Chapter 72: Arrival
"What’s going on..." Hugh rushed to her side, Heather pushing him away.
She might be in disarray, but she hadn’t forgotten what he did.
Elena stood at the side. "Tch, it didn’t work..." she grumbled.
Her reactions luckily going unnoticed.
Heather turned to her brother.
"Why did you do that... Haven’t I been a good sister? Why..." She bawled her eyes out, tears streaming down like they would never end.
"I am sorry, I didn’t mean to..." Hugh apologized, his gaze averted in guilt.
"Is she not angry that her mother is in that state?" Elena thought, searching for the reason her control was malfunctioning.
Why did she cry instead of hating Raika and Aiden? It felt as if she hadn’t heard a word she’d said the whole time.
Or she did, but there was never that strong of an emotion towards her mother for her to hate those who did her harm, or...
Elena couldn’t grasp why her ability wasn’t working.
"They will be here any moment, I need to hurry."
There wasn’t enough time for her to wonder what was wrong; she had to work fast for the sake of her goals.
Her purple eyes darkened, pupils straightening into slits.
The unnatural change made her body quiver in pain, teeth gritted as she ignored it, dark blood dripping from her nostrils.
The purple threads of mana that linked her sash to Heather began to darken.
Pitch black, like the miasma of the abyss.
Slowly it began to creep down the mana threads towards Heather, the latter unaware of what approached her, rattling on and on to her brother.
Her brother’s gaze averted, unaware of Elena’s change.
BWOOOOOOOM!!
The ceremonial horn echoed throughout the estate, a single long note signalling the arrival of a very significant person.
"No!!" Elena panicked, but it was too late.
"That should be father, I will tell on you..." Heather rushed out of the left wing, like a crying younger sibling, running to a parent to tell on their elder siblings.
"No..." The mana threads broke as Heather left her range. Elena’s eyes widened in panic.
She had failed.
Her slit-like pupils regained their curvature, her starry eyes returning to their pink hue.
"I can’t let her..." Her eyes rolled back in her head as she fell, the backlash stripping her of her consciousness.
With a thud, she fell, Hugh noticing her.
"Lady Elena!" Hugh rushed to her side.
.
.
.
Moments ago
On the road to the Vulcan Household.
"You have been quiet throughout the journey..." Raika stroked Alaric’s hair, the latter sitting quietly by her side, peeking out the carriage window, seemingly lost in thought.
He turned to Raika, a forced smile on his lips. "It’s nothing, mother."
Raika shook her head.
The smile was enough to tell her something was wrong, her gaze turning to the blue-haired girl who lay on Alaric’s lap.
Kai.
She had been comatose for several days after the incident, though with the amount of potion she had taken she should have woken up a while ago.
Her little brain seemingly trying to protect her from the truth of reality when she wakes up to a world without her mother.
Alaric feared she might sleep forever, yet the irony of it all was that he feared her waking even more.
What will he say? He wasn’t a therapist, he was a soldier, he didn’t have the words, didn’t have the heart to tell the girl outright that her mother had died.
How? to an assassin who had come for her,
Why? because he had interfered with her awakening.
He hoped she would wake soon but feared when she would.
"The first time I lost a comrade on the battlefield..." Raika’s voice came out low, Alaric’s attention turning to her.
Her mother never once spoke about her war days. She spoke about Aiden, his father, but never that deeply about herself on the battlefield.
Considering her boisterous nature, it was surprising she didn’t mention herself that much.
"I thought that was the end. She had died in my presence, my lightning unable to reach her before the demons did..." She paused, her head drooped.
"It wasn’t my fault, it was a battlefield after all, anything could happen... but you know... at that time I really believed it was. I blamed myself so much that I refused to eat..." She paused, letting out a reminiscent giggle. "...I even refused health potion, saying I deserved to feel the pain for letting her die in my presence, but you know what happened..." She finally looked into Alaric’s eyes, tearing her gaze from the sleeping Kai.
"I lost another, then another, and this time it was truly my fault... If the first had been due to inexperience or the fate of the battlefield, this one had been due to negligence..." Her brows knitted as she remembered her mistake.
"I had ruined my health, the pains and fatigue of previous battles piling on until I could no longer move as I used to. I failed to notice an attack... maybe I did, but I was too weak to move... my comrade and friend having to step in to block it, and you know what happened: it wasn’t an attack she could handle, and she didn’t make it. "
"As the thunder princess, the only surviving heir of the Raijin ruling family, they couldn’t watch me die. Blood trailed behind me as they did all they could to get me to safety..." Her hands trembled, the memory and its weight flashing through her mind.
The genuine smiles as they gave their lives for her to get to safety.
Something that could have been prevented only if she had recovered her stamina, or even healed a few old wounds.
"Though it’s impossible to retrieve the life lost..." Alaric clasped his mother’s trembling hands in his.
"...The future gives us the opportunity to redeem ourselves."
The one who was to be comforted started comforting Raika.
"Hahaha, you are really the son of the Thunder Princess and Hellflame..." Raika smiled, impressed by her son’s choice of words.
She who should be the one comforting him was being comforted.
"I promise, I won’t beat myself up. It might have been my fault, but beating myself up will only cause more sorrow..." He resolved himself, Raika’s pupils dilating in surprise, brows raised in pride.
Her son was surpassing her in every way, his level of maturity far greater than hers had been at his age.
"That’s my son..." She ruffled his hair.
The sound of a horn cutting through the tension as the carriage passed through the gate.