A Magic to Melt A Heart (TinCan)

Chapter 128 - To Lose A Family

As soon as Maririn left the Beast Gods' Dimension, she was teleported back to their world, Prontera, and landed in front of the palace gates through the portal. The night had now taken over and the sky was filled with bright twinkling stars. The Golden Dragon, the constellation of the northern sky, was especially bright tonight. Marco named it after their late uncle, a famed war general who died from the wrath of the Black Mist. Marco thought it befitting to honor his uncle in this way.

"One among the stars and heaven. Brighter and more honorable than the others," he said, pointing at the northern sky, his eyes reflecting the brightest stars among them.

"Even more than father?" she side-eyed him.

Marco pursed his lips and remained silent.

"I want someone to name me after a constellation," he said, changing the topic. He stretched his arm towards the sky and turned around to scan all the stars.

"Why don't you do it yourself?" she asked, looking at the dark sky sprayed with dots of lights. She slowly pointed at the southern part of the sky.

"That would be my own constellation."

"It's not the same," he replied, making some shape in the sky.

"A... tortoise shape?" He mumbled to himself, shaking his head, and then faced his sister with a bright smile.

"Someone who'd revere and respect me for my great accomplishments to the point that they would dedicate naming a constellation after me. That's how I want to be named."

"They'd probably name you after some rock because you're as dumb as one," Maririn snarked.

Marco's eye twitched. He spat on the grass and pointed at his sister. "Oh yeah! Well, at least, I'm named after something. Unlike you! Someone wouldn't even attempt to name you for anything."

The two of them would bicker endlessly, ending up with bruises from fighting, not out of spite, but as a form of bonding with siblings.

"Open the gates! The princess is here!" shouted by one of the watchtower guards.

The huge purple palace gates, marbled with the Fireborn clan's crest that has a huge purple phoenix with its wings spread out, opened. It took a couple of palace guards just to open the gates. Such display of power, ambition, and arrogance, much like her father, the Beast God Emperor.

Gripping Kit by the blanket covering him, Maririn paused, closed her eyes, and a tear fell, streaking dirt down her face. A clear line from her left eye down to her cheek was visible.

"A sacrifice for the betterment of the kingdom," a mantra that Maririn told herself when faced with difficult challenges and her judgment being swayed.

"A sacrifice for the betterment of the kingdom."

"A sacrifice for..."

Two soldiers in armor and spears approached her with hurried footsteps. They halted within a few steps from the princess. Rather than asking about the princess's well-being with her tattered clothing, wounds, bruises, and disheveled look that did not really befit a normal princess, they glanced at the baby she was holding. Their eyes widened as they let go of their spears.

"Princess.... is this the Savior?" one of the soldiers said as he stretched one of his arms towards the baby.

The princess glared at him that it made the soldier quivered in place.

"My apologies princess," the other soldier bowed as he pulled the other soldier away from the baby.

It was hard not to be distracted and be out of line from seeing the Savior.