Chapter 136: Chapter 136
TRISTAN:
An intense amount of pain took over me as I looked at Dahlia’s retreating form in the dead of the night.
I had no strength to come to her again. After what I just heard, I knew it was over between us… absolutely over…
Now I understood why she said I must have hated her… She was the life that was exchanged for my mother and had caused my poor Livia her freedom from Count Jeteris’ clutches.
I howled in anguish. How can the Moon Goddess ever bring such a fate into us?
“Come out,” I called on the bushes. “I can smell your scent even from a mile away.”
Samalah emerged from the bushes in her human form, her eyes glistening with tears.
“I told you, didn’t I? Dahlia Hurst was our enemy, but you didn’t listen…”
“Did you know it? Did you know the truth even before she said it,” I spat.
Samalah nodded. “I had a strong hunch since she had powers. She didn’t come from a magical family, and she was rumored to have been born weak and premature… Like you, I only got to confirm it today, though…”
Samalah opened her arms towards me. “Come here…”
I walked towards her open arms, remembering the past when she was the only comforter I had when troubled times arise.
She caressed my neck, soothing me like a little child just like before.
“Tristan, in this world, it is truly just you and me who could fully understand each other’s sorrows… Don’t fret. All will be well…”
How? How can everything be alright after this? Samalah’s promises felt empty knowing that my mate was really an enemy I must hate to the core.
“All our sorrows will end once we get our revenge, Tristan… You still remember my plans, right? We can get the spirit stone back if we surrender Dahlia to the Blasted Ones, and we can take back what’s ours once we take over Talandor. We can help start a better world, Tristan…”
She tilted my face down towards her. “So what do you say? If you take my hand now, everything would get better.”
All her plans felt meaningless. There was only one person I wished to keep beside me in all of this.
“Very well, but under one condition… I get to keep Dahlia and decide what to do with her… Whatever happens, you have no say what I wish to do with her.”
“Alright. I give myword, Tristan.”
Just like how she had always sealed her promises, Samalah reached for my snout and kissed it.
If the Moon Goddess thought that she’d break me by making my enemy my mate, she’s in for a surprise...
If hatred was all that my mate has for me, then so be it. I’ll make sure she knows the extent of that hatred to the core.
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KAIST:
“Father, let’s go back,” I said as he was wracked by fits of cough one more time during the journey.
It has barely been two days since my father and I journeyed out of Talandor to find the Blasted Ones who kidnapped Livia and my mother, but as luck had it, my father’s condition only got worse and worse. He had become independent to the drug more than I thought he did.
“No, Kaist. We have to find them at all cost. I don’t want to lose them again…”
Of all people, I understood his wishes. He had lived nineteen years without my mother, but I could always feel the sorrow in his heart whenever he thought of her and whenever we brushed on that subject.
Now I could understand why he was so distant to me as a child. I have my mother’s hair color and the shape of her eyes. He must have been constantly reminded of the mate he had lost when I was born…
Knowing the truth of how my mother died and survived and how Livia had to live with a monster all her life, my father must be doubly anguished…
“Then, how about I send you back first? I’ll continue afterwards,” I suggested tentatively. At this rate, it’ll be a miracle if my father came back without at least a fever for a week.
“No, Kaist, we have no time,” he said. “I have no time. I just want to see them.”
“What do you mean you have no time?”
Before he could answer my inquiry, an arrow shot past my father. It hit a tree just behind him.
Sh*t! They’re here!
Without a word, father and I galloped up ahead as fast as we could.
Even without confirming, I knew it would be none other but Jeteris and his men who would pursue us like criminals!
To think that he was loyal to my father was a mistake. He must have only been looking for a way to corner him like this so that he could usurp the throne!
“What are you doing, Kaist? Run faster,” my father growled. I heeded his call and ran towards him.
We galloped as fast as we could, but our luck was bound to dissipate quickly. We soon reached a stone-walled dead end.
“Kaist, go over the boulder. I’ll distract them,” my father sharply instructed.
“No! You go over the boulder. I’ll do the distraction!”
“Don’t be stubborn! Just do as I say,” he roared.
“Father, I am not a child anymore. Don’t just command me. I am not leaving you!”
Wolves came pouring out on us in all directions. Most of them were wolves that I know of. They had been working with me under the Imperial Security Forces.
I never knew how treachery meant until today!
‘Kaist, why don’t we use our powers,’ Ignis barked inside our shared thoughts as he snapped at the neck of another wolf whom I recognize as someone under me.
‘Right, but how about father?’ I still don’t know how to control my magic yet. How can I make sure I won’t injure him?
‘There’s a way to it, just trust me!’
I gave Ignis the go signal. He steadily scampered above the stony wall, and when he had climbed far enough, he somersaulted, breathing fire to those foolish enough to have followed him.
Screams of agony filled the entire forest as burning bodies of wolves cry in pain, some of them running away. The fire didn’t touch our father who stayed at the foot of the stone wall far away from us.
As such, I didn’t see it when that blasted arrow was released towards me until it was too late.