Chapter 12: The Cursed Palace

Denise Soleil’s POV

          My eyes can’t keep away from the tiny red gem sitting in my hand. The tiny thorns surrounding every coil in its frizzled structure didn’t change, still serrated and jagged that the longer it stayed in my hands out of its sphere chamber, the deeper it penetrates my palm.

“I think we lost them,” sounded a panting voice that emanated from behind me.

          I simply veered a glance at her and replied a nod before tossing her a pair of clothes. A shirt and cargo pants I got from the human world. A day after I came back from that world, the clothes I bought from the humans seemed to be easier to slide in.

          Thus, I ordered Lachlan to scatter bags containing these fabrics across the territory for the warriors and even us to have something covering our bodies after we shift rather than walking around naked.

“Then what do we gonna do next? It’s not like we can easily return to the pack mansion and carry on with the inauguration, right?” Sydney blurted as soon as she slipped into those clothes.

          I dropped my hand and closed the white wolf’s emblem back to its chamber before gliding it back to a hiding spot inside a simple ring wrapped around my left hand. “They have comrades inside and outside the mansion. And maybe they’ve already taken over the entire place by now.”

          Hearing that, I saw Sydney’s eyes close tightly followed by her deep sigh. “I guess we’ll be hiding again.”

          My head nodded. There’s no other choice. I acted impulsively conducting inauguration that I didn’t think about exposing my presence back all over Claveria Haltera. That it means again attracting Laxon’s fiery eyes. Aisshh, stupid Denise!

“But where?” she asked.

“In what place would no one suspect we’ll be hiding?” I answered, causing her brows to furrow.

“Where?”

          I raised my head towards the path afore the cliff we’re standing. The way leads to a cursed palace where none of whom entered managed to get out.

“No… No way I would be sneaking inside! I never have dreamt of spending even a single minute there!” she screamed and quickly turned her back on me.

“Then start dreaming about it.”

          Gradually, the normal sly smile crept up my face. I turned to my friend and shove the mess-up strands of my hair covering my face. “Are you up?” I tilted my head, “Or not?”

          Her jaw gnashed and a corner of her lip twitched. And as expected, she marched back with her loud footsteps past me. “If not because you’re keeping that mutt away from me, I would never ever follow you, Denise!”

“Oh, really?” I reacted, matching with my little bit widened eyes as my legs strode along the rocky path leading to the cursed palace.

          Tales of this place have been passed from generations and even outside Claveria Haltera… even to the human world, this cursed palace was known. That here once settled a woman, she’s a human bestowed by humans for peace alliance in the ancient days. When Claveria was still open to human’s naked eyes.

          That woman married the highest vampire prince who was bound to rule the entire vampire territory. But unlike good fairy tales, their story was never a happy ever after. They may be married afore the people they rule, but they both know deep in their hearts that there was not even a single chance for love to grow between them.

          However, in a sudden blow of fate. That human develops roses towards the prince, her husband. And as time goes by, the roses’ roots drive deeper and deeper until she could stop it no more. Waking up one day and saw she had already fallen in love with the man he never liked from the day she stepped into this world.

           

          Rowing to the other side, this so-called prince then became the king. And to his sight, being married to the woman born from an enemy’s land was absurd. What more if he started loving her? So, for the past five years of marriage, all he did was travel across the lands and do what a king should do.

          Leaving his wife almost all year round that his stay in the palace was only counted by fingers.

          Yet, what he thought was a ridiculous idea became the plot twist in his life. Aside from the queen, he met another human girl whom he was captivated madly. And he loved her more, and then the new girl loved him even more.

          Basically, her husband cheated on her with also a woman of her kind. Pathetically, the king did never love her just because she’s a mere human but because the queen was not the woman he was looking for. And that they were not on the same page, and I guess they will never be.

          Knowing the truth, she did nothing to stop them. Why would she? Right? Nothing will change even if she comes up with the idea of splitting them apart. Because even if they separate, she knew her husband still won’t love her the way he loved the other woman.

