“I’m not gonna shut unless you tell me what happened at the field,” I irritatedly replied when she again yelled at me to shut up.
But still, she didn’t answer what I ask for and darted me a glare before taking it back to the tiny creature he was holding. “I’m not a good storyteller. Just do ask your good friend when he comes back later.”
My eyes automatically rolled and lay my back on a standing pillow as I sip from a glass of blood. Then she suddenly talked, starting a decent conversation perhaps.
“Do you have a name for him?”
I shook my head and flung a plain stare at the sleeping baby in her arms which I quickly withdrew. “You forced that thing to come out of me before I could even think of a name.”
“So? You should’ve thanked me. If it weren’t for me, you could’ve dragged your son to death. You are already double dead when Felipe brought you here.”
I shrugged and sip off the remaining drip of blood. “Holding my son for hours was enough thank you I can give to you.”
“Heh? How should that be a valuable thing?”
My shoulders again moved up and down. “I don’t know. Maybe because he’s a hybrid?” I answered sarcastically. But she laughed and gently flipped the child’s pouted lips. “Hoy stop that!”
“I have already held a child of a high empery. This is only a hybrid.”
Her words piqued my curiosity. “Whose child?”
She smiled genuinely and lifted her head. But the joy in her lips was so distant from the sorrow I see in her eyes. “An Alderhaw’s.”
My eyes narrowed even more when she spout out another sentence.
“My son that I didn’t have spared even a single glance the moment he was born.”
Soleil’s face was different this time. It seems like her mask suddenly fell in an instant.
“You have a child?” a question that slipped out of my tongue.
She nodded and remained her eyes staring at the tiny creature asleep in her arms. “Like you, it’s an unanticipated one. That I myself had the thought of abortion. And that is the greatest mistake I have regretted… perhaps I will take it until the day I die.”
I can feel her pain… her remorse and guilt on her every word. I may haven’t known her, but I could say she’s not only an arrogant one. And it only proves one thing, that painful history creates the toughest existence.
“Why are you here then? Shouldn’t you be at his side, fulfilling the duties you failed to do?” I asked.
She turned her head to me and flung a deadly glare. “How dare you talk like you have known everything about my life.”
My lips raised on a single side as I countered her stare. “Should I?”
“You try to speak any more words and I will not hesitate to watch your son fly,” she threatened with a sinister smile on her face.
“Ow? Really, you can do that?” I attested and took a bite from a berry resting on the side table.
But in a dash, she stood up unexpectedly and opened the window. The snow outside was so thick and freezing spiced up by the strong blow of the winds.
“I said I won’t hesitate. Don’t test my words, Adira.”
The wind blew harder and so as the sudden action Soleil did. Dropping my baby from the tallest room we’re in!
“I’m going to kill you!”
I quickly leap off the bed and headed straight to the wide opened window, trying to catch a creature wrapped in a red blanket. How dare she threw away my son like a paper plane!
Falling, extending only a meter before it hit the ground. I hastily pulled the tip of the blanket but to my shock, it is the clipped part that I pinched. Unrolling the ball that if I can’t catch at the right timing, my baby could break his bones!
“No!”
Panic attacks my heart out of my chest that I hadn’t caught the creature the second my feet landed on the ground. Followed by that was a loud alarming cry of an infant with a light thump on a pile of snow not far from the castle’s entrance.
“Hurry up,” commands the woman in a leather jacket with a naked creature crying on her arms.
My jaw dropped seeing she had my creature tangled by her grasp while I on the other hand almost burst out in panic.
“Give me that!” I snatched the creature from her effortlessly and walked back to the castle. “Go wherever you want. We won’t be coming with you.”
I gripped the loose part of my garment and wrapped it around the creature. He’s a hybrid but sadly, it seems like he’s more of a werewolf than vampire blood. Maybe he can shift… And he drinks blood. Peculiar creature.
I chuckled in my head with that thought.
“Why? Don’t you want to see what happened?” blurted Soleil who remained standing over the hills of snow.
“That means going back to Abberant. So, it’s a no,” my mouth answered, not turning my head to face her. “I’ll wait for Felipe. Maybe I could get the full details from him.”
My legs began moving, proceeding inside the cozy palace when she again mention the name I hated to hear.
“Diego Alfarro suffered the greatest injury throughout the war.”
I didn’t bother to stop, hearing the news she spout out. “Abberant boasts the great sorcerer. There’s nothing I could do even if I go there.” Every step I make accelerates. Escaping from her and from her words that could strike my stucked conscience.
Discovering the Senate crippled and lose the battle in Abberant is enough for me. Then my next move will be pulling the forces of Daghum, Sanguine, and Sinandaya out of the field.
That bastard wished to cut off all ties between us. Who am I to neglect his wish?
“You may have defeated the Senate in a battle but you still haven’t destroyed them completely. Don’t you know why Felipe leave?”
I paused. I didn’t. I did not ask him that.
My head gradually rotated back and looked at her. But she didn’t utter any more words. Instead, she raised her palm bleeding from a recently cut wound.
And the next thing I saw was her sharp claws extending and slitting my left palm before hers and mine collided. Then a blinding light invaded my sight before a scene flashed afore me. It looks like… a memory.
*****
“Gaia, we have to leave!”
“Felipe?”
The time when Felipe suddenly appeared on the battlefield out of nowhere and if he hadn’t, perhaps I could be killed by the same person again.
I saw myself riding off with the stallion, leaving the frontier starting chaos. The fog was slowly disappearing, revealing the empty ground in between the two sides. At the center lies nothing but Vander’s greatly injured body.
My eyes widened out of a sudden, seeing another group on the right side of Mayari’s platoon but outside of the first line. Wearing those familiar navy blue cloak on their armors printed with raging waters and whirling winds, the emblem of Sinandaya.
Given that the barrier out of creeping vines had already crumbled to dust, the moon’s light again shone. Lighting the left side where the Daghum army was situated. But it seems like it was not only them that stands that side.
A large number of wolf warriors stand bold and fearless.
I once handled Abberant’s army and I’m certain these warriors afore my eyes do not belong to them.
“They’re from Shadowstone,” surfaces a voice on my side.
I didn’t move my head and kept my eyes on the field. From that ounce of silence, it shattered the second an alarming red flare flew across the night sky from behind the Senate’s side. Followed by the rattling of the guns and thundering of the cannons coming from the Senate’s battalion.
But the side where I’m in blasted synchronous bombs and flaming arrows towards the enemy as the werewolf warriors from Sanguine and Shadowstone attacked gallantly dauntless.
And from behind the Senate’s army wasn’t Mayari as what I have anticipated, it was from the most unexpected person I wanted to see. The Alpha of the Abberant pack.
“I travel time if you would like to ask.”
This time, I turned my head towards Soleil. Giving her a look to emit what she knows.
“I am one of the guardians of Claveria, and you too as well. Gifted the ability to travel time and space, past and history, dreams and reality. This will be the last moment I would involve myself in your regime.”
With that, she faded like a shadow struck by light. And everything became void and colorless until I feel a light and warm touch by my skin.
A tiny pair of ocean-blue orbs met mine as I opened my eyes in present. It was only us by the palace entrance. She was nowhere to be seen. Soleil did disappear. Finally, she decided to be out of my sight.
But I still want to thank her. I may haven’t asked her, but I know she and Felipe contributed the greatest brain in this counterattack. Yet, I still want to hate her again for leaving another mess in my head.
That thing she mentioned about the guardian.