Chapter 9: Chapter 9

Several hours went by after Langrion, Chibi, and Khailis rejoined the prince’s official envoy, but Khailis was still deeply troubled. No matter how much she thought about his majesty’s ‘perfect plan’ in her mind, it still sounded all wrong.

She tried to reason out with Langrion on the way back earlier, but it was no use. He looked very resolute in his idea of marrying the girl in the tree trunk.

“Marry her? Are you crazy?! ” she exclaimed, but Langrey was not bothered even for a bit.

“Why couldn’t I?” he replied with the matter-of-factly tone he uses when he is being obnoxiously stubborn.

Khailis could not believe her ears. “Seriously, your highness! Do you even know this girl?!”

“Well, that’s the least of my worries for now.”

“Well, does she know about this grand plan of yours? Did she agree to this?” By the looks of the intensity and amount of screaming that took place inside the tree trunk earlier, Khailis did not think that the girl will agree to Langrion’s preposterous idea.

“No, but she is in no position to refuse it,” he reasoned. “She’s also a cursed one. I can protect her if she becomes my wife, and she can protect me and everyone else in return.”

True enough, with the state of how things are going on for cursed ones right now, Gascone is a highly dangerous kingdom for a girl with such powers. If she came under his wing, she’ll have higher chances of survival. With that level of skill that she possesses, she seemed like she can be a powerful ally to the prince too.

However, marriage is a big thing – and all the more since this will be a marriage involving the prince, one of the highest royalties in the land. Khailis eyed the girl’s shabby desert clothes and based on how wild she behaved earlier by the river bank, Khailis knew instantly that she does not seem to be the type that is cut for palace life.

“I don’t think she can survive being a princess. Or a possible future queen, at that rate,” Khailis said shaking her head at her own thought

“She won’t have to be any of it if we don’t break the curse altogether...” the prince replied. This glum thought made Khailis sigh, and nothing further was said; they trudged in silence thereafter.

When they were just five minutes away from reaching the encampment, Langrion suddenly stopped and laid the girl down on Chibi’s back (to Chibi’s utter happiness and great delight). He pulled out the ring from his pouch and put it on the girl’s left ring finger. Using just one hand, he put the mask on the left part of his face while he continued to hold the girl’s hand on the other.

Khailis can see a visible gash on the mask, but other than that, it still seemed quite alright. Khailis wondered if what the prince said about it being broken was true or if it was just his way of making a practical joke.

Langrion scooped the girl back up in his arms and turned to Khailis. “No matter how much they pressure you at the camp, you can’t say a thing. I will have to set my stories straight with this girl first.”

Khailis gave out a deep sigh and nodded. Chibi whimpered in a corner as if to say ‘good luck’ to her.

There was a wild commotion when they reached the encampment, and of course, the Imperial Guard’s First-in-Command, Lord Bragford Fincher (or Lord Braggart, as Khailis would have preferred) was the loudest of them all.

“What?! This girl is your betrothed?! This filthy, wild-looking creature?!!”

“That is no way to address your future mistress and the future princess of this kingdom!” Khailis said, feeling way angrier than Langrion cared to show after hearing Lord Fincher’s insults. Chibi growled threateningly and barred his sharp fangs towards Lord Fincher.

“That’s not what I meant, sire -”

“Then what do you mean exactly?” Langrion implored in a quiet yet commanding, and definitely fear-invoking tone that every man from the Imperial Palace recognized as the earliest sign of the prince’s rising temper.

“I mean, congratulations on your engagement, sire! Long live the Imperial Prince and the future Imperial Princess!” Every last one of them bowed down to the ground, and no further words were spoken, although Khailis was pretty sure that rumors will soon fly up and about once the prince turns his back and retreats to his chambers.

The servants quickly arranged the prince’s quarters and prepared a bath for him while he laid the girl – his betrothed - down on the mattress that they have prepared for the prince’s journey.

“Stay outside and guard the perimeter while I take my bath, will you?” the prince instructed Khailis. “I will try to see how far the damage in the mask has been. Make sure no one enters or comes near the bath chamber.”

