Prince Nicholas
"Your Royal Highness, may I present to you my daughter, Lady Estelle of Vareniol," Lady Violante of Vareniol gestured to her daughter beside her, "and the other Potential of our duchy, Lady Elisabeth of Hertford."
Both the Ladies in question curtsied and while Lady Elisabeth sent me a weak, friendly smile, Lady Estelle stared straight ahead, her blue irises unmoving.
Captain Everard had informed me on our journey here that the Duke of Vareniol, Lord Pierre, was one of the four people who were murdered alongside Lucas and Lucien.
His daughter the new Duchess, Lady Estelle, and the Dowager Duchess, Lady Violante, were still in mourning, as was the entire duchy. As a result, all of them were dressed in black and seemed as if they had not slept for days.
He had also mentioned that Lady Estelle was blind.
I returned their smiles faintly, despising the fact that they were forced to participate in the Potential Quest even during their mourning period.
Why were they not allowed to grieve for Lord Pierre in peace? It was beyond cruel, and extremely saddening that they had to celebrate and pretend to be happy when all they wished to do was to mourn.
"It is a pleasure to meet all of you," I bowed to them, and kissed the back of their hands, "and I would first and foremost like to express how very sorry I am for your loss, and for further inconveniencing you by intruding on your mourning."
Lady Violante smiled for the first time since we had entered Vareniol Manor. "You are every bit as frank as they say, Your Royal Highness," she answered softly, "and thank you very much for your condolences. I am sure all of us here, as do I, appreciate them."
"Your Royal Highness, did Jules not come with you?" Lady Estelle spoke up quietly, her head whipping from right to left.
My smile dimmed a little. "Nay, my Lady, I am sorry," I answered her tiredly, "she had some urgent work she had to attend to elsewhere. She will only return on Friday."
"I see. We heard that the Lady Knight was your advisor, and naturally, we were expecting her," Lady Elisabeth gave her friend a gentle smile, "I do not know her that well, but Estelle was a good friend of hers when we used to live in Bordeux."
Lady Estelle seemed disappointed. "I had hoped to see her again this time," she sighed, "it has been almost seven years since I had last met her."
"The Crown Prince says she will return on Friday, darling," Lady Violante assured her daughter, "you can meet her then."
Lady Elisabeth put an arm around her shoulder in comfort, but Lady Estelle shook her head, faintly amused.
"She will tell you that she will finish her work on a particular date, but if you want to find out when she would truly finish, then you must add at least two days to the date she had originally promised you," she chuckled to herself.
"Why?" I was intrigued.
From the way the Captains seemed to exchange knowing smiles at that, I gathered that Lady Estelle's words must have had been true.
"After Ma'am finishes any job, mission or work, she will go through it and check it again and again until she is satisfied with it," Captain Everard answered instead, grinning wryly, "you could say that she is a perfectionist."
"Once I had asked her to help me write an essay I had not known how to write, to submit to my tutor when I was younger," Lady Estelle recalled fondly, "and she swore that she would write me a marvellous one in three days' time. But a week had passed, and she still had not given it to me, because she could not bear to part with it, in case she had unknowingly failed to correct any mistakes in it. In the end, I had to write my own essay and I scored terribly for it."
Despite myself, I chuckled at her comically woeful expression.
"I remember your mother wore you out when she found out about it," Lady Elisabeth grinned.
"That I did," Lady Violante nodded, "and she never dared to ask anyone to do her homework for her ever again."
"Yes, Mama," Lady Estelle sighed, before she seemed to remember something, "oh, I am so sorry, Your Royal Highness, Captains. All of you must be tired from your journey here, and I have been babbling such nonsense all this while without escorting you to your chambers – "
"Calm down, Your Grace, that is quite all right. There is no harm done," Captain Dupont inclined his head kindly.
"We will show you to your chambers now," Lady Elisabeth hastened to lead the way upstairs towards our chambers, guiding Lady Estelle along by the hand.
I tilted my head. Perhaps this week would not be as dreary as I had initially thought. The two Ladies did not seem like Lady Olivia. They were friendly enough, and easy to get along with.
