The Blood Knight

14 - The Party of Nine

Red berry tea was sour while pine tea was bitter. Prince Earic and Sir Zander didn't dare to mention their opinions, seeing the little girl beam with a bright grin, her canines sharp and her eyes gleaming in the dark.

Prince Earic gulped down the warm sour water before taking out a few rolls of parchments from the breast pocket of his white coat.

Cedric took the parchment and unrolled them, with Sapphire standing on tiptoes to take a peak at the contents.

"What... Is this?"

"We were hoping you would know," Sir Zander replied.

Upon the parchment paper was a drawing of what seemed like a machine. It was dismantled and in disarray. But if pieced together it would make out a round metalic object. Within, there were tread which looked like arteries between flesh. But instead of flesh, objects with sharp edges and points peaked out. The object had an eye at one end, facing either up or down. On the next paper were writing. Or more likely, sketches of writing.

Whoever the artist was, seemed to try to make the sketches as lifelike as possible with shadings and measured lines drawn in ink and graphite.

"This is not Shepa," Cedric muttered. "It's... A derivative of it. More... Complex I believe. Probably the other way around if it comes to origin."

"It's a object that was found flying in the sky. An archer knocked it down with multiple arrows and it shot down two men," Prince Earic replied.

"Fly?"

"Yes."

"And it shot down people?"

"Y-yes."

Cedric looked down at the sketches again. It didn't look remotely like anything that could possibly fly. Sapphire snatched a paper and looked at it, her eyes widening. At the edge of the drawing was a name scribbled.

"Priscilla?"

"Hm?"

"It has Priscilla's name."

"The artist," Prince Earic replied.

Cedric raised a brow. The girl was known to be quite an artist and it seemed she had already made a name for herself in the capital.

"The same object appeared above Shokra as well," Sir Zander replied. "It managed to leave unscathed unfortunately."

"And you come to be because?"

"You are the oldest person in exitance."

"You said Xalvador was not dead."

"He is... Compromised."

"How?" Cedric asked. Did he_

"He has fallen into a coma once again. A type of hibernation most believe."

That was the first time Cedric heard of it.

"Then who runs the kingdom?"

"His son, Prince Saerin Nox Graffian the First."

Cedric stared at the knight in surprise. "He has children?"

"Yes... Sir..."

"Is that so hard to believe?" Prince Earic asked.

"Well... No... Ahem. So. You came to me instead then?"

The two nodded.

"This is the first time I have seen something like this," Cedric replied.

"It seemed to have come from the west."

Cedric then understood what concerned everyone. They barely confirmed that there was a civilization beyond the desert, and now there were strange objects seemed to have origined from there as well. He looked at the eye like opening, with what looked like a glass lense below. It seemed to have dislodged. The eye piece reminded Cedric of the scopes used by sailors in ships. It sounded almost ridiculous, but he couldn't help but mention.