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"ɢᴀᴠᴇ ʏᴏᴜ ᴍʏ ʜᴇᴀʀᴛ ʙᴜᴛ ʏᴏᴜ ᴛᴏᴏᴋ ᴍʏ ꜱᴏᴜʟ."
ɴɪᴄᴋ ᴊᴏɴᴀꜱ
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"I suppose I should have known that this would eventually happen," the wife of the Demon King murmurs as she slowly turns around to face me, unnerved by my shadows surounding her.
But I say nothing to this.
I think your scars are beautiful.
I will keep my promise to you, Arica. I will keep (Y/n) safe and ensure that nothing happens to her.
I had so much trust and faith in Lenora, but all of that has been wiped away in just a matter of seconds. Because this isn't just Lenora we're talking about anymore. I've also got the Queen of the Demon race right in front of me.
But how the hell is she still alive? Did she actually manage to escape Mael the Archangel? But Mael himself boasted that he had her blood dripping from his hands when he dropped and left her body with the rest of the fallen Demons.
But since she did make it, where has she been this entire time? Why was she roaming the streets of the Demon realm if her two youngest sons were just a few miles away in the palace? Why did she not go back home to them?
Does the Demon King even know she's alive? No, that wouldn't be possible. He would destroy the whole of Purgatory just to get out and hunt her down and make sure that he himself kills her. Or he would have ordered the Ten Commandments to complete this job for him.
But most importantly, what are we meant to do right now?
"What gave it away?" the sweet voice draws me back into the present.
"Darling (Y/n)," I mutter.
"Sorry?"
"Darling (Y/n)," I snap. "You said 'darling (Y/n)'. You were the only one who ever called me that."
Damn, I didn't mean to react like that.
Lenora—Oriana winces. "Ah, I see. That makes sense."
"I only have one question for you," I say flatly as I drag myself out of my bed. "And you better answer it."
"Go on," Oriana whispers.
"Are you still in league with the Demon King?"
She full-on flinches as she grabs the pendant around her neck but a second later, the room darkens even with my shadows and the Demon Queen's demeanour suddenly changes.
"No more will I bow down to that worthless scoundrel," she snarls as Lenora's cobalt blue eyes flash with hatred. Not Oriana's eyes, but Lenora's.
I raise my chin. "Is that so?"
Old man, how the hell did we take so long to figure this out? I ask my father in my head.
Her looks, her attitude, everything about her completely changed, he responds. Lenora wasn't anything like Oriana. But at the same time, she was.
Perhaps Lenora was a younger version of Oriana, I point out. Maybe this was how Oriana was before she was sold off to the Demon King, before marrying him and having his children. And because of that, there was no way we could have guessed who she really was.
That sounds plausible, my father agrees solemnly.
"If everyone knew that I had survived Mael's attack then I would have had to have come back home," Oriana begins to explain. "There was no way the Demon King would have allowed that. He would have kept coming after me and made sure that I was dead."
"I don't care," I say coldly despite my heart screaming at her to stay. "I already asked you my question. Now, I want you to leave."
"Two minutes," Oriana says. "Just give me two minutes to explain everything, (Y/n)."
I suck in my lips as I think about this offer.
Go on, bright star, my father urges. Let her.
I sigh deeply and then lazily throw my head back to let out a loud groan.
"Two minutes," I say as I bring back my head up to face her.
Oriana wrings her hands together. "I can create powerful forcefields."
My eyebrows furrow as I question, "Like a Perfect Cube?"
Oriana slowly shakes her head as she answers, "Mine are much stronger in comparison. My parents were...hurting me one day, and I instinctively used it to stop them. When they saw this, they could immediately sense that my power was much stronger than they expected. They sold me to the Demon King once he saw my magical powers and was interested in me."
"Hurting you," I repeat. "They abused you even though you were so young?"
Oriana nods before pointing out, "I was not the only Demon facing such abuse."
"What happened after that?" I question.
"The Demon King made sure that I was trained thoroughly and in the end, I became a warrior," Oriana continues and her blue eyes gleam with pride. "I was one of the first initiates for the Ten Commandments."
I gasp. "You what?"
"I was the Commandment of Piety, (Y/n)," Oriana says with a hint of a smirk. "Once my powers appeared to be at their best, the Demon King and I found a way to create a forcefield that would protect the entire Demon realm."
My mouth drops open. "You were the one that put the Great Barrier?"
"Yes, I was the one who did this," she confirms.
The Great Barrier; a powerful forcefield I would see every morning I had training with the three Demon Princes at the palace and any Demon could see this massive forcefield from any place in the Demon realm. It shimmered every few seconds so that you knew it was there and this was the very thing that stopped many enemies from entering the main lands of the Demon realm.
"Incredible," I breathe.
The Demon Queen blushes slightly before saying, "But once this forcefield was put up and I proved myself to be a diligent soldier, the Demon King took away my Commandment."
"Wait, what? Why?" I question in confusion, tilting my head to the side.
Her blush darkens. "Because he asked me to marry him."
I nearly gag at this. "Why the hell did you say yes?"
Turning her pained gaze away, she answers me softly, "He was very different back then; much kinder, much sweeter, more caring. It was only when the Goddess race started to interfere with our affairs did he become so cruel and heartless."