Deep inside, however, I knew that Julie's absence would render my stay here as horrible as it had been in Tessensohn.
***
The Lady Knight
Richard continued to stare down at me as if I had suddenly grown two heads in front of him.
"Who are you?" he asked again, softer this time.
For answer, I lifted the part of the veil that was covering my face and pushed it back, giving him a wobbly smile.
He frowned for a short moment, his eyes rapidly studying my face, before realisation hit him.
"Jules," a blinding beam spread across his lips.
Before I could comprehend what was going on, I found myself lifted off the floor by the waist and spun round and round until I grew dizzy. My arms automatically wrapped themselves around his neck, as I held onto him for dear life for fear of falling.
"Put me down!" I chuckled, as the world around me spun.
After what seemed like an eternity, my feet finally touched the floor, but he still did not release me. "It is wonderful to see you again," he burrowed his face in the crook of my neck, "I prayed so hard that I might be free one day, yet, I thought...I thought I would never meet you, or anyone else in Monrique ever again." His voice broke in the end.
"I always knew you were alive," I whispered, "but everyone refused to believe me. They thought I was delusional. By God, I hated it when they stared pitifully at me as if I were a small child that did not know any better." I scowled.
He pulled back to laugh weakly at me, as he gently wiped the remaining tears off my face. "I wager you gave them a piece of your mind when they did," he grinned, with his own grey eyes glassy, "but first, tell me this: how did you find me here? How did you know where to look?"
That reminded me of the fact that I was not supposed to be here. I had told Evie I would leave the Manor almost four hours ago.
"It is a long story," I exhaled sharply, "I will tell you later. But we need to leave before anyone comes. Do you need to take any of your belongings?" I gestured to his tiny room.
He glanced around with disgust. "None of these are mine. They are all Lord Warwick's castoffs. I am not taking them with me."
"Good, then let us go," I nodded, as proceeded to pull him with me along the long passageway back to the bookshelf, stumbling slightly in the dark.
"It is certainly strange seeing you in a gown, Jules," he remarked after a while, "I thought you swore you would never wear one again after that Ball in Roche all those years ago."
Oh joy, oh joy. He still remembered the last Ball that I had attended, the one Nick and Tess had humiliated me in.
The one that the boy in front of me had coaxed me to attend alongside him.
My cheeks grew faintly pink at the memory. "Well, I had to disguise myself to sneak inside the Manor, did I not?" I muttered, embarrassed, "this monstrosity is apparently the uniform for the Staff here. And Evangeline had allowed me to borrow - " I paused, suddenly sensing a strange odour in the air.
"Do you smell that?" I queried, puzzled.
Richard paused beside me, tensing for a while as he breathed in deeply. "Smoke," he whispered with terror, "Jules, someone has set a fire!"
"Damn," I swore, "Richard, we have to run. Now." With that, I grabbed his hand and dashed towards the bookshelf entrance with all speed.
By the time, we reached the library, almost all of the books on the series of bookshelves were ablaze with the bright orange flames I had once admired when they were tamed in the fireplace.
The thick, acrid smoke was stagnant, saturating the room in a dense cloud of grey, making vision and breathing very difficult Indeed.
"By the Lord!" Richard's eyes widened as he took in the scene before him, starting to cough, "what in the world happened in here?"
"Lord Anthony must have found out. He must have entered this chamber through the front door and found the bookshelf door open," I muttered grimly, clapping a hand to my mouth, "I bet he set the place on fire to kill the both of us and prevent us from escaping."
"He could not have," he spoke rapidly, pointing to the door, "if he entered through the door, he would have had set the fire near the window so that he would have enough time to escape out through the door. But the window has the least amount of flames...."
He shook his head. "Nay, whoever it was must have entered through the window, and allowed the flames spread from the door."
He spoke true. The area by the window was least affected by the flames, while the door was already lost in them.
"Well, he could – Richard, look out!" I cried, as a burst of flames flew across the room.
He ducked in time before it could strike his face, but he winced slightly in pain. The fire must have had scalded his back in that brief moment of contact.
The flames were spreading around the room rapidly. Clearly, there was no time to waste.
