The Emperor's Daughter

Chapter 16: Another tragedy

After checking almost every room in the mansion, they found an open door that was different from the rest. A bad feeling came to their mind as they could see the inside was dark and ominous with a faint stench of iron. On top of all, the cold silver moonlight shined upon a color of crimson and a figure resembling a human body. The red raised the fear in their mind.

"Glenda!!" The old middle-aged man rushed in the room without a second thought. Now that the scene was clear to witness, he grasped at the horrible sight as one of his worst dreams came true.

Under the cold moonlight, a woman lied lifelessly on the floor in a pool of red liquid. Her dark purple dress that covered her whole body was soaked in red around her chest area. A brutal and merciless stab in her heart might cause the blood to splashed on the nearby furniture. There were no fights or struggles presented in the room which indicated that it was a surprise attack. Following on that theory, a pillow covered half of her pale face, which would mutter her scream. No one could hear her scream for help, not through that soft pillow nor it could reach a party that was full of music and laughter. It was more devastating to see the blood on her was getting dry, showing the impossibility to bring the woman back to life.

"Glenda..."

His legs couldn't stand, lord Edelweiss fell on his knees. Tears began to stream down his face, as he cried out loud the name of his beloved wife who was no longer alive. He held her cold hand, brought it to his face as he wept and not caring the blood to stain his expensive clothes. The man mumbled something under his breath, like a ritual spell that he hoped can bring her back, but sadly there was no such spell.

A tragedy had fallen upon the Edelweiss family.

In this cold dark room where the moonlight was as sharp as a silver knife that could take away a life, Vincent decided to let lord Edelweiss be alone with his wife. He turned around and was unexpected to see his bodyguard who was standing there at the door.

When did she get here?

Her expression changed from being shocked to a face contains with regrets, as she moved slowly back with her shaky legs.

"Not again." she let out a cry with her crack voice before turning around and running away.

The funeral was carried out in the next few days, as family and relatives were dressing in black and weeping for the unfortunate wife and mother. Lord Edelweiss and his daughter each put a white flower on the coffin before it went into the ground. The clueless Helen, who was freed from the possession and without any memories of the dreadful event, only woke up to hear that her mother was no longer with her anymore. She cried all night calling for her mother, even in her sleep, wished that she could dwell in that embrace of her mother's arms. The crying didn't stop until her eyes were swelling and she thought that they had become dried. Yet seeing that coffin went under, the tears came out so much as if it were raining.

During the investigation, the police found a bloody rag and a dress in red, which could be tied to the killer, but at the same time, that dress was belonged to Helen and was found hidden her closet. Of course, lord Edelweiss had a good explanation for it and the police were showing their understanding of the situation. The person who possessed Helen was the one responsible for all these awful things that happened. However, he asked the police to keep it as a secret. His daughter's heart had already suffered enough and it would be best for her to not remember anything happened nor the details. Helen was the only thing he had now and this old man would do anything for her. He tried his best to cheer up his dear daughter by stroking her head every night she went to sleep. But at the same time, he could barely hold himself together and felt like he was falling apart as there seemed to be no end for the mourning.

A week after the funeral, lord Edelweiss asked Vincent to come to his house to have some tea. But it was clear that this meeting was not just only tea and idle chatter. There was something important that the old man wanted to talk and would prefer it to be discussed at his house. When Vincent met him in the same living room, the old middle-aged man was different, pale and tired, unlike his dazzling look when he first met him.

"I believe that I didn't get a chance to thank you for what you did. Without your help, things could have been worse. For that, as one of the old guardian families, the Edelweiss family will repay the Overseer by funding and support the organization in a long term." he declared boldly "However, there is something I want from you. I want the Overseer to hunt down the killer who was responsible for controlling my daughter and murder my wife. I want him to be brought out to justice."

The organization was happy to hear such news and on behalf of the Overseer, Vincent promised that they would responsible for the finding of the killer. The agreement was sealed with a handshake.

That would go to the last part of the report, which ended smoothly in favour of both parties. However, he hadn't started with the middle part of how did they find out about the incident. The event was not a part of the objective of the mission in the beginning. Meanwhile, he hadn't talked much to Shiki ever since she saw lady Edelweiss's death. She had been avoiding him and Vincent could feel it. On his side, he was busy with lord Edelweiss and reporting back to the organization. However, the council would want a decent explanation, since it was no longer a mission that Alain decided to assign him on his own. He did a brief through the event with Alain, who would also expect a detail report.

Another thing that kept bugging his mind was the fact that it seemed to be the same person that attacked Shiki when she was at the hospital. They both had the ability to possess people and not a high-level magician. If that was the case, they were also likely to be the one that was responsible for the Mikado family. This coincidence was too huge to ignore, as both of Mikado and Edelweiss were part of the five oldest families. And lord Edelweiss did say something weird about "guardian families" which got his attention. When they got back, surely he would investigate more details of the five families.