Diana Of Alcotta (Yrsoreth Chronicles 1)

22 ♛ Wylola's Curse

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Diana was not supposed to be there. It was a meeting of two men in Kirien's life.

One was a brother, although not by blood, but a brother nonetheless, whom she schemed with to take revenge against the throne. And the other was the husband, whom she was forced herself to marry into but fell in love with.

On the other hand, Diana was insignificant. Yet, there she was, after she plead Xander to take him along once she caught wind of his meeting with Devanti Norvillon, two days after the sad news.

Obviously, the two men were not friends, and right now, the hate on another intensified due to the situation. In a dingy room of an inn in Peduha Slums, they met. It felt like the table between the three of them would bend and crack from the tension. The candle flame were reflected on each other's eyes; both had darkened shadows from lack of sleep.

They briefly exchanged information, and it was revealed that the child Feliziia, not even a year old, was abducted in her own nursery and was nowhere to be found. The missing nanny was the prime suspect. It was days later when the duke and the duchess argued.

Kirien wanted to ask Xander's help, but Devanti, who had enough with the mess of the royal family, opposed and decided to wait for the real culprit, to declare the intentions of kidnapping the baby. Kirien disappeared, and probably on her way to the capital to seek for Xander's help. But she never reached the second prince.

"This is one of your schemes, isn't it? She married me, used my position. I allowed it so. I told you, didn't I, once you get what you want, leave her alone for your power games."

"I left her alone in your care, " Xander rebutted. "After she returned to the North, she hasn't replied to my letter. The child was abducted in your territory, in your own castle. And what do you mean wait for the abductor to declare the intention? You let my niece be kidnapped?!"

"And you think I wanted this to happen?!"

"You think I did?"

Diana must have gone deaf from their voices, but it was not significant. What mattered was the Duke's dagger pointed in her neck, so sharp than one move, her blood would spill everywhere.

She did not understand why Devanti was using her to threaten Xander. As if the prince would mind if her blood would spill that moment.

However, the prince's dagger was also kissing the duke's neck.

There was a moment of silence as if the world hung in the balance. Xander and Devanti burned holes at each other with their fiery glares. It was like the sun and the moon, Xander with his blond locks and the duke with his black hair.

Red scorching eyes against the duke's deadly blue.

"If she dies, would you feel the misery like I do?" the duke asked.

"Try it," was Xander's reply.

In that frantic moment, Diana searched the past conversation with Kirien. The princess-turned-duchess was happy and optimistic back then, but despite it all, there was a vague sense of dread between the lines.

Did she know what was happening? Is she still alive?

"We have to be optimistic about the future," Kirien told him back then.

And yet... "She was not in the future..." Diana whispered, yet the two men heard.

Diana didn't mind much of the dagger on her neck now and scanned the visions in her memory.

The duchess was not really there, as if she didn't exist.

Then she remembered a vision, one of her earliest, in her younger years and somehow fuzzy. One thing for sure was a silver hair of a faceless woman and a garden withering away like it was wrapped in endless autumn. In the middle of that dead garden, only a bush of white flowers was in full bloom like a forever spring.

Diana identified the flower from a book at the Imperial Bibliotheca of Levich. And as the empire that embraced magic and maritime reign, even a book about diseases that people thought fictional could be found there. Diana, was once able to roam the imperial library freely, thus her access to information.

According to the book, the flower only grows on a grave of a person who died from an illness of the same name. Because the disease is extremely rare and incurable, it was considered a curse—the Wylola's Curse.

One could say it was almost fictional, but there were records of such disease that only accounted to five in the history of the world, probably more, but who knows.

She recalled Kirien's behavior. Her skin was colder than usual human temperature, and she always had her parasol when out. She would then sometimes suddenly cling to Diana in walks, as if the sudden loss of her leg strength. With the sometimes labored breathing, Kirien blamed it on her recent childbirth.

Those were the signs she could remember.

Did Kirien knew and hid it? Was it the reason for her disappearance?

Diana could never tell, yet she faced the duke, slightly flinched at the pain on her neck. The latter pulled back his dagger, but his eyes were sharper. Xander retrieved his dagger as well.

"My Lord, do you have flowers in your castle garden?" she asked.

"There is," Xander answered when Devanti didn't. "Kirien wrote in letters that she enjoyed the garden of roses her husband built for her."

Despite being thankful to the prince, Diana still addressed the next question to Devanti. "Did the garden suddenly wither? But only a bush of red flowers with small bulbs like tulips remain in full bloom?"

"How did you..."

"Please answer me!"

Devanti replied a curt, "Yes." According to him, the gardener found a bush near the pavilion which wasn't grown in the garden before. Diana could only stare at him with her tears overflowing.

The Duchess did not leave. She was just resting for eternity.

Devanti Norvillon does not believe in something the senses couldn't perceive, like gods and curses.

But the love of his life might have been taken by one.

Her next question was just a shaky whisper. "My Lord, have you heard of Wylola's Curse?"

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