This ship was better than the one I took with Leo and Rose before. This one looked much luxurious. The cabin we got was quite big. The bed was meant for two and the sheet and covers were clean.Demian talked to the captain while I looked around our cabin. At least, I did not have to worry about catching skin diseases here, sleeping under the covers.I was truly going back with Demian. There was no turning back now. I had chosen this.Sometimes I wondered what would have happened if I did not want to go back with Demian. Would he have forced me to come with him?I did not know. I did not want to know the answer, lest it should make feel bad. Besides, I knew what kind of person Demian was. He might be better than Alexander, but in the end, they were similar in many ways. I could not expect him to change himself, not after the way he had to grow up. He had to kill his own twin brother. That kind of thing was bound to mess up someone’s conscience. It was a surprise that Demian had not tur
Hearing about Sully’s condition and what Father did to her made me disgusted. At that moment, I hated Father more than I ever hated anyone before. And I pitied my sister. I was worried about her.I knew that Father would be angry about Sully’s lost maidenhood. But I never thought he would take it that far. I never could imagine that he could hurt his own daughter like that.‘You knew he hurt Millie. But you never did anything. You knew about it all. You saw how he slapped her, hit her with a cane and sometimes whipped her. You saw it all, but you acted like a blind man. You acted like you did not see anything. You pretended like you did not know anything just to avoid any kind of confrontation or responsibility,’ a voice inside my head said.But then again, Millie was an illegitimate daughter unlike Sully.‘There is no difference. You know it very well.’I tried to shake the voice out of my head.“Do you think she truly went to another kingdom like Father thinks she did?” Selina asked
All day long, Mother sat on her balcony and watched ships come and go. I sometimes urged her to take a walk with me in the garden, or down the streets, but she never took me up on my offers. She would smile and say that she was fine where she was.I brought a doctor to take a look at her. The doctor said that Mother should not remain idle all the time. It was making her body weak. She needed to walk at least for an hour each day.Mother did not listen to the doctor, or to me, or to anyone.Jace and I arrived two days ago. These two days, all she did was sit by the window and watch the ships like a little child who was fascinated by it.“My daughter will return in one of those ships,” Mother would say to everyone who went near her.“Sully is not here, Mother. She will not come back,” Jace said many times. We believed that Sully had settled her life somewhere far away and in a quiet place and was never going to come back. It was better that way as long as she was happy wherever she was.
The ship reached our kingdom once again. Demian and I got down the ship with our belongings, which were not too many things.First of all, we went to an inn to eat something. I was hungry. Even though the ship was luxurious, the food had not been that good. Besides, I could barely eat anything with the constant movement of the ship.We took our horses and gave them to the son of the innkeeper who would feed the horses and brush them.We were served a beef stew with quite a lot of beef in it and bread to soak it up with. The bread was not stale, fortunately. Demian and I ate slowly, enjoying each bite.After we were done eating, Demian paid the innkeeper while I waited outside.Someone touched my shoulder and I almost screamed.“Selina!” Without thinking, I wrapped my arms around my sister, hugging her tightly. It had been so long since I had last seen her.She was wearing the usual priestess’s attire like she always did since the moment she began devoting her life to God. When we pull
I had never, not in a million years, thought I would get to see my family again. By family, I meant my mother, Selina and Jace. Sierra was in another kingdom. I never thought about seeing her. We were never close, but we were not distant either. I had no intention of ever seeing Father and Kyle again. I did not know what I would do if I saw any of them.I was selfish and I loved myself. I could never bear it when someone hurt me.I sometimes dreamed of shooting an arrow into Father’s chest. I must admit that it felt rather good.Demian and I took a shortcut through the forest. It was dangerous, but Demian was awfully too brave. He said I would be safe if I were with him.“Just physically?” I joked. “Not mentally or psychologically.”He had said nothing, causing me to feel a strange sense of fear when I looked into his silver eyes. Most of the time, Demian was nice. He did not hurt me or said something that would hurt me.But there were times when Demian would look at me in a certain w
During the journey, what Demian and I mostly did was talking. We did not have anything else to do. And when Demian talked, or listened to me, at least, he did not have that look on his face- the look that for some reason, send shivers down my spine.“When did you think that God is not real?” Demian asked. “Your family is very religious, after all. It’s only normal to be brought up to believe in God in that kind of family.”“I suppose it’s when I started to be able to form my own thoughts,” I answered. “Perhaps I was seven or eight, at that time, when I could form thoughts without them being influenced by my environment. I simply did not see the point of praying to a God that did not truly listen. I stopped praying then. Father would force me to go to the temple and I would pretend to pray, but that was just it. I only pretended. It was not real.“What about you? Have you ever wondered whether an entity like God exist?” I asked.Demian shook his head. “I am from a family that is as far