"We could try the window," I beckoned to him urgently, weaving our way through the fiery pathways to the window.
The windowsill and the window frames were already on fire, but there was a small opening in the midst of the raging flames through which we could fit through if we tried.
It was not as if we had a choice in the matter. Severe burns and agony were most definitely guaranteed. But whatever the cost, I was not going to lose Richard this time.
"We have to ensure that we swing onto the ledge beside the window outside," Richard pointed to the white ledge slightly above the window we were looking out of, "and we shall walk to the next window it leads to and escape from there, all right? If we jump down from here, we are certain to perish."
I nodded in agreement.
"Ladies first," he gestured, smiling faintly.
"Always the gentleman," I rolled my eyes.
Sucking in a sharp breath, I reached out into the flames to hold onto what was left of the window frames and swung myself out through the tiny opening in a rapid flash, landing safely onto the ledge.
I frantically tried to put out the flames on my gown and those that had jumped onto my skin. Fortunately, the damage was not too severe.
However, I wished I could say the same for my hands. They were scalded beyond recognition at the present.
And by God, did they hurt.
"Richard, it is your turn," I held out my arm to him, making sure that I was stable on the ledge, "do not grab the window frame. Take my arm instead."
He nodded, tensed, and reached out to hold my arm before he pushed himself out of the window. I heaved him up beside me as well, careful to make sure the flames did not touch his skin.
"By God, you are so heavy," I panted, as I leaned against the wall and breathed in the cool air with relief, "what in the world do you eat every day?"
"Why, thank you, my Lady," he stuck out his tongue at me, "you know, not that it matters, but I was merely thinking about how fortunate we are to have escaped alive."
"All right, all right, there is no need to be so sarcastic," I muttered, still mourning over my poor hands, "come, let us go to the next window. Be careful, the ledge is quite narrow."
With careful inching, we made our way to the next window one step at a time, with me leading. When I was within peeking distance, I carefully tilted my head to see through the strangely wide-open window.
And the sight that greeted me there was so horrifying that I almost fell off the ledge.
"Jules?" Richard put a hand on my shoulder as I trembled violently, "Jules, what is the matter now?"
I took a couple of deep, shuddering breaths. "It was not Lord Anthony who set the fire," I whispered, dread filling my entire being, "we will go in, and you can see for yourself."
I jumped in through the window, and I heard Richard land with a soft thud behind me.
"Merde," Richard gasped, "who did this?"
The window we had jumped in through was that of Lord Anthony's study.
And Lord Anthony lay in his chair, his eyes closed, with his throat slit, and his body stabbed at multiple times like a butcher having cut up his meat. Blood was splattered all over the walls of the room, as if he had been violently tortured with knives before he had been killed.
On the walls, was a message painted crudely in red. We warned you to stay out of this, did we not?
"Jules, he still lives," Richard pointed to Lord Anthony's faintly rising and falling chest.
I rushed towards him and went down on my knees in front of him.
I shook his shoulder, trying to bring him to consciousness. "Who?" my voice cracked, "who did this to you? What happened here?"
It was then that I noticed something green on his shoulder blade. Pulling back his shirt slightly, I saw that same double-helix serpent symbol branded into his pale white skin as I had seen on the shoulders of Lord Pierre and the rest of the corpses I had to deal with in the last four months, with the exception of Lucien's.
Lord Anthony briefly opened his eyes, trying to form words on his lips, but unable to do so. Blood dripped from his mouth as he struggled with himself.
"What is this symbol?" I touched the symbol on his skin, and shook his shoulder harder, "what does it mean? Answer me!"
"The...Order...Of...The...Serpents..." he gasped out so faintly that I strained my ears to hear him.
The Order of the Serpents? I had guessed correctly, then. All four of the murdered Lords had been part of an illegal organisation.
"What does this Order do?" I demanded next.
He did not answer that question. "I...knew...they...were...coming....for...me," a single tear leaked out of his aged green eyes so like Evoric's and Evangeline's, "but...I...hardly....had...any...choice...but...to...join...the...Order – my...family...was...in...danger..."
