Chapter 74: Chapter 74
DAHLIA:
“Tell me the truth, Albus…. You and that black wolf, you are both no ordinary wolves… You are from the Shadow Rune Pack, aren’t you?”
The fur in the great white wolf’s body shook as if it was hit by an invisible arrow in the chest. He whimpered a bit in front of us, but he didn’t say anything more.
Before Eva and I could repeat our question and hear the answer we longed to hear, a series of loud thumping sounds pulled us away from the Animal Spirit World and back into our human consciousness.
“Countess Abell,” I heard Lina’s voice together with the incessant knocks from our bedroom door. “Countess, are you awake? Can I go in?”
“Go ahead… Lina,” I groaned towards her, still half-asleep and a bit upset about the interruption of our time with Albus.
“What is it,” I asked as soon as Lina went inside my room.
She eyed the empty space on our bed, and for the first time, I realized that Tristan wasn’t there with me.
Where could he have gone in the middle of the night?
“Lady Dahlia, your father is here,” she whispered. “He asked to see you. He said it’s urgent… Shall I send him in?”
I bolted upright immediately from my bed, feeling fully awake now. “Yes, of course. Please escort him to my study.”
I bit my lips as I put on more layers of clothes. Of all the days and hours that he could see me, why did papa come today? Was something amiss?
After a few more minutes of getting ready, Lina went back and finally escorted me to my personal study where my father had been waiting.
When I opened the door, I found papa standing below the oversized painting of me and Tristan. It was a portrait commissioned during our wedding day. He had hung this for me here as part of his surprise when we had the banquet last time, but I only got to see it when my study had been set up.
I looked at our positive and smiling faces from the portrait. I knew that my smile on that day was genuine, but how about Tristan? Did he really feel happy when he wedded me?...
Why was he keeping so many secrets from me?...
“Papa, you’re here. How have you been,” I inquired as I hugged him.
Despite having our differences, I still missed my father so much, especially on days like this when my uncertainty about Tristan was at its highest.
“Dahlly, I missed you,” he said as he traced his hand in his unkempt hair.
I couldn’t believe it. It was only a few weeks ago when we saw each other. Why then did my father look like he was a decade older that the last time I saw him?
“Papa, is there something wrong?” I touched his shoulders, and they felt much thinner and bonier than before. “Have you been skipping meals and drinking at night again?”
He used to drink more frequently whenever my mother’s death anniversary would come close. If he was indeed drinking these days, mother’s death anniversary certainly wouldn’t be the reason for it.
“Dahlly… How have you been? Is your husband treating you well?”
“Um, yes,” I said, although Eva’s ears twitched involuntarily inside our head as I said this. “Tristan has been treating me alright… What is it papa?”
“N-Nothing… I had been having some nightmares every night again, so I came to see you.”
“Why didn’t you come to see me at the party before then? Are you still angry at me for choosing to wed Tristan?”
“No, baby… Although I cannot say I am not pleased, I am not angry… I had already accepted your decision long before… I just didn’t think it’s a good thing to do… After all, King Maurus and I are friends. I didn’t want to put him in an uncomfortable position,” my father explained.
I nodded, remembering why even Kaist went to the party in a robe so that people won’t be able to identify him.
“Then papa, since it is night time already, wouldn’t you want to stay the night here? I’m sure Tristan wouldn’t mind it.”
“No, Dahlly… I didn’t want to inconvenience you… I just wanted to see for myself that you are really alright…”
I smiled at him. I didn’t know my father had this soft side in him after all.
“By the way, papa, what was your dream about? Why did you come rushing here for it?” I wanted to know how bad my father’s thoughts about my state were. How bad was it that he lost some sleep and food over some nightmares about me?...
“I-It’s nothing, Dahlly… You know how old people are… They have a lot of worries…”
“Go ahead, papa. You can tell me about it. It might help you to talk a little about your worries…”
I placed the candle Lina had brought between us on the sofa since we sat face to face towards each other.
“It’s nothing really… I just had a recurring dream that you were being taken away by two giant wolves and that you were begging for me to help you.”
“Two giant wolves?...”
“Yes, two wolves that were about two to three sizes bigger than you. One was white and the other was all black. You were calling me and asking for my help… I mistook that as a sign you might be in trouble, my baby…”
Two giant wolves… One white and one black…
“Papa,” I said, gulping down the fear that was rising at my throat, “papa, the wolves you saw… did they have something on their foreheads?”
“Something on their foreheads?...”
“Yes… Were there some sort of glistening stone embedded on their heads?”
“Dahlia, how did you -?”
“There were runes on them, right?... Crystal runes that were of dark and deep violet in color, were they not?”
The horrid look at my father’s face was more than enough to confirm my hunch.
I tried to be bolder… Despite the ranging tension in my chest, I dared to ask the questions I wanted to ask him, to ask Tristan…
“Papa,” I uttered after some time, “did you… Did you have anything to do with the death of the Shadow Runes?... Did you kill someone from their pack?... Did you kill a whole family twenty years before?...”