Chapter 59: Shattered Star

Am I… dead?

Clara looked around. Or tried to; she wasn’t sure if she still had a body to look around with.

There was only an empty void.

Time passed. She had no idea how much.

She didn’t feel hungry, or thirsty, or tired.

I had a good run. Or two.

Clara had lived two lives, and though both had been cut short prematurely, she could at least take comfort in knowing that she’d accomplished something in each of them.

In her first, she’d been a successful lawyer, the first ever to make Senior Counsel under thirty at Caine, Polis & Smith. It had been her goal for years, and she’d achieved it. All it had cost her was having no life outside of work.

Back then, she thought that price was worth it. After all, outside the firm her life only held loneliness and sadness, so what was the point of experiencing it?

Yet in her second life…

Yes, she’d also become a successful lawyer, this time inside the courtroom. Is it too arrogant to call myself successful when I tried less than a handful of cases? Well, even if it is, who’s going to call me out on it here?

But her life had become more than that. She had friends. Iris, Morris, Emma, at the very least, plus others who hovered somewhere near that. In her short time there, Clara had met people willing to risk their necks for her against a high inquisitor and eldritch horrors.

I hope those four are okay, that they escaped unscathed from that explosion. The von Rhenias were somehow even more impressive than she’d imagined, and Warren…

What can I even say about him? The only constant in both worlds. A thorn, mostly. But here, at the end of her life—or lives—she could admit that he had grown into more than just that. And he was the one who led the search for her.

I guess it’s good that he doesn’t remember me. He won’t have to feel alone now that I’m gone.

And then there was Iris. The girl would never be truly alone, not when she had such a loving family. Still, if Clara had one regret, it would be not having had the chance to have one last conversation with Iris. She could have told her that Leofric was the true culprit behind Major Ricardo’s death, that Rowena was innocent, and then they could make up and become friends again. Or as close to friendship as there could be between a high noble and a commoner, anyway.

The duke will tell her, at least.

Clara tried to close her eyes. Not that it made a difference. Not that she knew if she even had eyes anymore.

More time passed.

What’s taking so long? I thought the Goddess would pop up to judge my soul.

Wait, what? Why would I think that? I’ve never really been religious.

Now that she thought about it, she’d invoked the name of the Goddess in her thoughts far more than she’d initially noticed. Probably Stella’s influence, if I had to guess.

Stella… the person whose body she’d taken over. At first, Clara had felt guilt at stealing her life; then she’d felt distrust and suspicion about Stella’s past, and finally, when the truth came out of Mother Mirabelle and ‘Father’ Leofric, all that had turned to sympathy and pity.

I’m sorry about what happened to you, Stella. I don’t know every detail, but I’m sure it was horrible.

More time passed, and more nothing all around her. Maybe Clara had already been judged, and her punishment for her sins was an eternity of boredom.

That sounds worse than fire and brimstone, honestly. I’d go mad real quick.

She waited, floating in the void, locked in a cage of her own thoughts.

After Goddess knows how long, she felt something. An itch under her skin, climbing up her arm. Clara wasn’t sure how that was possible, given it didn’t really seem like she had limbs inside this void, but the feeling was there.

And inside her, she knew that itch, whatever it meant, would soon absorb her whole body, and that would be the end of Clara Casewell’s existence.

She tried to take a deep breath. But, well, nothing happened.

I have no mouth, and I must breathe.

The itch crept up slowly. It was almost at her shoulder now.

Her time would be over soon.

I’m sorry, Iris.

Thank you for coming to save me, Warren.

Then there was a dot. A tiny white dot, like a stuck pixel on her monitor. It wasn’t even that bright, but inside this void, it might as well have been the sun itself.

What is that?

The dot grew. The void brightened. She felt warmth all over her body.

It was a comforting feeling.

Slowly but surely, the warmth pushed the itch away, enveloping Clara like a mother’s embrace.

The void was gone. In its place, Clara saw images, one after the other. Not just images—full-on scenes, with smell and sound and even feelings rushing inside her.

A young dark-haired girl, watching her parents in their sickbed. She couldn’t have been over five years old, and she was crying, and Clara felt the sadness as if it were her own.

After days of suffering, they passed away. And the girl was forced out of her home, sent wandering around the cold streets of the city.

Clara recognized this place. It was Elysia City, where the nights were lonely, cold, and hungry—incredibly, painfully, overwhelmingly hungry. After weeks of living like a street rat, the girl ended up outside a place Clara immediately recognized.

Saintess Brigid’s House for Orphans.

It was Mother Mirabelle who took the girl in. The matron was so beautiful back then. She gave the girl a warm bed, plenty of food, and taught her, along with the other children, how to read and pray to the Goddess. And the girl thanked the Goddess every day that she’d found safety.

After a year of this, just when the girl had started to get comfortable in her new life, there were new arrivals at the orphanage. Father Leofric and Sister Teresa. They were to teach the children domestic skills so that they could eventually find jobs when they left Saintess Brigid’s.

The girl didn’t really want to leave. Mother Mirabelle was so nice. At that point, she wanted nothing more than to become a Sister, maybe one day a Mother herself, so that she didn’t have to go around the streets again.

