Diana Of Alcotta (Yrsoreth Chronicles 1)

53 ♛ The Deal of Two

⚠Warning: Sensitive topics of violence and sexual assault below⚠

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For a man ready to conquer lands, he must be ready to be conquered as well.

For a man ready to kill, he must also be ready to die.

Alexander Gran Dacchia was such a man. He was shot by an arrow with poison and fell off his horse on a thundering battlefield.

He survived all of them. However, this time, there were a lot of differences. He was not at war. It was not the enemy who pierced him from the back, but the beloved of a woman he considered as sister without sharing the same bloodline. And it was done in front of Diana and the son he never knew existed.

After an ominous "Leave my family alone," Devanti Norvillon and his overwhelming number of men left with no remorse.

Chaos ensued, as Diana's screams then command echoed in the room. Xander did not remember lying on her lap on the speeding carriage to the castle, nor he remembered someone's tears falling on his face and whispers of prayers to gods that he didn't believe in.

He was unconscious in the pandemonium. Life flashed before his closed eyes, along with the tragedy of the past.

His first memory was the day his mother told him the secret of his birth. When Augustus bedded her against her will, she has been taking herbs and only skipped them when she seduced the knight guarding her door.

Although his mother Bethelyn, never admitted to the knight's murder, her vague words were enough. "The dead won't speak, so it would be better if they stay dead." Then she gripped Xander's shoulders and whispered, "It may not be gold in your veins, but they won't know that. Live on, my child, and confess the secret on their deathbed."

On the day of her execution accused of unfaithfulness, his mother, Bethelyn from the slums, smiled like a victor.

The vision of the young Kirien haunted his dreams next. Xander woke up to sniffs and movement at his bedside, only to find his sister, controlling her sobs, scared that guards might hear.

"The man was heavy, brother. I couldn't breathe well."

Those were her words. In the next minutes, as Kirien explained in fragmented and whispered words, Xander got the terrible picture but heaved a sigh that Kirien was able to escape and find him before anything worse happened. He was thankful that he taught her the secret of a passageway to his room that no one else knew.

The girl slept on his lap with tears. It was morning when the colors the lamps eluded, finally showed. Aside from dirt, there was a bloodstain on Kirien's nightdress, and when Xander inspected with shaking hand, there were traces on her upper legs.

She was just eight.

Xander, who was not naive, screamed in silence, filled with anger.

"I don't remember," Kirien told him when he asked, covering the traces of blood in her dress with a blanket. "I don't know."

Yet, the girl couldn't look at him in the eye. It was either she was lying or she forced herself to forget the past night.

On that same they, the two children slowly planned their revenge. A week later, Xander had his first kill.

And he did it smiling.

He watched Kirien's assailant, an old noble, lose his life with a gurgling sound of blood from his slit throat.

For Xander, it was music to his ears.

He and Kirien never spoke of that tragedy ever again.

More series of images flashed in his dreams and they were all not pretty. Before he drowned in them, a lullaby pulled him back, a song of waves and black flags. Finally, Xander opened his eyes.