I committed every word of his struggled words to memory.
"Dear...child...take...this....boy...and...run...far...far...away," he gasped out with more blood dribbling from his chapped lips, "they...are...coming...for...you...too..." With that, his breathing abruptly ceased, and his green eyes stared without seeing.
I ran a hand through my hair, raising my eyes towards the skies. Lord Anthony was dead.
"I hear someone coming," Richard tensed beside me at that moment.
I nodded. Taking off my veil, I reached up on my toes and tied it around the lower half of Richard's face so that he would not be recognised. He then took my hand in his, and we both bolted out the study door.
Out in the hallways, there was a lot of commotion due to the fire in the next room, and we had to swiftly weave and jostle our way through the crowds of the Manor Staff down to the stables, where I had kept Aurora earlier in the morning.
All the while, I prayed that none of the Manor Staff had recognised the two of us. More importantly, I prayed that Evangeline had not seen the either of us. According to her, I had already left the Manor several hours ago.
Richard was making sure that Aurora's saddle was secure. In the meanwhile, hitching up my skirts, I was attempting to mount Aurora.
I wondered how the Ladies of the Society mounted their stallions with these ridiculously heavy gowns. I was finding it extremely difficult as it was.
Richard was gazing at me with amusement. "Ever heard of riding side-saddle, Jules?"
"I can do this," I hissed, and with a mighty effort, I heaved myself up onto Aurora's back and gestured for Richard to do the same and sit behind me.
"Jules, this is downright embarrassing! Why can I not ride? You can sit behind me instead," he whined as he did so.
"Because Aurora is mine, and thus, only I am allowed to decide who rides her," I grinned smugly, "hold on tight!"
"There is the girl and the boy who killed Master Anthony!" a voice cried out at that moment behind us, followed by a crescendo of ugly hate from many others'.
Darn, we were spotted.
"Jules, go!" Richard urged me, looking fearfully behind him, as he wrapped his arms around my waist.
I did not need telling twice. I spurred Aurora on to move, and she willingly charged off into the night through the sleepy village which was preparing for bedtime now.
"STOP THAT GIRL!" several voices cried behind us, "SHE HAS MURDERED THE EARL OF WARWICK!!"
"They are following us on horseback, are they not?" I groaned, as the blurred images of the shocked villagers breezed past us.
"Do not care about them!" he was panicking, "continue riding out of the village, and dare not look back!"
At that very moment, a flash of silver whizzed past my ear, and missed Richard and me by mere inches.
His arms around my waist automatically tightened.
"YOU DEMONS! YOU WILL NEVER GET OUT OF WARWICK ALIVE! YOU WILL PAY FOR THE BLOOD YOU HAVE SHED TONIGHT!"
"They are insane!" he burst out disbelievingly, "that was too close!"
"That is it," I muttered determinedly, "they have crossed all limits. Now watch how I ride."
With that, I swerved Aurora such that she was riding in a haphazard motion, leaving nothing but destruction in our paths, riding through baskets of food in our way, scattering cages of animals, frightening off children, causing a pandemonium.
I knew I was being reckless, but it did prevent our chasers from throwing knives at us again.
Indeed, I still could not believe their audacity in throwing knives at us, especially from the back. Only cowards attacked from the back, the shameless imbeciles -
"Come on, Aurora darling," I murmured to her, "a little faster, old girl..."
"We are nearing the forest," Richard noted, breathing heavily down my neck.
"Have we lost them?" I shot back.
"Most of them," he answered swiftly, "but there are still a few who are following us."
Sighing, I held the reins with one hand and reached for my bow and quiver of arrows in my sack with the other. "You still remember how to shoot, yes?" I asked him, keeping my eyes on the path as I handed them to him, "aim well and shoot them down. There is no need to kill them. Simply injuring them would do."
He adjusted himself on the saddle such that he was leaning against my back and facing the chasers. I could clearly hear the rapid twangs of the arrows leaving the shaft of the bow, as he fitted each arrow and released them almost simultaneously.
At the same time, however, the flashes of silver flying past us increase, but they were more aimless, now that Richard was attacking them rather ferociously with my arrows.
