Chapter 47: Chapter 47

Caldwell’s face went as pale as a ghost. Did he really hear Tristal’s words correctly?

“I know you must be Langrion and Danterion’s real father. It’s because of you that the prophecy of the Demon King might be fulfilled…”

Utterly surprised, he let go of her trembling form. She started to stagger away from him, but she caught one of her arms once more.

“Tristal… No… You must have been mistaken…”

“I am not mistaken, Cal. We both know it… And Cashmere knows it too…” Her beloved Tristal said, weeping openly now in exasperation.

“H-How?... How did you know?...”

“Cashmere sent me letters before she took her own life, Cal… I thought they were letters that reflected the flimsy state of her sanity after what happened during the princes’ baptismal, but they weren’t… On her final letter, she included something else… An official manuscript of the oracle of the divine…”

“Your crimes against her were detailed in there, Cal… Cashmere could never reveal to anyone how you drugged her one day and how she woke up in the middle of the night with the two of you sprawled in bed… She could never tell King Sagrass either. She was so afraid to break his heart… She simply pretended that it did not happen… She tried to pretend it was all just a hideous dream.”

Caldwell let go of Tristal’s arm and ran his hands in his once jet-black hair, now an assortment of white and gray, like pepper. He could not believe that Cashmere had woken up despite the potency of the drug he used. To think that the Devil had intensely promised him that nothing could go wrong with this plan!

“Cashmere was positive that the twins were Sagrass’ sons, until the oracle came to her, and she was accused of working with the Devil… She ordered the original manuscript to be revealed to her. It was the one she had included in her final letter…”

“The manuscript said that an ambitious next in line prince had made a pact with the Devil himself. In exchange for him becoming an Imperial Ruler, he promised to spawn the Demon King – the child of the devil that would cause the breaking of the world. He followed the Devil’s plan of sleeping with the rightful queen to produce his heir….”

Caldwell started to pace around the room in exasperation. The seers at the temple, Cashmere, and Tristal – all of them knew his secret! All of them knew the pact he made with the Ancient Evil!

“I-I didn’t choose him… H-He chose me… He chose to make a pact with me,” Caldwell revealed, speaking feverishly towards her.

He began to recall the day he lay half-sleeping in bed with some unknown woman he met in the local tavern. The girl looked like Tristal to him when was drunk, but it turned out that his eyes were fooling him once he had become more sober.

He covered his misty eyes with the back of his arm. How did he ever come to this? How did he end up with this hollowness in his heart? It had been twenty one, long years since he had wedded Amira, but every day, he would wake up wanting no one else but Tristal by his side. No amount of gold, wine, or women could replace her. Even the appeal of the crown no longer enticed him as it once did to stay with Amira, who could not even bore him a child.

‘Do you really want Tristal that bad?’ a voice inside of him spoke.

‘Of course… I want no one else but Tristal…’

‘Not even the crown?...’

The thirty nine year old Caldwell contemplated for the moment. Tristal and the crown? If he could only have both, then his world would have all been perfect!

‘What if you could have both? You can get the crown and also Tristal… She would never be able to refuse you once you are king…’

Little did Caldwell know that it wasn’t his own mind that was speaking to him but the Ancient Evil himself.

“I-I only wanted to be with you… I wanted you to choose me! You would never refuse me as king! He said you can never refuse me if I become king!” Caldwell said, finding himself back at the present moment, clutching the aged but graceful form of his beloved.

“Cal, I can never go back to you. I married someone else; I had a husband and a child. You married Amira. We can never go back to what we once were.”

“No, you can if you wanted to! I made sure Maurice would never return when I assigned him at the borders, and Amira was too sickly to ever recover! We could have had it all, Tristal! You could have been my queen. We could have had our own children – you and me! We could have avoided the ascent of the twins if you had chosen me. It did not have to be this way!”

Tristal’s eyes widened with fright. “Cal, what did you say about Maurice? Did you plan his death at the border? And Amira – what did you do to her? What did you do to all of them?”

“I did it all for you, Tristal, for us! I did it so that we could be together! We could have thwarted the plan of the Devil if I had an official heir! The prophecy could have been prevented!”

“No, Cal! You had made a pact with the Devil. You made sure you fulfilled his prophecy when you tricked Cashmere into sleeping with you! You have brought it all upon us! I was just a lame excuse for your greed! You wanted power, and you sold yourself to the Devil to get that power! Because you have empowered him, innocent people had started to developed curses! Now your sons – Langrion and Danterion – and my Shia are going to suffer because of your sins. You are worst than a monster, Cal! You are worst than the Devil himself!” she said wailing in grief as she broke away from his clasp.

