Is Danterion making a cruel joke? Did Edelfina hear him say his words correctly?...
She did not have to ask him to repeat his sentence. He pulled her arms gently upwards and made her look at his face while saying in a low voice. “Come on, you’ve got to go... You’ve got to go right now...”
“W-what?... Why?”
She was afraid that the man with violet eyes would come and face her, but it was her Danterion – her lovely Danterion with his soft, ocean-blue eyes that held her up.
“The Ancient One, I cannot stop him... He will send you to prison no matter what I do...”
Danterion’s face was pained and anxious. She had never seen this side of him before. The Danterion she knew had always been cool and collected. Even when he would receive severe punishments from his deranged father in his youth, he didn’t show any emotions like this... But now, how come he looked so fearful?
Suddenly, his words became clearer to her as he repeated them, shaking her
“Why does my back feel so cold?” Shia mumbled. Langrion dared not to speak. He simply put his cape around her back and rested his arms on her tightly, shielding her from the chilly morning wind. “Just put this on for the meantime. It’s still very early. You might catch a cold.” he quickly said. Thankfully, she wasn’t able to catch the guilty look in Langrion’s eyes. After helping her take a quick bath by the river, he offered to close the back of Shia’s dress for her, but to his surprise, he saw that almost all of the buttons of her dress had fallen away. He didn’t really know how, but maybe it had something to do with him the night prior. He couldn’t just bring himself to tell Shia that she was missing more than half of the buttons, especially at the lower parts of the dress. “It’s alright. I’ll get changed at the tent. We’ve prepared some clothes beforehand. It should already be at the tent,” Shia said, smiling back at him. The two of them c
As soon as she saw Hadrian Veer, Shia also saw the man with an ash-colored hair, holding a small blue flame in his hands. Soon enough, several men with twisted, possessed bodies started to surround them. In a heartbeat, they were immersed in an intense fight as Khailis, Langrion, Commander Rus and Ker began to draw their swords out, and the mage started to spurt frozen icicles from his palm. Someone started to shoot arrows in the midst of it. Many screamed and ran for their lives. It was, all in all, very chaotic. Just like Marmie and Gaf and the other cursed ones onboard, Shia couldn’t use her powers under the guiding stone’s effect. Her stomach twisted and turned into knots, and she couldn’t focus at her opponents. The ship was being violently tossed at sea, which didn’t help in maintaining everyone else’s balance as each one tried to stay alive. Perhaps more than the effects of the guiding stone, Shia really was sea sick! All she really wanted to do w
Khailis’ eyes fluttered open and the first thing she saw was fire. It was night time, but the fire burning before her was so huge, it might as well have been noontime. Weakly, she tried to climb the piece of wood that she had been clinging on to in an attempt to heave her freezing form out of the water. However, the plank was too thin, and thus, it cannot support her weight. She was almost thrown into the bottom of the sea as she struggled to get on it. After a few minutes of scampering, she gave up on her attempt and rested her weary head on it, just like she had initially done so. For how long she had been there, she didn’t know. It could have been for a couple of hours now or probably days. The last thing she remembered was being aboard a ship, but she was haphazardly thrown down at the sea as she lashed out on the incoming enemies when the ship tipped into one side. Khailis struggled to find a place to latch herself while fighting for her dear life at sea
After much prodding, Gavil started to put on some clothes to cover his body. It took a while for Gavil to look for her clothes though, and when he did, he gave her a completely different dress. “Sorry, I couldn’t find your clothes, my wife. I think I left it at my room...” “You mean this isn’t your room? Whose room is this then?” Khailis’ eyes went around the cave situated in the sea cliff. It was only made up of a single room, but it looked quite liveable and cozy. “This is my room too, my secret hiding place. I brought you first at the house, but my mother got mad, and she wouldn’t let me take care of you, so I brought you back here.” Did she really hear him right? Gavil’s mother was at this place too? “Are we?... Did you bring me back to your hometown?...” Gavil nodded. “And by hometown, where is it?...” “We’re here at the Carval Region in Teotroly.” Khailis held her breathe. Had he really taken her b
Khailis continued to sob. “Your sorry won’t be able to bring back anything, now, wouldn’t it? How can you give me back my first night?” “Your... first night?” Above everything else, what frustrated Khailis the most was not remembering what had happened during her first night with Gavil. She had been in love with Gavil for a long time, so accepting him as her husband was not a very big deal. Yes, their marriage had been so sudden, but she had always wished to be his wife ever since she had started loving him in the shadows. Thus, to lose the precious memory of her first night like that really infuriated her. “Yes, my first night! How can I get pregnant without even remembering what my first night was like? It’s so devastating! I’m going to be a mother soon, but I don’t even know how I spent my first night with you...” Gavil patted her back gently. “You don’t need to be sad about that, Khailis... We need to do what we did every night anyway since you ar
