Last Chance [Extra #2]

Part 32

Still cradled in Cassian's strong arms, Celosia dreamt of what she read in the book Cassian gave her. It was the story of the Princess of the ancient Eastern Kingdom that was sacrificed to god as an offering for allowing the Empire to conquer the pagan land.

"I shall destroy you for this! I curse you and your bloodline! Your flesh will rot and your souls shall never find peace. Those who bear your name will suffer pain worse than death." the princess shouted as Imperial knights forced her to kneel before the Emperor. He had arbitrarily called himself one, yet the Princess refused to acknowledge it.

"You will bow before me, filthy wench, and then you'll die for the glory of my empire," the Emperor smiled in glee at the tenacity of the fallen princess. It was the most satisfying thing to watch people fall before his might.

"And you will rot along with that so-called empire. I curse you all!" the Princess yelled then looked up to the Emperor, her pupils so strikingly gold they made everything around them dim, and spoke words in a tongue unknown, "Forbandelse skal du møde ved min genfødsel.."

The sky turned dark and stormy at her words, and she smiled a cruel smile right before the executioner decapitated her.

The Emperor, to make it clear to the people of the Easter Kingdom that their Princess was dead, decided to publicly defile her headless body and put her severed head on a pike right in front of the royal palace.

That was the beginning of the Forbandelse Empire, previously known as Leeuw Kingdom.

"Celi!" Cassian called out frantically when he felt his future wife shake in his arms. She was terribly cold despite being covered by his coat, and her whole body was trembling as she dreamt of something. He could only conclude she was having a nightmare. "Celi! Wake up!" He urged, trying to stay quiet enough to not alert the knights outside.

Finally, he was greeted by the sight of Celosia's golden eyes that were now shining so brightly they illuminated the whole carriage.

That got the knights' attention, however they did not dare come close to the carriage.

"Cassian? What's wrong?" Celosia reached out to gently touch Cassian's face to ease the frown marring it.

"What's wrong? I should be the one asking that? What kind of nightmare did you have for your body to become so cold?"

A dream... it was more like a forgotten memory... "I dreamt of the princess you told me about."

"And?" Cassian pried hesitantly. He could tell there was more but didn't want to force Celi to relive her dream.

Celosia slowly sat up in his lap with his help as he supported her back, then let out a deep breath. "You were right. It was me," she sighed, slowly regaining her color. Despite having experienced death so many times, her first one was the worst. She even remembered and felt what happened after her death, as her soul remained in her body for a while before it entered another one. She could still feel her head being impaled, her body being defiled in the most horrible way before it was brutally torn apart and discarded in the sea.

She also remembered the curse she placed on the Emperor and his bloodline. Suddenly she felt bad for Cassian, who also had royal blood running through his veins. Was he also affected by the curse?

"I cursed the Emperor and his whole bloodline. Whether the current Imperial family is of his descent or not I am not sure, so it's hard to tell whether they are affected by the curse as well."

"A curse, you say..." Cassian mused, thinking about the history of the previous Emperors and their heirs. They all died by their own hands when they couldn't take the pain anymore. All of the previous Emperors had gone mad from the tormenting nightmares and the constant feeling of being watched. There was also a rumor that they all had a disease that the first Emperor contracted in the East. "The history books never mentioned that, but it would make sense now that I think about it. All the previous rulers ended up going insane from their skin disease and the pain it caused them, and eventually they ended up killing themselves. It was said that the first emperor contracted an unknown hereditary disease in the Eastern Kingdom when he conquered it, however there were no records of other people suffering from it except for the Imperial family."

"You have royal blood in you, are you not affected by it?"

"No. Probably because I'm from the collateral bloodline. My father didn't go mad either, so perhaps you placed a curse not on the man himself, but the Emperor as a ruler, if that even makes sense."

"It could be. I don't remember much from that time, though, so it will be hard for me to confirm your suspicions."

Cassian quietly held Celi in his arms as he pondered over what she'd just revealed. She really was the princess of the ancient Eastern Kingdom. That meant she was also most likely a mage, just like Cassian first suspected. She placed a curse on the Emperors from the Leeuw family so that they would go insane and suffer horrible pain, but somehow he, even though he was part of the same bloodline, escaped such fate, just like his father. What made them different? Was it because they were both maladapted to magic?

It could be. As someone who couldn't use magic, it was possible he was also immune to it as well. Though there was no way to confirm it other than ask Celi to use her magic on him. And he didn't want to do that. He heard about the reason Celi left the Heroux family, and he didn't want her to think he was like them, being nice to her only because he wanted to take advantage of her.

"Are you hungry?" Cassian asked his fiancée when he realized how late it was. It was already dark outside, meaning it was hours since they'd had dinner.

"Not really, and you?"

"I'm fine," Cassian smiled, but his lie was revealed when his stomach grumbled loudly enough for Celi to hear it.

"Yeah, you're fine," Celosia teased then brought out a lunchbox from her inventory. She handed it to Cassian along with the cutlery and went to sit on the other side of the carriage.

"What is this?"

"This is called a lunchbox. It was something people in the modern world used to bring food to work. I used to do that as well when I was too busy to go out to eat," Celi explained shortly, smiling when she saw the hesitant look on Cassian's face. "It's good to eat. I got a set that I thought would suit your taste. The food that I ended up replicating doesn't go bad in the inventory because it's a timeless space created for the sole reason of storing things. So no matter how long I keep something there, it won't deteriorate or go bad, like food for example."

"So you can keep things fresh forever?" Cassian gaped at Celi in astonishment. If only there was someone like her with him when he was at war, his people wouldn't have had to starve or hunt beasts to sustain themselves due to being sent insufficient amount of provisions.

"Pretty much, yes."

"I wish there was someone with your ability with me before..." Cassian muttered quietly then casually dug into the food. He was a knight before he was a noble, so table manners were the last of his concerns, especially in front of the woman who was about to become his wife. He didn't like pretending in front of her, for she also revealed the truth about herself.

"You mean... during the war?" Celosia asked warily. It was a touchy subject for Cassian as far as she could tell. "I'm sorry I couldn't be of more help to you before. I know how devastating a war can be and how hard it is to survive through it, so I understand your sentiment."

Right, she used to be a soldier before, Cassian sighed internally then continued to eat. "It's just that... if only the Imperial family sent the provisions we asked for instead of leaving everything to the people of the Duchy, my knights wouldn't have had to suffer so much. There was never enough for all of us, so some knights ended up hunting beasts just so everyone could get something to eat. On top of that, the enemy kept destroying our supplies, knowing we had no way of getting more. If there was someone with us who had your ability, we could have avoided many deaths caused by starvation."

"I'm sorry," Celosia frowned in despair and sat next to Cassian again. She took the empty lunchbox from him and put it away in the inventory then grasped his hands in hers, "I'm sorry you had to go through that, Cassian, and I promise you that I will aid you in whatever way I can to avoid such tragedy again."

"If a war breaks out, I can't possibly take you with me to the battlefield," Cassian scowled. He could tell that Celi was fearless, but he didn't think it was to such extent.

"I'm stronger than you think, honey, and I have more abilities than this specific one. If it ever came down to this, I could protect the whole Duchy all on my own."

Please don't give me hope, Celi... I don't know if I'll be able to let you go if you continue to bind my heart like this.