Caldwell fell down into the ground and slumped himself against the wall.

Tristal was right. After learning about what happened during the princes’ baptismal, he had tried to prevent the Demon King’s rise to power by killing cursed ones. If he will be able to eliminate all of them, the Demon King would never be able to raise his powerful army. The only thing he was unable to do was kill his own, cursed spawn – Langrion. The sight of his damned eye made him want to vomit every time he saw it. He was the living proof of his moment of weakness and the crimes he wanted to bury away in his heart.

Perhaps there was still one more solution that Caldwell had not yet tried…

“Your granddaughter, Shia… Is she also a cursed one?” Caldwell whispered. The frightened look in Tristal’s face was a sure sign that she heard his question, but she did not answer.

“Shia must also be cursed… Why would you and Langrey choose to keep her away from me otherwise, Tristal? Don’t you think I won’t come to know?”

Tristal fell down on her knees and clutched his hand. “Cal, please... I beg you please, do not harm her…”

“Oh, I won’t harm her alright… I won’t harm her at all…” he looked at her quivering form with his cold, blue eyes, “She is of more use to me alive rather than dead, my love. I’m sure she’d make a fine queen...”

“W-what do you mean?” Tristal said, utterly shocked at his idea.

“We have missed our chance together, my love,” Caldwell said. A feverish heat was quickly rising in his chest, as if a maddening and sickening spirit has taken over him. “We have missed a chance to produce an heir and prevent the twins to take over the throne. But your granddaughter is still young, healthy, and enthralling, just like you were. She is certainly a worthy candidate to carry my heir to the throne.”

“C-Cal, do you mean to say -?”

“Of course, Tristal. Your years of rejecting me were the reason why we have come to this! Now, you must give me your precious Shia! I shall make her my queen, and she will prevent the rise of the prophesied Demon King!”

“No, you scoundrel! You beast!” Tristal had lost it. She started to claw away at Caldwell’s face. “You won’t take away my Shia! Not until I am alive!”

Caldwell’s eyesight dimmed. A black shroud had taken over his mind as he forced the aged duchess into the ground and held his knees against her chest. “Then die!” He wrapped his powerful hands around her neck and began to choke her. “That girl is the repayment of the years you have taken away from me! You have robbed me of a chance to be happy! We could have been happy, but you refused to forgive me! Why? Why?!”

Tears had begun to generously fall down Caldwell’s face. He began to see a single tear escape from Tristal’s left eye as well, and he felt her chest swell up and expire one last time - one, last and agonizing time.

He was taken aback, thunderstruck. “W-What have I done?!”

She had stopped breathing under his hands - the hands that had once held her and caressed her soft and gentle form; the hands that had longed to touch her again, to pleasure her, to care for her, and to make her his. These same beastly hands had wrapped themselves around Tristal’s throat and killed her!

“No!” Caldwell screamed. He knelt beside her body and parted her lips, breathing a puff of air in them. He tried to pound at her chest once, twice, three times, but she did not stir.

“M-My Tristal… My Tristal!” he wailed feverishly.

Hearing the commotion as he lay stationed by the door, Caldwell’s right-hand servant came in. “Y-Your grace, what happened?”

He began to check on the duchess lying down on the ground. He shook his head when he did not feel a pulse or see any signs of life.

“Your grace,” his servant said, “I’ll take care of this. You must leave! Leave here at once!”

Caldwell took one last look at Tristal’s lifeless body. He moved closer to her for the last time and muttered a promise in her ear.

“I will turn all of these around, Tristal… I will turn all of these around with Shia’s help…”

At last, he stood and walked away from his beloved and the memory of what he had done to her.

He walked briskly away and boarded his carriage, proceeding straight into his room at the Rubiyah Manor. Despite all of his haste, however, he did not forget what he had just promised. He proceeded to execute his plans quickly.

An assassin he had trusted for years emerged in the darkness of his room. “Sire,” he said, “I, Hadrian Veed, am here, at your service. Ask and I shall fulfil it.”

“I want you to take care of someone and something else for me tonight,” he said, handing him a parchment and a pouch of gold. “I will double the payment once you fulfil my wish. Go and execute it.”

“As you wish, your grace!” the assassin hissed. He burned the parchment at the open fire of the hearth before he disappeared once more in the darkness. The fire crackled as it burned the paper containing a sketch of the face of Prince Langrion Zephiry Romualdi.