The Necromancers

Chapter thirteen

Now here I sat in front of the letter that I got from back home and the papers scattered in ma's room. My current location was a hotel near the temple from where I found the bracelet. And my state of mind was as fucked up as it can be.

I was drained from all the traveling that I had done and all I wanted to do was sleep the next few days off, but does life ever work how we want it to? NO. With both letters capital cause hey, life gives us a fuck you all the time. At this point, life doesn't even feel like race. It feels more like a scam that I was forced into.

"Here goes no-" I was cut off shortly with my phone ringing again. Sighing in disappointment at the intrusion, I picked up the call and had a gut feeling that this unknown number belonged to Drystan. "Hello?"

"Astoria!" He exclaimed, as if relieved to hear my voice, which made me raise a brow. I didn't know I was so special to the prince of Angus.

"Ah, prince. How can I help you?"

He sighed on the other end. "When will you stop calling me that?"

"It only seems fitting."

"I'd like for you to call me by my name instead Astoria."

"Why did you call me?" I changed the subject before the butterflies in my stomach swallowed me whole.

"To know when you will be back and also to know if I should prepare a dress for you." Drystan fumbled.

"We've already been over this topic. I don't see the need to talk about this again." I heard him mumble something incoherent on the other end and stayed quiet for a while until I really thought that this was all getting ridiculous. "Why did you really call me Drystan?"

"I just wanted to talk to you."

"Why?" I asked despite the flutters in my chest and my stomach. My heart began beating faster and I wasn't a fool to not know the signs. He has a crush on me. Drystan, the prince of Angus and the future king of the said kingdom has a crush on me. A nobody. A commoner.

Despite the odds, I felt special. And I wondered what had made him have feelings for me. The most we conversed was when I had a dagger pressed to his throat. A short gasp left me before I could stop myself, was he into blood play?!

"Astoria, are you okay? Did you hurt yourself?" He began asking frantically.

"No no. I'm fine. I didn't hurt myself. I'm okay." And suddenly I was hyper aware of the way my name sounded from his lips. How he calls my name often as if it is his favorite word. Beathan bless me.

"Uh...take care of yourself. I hope you will be back soon."

"I will be. Just a couple of days more and I will be back. Don't you have some princely duties to look after?"

"Why are you always so eager to get off the phone with me?"

"We have just talked on the phone for like two days." I deadpanned.

"Yet you have always been eager to go away." Drystan almost whined.

"You sound like a miserable lump of muscles. Not at all suitable for a prince."

"Stop changing the topic."

"I have to go. There is someone at the door. I will call you back later. Once I get back we can talk about it all. And with a hasty goodbye I hung up.

I clutched the phone to my chest and heaved some deep breaths. Although this new revelation changes a lot between me and him, it does not help me in what I should be feeling towards him. With this confusion clouding my judgment I feel all the more useless and begin loathing myself, which I know I shouldn't because I don't even know what it all is about but I am confused and I hate it all.

Drystan is nice, he is quite good and yet the idea of him liking me unnerves me. But the other, tiny part of me is thrilled at the thought of him liking me and giving importance to me. And another side of me is feeling unworthy of this affection. The king and the queen liking me is quite okay and normal, but for the prince to have romantic feelings towards me, especially when I know that he deserves so much better than a regular witch is weird and clenches my heart in a painful manner in my chest.

I need to calm down. For all I know I am seeing too much into the situation. Maybe he doesn't like me like that.

Just to distract myself from these thoughts I pick up the letter addressed to ma and ready myself. Breaking the seal with shaking hands I reach inside to see just one neatly folded white paper. Trying to see if there is anything more I turn the envelope upside down but nothing comes out. It was just a letter addressed to ma. I opened the letter swiftly and almost pulled it out after reading the content.

Euest peso cuemsh noveski jhuam.

That was all. Nothing else was written on it. I tried my spells to see if something was hidden under it all but nothing at all. It was just that.

The language was something that I had never heard of nor had Google ever heard of that sort. My brows furrowed as I tried to rake my brain to find something that I must have heard about an unknown alien language but came up with nothing. Knowing that I wasn't getting anywhere close to the answers with this thing I began looking at the pages I found in ma's old house the other day. They too were filled with unknown pictures that my tired mind was too done trying to figure out.

I was tired and just about ready to pass out so before getting into the bed, I shut all the windows and double checked if the door was closed or not, and also made sure to check the two creatures perched outside my window at a good distance.

Once all was done I slept my problems away. Even if it was for a good few hours I welcomed the little rest I got in the midst of all of this hassle and embraced the distraction of my dreams with open arms.