Chapter 4

Chapter Four: Palace

Silas

I still couldn't get his face out of my mind. It was just a glimpse, but I can remember every part of his face. He was gorgeous with a sharp face, thick eyebrows, piercing, bone-chilling red eyes, and full lips. I can even remember the mole in his right chin. 

He was probably the most handsome man I have ever met in my whole life, but it's too bad that he was clearly not a human. 

I quickly got rid of my own thoughts. I just got my heart broken, died and came back to complete a mission, and now I am swooning over a dangerous man. 

I should probably be thankful to him, I guess. Thanks to him, instead of being sold as some vampire or demon's food, the bandits changed their minds, not wanting to encounter the man with red eyes again, and decided to sell me to the palace instead. That saved me time to find a way to get closer to the prince. Once I'm in the palace, I will try to get close to him no matter what. The sooner I complete my mission, the sooner I can go back to my family. 

I couldn't help but snort at the obvious tension between them as they dragged me. They looked so awkward and even I couldn't get the vision of them making out and palming each other not long ago. 

"It's completely normal, you know. I am gay as well so no judgement here. To be honest, that was kind of hot. Two barbaric men pleasuring each other like it's the end of the world." I teased them as we walked along the other humans. 

Unlike Silas's town, the people here look decent and rich.Their clothing is a mixture of different countries. They look fancy and well, snobbish. They are all accompanied by their servants, and I know they are servants not because of how they looked, but because of the collar around their necks. I guess they are branded by their owners like some dogs. 

It's astonishing how different yet similar Eldoria and Earth are. 

"What are you babbling about, boy? What the hell is gay?" The tall one asked me and I raised an eyebrow. 

"A... homosexual? A man who loves a man." 

The smaller one glared at me while scrunching his face. "I ain't a homosexual, you damn useless slave." 

I snorted and rolled my eyes. "Right. Sticking your tongue down another man's throat and stroking their stick doesn't make you one. Got it."

I could have sworn they both blushed, but the taller one yanked at my chain and I almost stumbled. 

"Hey!" I complained as I regained my balance. 

"Shut up or we will take you back there to be a vampire's dinner."

I quickly shut my mouth and made a motion of zipping my mouth in which they gave me a strange look. 

"Freak." The smaller one spat and they dragged me inside a gate of what looks like the back of the palace. 

I looked around and observed my surroundings. The palaces are far from here and I guess we were in the servant's place. I noticed their white and black uniform. Men were wearing long hats and women had their hair tied with ribbons. I quickly observed the difference in clothing. It must be the rank. The higher ranks had some sort of gold ornaments on their hats or hair. 

The duo continued yanking me until we stopped in front of an old man with a long beard, ordering some men to lift sand bags and jars to the storage. 

"My lord, we have a young servant boy for you."

The old man turned to us and I instantly noticed a huge scar on his right eye. His hat had five gold horses around it and I guess he has a higher rank than most. The man held my face, turning it from left to right and looked at me from head to foot. 

"He's scrawny. What use is he to me? It looks like his bones will break if he tries to lift a jar." The old man grumbled and continued ordering people around. 

The tall bandit cursed under his breath. "Maybe we should just sell him as a sēx slave." He told his companion and I froze, my eyes widening in horror at what I heard. 

"I am stronger than I look, sir! I can lift jars, sacks, or even a goat! I am diligent and you don't have to tell me what to do. I can wake up early in the morning and finish my task before the day ends!" I told the old man desperately before the bandits could take me away, pleading with him to give me a chance with my eyes. 

The old man turned to look at me and observed me for a minute. I held my breath and waited for him to reject me, but to my relief, he gave the bandits some coins. 

"Thank you, My Lord. I will forever be grateful to you." 

"Show me what you can do and if you are proven to be useless, I will give you back to them." With that, he left and the bandits removed the chain around my wrists and neck. 

"You got lucky now, but if you thought it's safer here, you are mistaken, boy." The smaller man warned me with a smirk. 

I showed him my middle finger and he just looked at it strangely before they left. 

"Heh. The advantage of coming from another world. I can curse and insult them all I want and they wouldn't even understand." I shook my head and I saw a boy around my age approaching me. 

Unlike the others, he was wearing a pure white uniform. He had ginger hair and he had freckles all over his face. He looked cute but not my type. My type is more like... that mysterious man.

"I'm Eon and Lord Pyxis ordered me to show you around and teach you some basics about the palace. Is this your first time here?" He motioned for me to follow him and I did. 

"Yes, and I'm Silas." 

"If they told you that palace life is better than outside, they are fooling you. Once you get accepted here, you can only leave when you're a corpse or when the royal family allows you to. The good thing is, we get paid higher than servants outside and we get to eat leftover food the royal family and the nobles didn't eat. We are only allowed to leave the palace once a month so forget about seeing your family but you can send them a letter."

"That... doesn't sound too bad." I responded absentmindedly. 

Getting a higher salary is good, but the thought of only seeing Okka once a month made me a little... sad. He was a good father and I know he'd want to see his son often. I guess I can write him a letter to assure him that I'm fine and he doesn't need to worry about me. 

Eon looked at me with amusement and opened his mouth to retort, but a loud bell sounded and I was confused when everyone started running around, leaving whatever they're doing behind. Some of them hid in their quarters. Even Eon started pulling me to what looked like the servants quarter. 

"I will continue where we left off tomorrow but stay there for now and don't come out until the sun comes up." 

I blinked in confusion and watched him disappear. I looked around the quarter he dragged me to and didn't see anyone else. It looked decent enough to sleep on but there were no mattresses. There is only a hard pillow on the floor and a small cabinet. 

I looked outside the window in total curiosity. There was not a single person outside. Maybe it's the curfew? And they will be punished if they are seen outside. Right, that makes sense. 

But why do I feel like something is not right? 

My stomach chose that moment to demand food and I realized I haven't eaten anything since this morning. My eyes lit up when I saw a basket of bread a few feet away from the quarter I was in. 

I won't be caught. I will just take it and run back inside. It's too much of a waste to let a bunch of delicious looking bread to waste. 

With that plan, I opened the door slightly, looked around for any guards, when I saw none, I ran to where the basket is, picking it up and smelled one. 

"Ah, it's even freshly baked! Why would they leave this here?" I wondered and turned to run back inside when a familiar feeling made my whole body froze. 

The basket almost fell from my grasp when I felt a wave of warmth behind me and sparks of electricity ran through my whole body, but when I turned around, I saw no one. 

Was I just imagining it?