So she locked up herself in that palace, wrapping herself in pain and remorse. Until a curse was born out of mental torment and distress that cloaked the entire palace the second she, herself, took the life out of her.

“What do you think we’ll see inside that palace?” Sydney asked when we stepped past a brick structure that looks like the under of the balcony with a series of vines and green creepers attached and dangling on it. “Could we be seeing a human corpse?” she giggled.

          My fore creased and darted a glare at her. “Are you sure she’s a human, Sydney?”

          To that, her left brow raised attentively when she turned her head to me. “Why? Is she not?”

“She’s the white wolf. That human queen was no other than the white wolf,” I frankly replied which she overly reacted with both of her hands shaking my shoulder back and forth.

“How dare you make up stories in front of this cursed place! Do you wish for death? Because for me, I do not! If something happened to us, I swear I’ll blame you until I become a vengeful ghost!”

“Why would I care if you become a ghost? It’ll be just like you without the physical body, there’s no difference!”

          Sydney raised her hand and pulled my hair like she’s an asylum patient on the loose, “Ah? Ahhh!!! This is why Laxon did never regard you as a student because you are so arrogant like you own everything!”

Causing me to grunt and grab her arm, and was about to flip her over when a bright light across the dark surrounding shut the both of us. “Do you think I would lie about this? There was no such thing as the human-vampire political alliance echeche!”

          She released my now-crazy-messed-up hair and so as my hand on her arm. The light was from the creaking door of the palace. And it was not just a simple light, it was so bright like it contained the sun inside.

“When did you—”

“That night, when I stole the white wolf’s emblem from Laxon.” I shook my head recalling that crime I did years ago.

          I was simply taking back what’s mine. Wasn’t it a fair thing that I got their most precious emblem in exchange for not letting me join their graduation ceremony and worst, they even attempted to assassinate me before I could even step out of my room?

“And then what?”

          My shoulders shrugged and paced in the direction of the palace’s door. “Then it just flashed in my head like a memory.” It was something like a tiny light and then it entered my head like a bubble. “The story flows the same as what we’re told. But it misses the most significant part. Maybe because… they don’t want what really happened. The tale of the white wolf and the tale of this cursed palace… they’re connected.”

          It feels like I have been here before that every step I take as I enter was so familiar. Like I have known every inch of the place. Light from the flaming torches and the lighted hanging chandelier above created shadows as we step in.

“And you mean?”

“The white wolf was the one who is betrothed to the vampire prince for peace. Her hair was silver and her eyes were gold, she’s the eldest daughter of the highest Alpha across the entire werewolf pack. Her beauty was irresistible. Thus, the perfect candidate for a marriage alliance with the vampires.”

          The pieces of furniture and paintings were still intact to where they were supposed to be. The only thing messing up was the vines and green creepers that had gone berserk that invaded almost every corner of the palace.

“It is true that she fell for her husband and her husband didn’t. Also, fact was when the prince became the king, he traveled across Claveria. Not because he’s avoiding his wife but because he was afraid that the longer he stayed, the deeper his wife’s feeling for him would grow.”

“So he looked for someone who can fit his taste and that someone who can shove his wife away, right?” Sydney blurted in a mocking manner.

“For someone who did not know what the real situation is, it’s easy to point out which one is at fault and which is the victim,” I answered that shut her up and look away. “The other woman was there first, whom he first love even before the marriage alliance was discussed. And the queen knows that… because the other woman was her sister.”

          I shifted my eyes at the painting hung on the wall, ruined and wasn’t that clear. Not until I closed my eyes and again, the place I am standing change into a summer garden blossomed with flowers and ivies.

I am again traveling back in the past. A thing they described as an ability, a gift since I was born. I can cross over time and years that had passed in a place or a person whenever I want to. Sadly, only history is what I can jump back to and not the future.