KAIST:
“Did you not come here to learn what I was talking about in my letter,” the lady before me asked again.
She stood from the bench she was sitting at. It was quite dark, but at that exact moment, the clouds from the sky parted away from the moon, revealing a young lady in a dark blue dress with pale, blonde curls and beautiful, light violet eyes.
For a moment, I stood there, completely frozen. This woman really had the same voice as the person whom Count Abell has met earlier in that poorly lit room!
Slowly, my eyes fell at the roses nearby. There were all sorts of roses here – red, white, and peach ones.
Ah, I must have reached the rose garden without meaning to!
“I did,” I replied as soon as I regained my composure.
The real reason I was here was to meet the writer of the second letter. The person mentioned discussing something about my future happiness, whatever that is…
The only thi
KAIST:The words that came out of the lady’s mouth were completely preposterous…“I need you to tempt Lady Dahlia Hurst for me so that we can separate her and Count Abell. We need to pull this marriage apart,” she said once more.My jaw was hanging open. What was she saying so bluntly?I continued to look at her, completely thunderstruck. Was she able to read minds?“Prince Kaist, do you want to sit down so that you could recover?”I nodded slowly towards her. She walked closer to me and held me on the shoulders. “Alright, sit there. I’ll help you.”She stepped side by side with me towards the bench on the pavilion where she was previously sitting. She held me gently by the arms and helped me sit down as she had promised.“Do you want anything to drink?”“N-no,” I said, still a bit shaken, “more importantly, Lady Livia… Did you me
KAIST:“Lies? Their relationship was built on lies? What do you mean?” I said with uneasiness.I scanned Lady Livia Jeteris’ face and her demeanor. I looked at how she carried herself and how she smelled, and so far, she turned out to be a blank. I could not read what was on her mind, but her words – they hinted something far more important.“You… You know something. You know something about that count! What is it? What are those lies that he hides from Dahlly?”I swear that if she was just a boy, I would have already snatched him by the collar and made him talk.“Count Abell? Did it ever occur to you, dear prince, that maybe Lady Dahlia has been the one in the dark all along? Maybe she’s the one that’s really hiding something… rotten.”The lady before me stood up. She smoothened her clothes for a bit before she spoke again. “It’s almost time. Let’s g
DAHLIA:I looked at Lady Livia’s pallid face as Count Jeteris helplessly dragged her away, and I was instantly reminded of the way I must have looked when papa slapped me on the wedding day. Despite what I feel towards her, I cannot ignore the tug of my heart.“Wait one moment. I’ll just go to the powder room,” I told Tristan.“I’ll come with you.”“No… Please stay. I’ll be right back,” I said.My heart still felt sore from what I had witnessed between him and Lady Livia earlier. He did not say anything else as I hurried to leave.I went back to the house and into the front door. The pathway where I saw Count Jeteris drag his daughter could only lead back to this part of the house, so I was sure they would be there.Even before I had reached the front door, I heard a few skirmishes.“Where the hell did you disappear into, you rascal?!”“
DAHLIA:“Come with me first.”I led Lady Livia into the end of the eastern wing and into the bedroom I shared with my husband.“Sit here,” I said, directing her into the sofa. I entered another room where I had kept my dresses and shoes. I began leafing through the boxes, searching for one particular item...“What are you doing? Why did you take me here,” the lady said curtly from the main room.“Uh, just one second,” I replied. I reached to the top shelf where a dark, rectangular box was kept. I opened it, and thankfully, it contained what I was looking for.“Here,” I said, going back into the room where Lady Livia was still seated. “Try this on.”The moment I showed her the pair of shoes that were inside the box, her eyes popped out in shock. She looked at me and back into the box.“Come on, take it,” I said. When she still did not move a few
KAIST:After the firework show ended, everybody knew that the party had reached its highlight, and so they began to leave the garden in throngs.I was still looking at the sky, transfixed. This had been a long night…I pulled my hood closer to my face. I used it as a disguise when I entered the villa, but my interactions on this fateful night had made me forget I that I should hide my face well.Thankfully, I did not attract a lot of attention. The people were too busy wondering why the count and countess had periodically disappeared from their own party to pay attention to me in the shadows.Before anyone could throw me any suspicious glance, I slipped by the side gate of the villa where Pelle and my coachman would be waiting for me.I was still thinking of how Pelle would lecture me on how I never kept my promise to just stay for a few minutes when I saw another person slip by the shadows before me. Based on the fluff of her ball go
