So, at the end, she chose the option to make sure that the one she loved was safe before her own self. And that decision directly led to her demise.
It was a tragic, heartbreaking end. And it was also the exact reason why Aria hated Royal Financial Minister Roderick so much.
He was the man who had used multiple tracking spells to hunt them down. He was the one who commanded the army against both of them. And when he finally found the perfect chance to catch them both at the exact same time, he took it without hesitation.
And he used Serena’s one emotional weakness against her to catch one of his targets.
And she hadn’t met a proper, clean end. She wasn’t just quickly killed and left in the snow.
No.
She was publicly beheaded. And her severed head was hung up high in the capital plaza as a sign that the Empire was successfully fighting against the so-called ’cursed ones’.
And even before Aria died years later, or well, right before she went to the ancient temple where she found the time artifact, she had secretly visited the capital in disguise.
And she had seen the skull of her beloved master just sitting on top of a wooden pike. Completely dried up, weathered by the rain, and looking no different from the multiple other skulls in the plaza.
In fact, if she didn’t have the knowledge of blood magic, she wouldn’t have been able to tell Serena apart from the others.
Aria pushed those dark, traumatic thoughts to the very back of her mind and just nodded.
Then, she aggressively doubled down.
"Does that mean that you actually like my papa? You just say that he is a great man, he’s handsome, and everything else that you just listed. But you never explicitly told me... you never told me if you actually like him romantically or not."
Serena just stiffened up in her seat once more.
She had vaguely meant to convey the message that she did like Adrian, but she had subconsciously tried to weave through the whole thing without giving a proper, direct answer to Aria.
And Aria had just effortlessly caught her right in the act.
Before Serena could stammer out a reply, Claire’s voice came from the open window.
Claire looked straight into Aria’s eyes while riding her horse, her face completely serious.
"I do like him a lot actually," she said firmly. "I never expected that I would even fall in love with anyone while I was training in the knight’s academy. But, weirdly enough, I ended up fall for him among everyone else..."
Claire gripped her reins tighter.
"And since you asked us a question, let me ask you a question too. And since I truthfully answered yours, I hope that you answer mine too."
Aria just stared at Claire for a second. Just one second before she nodded.
"Okay. I’ll answer your question."
And weirdly enough, even though she didn’t show it on her face, her internal nervousness had suddenly shot up. Even she didn’t know why, but her small hands resting on her lap had begun to shake slightly.
What exact question was this woman going to ask her?
Aria had only exactly two women in her mind who she actually thought highly of in this timeline. Two women who could potentially be a good, loyal partner for her father.
She leaned significantly more towards Serena thanks to the past that she shared with her, even though she knew that this technically wasn’t the exact same Serena she knew.
But Claire wasn’t far behind in her mind. In fact, in a purely logical sense, Claire was significantly more fit to be Adrian’s wife in Aria’s head.
Serena was just way too weak right now. She was just someone who originally had F-Rank mana veins, which wasn’t really great for survival. And she had just recently gone up to the 2nd Circle thanks to Adrian’s help.
She was fragile.
Claire, on the other hand, was a higher ranked knight than her father. And even though Adrian was also a powerful mage now, Claire could easily hold her own against high-level people in a physical fight. She wasn’t someone who constantly needed his help to fight off enemies. She didn’t really need protection of sorts.
But Serena obviously did.
Claire was chosen by Aria as a candidate based purely on cold logic. Based on what her adult mind said was best for Oresfall’s future.
And Serena was someone she picked from her heart because she just really missed her master. And she just wanted the best to happen to Serena in this timeline.
And she knew; because she was a grown woman in the past, and even though she just couldn’t bring herself to ever look at her father in a romantic way because she could only just look at him as her father, she just knew.
She could just tell that this man was the ideal partner for almost any woman.
He was vastly different than the other men in this world. Both the nobles and the commoners. He was just fundamentally different in a way that she couldn’t properly explain to anyone else, not even to herself since some of the things he did just went over her head.
He had a habit of taking a bath when he could just use the cleanse spell. He could easily learn the most basic fireball spell, but everytime he wanted to cook, he’d ask her to use the spell intead.
She just couldn’t tell if this man was lazy or hardworking since he either took the easy path or did complicated things to do things that could be achieved with a simple spell.
But she knew that if Serena or Claire married him, their lives would change for the better. Because if they eventually married someone else in this society, a lot of their potential would be stagnated.
It would either be stagnated by arrogant people; like Claire’s father, who put far more importance on the political and combat strength of male heirs. It was either that, or their combat potential would just be used somewhere else. For example, being married off to someone like Marquis Draven.