“Let’s not make the babies go hungry, alright?...” Gavil said. Khailis felt her cheeks go so hot that steam might as well have come out from them. She gently shoved Gavil’s face away. “We... we just got here... and it’s morning time.” “I know, my wife... It will be a long wait until night time. What if the eggs get weaker by then?” “But -” Khailis didn’t get to finish what she was saying. Gavil’s mouth descended into hers, and he gave her a long but playful kiss. When he had finished, she gasped for air and her heart throbbed. She didn’t realize she had been holding her breath until he had released her. “I had missed you for a long time, Khailis. Did you miss me too?” She had already answered him back before she had thought of the implication of his words. “Yes, of course...” He kissed her on the lips once again, his tongue coming inside her parted mouth this time. Khailis was taken a back at first, but thinking that th
“We can’t do it,” Langrion said firmly. He had already made up his mind. He was not going to follow the route Mage Silas and Templar had talked about earlier. “But -” Shia said. “No buts, Shia. Did you not hear what the repercussions were? That method is dangerous,” he said back. Shia sat down beside Langrion and sighed. They went back to the room after staying at the garden of Templar’s villa. It was only a few minutes ago when they listened to the discussion of the method Mage Silas and the Fire God, Templar, had proposed, but their individual opinions about the matter have not changed. After a few moments of silence, Shia spoke again, taking Langrion’s hands into hers. “Langrey, compared to the risk involved, our gains would be bigger. You would be free from the curse and the prophecy. Don’t you even want that?” Of course there’s nothing in the world that Langrion could ever want than to be free from his curse, but not at the expense of Shi
Langrion began to reveal his painful thoughts to Shia. “It’s not the wedding that worries me... It’s you... What if the Ancient Evil sways you to come to his side, hmm? I will be the only one in the losing end here if that happens...” That’s right... Who was to say that Shia would not get tempted to come to the Ancient Evil’s side? Once she gets trapped with him, would she be able to resist him? They have been lovers since the olden times. The goddess that occupies Shia’s body has a long history with the Ancient Evil. Wouldn’t she be swayed if they come face to face with each other? She turned her face towards him. “How can he sway me? I don’t love him. If I can be swayed, then I should have joined him when we were at the ball or when he tried to take me away at Gaulane. However, that’s not possible. I’m not Freya... I’ve got no feelings for him.” She clutched the blanket that enveloped his lap tightly. “I understand your fears. They are my fears too, but mor
“Ugh, I absolutely hate boys,” Khailis said in disgust as she threw her sweaty gauntlet onto the floor.Shortly after, Khalis heard a shriek. She gasped as she realized who it was she had just injured.“Gavil, Gavil, I’m so sorry! Were you hurt?”A black furry cat sat by the floor, rubbing his bum with his tail due to the accident she had just caused.Khalis has often gone home in sulky moods before, but this was the first time he was ever hit by him, and as a result, his feelings were deeply hurt.Khalis picked him up like a baby and put him at her lap, stroking his sleek, black fur and patting his behind apologetically. “Was my Gavil hurt? Were you injured?”Gavil whimpered some more, not because he was hurt but because he was sad and lonely. Even before Khailis went out today, Gavil had stayed in this spot because it was the most comforting place in her room. Every day, Khailis went
“Are you coming tonight?”Danterion placed his arms around my waist as I tied the last few knots of my dress. He repeated his words when I did not speak.“Are you coming again tonight, Fina?”I did not answer because I didn’t know what to tell him. This was the third night that I had come here on my own and sought him. I had been feeling rather sad and empty lately, but Langrey came back in town today, and I agreed to meet him at the same, old place. True, I had been deliberating in my mind if today would be a good time to call everything off between us, but how could I possibly know how things will turn out? How would I know if I needed solace and comfort again after I break up with my childhood sweetheart and his own twin brother today?I shook the thought away from my head. I am a bad, bad person, I know; I had been seeing Danterion for half a year now behind his brother’s back. Although Langrey and I had a long hist
Silver roses bloom only for a week once every five years – their life spans are too short and too far apart but also far too sweet to be fully ignored. These flowers are like one’s childhood love – a memory that came too soon but rarely leaves. Tristal Mariana Andry, the Grand Duchess of the Noble House of Andry, sighed deeply. At age sixty and mostly bedridden, she had become more and more prone to melancholic spells, especially when it came to remembering her past. Today, she had been in reverie once more as she faced a seemingly daunting task. It was the first time she had been out of her room and in a party. It was also the first time in decades that she had chosen to speak to Caldwell again – the present king of Gaulane and her past lover. The details of her last communication with Cal, as she would lovingly call him ages ago, had already slipped away from her mind, but the memories of their first encounter loomed as fresh as yesterday for her. It all started fr