DAHLIA:“Countess Abell?... What in the world are you doing here?”Lady Livia’s jaw was hanging wide open as she said this, and I understood her perfectly. Surely, she did not expect me to come. I didn’t expect to find her soon too at the heart of the city.“Lady Livia,” I said, smiling at her more as an instinct rather than reflective of what I truly felt. Appearing at the middle of the street did save me some time. At least now I don’t have to look for her. “I’m glad to see you here. Are you busy?”“Busy,” her face gave an alarmed look. “Did you perhaps come here for me?”“Well,” I said, nervous whether she will buy my excuse. “We came here to give out some food and medicine. We will need some help. Are you perhaps free?”I can’t possibly tell her that I sought her because I heard someone she knew was sick. I really took a chan
DAHLIA: It was already dusk when Lady Livia and I had a chance to speak. “Go ahead and ask it,” she said. True, I wanted to know her relationship with my husband. I think the term ‘friends’ do not quite fit them well. However, looking back at the relationship that Kaist and I had and how we almost married each other even though we were just friends made me feel that maybe such a relationship could exist for Tristan too. “Lady Livia… Why are you staying here and not in your father’s house?” Lady Livia’s face once again drew a surprised expression at my sudden question, but it went to being expressionless in a few seconds. She sighed heavily before she spoke. “To ask what others shunned to ask… you really are something, Countess Abell… “Father - Count Jeteris - isn’t really my biological dad. He registered my birth and gave me his last name, but he is more like my owner than my father,” she continued after a few moments of silenc
KAIST:It has been a month since the banquet where I had becoming acquainted with the mysterious and haughty daughter of Count Jeteris. Since then, I had been doing my best to find out about what she said.“Pelle, is there anything you have to report to me today,” I told my secretary, who also happened to be my loyal escort.“Unfortunately, sire, there’s nothing. Count Abell has been doing his business as usual. He is meeting traders and business partners in the morning and then going home in the afternoon to his wife.”“How about Lady Jeteris? Is she doing anything suspicious?”“No… Ever since she started working alongside Count Abell, she hasn’t done anything out of the ordinary so far…”I tossed Pelle’s report at the top of my table in the study. “Very well. You may go.”“Alright, sire.” He bit his lower lip for a while before bo
Hello! Thank you so much for coming to this journey with me in Revenge of The Shadow Heir! I started this story with a completely different story arc in mind, and I can't believe I've already reached the end of Dahlia and Tristan's love story. I dedicate this novel to the person who inspired me to take on writing again (and write romance stories, which wasn't really the genre I honestly saw myself writing).Here's to more meaningful memories together, sweetie! :). And to all those who have ever dreamed of being a writer or of being anything else - chase that dream! You were made to lust after it for a purpose. Glory to God always! I might take some hiatus after this story, but I assure you this won't be the last I will write. Thanks a lot again, dearests, and happy reading! - Ellie Love -
DAHLIA:“Dahlia, I have confessed everything to you before. I don’t know how much you remember of it after your accident though, so I am sorry for hurting you again,” Tristan began.“It was true. I casted a spell that was why the mate mark appeared in your body after our first night together. I was sure you were not my mate, and I was not yours. I casted a different spell on myself a few years ago to suppress finding my own mate, so I was confident when I approached you.”“However, the more I stayed beside you, the surer I had become that you were my destined mate… There wasn’t any day that I didn’t regret doing that…”Tears flowed from both our eyes. I knew it from my memory. We did have this conversation before, but it was still heartbreaking to hear Tristan’s side of the story.“When you had switched appearances with Samalah, I was foolish enough not to recognize you
DAHLIA: I was in a dark and suffocating place that I can’t even see my own hands and feet. I tried standing still, but nothing was happening, so I decided to move around. I started calling to my wolf. ‘Eva!’ Again, I shouted, ‘Eva!’ There was no answer. I was running wildly, or at least I thought I was. No one can say that this was all happening in my head. Goddess, I couldn’t even see if my body was still intact! I tried to touch my cheek just so I could verify I am still alive, still seeing, still feeling. The last thing I could honestly remember was King Helion Cosco drinking the blood off my neck. I felt around my neck. There weren’t any wounds of any form of punctures. Am I still existing in the real world, or is this all just a dying person’s dream? Just then, I heard an anguished voice. “Dahlia!” It was the voice I had longed to hear for a long time. “Tristan!” I started ru
