Lady Edelfina woke up with the dreadful news. “My lady, the king – he’s dead!” Talita exclaimed in one breath. For a second, Edelfina’s body trembled in shock. That was such sudden news! However, it was only a mere second of thought. The next thing she had felt was utter delight. “The king... is dead? Are you sure?” She couldn’t help but smile as she clasped Talita’s sleeve. The king is dead! That vile, stinking, rotting garbage of an old man is dead! What great joy! “Yes, my lady. He was found dead in his study this morning. The Royal Inquisition is currently investigating the cause.” “I see... I’m sure he died of natural causes, given the shock he received yesterday...” Edelfina stated. Indeed, yesterday was also a joyful event. Edelfina had left the castle early on the day before to fret somewhere. She didn’t want to bump into that Andry girl in her wedding dress, and she wasn’t invited to her uncle’s wedding. Not that she c

“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

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

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

“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