During one of their etings, Amara had been pretty desperate. She held his hand tightly and said, "I need your help with sothing."
"What is it?" Valentin asked.
"Promise you’ll do it no matter what!" she insisted.
"I need to know what it is first," he replied.
Amara shook her head, tears streaming down her cheeks. "Just promise, Valentin!"
The sight of her tears and pain weakened him, and he eventually nodded.
She grasped his hand even tighter and said, "Should anything happen to —"
"No! I won’t let that happen!" Valentin shrieked.
Amara tightened her grip on his hand. "Just listen. Should anything happen to and Remus, you have to take care of Riona. She has no one else but you."
Her plea was only natural considering the position she was in. After decades of running from invisible enemies, she now had soone to protect—how heavy her burden must have been.
Valentin vowed to find the perpetrator and put an end to Amara’s anxiety for good. She deserved a peaceful life, if not a luxurious one.
He still despised the werewolf, but he could see how happy Amara was with him. Valentin was trying to accept her decisions and let her live her new life when it happened.
A royal guard rushed into Valentin’s study. Valentin had recently begun assisting his father with regional matters, gradually integrating himself into the administration.
The previous vampire king had disowned Amara and appointed Valentin as his new successor.
Valentin was in the middle of reviewing docunts when he received the news: Amara and Remus had died in an accident. They were gone before Valentin could uncover the shrewd people behind the attacks.
His world crumbled in that instant. He wanted to lock himself away in the chamber, unable to face the cruel world without Amara. But then, he rembered his promise.
Riona. A recently orphaned child with royal blood running in her veins.
Valentin put on his cape and headed downtown to pick up his niece. He wondered what he should say to her. How could he console a child who had just lost her parents? Was there any word that could lift her sorrow?
He considered seeking advice from Maris, who had been a good mother to Lisbeth. However, the night was almost over, and he needed to fetch Riona before sunrise.
The mont he saw her eyes, all the words he had prepared in the carriage vanished. He lost the will to cheer her up.
Stop staring at with Remus’s eyes!
Had Amara never left the royal palace, she would have never ended up dead. Valentin knew for sure that it was no accident. Soone had murdered his sister, and he would make sure that person paid dearly.
"Your parents are dead," Valentin inford the child without an ounce of sympathy.
His affection for his sister was muddled with his hatred for Remus. It was impossible for him to love this child because of those eyes, but at the sa ti, he couldn’t completely hate her because of her strong resemblance to Amara.
Taking Riona in was an act that brought complicated feelings to Valentin’s otherwise cold heart.
Out of fear of hurting her, he kept his distance. However, the child grew up to be quite a troublemaker, forcing Valentin to intervene at tis. Left unchecked, Riona might have destroyed the whole kingdom.
It irked him that she couldn’t grow fangs, a constant reminder of her werewolf heritage. Yet, she was incredibly strong—so strong that it angered him. Where did that strength co from?
Not all vampires could see energy, but Valentin could. He knew that the fangless child was using warm energy, like a werewolf, instead of the cold energy typical of vampires.
A part of him wanted to erase any trace of Remus from Riona. He pushed his own daughter, Lisbeth, to crush her cousin, hoping it would symbolically destroy Remus within her.
But Lisbeth never managed to defeat Riona. In a way, Valentin saw this as his own failure. His own flesh and blood could not overthrow the werewolf’s daughter.
Of course, Valentin acknowledged Lisbeth’s excellence. Her mother was a commoner with subpar skills. anwhile, Riona’s mother had been the crown princess, one of the most powerful vampires in the kingdom.
From the beginning, it wasn’t an equal match. Still, Valentin couldn’t stand seeing his daughter lose to Riona.
Years went by, but Valentin still couldn’t forget Amara’s death. After ascending to the throne, he dispatched a special task force to investigate her demise.
One knight of the task force found a book hidden in one of Amara’s forr houses, locked by a spell that vampires couldn’t open.
Valentin had it analyzed, and the results showed the book was sealed with a werewolf’s spell. He invited a human witch who could read werewolf spells to unlock and decipher its contents.
The book, as Valentin suspected, belonged to Remus. It seed Remus believed vampires were behind the attacks.
How ignorant! Valentin thought. He brought enemies into this kingdom, endangering my beloved sister, and yet he blad vampires for his own failure to cover his tracks.
On the other hand, Valentin’s own investigation revealed sothing completely different from what Remus had believed.
"We found witnesses who saw werewolf tracks along the kingdom’s border," reported a knight from the task force.
Investigating an old case was challenging, especially with few leads to follow. The team had to employ a mind reader to delve into people’s forgotten mories.
These mories described the werewolves as dressed in all-black attire, moving gracefully, unlike typical werewolves who abided by no rules.
Valentin clenched his fists. "I knew it! It’s the work of werewolves! That furry man brought catastrophe and killed my sister by leading those barbaric n here."
In his mind, everything was Remus’s fault. He shouldn’t have co to this kingdom at all. If he had never appeared, Amara would be the queen of the Kingdom of Eira, and Valentin would be working tirelessly to support her administration.
"Make sure you find their identities! Break open the heads of every vampire in this kingdom if need be," Valentin barked.
But he couldn’t just wait for these slow, amateurish vampires to find more clues. He had to act to bring the evidence to him.
"Werewolves tend not to care about others outside their pack. It will be difficult to have them co to this kingdom on their own, Your Majesty," a knight advised.
Around that ti, the Asvaldur Empire began its expansion campaign. Valentin saw an opportunity to use this major event to lure the killer out.
Remus was an Alpha, a legend among werewolves. His enemy must also be at the sa level or higher to be bold enough to target him.
"Who is the strongest Alpha among all?" Valentin asked.
The knights exchanged glances and thought hard. Vampires generally ignored news about werewolves because they were simply uninterested. However, there was one piece of news that even the vampires knew about.
One knight spoke up, "There’s an Alpha who is mostly famous for his looks, but he’s also very strong. He earned the title at thirteen, breaking the record to be the youngest Alpha."
"His na is Thorin Klein," added another knight.
Reviews
All reviews (0)