Chapter 8: Chapter 8
It was a sight to behold - Gascone’s mighty and revered Imperial Prince seemingly caught in a scandalous act with an unknown girl in the woods! Khailis wondered how good of a fodder this scenario would have been for the tavern gossipers. If she had not witnessed it first hand, she might never believe it, but here they were: Prince Langrion (or simply Langery – no need for formalities between them, after all) with a woman in his arms, all spent up from kissing – or maybe from even more than that! Khailis could not help but laugh out loud on her silly thoughts.
Irritated, Langrion sighed exasperatedly towards her, “Uh, do you mind giving me a hand?”
Khailis looked over at his majesty’s arms and saw the face of a young girl, perhaps the same age as Khailis herself, with long, silvery, flowing hair and a beautiful olive-tinged skin. The girl was completely unconscious, so Khailis wondered what could have happened to her. When Chibi and Khailis saw her at the riverside earlier, she did not look like the type of girl who would faint in battle. She looked so much more skilled and far too vicious to have such fainting spells. True, Khailis did hear some muffled screams from inside the tree trunk a few moments ago, but it was hard to make out what Langrey and the girl were saying in there with all the gnarls, whimpering, and scratching caused by Chibi. Khailis would have given up a fortune just to know what went on inside that trunk.
As Khailis reached out to help ease the girl from his majesty’s arms, she was met with Langrion’s worried stare.
Khailis gasped, “Your eyes! They are not covered! Ah, I’ll die!” Khailis immediately tried to shield her face from Langrion’s gaze, but the prince just laughed out in amusement.
After a few seconds of his laughter, Khailis realized that nothing did happen to her. She did not turn to stone or anything. She touched her body from her head down to her foot. She was still alive, healthy, and seemingly intact.
“What on earth is going on?!” she said turning to the prince who was finding her reaction all the more hilarious.
“My eyes... What color are they?” Langrion inquired.
“Uh, blue... But didn’t you say that the left one was supposed to be different. Wasn’t it supposed to be red or something?”
He nodded and grinned from ear to ear.
Her jaw dropped open as Khailis realized something immense. “Do you mean to say you are already cured? Has your curse been broken?!”
The prince looked a little worried once more. “I don’t think it has been entirely broken, but this girl has something to do with it,” Langrion replied.
Khailis’ jaw dropped even further. Now, more than ever, she was dying to know about the girl in Langrey’s arms. She could not wait to ask her all sorts of questions, but she remained motionless and silent. She must have been quite sick. She did not look good at all.
Langrion tried to put the girl down as gently as he could on the ground, but before he had even done so, a clump of vines suddenly sprung forth from the earth and weaved a bed of soft grass and flowers for her.
“Whoa! That’s so cool!” Khailis exclaimed in utter amusement. She could not believe that such a special power had ever existed! If she can have one, she would definitely ask for the same kind of power from the gods. At that very moment, Khailis decided that she already liked the girl and could not wait to speak with her as soon as she regains consciousness.
Chibi may have been having similar thoughts about the girl too as he kept trying to jump on her with his massive, golden paws and to lick her face, but Langrion kept him at bay. “Let her rest, Chibi. She needs some air.” Feeling defeated, Chibi had no choice but to sit his giant, fluffy body away in one corner while whimpering and pleading with his big, almond eyes towards the girl and his master.
Langrion held a hand against the girl’s forehead. “She’s burning up with fever,” he said “we need some water and medi-” before Langrion could even finish his sentence, some plants began growing near the girl’s head. In a matter of seconds, a flower bloomed, and from it sprung forth a bulb that Khailis recognized as the fruit of the Danes, an herb that was wildly used to cure fever. The tip of the bulb grew and grew, and soon, it became ripe with dew. The dew fell directly into the girl’s semi-parted lips.
Khailis could not help but clap at the sight, “Oh, that’s such a remarkable feat!” Even Chibi wagged his tail in a mixture of delight and amusement.
To Khailis’ surprise, Langrion did not stop holding the girl’s hand as the vines tended to her needs. After a few minutes of watching the girl and the magical vines do their work in silence, Khailis finally asked the questions she had wanted to ask his majesty all along:
“Um...so this might be uncomfortable to ask, but what on earth were you two doing inside that tree? I mean, I get that you were supposed to hiding from those bandits, which Chibi and I already took care of, thank you, but don’t you think it was a little too much to be doing something so intimate while you two were supposedly hiding?”
She continued with her rant without letting Langrion speak a single word. “And who is this girl? How did you meet her? Earlier, Chibi and I saw that you emerged from a cave with her. What were you doing there? What were you doing inside this tree trunk too, huh? Did you two spend the night together? But you’ve just met her! What if she turns out to be some kind of assassin or something? You shouldn’t just trust anyone who’s pretty, Langrey! I can’t believe you’ve met someone new in just one day after Edelfina broke your engage-!”
“That’s enough!” Langrion began to cut her queries using his usual formal, icy, and commanding voice that was meant to tell Khailis that he did not want to explain anything and that she should not attempt to ask further questions. “We should get going now. She needs better rest to recover.”
Khailis sighed. She hated this side of Langrion, but she understood him. Even though he did not dare express it, she knew how he had adored Lady Edelfina from childhood. He must have remembered the pain of his heartbreak when she mentioned her.
Slowly, his majesty lifted the girl from her bed of vines.
“I think it will be more comfortable for her if we put her on Chibi’s back, sire.” Khailis sheepishly suggested, but his majesty shook his head.
“I cannot be parted from her. I think my curse only stops when I hold her. And I have some bad news – my mask seemed broken, so I cannot risk being away from her until we can find a way to repair it.”
Khailis’ spirits became filled with worry. The broken mask was indeed a tough predicament. The mask was especially commissioned by the late king from the Great Oliander, the most skilful mage of all time. It was the only thing in the world that they know of to have effectively stopped the prince’s curse. However, the great mage had died years ago, and he left no apprentice as everyone with special powers (including mages, if they resisted) were put to death by the present king, Prince Langrion’s uncle, Caldwell the First, under his stupid command that all cursed ones should die.
Had the present king knew about Prince Langrion’s curse, he could have already been put to death the moment he was born. As such, only a handful, trusted people of the former king, the prince’s own brother, and Khailis, as his body guard (and best friend, of course!), were privy to this secret. Indeed, not even the snotty First-in-Command - that extremely annoying and fiendish creature - Lord Fincher, knew any of this. Like him, the rest were simply informed that poor Prince Langrion was born with a hideous eye deformity that needed to be concealed with a mask. That meant that creating a public search for a competent mage to repair the mask was beyond impossible.
Furthermore, the material used in the making of his mask was an extremely rare one. The prince’s curse needed a special kind of guiding stone to contain it. Even the prince’s own mother, the queen’s life was put in danger while taking care of the young prince before the mask was even made.
Therefore, if the mask was indeed broken, it could take months (if they were extremely lucky) or years (perhaps if they prayed hard enough to the gods) before they could forge another one or find anyone who can repair it.
“Your highness, please let us think this through. Your plan is too risky!” Khailis said. Chibi began to whimper as if to agree with Khailis’ opinion.
“We have no other choice. She has to help me until then. She is my only option,” the prince calmly replied as if he had already imagined this scenario in his head.
“Well, how do you suppose you can keep this girl with you while we find a mage powerful enough to repair your mask? Have you even thought of how this girl can physically stay with you until then?!” Khailis appealed to Langrion in an exasperated tone.
“That’s simple,” the prince said nonchalantly, “I just have to marry her.”