"Why did you not make any contact with Zeldris after Mael's attack?" I ask. "I'm sure he would have kept it a secret and sent you somewhere far away to make sure you were safe."
The Demon Queen taps the side of her head with her index finger, saying, "If you possess one of the Commandments, the Demon King can see everything you see, (Y/n)."
I suck in a sharp breath at this information. "So he sees everything Zeldris sees."
Oriana nods her head at my reaction. "He would have seen Zeldris helping me and he would have immediately killed the two of us. It was safer for my boys if I stayed away. So I used a spell to change my looks, the same one you used to disguise yourself here in this realm, (Y/n)."
"And so you headed for the streets to help other Demons who grew up like you," I say slowly.
"Yes, and when Zeldris found me, I let him take me to the palace and thankfully, my husband couldn't detect my powers. Fortunately, that was when his powers became too overwhelming and he was forced to leave the Demon realm and live in Purgatory."
"And then several years later, that's when the Holy War began," I say quietly. "That's when Meliodas and I ran away with Elizabeth."
Bright star, my father calls out. Ask her if she had anything to do with sealing the Demon race away.
Sealing the Demon race away? I repeat.
Just do it.
"Oriana," I say firmly, "were you involved with sealing the Demon race away?"
A small flinch. Ah, so she was.
"Yes, I was," she responds hesitantly.
"But you were sealed in as well with Zeldris, so what exactly did you do?" I question.
She licks her lips before explaining, "I disguised myself as a Mage and went to the other races to give them a sword that retained some of my power—"
"The fragment of the Coffin of Eternal Darkness," I breathe.
Oriana dips her head to the side, an action her youngest son does so frequently, as she says, "Indeed. If I heard correctly from some of the maids, both you and Meliodas were in possession of this before losing it to Dreyfus and Hendrickson who were being controlled by Fraudrin."
"Yeah, we had it for a while before idiot Mel lost it," I grumble.
A soft chuckle. "My eldest son always seems to treat weapons as if they're toys."
"You can say that again," I say while rolling my eyes.
"My eldest son always seems to—"
"Oriana," I say exasperatedly and when I see her playful smile, I burst out in laughter and she joins me.
"You should laugh more often, (Y/n)," she says once we calm down.
"Mael," I blurt out when I realise I forgot to ask about this. "How the hell did you manage to pull that off?"
The Demon Queen twirls a strand of her hair as she says hesitantly, "Gowther used a spell to change everyone's memories about Mael's attack on me."
"So we all remember that he murdered you, but what actually happened?"
Shaking her head, Oriana pulls her hand away as she says, "I'm afraid I don't remember either. Gowther removed my memories of what happened as well but he said that I would regain my memories one day when everyone would remember the truth about Mael."
"The truth about Mael?" I question, wrinkling my nose.
She shrugs her shoulders. "What he exactly said to me was: Everything will make sense the day the truth about Mael is revealed to everyone."
I rub my chin while processing this. "So this is a powerful memory spell which means something in particular will trigger the memory and then everyone will remember what really happened that day. When exactly this will happen we have no clue. So it looks like we'll just have to wait and see, huh?"
"It seems so," Oriana agrees with me.
"You don't deserve this, you don't deserve any of this," I repeat what she said to me the other day.
Her blue eyes widen in surprise. "(Y/n)?"
"All the pain your parents put you through," I go on, "all the work the Demon King made you do, everything you had to face after everything you did for our people."
"We're in the same boat, my lady," Oriana says with a small grin.
"If you call me that one more time," I choke, "I will kill you."
She giggles behind her fist before saying, "Apologies."
Without wasting another second, I spread my arms by my side with a determined expression on my face as I say, "Get over here."
"(Y/n)?" the Queen of the Demon race says my name with great bewilderment.
When it's obvious she's not going to move from her spot, I surge forward and wrap my arms around her shoulders tightly, pulling her close.
"Trying to give you a damn hug," I mutter as she squeaks in shock but slowly returns the embrace.
We can work this out, the two of us together. And when she's ready, Meliodas and Zeldris can help us as well. Everything's going to be fine—
"Lady (Y/n)!" someone screams from outside my room.
Oriana quickly pulls away from me and then rushes to the door to open it. When I reach her side, I see Juno with another maid next to her, the two of them panting.
"Lady (Y/n)," Juno gasps. "Prince Estarossa and Prince Zeldris have been gravely injured—"
I hear nothing more as I push past them and dash across the empty corridors to the throne room. I inhale sharply when I see the second eldest Demon Prince with terrible burn marks all over his body and several Demons picking him up and taking him out of the room.
"Prince Zeldris, please!" someone cries out.
I turn to my right and then wheeze when something heavy suddenly crashes against me. It takes me a couple of seconds to realise that this something is actually a someone, and they keep muttering my name over and over again.
"Zeldris?" I whimper as I try to hold his tiny face in my hands.
There are awful burn marks all over his face and his raven black hair is a complete mess, his ebony eyes both distracted and so empty.
"Oh, Zeldris!" Oriana exclaims as she rushes to the two of us.
"You're gonna be fine, Zel," I say with a trembling voice as I hold his face close to my chest, his eyelashes brushing against my neck. "I've got you, sweetie. Don't worry. You're safe now."
"(Y/n), I love you," are the last words he utters before he falls into unconsciousness.
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