Princess of the Damned (28 page)

“
Good, you’re here, Sayan!” Nala smiled at him. She dug her wooden bowl into the grains, scooped out a bowl full and poured it neatly into the boy’s bag. She gave him a few extra scoops, until his bag was full.

“
Thank you!” The boy’s eyes were glistering with joy. “Mother will be so happy that we have something to eat tonight!”

Sayan picked the boy from his neck and handed him over to the guard captain. “Make sure the boy makes it out of the crowd safely,” he instructed.

“
Yes, Your Majesty!” The guard captain obeyed.

“
The servants told me you were out here,” Sayan ducked his head under the table and crawled to the other side. “Shouldn’t you be getting ready for our wedding instead of passing out grains in the sun? You’re getting darker, you know.”

“
I like the sun. It feels nice and warm on my skin,” she replied, “I think it is livelier than in the palace. I don’t have much to do there.”

Sayan shot a glare at the man purposely touching Nala’s hands while she poured grains into his sack. “Do you want to lose those hands?” Sayan asked.

The man looked threatened and dwindled away. If the guards were not standing by, these lustful men would have attacked her. Grains were not the only thing on their minds. Not when Nala was so damn beautiful.

He felt very possessive over her. Even a simple touch of her hands was enough to spike his blood. If he could lock her up some place where none of these eyes could reach her, he might just do that. He placed a hand on the back of her waist and pulled her toward him. He bent his head down to claim a kiss. That should be obvious enough of a declaration that she belonged to him.

“
Did you come to help or to stall me?” Nala asked.

“
On the contrary, I’ve come to fetch you back to the palace. I can’t have you running around outside the city. There are assassins everywhere aiming for our lives. That and I feel a knot in my stomach when our wedding is only four days away. It’s unsettling when happiness comes too quickly.”

“
You’re thinking too much again.”

“
I just have a bad feeling, Nala. Something always creeps up the moment I feel a little secure. The nightmares I have been having are not helping either.”

“
Alright,” Nala agreed. “If it bothers you that much then I’ll go with you.”

Noctiam halted
when he saw Trent practicing his power through the glass hallway. The prince was surrounded by massive boulders suspending in the air by sheer power of the mind. There was no telling how long he had been standing out there by himself. Noctiam traced out of the castle and into the courtyard, but the prince ignored his presence completely.

There were holes in their relationship that even time could not mend.

“
I am curious as to what you will do,” Noctiam said.

“
I will do nothing,” the prince replied.

Noctiam mockingly scoffed. “You will stand idly by while your wife marries another man?”

“
I have never interfered with her decisions and I will not start now. You should learn to mind your own business, Noctiam. The curse you placed on that human was unnecessary. Their lives are brief as it is.”

“
As a man, I cannot understand you. Shouldn’t you do something? …Anything?”

Trent slightly turned his head to the side. “If she and I were meant to be each other’s companion for the rest of eternity, then it should not matter if I do anything or not.”

“
If you will not do anything to stop her then I will.” Noctiam mouthed a long incantation. The spell allowed him to borrow Trent’s image as his own. Trent turned around to look at the transformation, but there was not a sign of surprise on his face. “I need to borrow your image for a little while.”

“
Can’t you leave things as it is meant to be?”

“
Leave things as it is meant to be? Do you want me to share a little secret with you, Trent? Besides you, that human is the only man she had ever allowed to share her bed. But that is what made Raya so convincing, am I right?”

The prince’s blue eyes subtly lightened. The boulders surrounding them abruptly crashed onto the ground. “I am warning you, Noctiam. Never mention Raya in front of me again or I will assure you a fate far worse than death.”

“
Ah, you are a little too late for that, my prince. Your other self already beat you to it.”

“
If I could not see through your true heart, I would not have put up with you this long.”

“
You’re one to talk. I can’t bring myself to hate you either. Believe me, I have tried.” Noctiam softly chuckled and then changed back to his own appearance. “Is it because you are her, or it is because I know…ah, forget I even mentioned it.”

“
If Nala can be happy, even for a little while, then it is a good thing.”

A moment of silence came between them.

“
Trent…do you want to know what happened after you left her by the cliff? Do you know the truth about that time?”

“
Why does it matter now? It’s the past. It’s over.”

Noctiam placed a hand on Trent’s shoulder and teleported the both of them to the top of the cliff beside the sea. “Does this place look familiar?”

“
It has changed somewhat…”

“
Her corpse, if there is still anything left of it, is under the dirt where you are standing right now, Trent.”

Trent focused his gaze. “What do you mean her corpse?”

“
What did you think happened, Trent? Why did Nala suddenly disappear for three thousand, eight hundred years? Why do you think you could not find her?”

“
There are spells for that.”

“
That time, Nala came to me for help. She asked me to remove her core, so that you would not be able to recognize her. There are spells to hide one’s presence, but not at a close proximity and definitely not for an enduring amount of time. If she only changed her appearance, you would discover that it was her in a day or two.”

“
Do you expect me to believe that?”

“
No, I don’t expect anything. I want you to know that her love for you wasn’t a lie.”

“
The core is our true self, if it is removed…”

“
Like an arm or a leg that is severed from the body – nothing more than flesh and blood. She knew that. She accepted being a corpse just to be by your side. She was exhausted in her pursuit and she wanted to gamble with you one last time. I didn’t think she would win, but she did. You loved your Raya more than you love life itself, but the moment you found out that she is Nala, you ran away again.”

Trent sharply inhaled. “What…what happened to her?”