My arms were aching. My whole body was aching. Still, I stood straight with Demian’s arm around my shoulder possessively in the presence of none other than Alexander Silverclaw.I was not look up into his silver eyes, but I could feel them piercing my skin.“Look at me,” he ordered. And I did.My fingers were trembling. I did not get scared easily, but this man scared me. He made me feel trivial and powerless.Alexander grabbed me by the chin, not too forcefully, yet not gently either.“What happened here?” he asked.“My f-father…,” I mumbled.“Your father? Jade Star did this?”I nodded.Demian had already told Alexander most of the things, but he wanted to hear it from me for some reason.I glanced at Demian who understood what I was trying to do without me having to say a word. He dropped his hand from my shoulder and undid the ribbons on the back. I did not take off the dress, but undid it from the back only. I turned around and showed my bare back to Alexander.“Why did your fathe
I felt a sense of calmness and relief take over me as I entered the familiar chamber once again that I shared with Demian. My eyes wandered over the bed where Demian and I slept and did many thing together, the couch where I would sit with Demian’s head on my lap and ran my fingers through his long straight hair.“It went well, didn’t it?” I said to Demian with a smile.Demian had a strange look on his face. He turned to me and traced the scar on my face with his index finger.“You can pretend very well,” he murmured as if to himself.I gulped. “Demian, I am not pretending with you. Not you. You… are different. I don’t want to be a fake version of me with you,” I said.“Will you truly be yourself? And never lie to me? Never?”“Never,” I said quietly.“Good, because if you lie…”‘If I lie, then what? What will you do? Will you hurt me?’But I did not ask it out loud. Demian was too honest. I did not want to hear the answer. In fact, I felt a hint of fear inside me when I anticipated wh
I had been imagining this for so long. I had imagined doing so many things when I would meet Kyle again under the circumstances when I could finally take my revenge.Kyle was inside the tent, his men said. They stopped short when they noticed me. Well, they had not seen me in a while. A little surprise was bound to show on their faces.“Is anyone else inside?” I asked.“Yes. It is an alchemist. His name is…”“Leo,” I said. “I know him. Tell Kyle that I want to talk to him. The alchemist can stay though.”My brother’s personal guard bowed to me and went inside the tent. I knew that man. His name was Ezra Walsh. He had been my brother’s personal guard for the last five years. He was bald and tough looking with a scar on his right eye. I had the suspicion that he was blind in that eye, but never knew the truth.“What do you want to talk about with him?” Rezef asked.“Many things. Do you want to see?” I asked.“If you want me to.”“No, it depends on you. You can watch if you want to. But
There were no ships here. Not a single one. I could not even take a carriage either. The roads were blocked.I was out of the estate of House Star, at least. Currently, I was staying at a brothel. I gave some money and some of my pieces of jewelry to the brothel owner and she gave me a place to stay.It was nasty here and I felt disgusted the whole time, but at least, it was safe. Not for long though. At some point, the brothel owner might want to sell me to his nasty customers. I needed to leave soon.I did not know what was going on with the war. I could not care less about that. What I hated about it was the fact that I could not stay at House Star anymore, if there remained a House Star after this in the first place.I hated everything and everyone now at this point. I did not deserve this. I did not deserve any of this.I did not want to born in that family where I had to do things that I did not want to do. I had to learn how to seduce people at a very young age. It was called t
Sully escaped. Once again. I did not know exactly how she let Rezef Thorn know about her location, but she did do it somehow and that was without my knowledge.That woman was too cunning. She even fooled me.I was pretty sure she was going to use Rezef Thorn to get to Kyle.I had been gone for a long time because of a complication. I needed to defend the estate because part of Jade Star’s men somehow got inside the estate. It had been bloody.My left eye still hurt. There was a cut right under it. One of the men of House Star almost took my eye out.And now Sully was gone. This woman was driving me crazy in all the ways possible.She was now at the camp of Rezef Star. I could not just go there. It was hard to sneak in there. I could get as near as possible, but it would be hard to meet her there.I did not doubt Sully’s loyalty. It lay with me. She did not care about Rezef Thorn romantically. She was just using him to gain her objective.I just hated that she escaped from me again aft