TRISTAN: Irvan, that scoundrel that caused Samalah to get into an accident and had caused Dahlia’s agony, was a conjurer! Perhaps that was why they had left the dead bodies here instead of burying or burning them. It wasn’t just for show after all. The animated bodies started to close in on us. I thought it would be easy to defeat them since they were dead. However, they have the faces of people whome we had once seen or knew… It was a bit fortunate that most of them were just people whom I have casually met at Talandor, but I could only imagine that this battle must be too hard for Kaist. As we tried to knock out the dead bodies, the dragon bones swoop down on us, trying to pick on the flesh on our back. Even without a rider, the dragon bones were agile. This was really a dangerous thing. I just finished hurling a corpse somewhere far away, when suddenly, I looked up to see a dragon bone aiming to pluck my eyes away. I
TRISTAN: I galloped towards the edge of the plain leading to the Great Temple where I could smell my Dahlia’s scent. In the past, I had loved this walk from the forest towards the temple where my father would regularly burn an offering to the Moon Goddess Selene. Now, this same path was packed with vampires, attacking me from left and right. It was a hard fight. I felt like I was a bug trying to battle out hordes of ants to get to the other side. The more I stayed here, the more endangered Dahlia could become. Suddenly, I heard a voice roar. “Get down!” My instincts kicked in, and I followed it. As soon as I ducked down, bolts of fire started to rain down on my path, burning the Blasted Ones that crowded my way. I looked back sharply to discover a non-familiar wolf. It was golden brown with a stone in its head that shone like the midday sun. So this was how Kaist’s Shadow Rune wolf looked like. He must have already acce
DAHLIA: I rested my hope that if Count Jeteris himself or the people from Talandor could see me, they’d try to help me out. After all, I was someone they knew, someone who interacted with them, and someone they had sworn to protect as knights of Talandor. Surely, they wouldn’t let anyone from the Vampire Clan kill a she-wolf they had once known... But all those hopes were crushed when I saw what awaited us at the temple. The outer courts of the temple were nothing but mere rubbles of stones and sands now, but one could still gain the impression that it was a grand structure once. I had seen the tumbled-down appearance of the temple in a distance as King Helion dragged me to it, but as we entered its vicinity, I was shocked beyond belief. All around, corpses of werewolves lay lifelessly on the ground. “W-What did you do,” I asked in horror. “The foolish count wanted my help, but he didn’t agree with taking you as my queen, so…”
TRISTAN: “Brother, look out!” I swerved to the right by mistake, which ended up being good as I had dodged a blow against my skull. Livia and I had been fighting against the Blasted Ones for hours now, but they do not seem to be depleting. How in the world can the Apricus King call in this many of his men? Worse of all, Livia’s state was getting worse and worse as time went by… I hate to admit it, but I don’t think I could last fighting against them for a long time too. I struggled to get on my feet, thinking of how wretched I was to have sent the one person I loved the most towards her death. Memories of when I first saw Dahlia flashed by my head as I attacked one vampire after another. Lady Dahlia Hurst – the gentle rose of the kingdom – the person people looked up to and envied… My first thought was that such a person would be nothing more than a spoiled brat. She had been under the spotlight since she was yo
KAIST:It was a call to help Count Abell. Wolves from the White Fang Pack immediately tore their shirts and started transforming into their wolf form.“Prince Kaist, do you mean to say Tristan and Samalah… I mean Dahlia are in danger,” Thesla hurriedly asked.I nodded. “Yes. We will be going now. Get the women, children, elderly, and the sick inside the town hall. Bar the doors, and don’t let anyone inside the village. I will return here for the lady when everything is over,” I told the villagers.There was a murmur around the villagers.“Prince Kaist, I couldn’t speak for everyone, but I will come with you. Dahlia has become a friend and a family to Efiro and I. I don’t want to just sit and do nothing when I know she’s in danger!”“Very well.” I turned to the crowd. “Everyone who wishes to join us may come. As for the rest of you, please secure the village.
TRISTAN: “No, take her back! Give Dahlia back to us,” I shouted. The vampires around us poised themselves for an attack and smiled. They could sense the blood palpitating in my veins as I tensed up. They were getting excited on the prospect of violence as their true nature dictates. “Finders keepers” was all I heard from the damned king of the vampires. Maybe this was all a lie. Maybe the king of the Blasted Ones was toying with my sanity… How did I end up in this? Why did I give Dahlia to them? It felt like I was in a sort of reverie. Everything felt hazy. It was as if things were coming at me in slow motion. I could only watch as Dahlia’s golden brown hair billowed in the wind. King Helion towered over her. He clutched her by the wrist, and when she refused to tear her eyes away from me, he grappled at her shoulders and took her away more forcefully, twisting her face away from mine. I could only watch as trails of te