Chapter 130: Chapter 130
DAHLIA:
I backed away from the vampire leader who was towering over me and looking at me as if he had no intentions of letting me go unscathed…
Just then, a hand landed on my shoulders.
“Don’t worry about it, Lord Irvan… I will make sure our guest here will be every bit pleasing to the king when the right time comes…”
I look back at Samalah’s undaunted stares against this Lord Irvan. Even though the vampire leader did not look friendly at all, Samalah never shrunk under his gaze.
“Very well. You keep her beside you until we get to Laudicia. I don’t trust that partner of hers anyway,” he gruffly said to Samalah.
“As you wish,” Samalah said, giving the man a coy look.
How did Samalah even have the courage to do that when the man clearly had bad intentions against her written all over his face?
As soon as Lord Irvan walked away, Samalah pulled my hand and led me away.
“W-Where are we going?”
She didn’t stop until we get into the edge of the river.
“Drink up and wash your face,” she said in an irritated voice.
I carefully knelt beside the water and began splashing some of the cold liquid on my face.
“T-Thank you,” I mumbled weakly towards her.
She snorted. “Didn’t you talk to Tristan and heard what he said? What are you even thanking me for?”
“Thank you… for keeping me alive all this time… I realized you could have killed me. You had your chance, but you didn’t…”
“Oh yeah? What makes you think I couldn’t do it now?”
As soon as she said that, Samalah clasped a bit of my hair from the back and plunged my face into the water.
She held me in it until I began to struggle for air, weak as I was.
“What now? You want to retaliate? You want to drown me too,” Samalah hissed, her eyes ablaze. “Then make yourself strong! Why are you making yourself weak like this? Do you want me to end your life here? Rather than get devoured by those devils, wouldn’t you want me to be the one who ends your life, Dahlia?”
I tried to slap Samalah by the face with my right hand, but she was able to hold it effortlessly.
“You’re too weak! You can’t even defend yourself. How pathetic!”
She threw my head into the ground that I almost smacked my face on the pebbled shore.
“You disgust me, Dahlia Hurst! How can Tristan like someone so dreadful like you? You’re useless!”
She bent herself closer to my ears while I struggled to get to my feet.
“If you want you and your pathetic child to live, arm yourself with hate… It’s the only thing worth keeping in your heart, Lady Hurst… Remember that!”
She stood up and walked away from me.
“By the way, it was my idea for my lover to marry you, Lady Hurst, so don’t hate Tristan so much… After all, didn’t you enjoy playing pretend mates with him? He was a lovely boy in bed – that I am quite sure of!”
I scooped a handful of earth inside my fists and threw them away towards Samalah’s retreating form in utter frustration.
Samalah was right… Now I had enough hate to wish them all to burn in hell!
After a few more minutes, I got back into camp. Tristan gave me some bread and water. I took it without looking at him, and he also didn’t try to say anything else as he sat a few feet away from me.
I looked around as I ate. There were five men with us, including Lord Irvan. If any of them were to attack me, I won’t be able to fend them off easily, given how feeble I was at the moment…
Ah, but then, didn’t I still have Eva? Plus, I have the power of healing; that would surely be useful.
That’s right… If I could just channel Eva’s form, I’m sure I could escape these scoundrels. I could escape when they least expect it. I just have to look for the proper time…
Right now, I should focus on learning how to control Eva.
‘You are hearing all of this right, Eva,’ I called inside my mind. However, it was not Eva who answered me back.
‘Dahlia, do you wish to gain power?...’
I frowned. Who was this unfamiliar voice inside my head?
‘You know who I am… You have made use of me before…’
My mouth must have hanged open for a long time before I remembered to close it.
‘Who… Who are you?’
‘Don’t you remember? You heeded my call…’
Just then, flashes of memories came flooding back to me once more.
I was in an auction house, and standing there at the center of the stage was a bright, red stone the size of a child’s fist. I reached out to it and touched it, but then, where did it go?...
‘I went right here, inside your body. I finally joined together with my missing piece,’ the stone whispered.
‘Missing piece?’
‘Yes, you’ve got my missing piece all along,’ it said.
‘What do you mean,’ I asked, utterly confused.
‘You held a piece of me since you were little… Didn’t you know it?’
I choked on a piece of bread as the meaning behind the spirit stone’s word dawned at me…
“Dahlia… Are you alright,” Tristan said, coming to my side and patting me gently from the back as I coughed.
I came closer to his neck to whisper something. “The spirit stone… you said something about the spirit stone being small during the auction, right?”
Tristan’s eyes widened. “Do you remember it now?”
I nodded. “Tell me… If a stone finds its whole, what happens?”
Tristan scratched his head. “Spirit stones are meant to be whole. It’s very hard to separate them. By way of nature, they cannot be separated to their owners by force… Did you also remember how you obtained the stone, Dahlia?”
“No,” I lied. I was still too angry towards him to tell him the truth. “Why? Does it matter how I got it?”
“If you were forced into it by a ritual, then we can easily undo the binding. We just needed to perform the ritual in the temple in Laudicia,” Tristan explained.
“And? What’s the other option? What if it was not forced?”
“If it wasn’t forced then there is no way to separate the stone from its chosen owner,” Tristan explained.
“No way to separate – what does that mean?”
“An unbinding spell would be useless if the stone has naturally incorporated itself into a wolf’s body. The only way they could be separated from each other would be through death.”