“I, the new sun of Gascone, swear to dedicate my life into the service of my people. I swear this oath in the name of my father and my forefathers before me and in the name of the holy gods and goddesses of Teotroly!” Everybody cheered as the new king took his oath. They gazed at his ocean blue eyes, and they were taken aback by the honesty of his words and his demeanor. They welcomed him and his new queen with open arms. Shia looked back at the dignified man’s jet-black hair and mesmerizing blue-eyes with awe. She was proud and happy at what he had accomplished so far. It had been four months since the battle between them and Sirion has ended, and in those four months, he had been able to recover by and by. During the battle that left half of the castle in ruins, the last clear vision in Shia’s mind was that of Sirion plunging a sword in Danterion’s body – the body that hosted him – just after claiming that his death will fulfil what he had lon
As soon as Shia cut through the kraken’s tentacle, she found herself falling helplessly down. She screamed. She had forgotten the fact that she could not fly. She was really a useless goddess. Thankfully, the feeling of falling suddenly stopped, and Shia was turned upright by an invisible force. When she craned her neck to see who it was that helped her, she spotted a familiar face. It was Marmie, and she was staying some distance away, manipulating her fall. Almost instantaneously, a cry emerged from up above her, and she saw two flying entities swoop down into the center of the kraken’s head where Sirion was. Finally they came! Gilyan and the Commander were perched at Chibi’s back, and a black winged puma, who could only be Gavil, went into the courtyard to help them. “Sirion,” Shia shouted. “Let Danterion go! It’s over! You are outnumbered!” Sirion simply laughed at her, seemingly unfazed. “Do you think you and your puny friends could kill
Darkness covered the sky as birds from all direction converge towards the courtyard where Gavil, Chibi, and Marmie had seen Langrion go earlier. “Come on, let’s go and help Shia now. She had been taken away by some monster, but I think she’s nearby,” Khailis remarked as she tried to stand, but Gavil held her tightly by the shoulder. “Wife, you stay here with Goddess Eily. The rest of us will go.” “Wait, no! How can I stay here? There’s no action here! Plus, I’m fine, don’t worry too much,” Khailis said, beaming with energy. “You’re not fine. We might lose our babies, and I don’t want to lose you too... Ever!” Khalis looked back at Gavil’s glistening eyes. For the first time since he had met him, he saw him shed tears... Ah, she had almost forgotten! The blood of knighthood runs so strongly in her veins, but first and foremost, she was a mother now and a wife to someone who deemed her precious... She couldn’t possibly be as bold and car
“Just a little bit more, my lady... Please...” Gilyan have not begged anyone saved the God of Darkness for years. He didn’t have to before this. He became a free man because of His Darkness, but now, he found himself in a predicament where he would kneel down and kiss the earth if he could just get his wish. He didn’t know how many hours they had been buried down there. He tried his best since earlier to get help from above. However, he could not sense any living being, or was it perhaps because his magic was weak and limited? Earlier, the goddess who was with them revealed something about him that he felt had some semblance of truth. “All who can wield powers have the imprints of divinity in them, and you, in particular, given that strong sense of power, I’d say you must be a candidate for a god.” He had believed those words. After all, he had seen how his powers had gotten out of bounds even without the God of Darkness’ permission.
Langrion could not believe it! His wife almost died. If he was just a second late, she would have perished! She surely wouldn’t have survived! A heart beat ago, he swopped as fast as he could towards the open fire burning at the castle’s courtyard. He had seen it countless of times before, looking like a candle far-away in his own tower. He heard the pleas of the cursed ones like him, begging, screaming for help, but his uncle never did give his mercy at any of those times. As such, Langrion feared those flames for a long time. He felt like they were the cause of his torment. He should have died with those people accused of being cursed a long time ago. He should have been the first to burn, but because he was a prince, he survived. He lived until his present age of twenty one years old... That’s right. Today is his twenty first birthday, and today, he just turned curseless. The mask on his face fell as he snatched Shia away from the burning flames th
Langrion and Gavil, together with Chibi and Marmie, wasted no time travelling to the place they needed to go: the capital city of Gascone – Gaulane. “I can take us there easily, Prince Langrion,” Marmie said during the dead of the night a few second before they ascended in the air. Marmie was on Chibi’s back while Gavil had already transformed himself into his beast form – an enormous, black feline with wings like an eagle. “How,” Langrion asked. The last time he checked, Marmie’s powers involved controlling things with her mind. Can she also create voids like Galahad? “With this,” Marmie said, pulling away her sleeve from her left hand. There was a tattoo that looked like an eye with feathers reaching on both sides. “This was installed by the Ancient Evil when he controlled me... when he controlled us. We were supposed to use it once we have fulfilled our mission. Although I was not conscious at the time he was controlling my thoughts, I remembered it well i