Chapter 65: Chapter 65
DAHLIA (WALKING WITHIN CORLION’S MEMORY):
Seeing the great, black werewolf before me, I immediately fell into my knees and started to beg.
“H-Have mercy! M-My daughter, she needs help! Have mercy!”
I tried to cover Cara’s head further, shielding her from the massacre that was happening before my very eyes…
At the background, I saw countless vampires being slain by werewolves left and right. They were shooting blessed arrows towards my kind, turning them into ashes in an instant.
I shivered. This wolf before me had no blessed arrows anywhere within range, but I knew he could still snap my head away in a second with his sharp paws or those raw, jagged teeth of his.
“Please… My daughter is still young! Let her live!” I begged the wolf before me.
He only looked at me with a fierce stare.
Suddenly, I felt my heart ache like it was being crushed between two boulders. I clawed at my chest where my heart used to be while my other hand was still wounded around my precious Cara.
Despite holding my palms against my chest, the pain I felt only intensified further and further.
It dawned to me… it’s too late! The poison must have already spread! I am already dying!
“Please… P-please I b-beg you… Save h-her… Save my baby!”
I extended the bundle I wrapped in my hands towards the great, black wolf. He was still looking down at me with his expressionless eyes.
“Please,” I said crying, which made my chest pain more and more agonizing.
To my horror, the wolf opened its jaws towards my baby.
No! It can’t be! He is going to swallow her whole!
Before I could even react, his snout snapped closed around the edge of the cloth.
Thank the all mighty God of Darkness! He must have only closed his mouth to securely handle my baby’s body around the cloth that I used to swaddle her!
I opened my mouth to say ‘thank you,‘ but before I could utter my words of gratitude, something sharp had pricked my chest.
I heard some screams coming from my baby, the scampering of canine feet, and a few growls before my eyes rolled backwards from my head...
*****END OF CORLION’S MEMORY*****
DAHLIA:
“No!”
My feet gave way into the floor, and I found myself helplessly trembling and with eyes submerged in tears as more and more water flowed from them.
“Dahlly! Dahlly, can you hear me?!”
It was Kaist’s voice. I looked up and saw his face. He too was trembling, and his entire face was covered in sweat.
“K-Kaist… Prince Kaist,” I said. I wounded my hands around his neck in fright.
“Shhh, it’s over… It’s all over, don’t worry…”
He patted my head gently. I shivered as I realized what had just happened.
“What was that? Was it -?”
He nodded towards me. “We just got back from the memory of one of the victims, Corlion Alonde…”
“T-Those were only memories,” I asked weakly. They felt too real to be just mere memories! It was as if I was Corlion himself!
“Yes, they were only his memories, Dahlly… I’m sorry I brought you into this mess… I’m sorry…” He rubbed my back with his warm hands to appease me.
“I didn’t know that memory projection crystals work this way… I’m sorry for causing you trouble,” my best friend continued to say.
I still trembled in Kaist’s arms. After a few more seconds of holding me like a baby, he unknotted his hands from my back and carried me into a chair.
I didn’t want him to carry me for fear of a hideous scandal erupting from this scene, but I did not have the strength to fight him at all.
“Are you hurt anywhere, Dahlly? Do you want anything?”
I shook my head. “N-No… But my throat is parched,” I said weakly.
“Go, and bring me a glass of cold water,” Kaist snapped at one of the attendants that were present.
Within a matter of seconds, the attendant was back, and I drank greedily from the goblet that he gave Kaist.
“Slow down a bit now, Dahlly,” Kaist said, still rubbing the back of my chest in a soothing manner.
When I had recovered enough from the shock, I turned to Kaist once more.
“Back then, you saw it too, right?... You saw what happened to Corlion and his family.”
“Yes… Well, ‘saw’ might not be the correct term. I felt it too, Dahlly – his memories and emotions were so present that I could even smell the taste of blood at his mouth…”
“His family, they seemed to have been poisoned before they were attacked.”
“Yes, that’s the case indeed… They were given a rare kind of poison.”
“The poison, I need to check it further, but I there was probably the presence of vineroot in it.”
“Vineroot? You mean the plant that can only be found in the Water Fairy clan’s territory?”
“Yes… Although I have never seen it up close and had never used it before, I read in some books that they were highly fatal to vampires. If a vampire does unfortunately take it, it will mimic the feeling of a heart attack and would eventually result to death.”
“I see… Those are some useful information, Dahlly,” Kaist said, his face splitting into a splendid smile. “You are really quite talented when it comes to herbs.”
“Thank you,” I said, bowing down to him a bit. This was the first time someone had praised me on my medical skills. Even though it was coming only from my best friend, I felt extremely happy to be useful.
“How about the black wolf he saw before he died? Does he look familiar to you?”
“Hmm, no… I have never seen him anywhere. We’ve never had any reports of such a wolf from before, but I’ll sweep through the criminal records in the past two years just to make sure… One thing is for certain though,” Kaist said, his eyes looking serious, “that wolf isn’t from the Wolf Fang Pack… Not even from this kingdom.”
“Yes, he isn’t from our pack indeed. I don’t recall ever seeing him,” I said. Although our pack is big and almost all of the nobles in Talandor are under our pack, we knew each other well. A wolf as big and as unique as that wouldn’t go unnoticed. “But what makes you so sure that he isn’t from Talandor?”
“Did you not see it, Dahlia, that mark in his head?”
I frowned. “Mark? Was it not a stone?”
“Precisely… It’s was a stone, a rune to be exact…”
I gasped. “A rune? Then that means -?”
“Yes,” Kaist said, gritting his teeth, “That wolf, there’s no doubt that he is from the Shadow Rune Pack. Perhaps he is even one of the last remaining descendants of the Shadow Runes…”