But the lessons weren’t optional, and Father Leofric had plans for her and the other children. His lessons were strict, and his punishments were merciless, always carried out when Mother Mirabelle wasn’t watching. Sister Teresa tried to protect the children when she could, but then Father Leofric punished her, too.

The pain burned Clara’s non-existent skin.

The worst days were when Mother Mirabelle would find herself invited to faraway seminars. That was when Leofric picked the most ‘promising’ children for special lessons. And the girl was always picked.

And so, she learned. How to clean floors. Obedience to the Church. How to serve tea. Her duty to the Goddess’s plan. How to flatter nobles. The meaninglessness of her life, in comparison to the Goddess’s glory.

Thankfully, whenever Mother Mirabelle returned, there was always a moment of reprieve. A cup of lemonade that felt sweeter than sugar.

After some very long years, the girl’s training was complete, and she was sent to work at a mansion. It was bigger and shinier than the girl knew any place could be.

The von Rhenia estate.

And the girl was told, by Father Leofric, to do whatever it took to get in the young lady’s graces. And so she did. She flattered, she pampered, she supported even the young lady’s most selfish desires, until the girl—who was a woman by then, really—became a lady’s maid.

And, day-by-day, the young woman allowed herself to feel happy.

She had a good job, she prayed to the Goddess every day, and her lady was very kind to her. Even though she had a nasty temper sometimes, the young lady was the closest thing the young woman had ever had to a friend.

The other servants thought the young woman was strange, since she spent too much time praying and too little time socializing. She was called cold and distant and uptight. But there were nice people, too, like the handsome knight and the head maid, whom the other servants thought was strict, but was really nothing like Father Leofric. She just wanted to make sure everyone did their jobs properly.

And the years passed, and the woman was almost—almost—able to push away the things she’d gone through. To forget the pain.

She’d grown beautifully, too, and she didn’t really look like Clara, aside from having similar hair. She was shorter, her nose was thin and curved, and she even had some freckles on her face.

And then the letter came. White envelope, golden wax, and a bottle of pills next to it. There were precise instructions to plant an idea in the young lady’s mind, so that when the time came, the young lady would ask the woman to gather some herbs.

The woman didn’t want to do it.

But she knew what would happen to anyone who disobeyed Father Leofric. She’d learned that extensively. And so, she obeyed.

And the time did come. When the young lady asked for herbs, the woman went to an apothecary and got laxatives, then crushed a single one of the pills and mixed it with the herbs, just as the letter instructed. Of course, she’d had to memorize it, since she’d burnt the original letter after receiving it, like she was supposed to.

The woman gave the mixture to the young lady.

Some time after that, there was another letter, telling the woman what to do with the remaining pills.

When she read it, she cried and cried. She didn’t want to die. She believed in the Goddess, but she didn’t want to meet Her so soon.

Yet there was no room for disobedience. Not with Father Leofric.

Still, the woman hesitated. She thought maybe, just maybe, there was another way out of it. She went to the duke’s office, trying to muster the courage to confess everything. The young lady had always said the duke would protect the people who served the noble house. So maybe the duke could protect the woman?

But the duke wasn’t in his office that day. The woman searched, and eventually, the knight told her that the duke was out, on a meeting about some trouble in the north.

The woman took that as a sign from the Goddess: ‘don’t look for another way, and follow the path laid out for you.’

And so, the woman did what she was told. She burned the letter and swallowed as many pills as she could.

And so, Stella died.

Clara had never really been a bloodthirsty or vengeful person, even after what happened to her parents. During her criminal law classes, she always found herself arguing for rehabilitation over retribution.

Yet right now, she couldn’t help but hope that Leofric would meet a very painful end.

When the memories finally stopped flooding in, Clara felt whole, as if she’d recovered something she was missing and hadn’t noticed.

That was when life started flowing within her again.

She could feel her body—her real body, not just the phantom limbs from before. Her heart beat, her blood pumped, her lungs filled with air.

And inside her, there was a new sensation, like sand moving through an hourglass. It was familiar, but Clara had never felt it inside her like that, only around her.

She was so refreshed, so energetic, so alive.

Then she started to feel the things around her.

There was something soft under her head, like a high-quality pillow with an Egyptian cotton pillowcase. Her body was lying on top of a comfortable mattress, not too plush or too hard.

Am I alive?

Someone was holding her left hand, weaving their fingers through hers. Their hand was soft and small.

It feels like… Iris.

Clara moved her fingers, squeezing the hand that held hers. Iris squeezed back, clasping Clara’s hand desperately in hers.

Then, finally, Clara opened her eyes.

It took a while for her to see anything more than just blurs. There were… voices? They were muffled, but familiar. But their tones…

Surprise, exasperation, tension, and relief, all at once.

Her eyes adjusted, and she saw Iris sitting beside her in a bed at what looked like the Westwick Plaza.

Iris’s eyes were red, her cheeks were puffy, and there were tears flowing down her face. In other words, she was adorable.

Clara pulled her in and hugged her as tightly as she could. Iris hugged back, crying loudly.