“
Now you are interested in what happened to her when you left her here by herself, my prince?” Noctiam let out a bitter laugh. “She waited. She waited for you. She waited for death. She waited until her body began to rot. She never gave up hope that you would come back for her. She died waiting.”

“
It’s a lie!”

“
Then dig! Dig through three thousand years of deposits and erosions to see if I am telling the truth! Dig and see if there really are the bones of your wife underneath where you are standing!”

Realization slowly dawned on the prince’s face. The color drained from his face, making him look ghastly pale.

“
Raya…” Trent fell to his knees. He desperately ripped out the grass and dug into the dirt. “Raya!”

“
Let me help you with that then,” Noctiam knelt down next to Trent. He drew a summoning circle with the blood on his fingertips. Upon completion, it began to glow bright red. A set of brittle bones emerged from the circle and the glow disappeared once the skeleton fully surfaced. “Not much left, I guess.”

Trent’s shaking hands reached out to touch the remains, but he pulled away at the last second. He took off his shirt, laid it onto the ground and then gathered the bones into the shirt.

“
You knew, yet you left her corpse here?!”

“
She wouldn’t let me come near her!” Noctiam retorted. “Besides, they’re just bones of the dead. There is nothing spiritual about them, since us demons don’t exactly have a soul or anything like that. The closest thing we have to a soul is our core. Don’t delude yourself into thinking she can hear anything you say now. It’s just bones.”

“
The Nala right now…”

“
The core does what it always does. It rebuilds from scratch. Makes you think, doesn’t it?”

“
The hell it does!”

“
The core is our true self, isn’t it? Then why did you fall in love with a body without a soul? Or could it be that it did not matter in the first place? Whatever the case may be, I still envy you. I would not mind giving up my immortality, if she could love me the way she loves you.” Noctiam summoned a flame to engulf the remains.

Trent shot to his feet and grabbed Noctiam by the collars. “Put the fire out right now!” he commanded.

“
You forget, my prince. A pile of bones is just a pile of bones. Your Raya, or whatever you want to call her, is now sleeping soundly in the palace and in the embrace of another man. You do understand, don’t you?”

Trent slowly turned around and watched the flame quickly consume the bones.

“
My prince?” Noctiam reached out to Trent when the prince fell to his knees and wrapped his shaking arms around his body. His face became eerily paler. Each heavy breath mimicked the rhythm of the flame.

“
Put…it…out…” Trent painfully gasped. “Put it out now! It burns! It burns!”

Noctiam hurriedly summons a whirlwind to suffocate the flame, but it was too late. The pile of bones had already turned into ashes and scattered into the air.

Her distressed groaning
woke him up in the middle of the night.

Her body was shaking and drenched in sweats. Sayan sat up and gathered her into his arms and lightly patted her face. Her skin was so unusually hot. “Nala, wake up! Nala! You’re having a bad dream!”

“
It’s hot,” she panted. Her pale green eyes cried out to him. “I’m burning… help me…please help me, Sayan! The flame is scorching me!”

He placed a hand on her forehead and pulled away instantly. This was more than just a fever. He held her tight as she screamed and writhed in his arms.

“
Summon the physicians!” Sayan shouted out to the servants guarding outside of the door. “Help is on the way, Nala.”

Her agonizing screams echoed inside chamber.

Sayan was upset with his own helplessness, as he didn’t know what to do to ease her pain from this strange illness. He was so afraid that she would bite her tongue, like patients with seizures. He guided her head toward his shoulder, and as he expected, her teeth to sank into his flesh. He gently stroked the back of her head and listened to her muffled screams. Warm blood trickled down his chest and cooled by the time it reached his abdomen. It was nothing he couldn’t endure. He had been through pain far worse than this.

He was relieved as her body slowly became less tense.

By the time the physician arrived, she had already fainted. Her skin has returned to its cool touch. Her breath was even and warm against his chest. The physician dived head first toward the raw, gnarled wound on his shoulder.

“
Your Majesty!” the old man cried out. He then shouted toward the door. “Guards! Arrest this girl!”

“
I forbid anyone to enter!” Sayan’s shouted over the physician’s voice.

“…
But Your Majesty, look at what she’s done to you!”

“
You have never seen a love bite before? Quickly, tell me what’s wrong with her.”

“
Yes, Your Majesty.” The old man lowered his head and then examined the girl. “Her pulse is normal. She is asleep, Your Majesty. I am more concerned with that flesh wound of yours. Please allow me to stop the bleeding.”

Sayan approved. “Are you sure that she is only sleeping?” He needed confirmation.

“
I am certain, Your Majesty!”

He slowly laid her head down onto the pillow and pulled the cover over her shoulders. He snatched the clean towel from the physician’s hand and wiped off the blood trailing down from her lips.

“
You have seen nothing here tonight,” Sayan said. “Work quietly, so that you do not disturb her.”

“
Y…yes, Your Majesty…”

Loose black feathers
were scattered across the bed. Sayan sat up and cringed when the pain on his shoulder reminded him of what had happened the night before. Her side of the bed was empty and cold. He curiously touched one of the feathers, and upon his touch, it disintegrated.

“
Nala?” he called to her, but there was reply. He pushed the cover aside and searched for her in the hallway. He found her standing by one of the windows, staring out into the garden. He sighed in relief and quietly came up to her. He embraced her from behind and pressed a light kiss on her silky hair. “Good morning.”

The ring of his arms was empty. One minute he was holding her, the next he found her standing several meters away.

He reached out to her. “Nala?”