

Her back hurt. She was lying on something hard and flat, and even through the fog in her head, she could tell it was wood. Her mouth was dry, her tongue felt thick, and the taste in the back of her throat was sour and stale.

'Water.' She tried to sit up. The headache hit her the moment she was vertical, a dull, heavy pressure behind her eyes that pulsed with every heartbeat. She braced herself with one hand on the surface beneath her and waited for the room to stop tilting. It took a few seconds. When her vision finally stopped bouncing, she blinked and looked around. She was in a small room. Stone walls on three sides.

A wooden bench bolted to the side wall, which was what she had been sleeping on, and a thin blanket that she had apparently kicked to the floor sometime during the night. And bars on the fourth side.

"Huh?" Liana stared at the iron bars for a long moment, her hungover brain trying to process what she was looking at.

'Am I... in jail?' She looked down at herself. Her dress was wrinkled and slightly disheveled, the collar crooked, the hem of her skirt stained with something that looked like vomit. Her hair was loose around her shoulders and tangled.

'What happened last night?' She only remembered until a certain point, after that, everything went dark. Liana stood, steadied herself against the wall, and walked to the bars. The corridor outside was narrow and lit by a pair of oil lamps mounted on the opposite wall. There were multiple other cells to her left and right, a few of them empty, and a few had people sleeping in them. At the far end of the corridor, a wooden door was propped open, and she could hear the faint scratch of a pen on paper.

"Hello?" Liana called. Her voice came out dry and rough. She cleared her throat.

"Excuse me? Is anyone there?" The scratching stopped and then the sound of a chair being pushed, soon, footsteps approached. A guard appeared at the end of the corridor. He carried a clipboard under one arm and walked toward her cell. He stopped in front of the bars and looked at her.

"Name?"

"Liana." He glanced down at the clipboard, flipped a page, and ran his finger along a line of text. He found what he was looking for and gave a small nod.

"Right. Miss Liana. You were brought in last night. You've been charged under Summit Municipal Code 7-A, Subsection 3: Aggravated Assault with a Weapon, classified under the Domestic and Personal Relations." He looked up from the clipboard. Liana blinked.

"Domestic and personal relations? I... what?" The guard tucked the clipboard back under his arm.

"I'll be right back, I'll get you some water." He turned and walked back down the corridor. Liana stood at the bars, her hands wrapped around two of them, her headache pounding, and tried to make sense of the words.

'Aggravated assault? With a weapon?' The guard returned with a tin cup of water. He passed it through the gap between the bars, and Liana took it and drank it in one go. The water was lukewarm but it was the best thing she had tasted in her life. She lowered the cup and spoke again.

"What do you mean, aggravated assault? I don't understand. What happened?" The guard studied her for a moment.

"You don't have to worry too much about it. The victim chose not to press charges. Once the paperwork clears and the office signs off, you'll be released. Probably before noon."

"Victim?"

"We get plenty of young women like you coming through here," the guard continued, as if she hadn't spoken. He leaned against the wall.

"Adventuring parties, academy students, that sort of bunch. Spend too much time together in a stressful environment, emotions build up, someone has a few drinks, and then—" He made a vague gesture with one hand.

"Well. You know how it goes." Liana still did not know how it went.

"I honestly have no idea what you're talking about," she said.

"I don't remember much of last night..." The guard raised an eyebrow.

"Ah. Must have been too drunk to remember." He unfolded his arms and glanced at the clipboard again, flipping to the incident page. His eyes scanned the text.

"It says here," he said, reading, "that at the Copper Barrel Tavern on Midstreet, you drew a knife from the table and stabbed a young man named Arthur." Liana's hung open, and no sound came out. She closed it, trying to understand the words, before blurting out, "I did what?!"