Of course, Khailis did not need this silly reminder from Langrey. It was her job as his guard to make sure nobody snoops around and try look at him or his wife-to-be – except for her!

After a few minutes, and after making sure that Langrey was already in his bath chamber, Khailis sneaked inside the tent, carrying with her some of her own robes that she thought would possibly fit the girl’s frame. She wanted to take a closer look at Langrey’s bride-to-be and possibly give her a few change of clothes just in case Khailis gets caught. After all, it seemed like the poor girl had no other belongings when Langrey carried her off earlier, which is such an inconsiderate thing for a future husband to be doing to his soon-to-be wife.

The girl was lying quietly on the bed, her soft curls enveloping her sweet face. She has a nice, curvy body that looked as if she was trained to be out in the wild. At that moment, she looked so young and innocent that Khailis could not help but feel sorry for her and the predicament that she is about to face.

As Khailis tried to quietly put the articles of clothing on a night stand next to the bed, she did not see Chibi leaping onto the bed from behind the shadows. She did not even realize that the big mowngry followed her as she sneaked inside the chambers a few moments ago. Upon seeing the girl lying peacefully on his majesty’s bed, the big golden mowngry proceeded to land his wet tongue on the sleeping girl’s cheek, thereby waking her up in the process – much to Khailis’ surprise and dismay.

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Langrion surveyed the mask thoroughly just as he had done earlier at the cave. It still retained its original form, but there was a visible gash in front of its black, metallic surface. The gash ran across the divine spells that were etched on it. There was another gash at the back part of the mask, but overall, it still felt durable.

He tried it on, and it still felt okay. Perhaps he had only imagined that it was broken earlier at the cave. Maybe the deformity was superficial, and he can still use it after all.

A few more minutes after wearing it, however, he felt his eyes become hotter and hotter. He looked over at his reflection on the bath water, and he could see the faint red twinge from his left eye seeping through the crack of his mask.

‘Would this be enough to hold on the curse?’ Langrion thought worriedly. He would have loved to test out his theory, but that meant sacrificing a human life, which he dared not do. Never in a million years would he make himself a straight-out murderer just so he could find out if this mask is still usable or not.

Murderer...The word brought back memories he had with the silver-haired girl earlier inside the tree. She called him the murderer of his family several times in a fit of hysteria and rage. Did he really do it?... Did he really kill someone – a whole family - unintentionally?

The word also brought back such painful thoughts of his father kicking and hurting him and calling him his mother’s murderer whenever he was wracked by his panic attacks. He could not blame him. His mother took her own life just a few years after his father, the former king, cut her legs to stop her from turning completely into dust. It happened when he was still far too young to remember, but servants do gossip about and sigh whenever they see him, and pretty soon, the story of how their mother died reached him and his brother. Looking back, it was also around that time that Danterion, his older twin brother, the only one who used to protect him from his father’s abuse and insults, started hating him.

Langrion shook his head. He had never tried, and he never will try to take away the lives of innocent people if he can help it. However, the girl looked so adamant at her accusations against him earlier that there must be some kind of truth to her claim.

Her family’s murder might have happened around the time that he had begun suffering from the mark in his body. Recently too, there had also been some rumors of a monster with red, glowing eyes circulating around the villages, and the number of missing towns’ people were growing in a near alarming rate. But the first and last time the mark on his body surfaced, he did not have any recollections of harming anyone. If what that girl and the towns’ people say were true, the Devil might have had more control of him than he thought. Either that or someone else must be terrorizing the kingdom. He needed to find out and investigate. He needed to clear his name, at least for the sake of his own conscience.

Now, more than ever, he needed the girl’s help. He was desperate to prove his innocence and find a cure for himself, and he needed to protect everybody – the whole of Gascone - from the effects of his curse. The girl probably detested him to the core, but if she listened to his reasons, she would probably agree to lend him her powers and help him out. He prayed hard to the gods of heaven that all will be well until he can find a way to mend his mask, or even better, to lift his curse completely.