Chapter 109: A proposal

Stefan's POV

I was still turning the first line of the approach over in my head when movement at the entrance to the inner room caught my eye.

I stopped.

Because what I saw there pulled the half-formed words straight out of my mind and left me standing in silence, staring...

Belladonna was moving.

There was no music. No rhythm that made sense to anyone else. She swayed in slow, controlled shifts of weight, turning, stepping, rolling her shoulders as if working something stubborn out of her body.

Her expression stayed hard the entire time, focused and distant, the face of someone turning a problem over from every ugly angle while her body kept itself occupied so the mind could run.

The movement was not soft. It was not graceful in any courtly way. It looked like a fighter thinking on her feet, using motion to keep the anger from settling in one place too long.

And despite that, I was stunned that this was how the always dangerous looking woman was thinking. She wasn't pacing the room, she was dancing in a laughable way to no music.

I almost forgot why I was holding a laundry basket.

I didn't get the opportunity to stare for too long when she stopped...

Her back was still to me, but her whole frame went stiff, the way a warrior would go when every instinct in them said they were no longer alone.

"I ordered that no one was to come near me until I came out," she started. Her voice was low and flat with the kind of anger that did not need to raise itself.

"Explain why you are standing in my outer room after order."

I cleared my throat carefully and kept my stance open.

"I'm here for the dirty clothes. On behalf of the Bounds." I replied.

She turned around slowly.

The look she gave me could have stripped paint from stone. Whatever private calculation she had been working through was gone. In its place was pure, cold displeasure at finding the 'Alien' inside her space after she had told the entire compound to stay away. Her eyes moved once over the basket, then back to my face, and the conclusion she reached was obvious: I was not here for laundry.

Knowing that she had deduced that, I didn't waste time anymore. I set the basket down at once and raised both hands in plain sight.

"I also came with an offer. About the problem sitting on your table." I said before she could order me thrown out or worse.

Belladonna's eyes narrowed at me sharply. She just held my gaze for a split second then she opened her mouth;

"Treat this as an advice, choose your next words with care, they will decide whether your head stays on your neck. And do not waste my time with extravagant speech. I have no patience for it today." she gritted out.

I swallowed hard. So my speeches had been always 'extravagant' to her? Fancy. I didn't had time to dwell much on that. I cleared my throat again and keeping my voice practical and firm, the tone I used when the room was already hostile and charm would only make things worse. I began;

"I know about the Silent Matriarch. I know she struck an entire clan with a sickness no one else can lift. I know she's in charge of sickness and healing on your planet. And I also know that the Queen went to her, refused whatever condition was set, and then handed you the task of resolving it by any means necessary."

When she heard that, for the first time something other than open hostility moved behind her eyes. It was small, quickly controlled, but the Beast Insight caught it and confirmed what my own read already suggested.

[BELLADONNA — Current Mood: Interested]

She did not look interested. She still looked like she was deciding where to cut first. But the System rarely lied about that particular reading, and I had learned to trust it more than faces when the person across from me was this controlled.

I kept going while the opening existed.

"She uses sickness as leverage. No cure except through her. That leaves you with a short list of bad options - negotiate from a weak position, or try force against someone who can answer by putting half a district on their backs." I paused long enough for the shape of the problem to sit between us, then added the real point. "Unless someone else shows up, someone who weighs nearly as much power the silent matriarch possess and can clear the sickness she placed."

Belladonna said nothing. The silence was heavy, almost suffocating me. I could tell she was letting me talk far enough to hang myself if the next sentence was stupid.

Well, I continued anyway.

"I can do that. I can take the sickness off the clan members."

Her gaze stayed locked on mine. The temperature in the room seemed to drop another degree.

"You are claiming," she started slowly, "that you can undo what the Silent Matriarch has done."

"Yes."

"And you expect me to believe that on your word."

"I expect you to test it," I replied. "Give me the chance to prove it in front of you. If I fail, you lose nothing but a little time and you can deal with me however you like afterward. If I succeed, the immediate problem the Queen dropped on you becomes smaller than it was this morning."

"But remember I have risen some of your won over Flowers. So believe me if I say I can counter what the silent matriarch has going on."

I did not dress it up further. I had discarded the idea of negotiating that she stopped glaring at me and consider building a friendship with me after I had succeeded with the problem. From our conversation so far, I had realized she wouldn't welcome that unless I had proven that I could actually did what I said I could do.

I didn't bother to add that I cared about her stress either. I just risked everything all on a tool offered to a General who needed results and currently had none.

Belladonna was quiet for a longer stretch. Her eyes moved over my face as if searching for the crack in the story, the tell that this was another piece of Alien arrogance. When she spoke again her voice was lower, stripped of everything except cold assessment.

"If your words are true, you will show me. If you are wasting my time with boasts, I will make the consequences clear enough that you will not attempt it twice." she said and from the tone, I knew that wasn't a threat. It was a promise.

"Works for me. Take me to the clan. I will do it there, where you can watch every step." I said.

She studied me for another moment, as if giving me one last chance to change the claim while I still could. I didn't. Backing down now would be worse than never having opened my mouth.

"Prepare yourself. We leave shortly. she said finally.

"Understood. Give me a short moment to get ready. You should do the same."

Belladonna gave a single sharp nod. She did not look away until I turned first. The weight of her attention followed me all the way to the door.

I left the basket where it sat and walked out of the cottage with a calm I did not entirely feel. The door closed behind me with a solid, final sound. Only when I was several steps into the open air of the compound did I let the controlled expression slip.

"I just promised a General I could undo a sickness placed by someone this planet treats like a living god..."

The magnitude of it sat in my chest like a stone. It had bought me a temporary stay of execution and the first real crack in how Belladonna looked at me. That was the win. The problem was that I now had to deliver, and I had no idea yet whether the System even had a tool for this kind of work.

If it was the kind the silent matriarch did on Kara, that would mean buying the spirit stitch essence... And that was very expensive. And I was not going to purchase one in this situation.

I didn't even know how many members made the clan. How would I get the AP to purchase a lot of the item and would I even be allowed to purchase a lot at once?

Fuck!

I headed toward Jonquil's cottage at a steady pace, my mind already shifting to the next negotiation. The claim had gotten me through the door and out of it again with my head still attached. Now came the harder part.

Once I was far enough from Belladonna's door that her hearing would not catch it, I cleared my throat and spoke under my breath.

"System. Show up, I have a proposal for you."