An alliance sealed by a kiss

Chapter 1

A large ship was sailing smoothly on the sea. The thick chimneys spewed out gray smoke, which had just taken shape before being torn apart by the sea breeze. The inky tide lashed against the hard hull of the ship, splashing the water in all directions, and the tiny bubbles "gurgled" and gurgled, surging in all directions in an irregular manner.

On the eve of dawn, the whole ship was sleeping in the quiet darkness of the night. But under the doorway of the room at the end of the second floor of the cabin, a faint yellowish glow seeped out.

It was a rather ornate room. Crimson velvet curtains covered most of the floor-to-ceiling windows, their ends draped over the brilliantly colored carpet. A handful of richly scented red roses were in a white silver, beveled-necked vase on a decorative cabinet, and an old, heavy Western mirror leaned beside it. A restless moth was crawling around the hot glass lampshade, its shadow hazy, flickering tongues of flame, trembling and leaping on several heavily inked paintings of the Madonna on the wall.

With a barely audible click, the hour and minute hands of the brass wall clock pointed to zero.A young girl was curled up on the sofa by the window. She was wrapped in a thin blanket, and her long, luxurious hair was lazily piled up at her neck, blocking most of her face. An arm is as soft and boneless as hanging outside the couch, fingertips can be dipped into the wooden floor. The silk nightgown was slightly wrinkled, and the straps were loose, revealing a small slice of snow-white shoulder.

There was also an old book with a blue, silver-stamped cover upside down in one corner of the sofa. Apparently, she had accidentally fallen asleep in the process of reading the book.

The couch was not narrow and the air was quiet. Instead, she seemed to be caught in the middle of a horrible nightmare, her eyes closed tightly, her out-of-tune whimpers squeezed out from her teeth, and a layer of crystalline sweat seeped out from the tip of her nose.
"Princess, Princess."

Half-asleep, a few grunts came to her ears, and the throbbing organ in Cynthia's chest suddenly tightened into a ball, her eyelids fluttering violently as she jolted out of her light-filled dream.

As her vision cleared, Margo, the slight maid, was standing beside the couch with a tense look on her face, slightly relieved to see that she had finally opened her eyes.

Just a few minutes ago, Margo heard an odd sound outside the hidden door, knocked on the door and no one answered, hesitated for a moment, but still walked into the room, towards the window that made the strange noise. Who knows, just turned to the front of the sofa, fixed her eyes, Cynthia's sweat-soaked, even slightly distorted declining face, so nothing to hide into her eyes.

The expression of stoicism and pain was extremely shocking, as if the owner of the body was experiencing a secret and long suffering, very different from her usual quiet and well-behaved appearance. Margo froze on the spot, reflexively holding her breath for a few seconds before coming back to her senses and stepping forward to wake the princess.

It was still light and the night was thick.

Cynthia was sweating profusely, glancing slightly sideways at the wall clock. Immediately afterward, she collapsed back onto the couch wanly, raising a hand to shield her eyes and doing her best to tilt her moist, slender neck up and gasp deeply.

The chest rose and fell for a long time, but the stifling dryness still lingered, and numbness rolled through the limbs and bones. Like being strangled by vines, the spikes delicately gnawed at the nerves around his body.

It was the fourth time.

She had that dream again.

In the dream, she was completely lost in a strange wasteland. Gray clouds low-pressured down, and the sickening smell of decay filled the smoke. It was full of crumbling, ancient buildings, with the sharp towers of fortresses pointing straight up to the sky. Hungry predators hid in the fog, long sharp tongues visible in the narrow slits of their mouths, sinister eyes salivating as they swirled around her throat. It was as if they were about to swoop down on her in the next instant, gutting and tearing her, the lone prey, to shreds.

In an outnumbered situation, one more or less develops an ostrich mentality, preferring to pretend not to notice anything, rather than break the precariously thin layer of ice under her feet and fall into a chasm of malice.Cynthia was the same way, not daring to show her cowardice so easily, even though she was trembling with fear; she could only force herself to calm down, pretending to be unaware of the danger, and white-knuckleedly continue on her way.

Time flowed slower and slower into a sticky pulp. The long road was so long that it seemed to have no end. The fragile heart struck against the thin sternum, hypnotized, rubbing out a clear, sharp thud.

Suddenly, a creeping chill struck Cynthia, creeping inch by inch along her back and up the back of her neck, sending alarm bells ringing in her head.

Without having to turn around, a strong intuition gripped her heart - not a delusion, but right now, right behind her, something far more terrifying than all the monsters that ringed her, trailing up on her without slowing down.

If she couldn't escape, she would be unmercifully dismantled and eaten into by the thing that was clearly coming for her - in a blur, Cynthia entertained such a thought, cold and sweaty, and couldn't help but walk faster and faster, and finally, unable to care about what the thing would think, she simply drew up her feet and took off in a frenzy.

A fire burned in her lungs as she fled in panic through the maze of ruins. I don't know how long it took, but when she finally stopped feeling the oppressive feeling that followed her, she stopped exhausted, propped up her knees to rest for a while, gulped, and turned back with hope,wanting to see if she'd gotten rid of that thing.

What she didn't realize was that she turned around and crashed into the arms of the thing that had been pressed up against her back, waiting for her for a long time.

The moment she touched him, a black veil clouded her vision. Obviously, the distance between her and the other person was so close that she was nose to nose, but she still couldn't see his appearance.

With vision deprived, the physical senses became sharper and sharper. In the darkness that stretched out, the thing would spread its arms around her waist, forcing her to stay close to his body. Then he would bully his way down, his wet tongue licking slowly and methodically over her eyelids, earlobes, corners of her mouth, and collarbone. The viper swam like a viper, leaving a trail of wet hickeys.

It was as if the devil was pleasuring his self-inflicted sacrifice.

At the memory, Cynthia's eyes quivered and she moved the hand covering her eyes.

In the sixteen years she'd grown up in the Kadan palace, she'd rarely dreamed. But since boarding this ship, in just half a month's voyage, she had been dragged by unknown forces into the same unspeakable dream over and over again, making out with someone she had met for the first time, something that might not be human at all.

The irritation of being confined in her arms and bullied, the repeated ambiguous murmurs and exhales, and the pleas for winding up and showing weakness that she would never be able to say out of her pride and shame, all of the above were still fresh in her mind after she woke up.

Instead of saying it was a pure nightmare, it was more like a frightening and extraordinarily real dream.