“How is Millie?” I asked.Rezef was mostly ignoring me at this point. Well, at least, he was pretending to.“She is okay.”“Treat her nicely, okay? She is a nice girl,” I said. “Do you know Father used to beat her?”Rezef’s face suggested that he had no idea of this incident. Millie did not tell him for sure. It was not like I expected Millie to tell him either. Millie had always acted like she did not deserve anything and kept her thoughts to herself all the time.Their marriage life was not going okay. I knew that from the look on his face. Millie and he were not okay. If they just ended their marriage, then it would be for the best. At least, both of them could find someone new. It would be hard for Millie, but she would get over it. There was no point in suffering when you could get rid of that suffering.Both of them were unhappy in that marriage, I could tell.“Whenever Father was angry, he would take it out on her. We… We always saw but never did anything. I regret it, but what
My plan was simple. I always had the feeling that there was more to the little vacation than Demian let on. That was why- I started to leave trails behind. I kept the window open and threw purple pearls from the window. Demian did not notice because he had been busy trying to keep his legs from cramping and other times, he was massaging my feet.I had to be very cautious so he would not notice. Demian’s eyes were sharp. He noticed everything.That was why I had the feeling that this plan might not work.There were a lot of guessing involved. I was betting on Rezef’s feelings for me on this matter. He had to be the one to find the pearls because only he would recognize them. I had the belief that he was smart enough to know that I would not be at House Silverclaw.Rezef did not disappoint me.Now, I would have to explain everything to him, but that would have to wait for a bit.I told Rezef not to kill the guards that they took captive.We reached their camp on horses. Rezef wanted to
When I kicked the door open and entered the room at the top of the tower, I saw her for the first time in a long while. She was just the way I remembered her. Brown skin, curly hair and red eyes. But she now had a scar on her face. Did her husband did that? That bastard!I ran to her and wrapped my arms around her. I did not care about anything else. I needed to feel her. I needed to know she was real.My men were watching me, but I did not care. All I cared about was her at this moment.“Rezef,” she breathed. “I thought you wouldn’t find me.”“You left those signs for me to find. How could I not?” I said, pulling back from the hug. That was when I noticed what she was wearing. I averted my eyes from her barely covered body.She did not seem to feel any shame as she threw away the cover and got down from the bed. There was a cuff around her ankle attacked to a chain.“Can you do something about it?” she asked.I told all my men to get out. They did not need to see her like this for lo
I had not seen Demian in ten days. I had no way of knowing how things were going. I did not know if he was safe or not.I was anxious all the time. I ate less. I could not digest anything when my husband was out there in danger.Besides, there was still no sign of my plan working. I lost almost all the hope that I had.So, this was going to be the first time I felt defeat. It was an ugly and disgusting feeling. I hated it.When I messed up my potions, I always got very angry. It took me a long time to calm myself before trying to make those potions again. Unlike me, Leo could calm down soon.Our professor said that it was my only weakness. The frustration, the anger that I felt if something went wrong.“You are too fond of winning. Sometimes, you need to know what losing feels like as well. That way, you won’t feel like you lost everything when you finally lose once. You have patience, Sully, but even with this much patience, you cannot always win. When you lose, it is important to pi
I did not talk to anyone. I was all alone on top of the tower. There were guards outside my door, but there might as well be no one. No one talked to me and I did not talk to anyone. Demian told me not to. If I wanted my plan to work, I needed to do as he told me to.The maids brought me my food in time. They helped me bathe and left immediately. When Shea tried to talk to me, I refused to engage in the conversation much. After a while, she would give up and leave me alone with my thoughts.If I was a believer of luck, then I would say that my plan required a lot of luck to work. But since I was not such a person, I believed in possibilities. My plan would work if a certain person noticed certain things. I knew that person well, so I knew that he would notice them.But what if he did not notice them? What would happen then?Then my plan would fail. I did not want to think about it. I never had a plan that failed. I always calculated the risks and made the plans after that. Until now,
The war had started. Jade Star gave a few conditions.1. Sully Star must be returned to House Star without any physical harm.2. Rosalia Star must be returned to House Star without any physical harm.3. House Silverclaw will publicly ask for the forgiveness of House Star.4. Alexander Silverclaw will be stripped down from the position of the Head.5. Demian Silverclaw will annul his marriage with Sully Star.6. A Silverclaw can never marry a Star again.When I read those conditions, I could not help laughing. Without seeing my father’s face, I knew how he would react.First of all, Father would not agree to any of those. He would never give Sully away. I would not give Sully away. He would never hand over his wife. My father would rather eat shit than ask for the forgiveness of House Star. Besides, how could someone ask for forgiveness when they did not think they did anything wrong? My father did not think he did anything wrong. He took what he could. House Silverclaw would never ask