"How are you doing?" I yelled.
"Two more to go," he fired, "and they seem to have an endless supply of knives."
"We are almost at the forest," I gritted my teeth, spurring on Aurora to go faster, "continue shooting until they all fall off their stallions, or at least until the arrows run out."
"Of course."
A few moments later, we had entered the darkness of the jungle, and I kept a firm eye on the River Susan to my right, careful to follow its route. I was concentrating so much on making sure that there were no wild animals in our path, and that we were travelling in the correct direction, that I soon ceased hearing the fight between Richard and our aggressors, focusing only on the sound of Aurora's hooves and the sight of frozen river.
Only when he placed a hand on my shoulder once more did I realise his presence again. "We have lost them all," he remarked, sounding rather tired, "may we rest now?"
I nodded. "Wait for a while. We will stop at the river bank," I assured him, and sped towards the river instead.
When we neared it, I pulled on the reins and slowed Aurora to a canter.
"Are you injured?" I asked, concerned, as I dismounted, "did any of their knives strike you?" I offered him a hand as he got off Aurora, staggering when his legs touched the ground.
He did not answer me, as he sat down on the ground, and put his head between his knees for a moment, shivering badly with the cold. I rummaged through my sack for some of my coats, and draped them over him urgently, rubbing his shoulders all the while.
"I am all right," he whispered after a moment, "it has been a very long time since I rode on a horse. At such high speeds, too. I am just a little dizzy."
I nodded, understanding, as I sat down beside him and stared up at the glowing moon above. "It has been such an insane day," I murmured, "so many times we could have lost our lives..."
"But we did not, and for that, I am grateful," he pointed out, "now, allow me to look at your hands."
He tried to reach for them, but I jammed them, hurting and bleeding, in my pockets. It made me uncomfortable whenever people scrutinised my injuries. I did not know how to react.
"My hands are good, thank you," I flashed him a hasty smile, "thank you for your concern – "
"That will not work with me. You are still a horrible liar," his lips pulled up weakly, as he held out his hands, "I know you burnt them when you jumped up onto the ledge. Now, allow me to see them, if you please."
I shook my head vehemently. "I said I am fine. Truly," I answered a little more forcefully, letting the tight-lipped smile on my face stay as I stood up and walked towards the river bank, "my hands are not the problem at the moment. The problem is...what am I going to do with you now?"
He frowned, confused. "Whatever do you mean? We are going home to Bordeux, are we not?"
Even amidst the confusion, there was still hope and excitement in his eyes.
I sighed. This was the main difference between Nick and Richard. Nick never hoped. He let fate run its course and refused to bother about the consequences.
But Richard? Richard always hoped and believed things would go his way so innocently, so naively.
And when they went wrong, he would become pitifully dejected. Even after ten years in captivity, that had clearly not changed.
My heart sank. How would I break it to him that he could not return home yet? By the Lord, I knew that I could not bear to see that broken look on his face when I told him. Not after I had seen his blinding happiness there earlier.
But there was no other choice. Bracing myself, I turned to look down at him.
"Richard..." I trailed off, sighing, "I am sorry, old chap, but you cannot go home. Not yet."
He froze at once. "W-whatever are you talking about?" the words were faint, as if he dared not believe me, "I have to go home. Papa, Mama, Brother-mine, Sister-mine...they are all waiting for me at Bordeux, are they not?"
I remained silent, unable to meet his pleading eyes.
"Are they not?" he raised his voice, as he stood up and grabbed my shoulders, "answer me, Jules, are they not waiting for me at home? Did they not send you to find me?"
I jerked, flinching. My whole body still hurt from the fire, and this only made the pain worse, physically and mentally.
"Nay," I whispered, feeling horrible for him, "they do not know that you are even alive in the first place. Like everyone else in Monrique, they think you perished after you went missing. Even now, they are completely unaware that I have come here to search for you."
His grip on my shoulders slackened, as his eyes grew huge with shock. He was quiet for a moment while he attempted to digest this.
"T-that is all right. Of course they would not have expected a twelve year old to survive on his own," he reasoned with reluctance, before his countenance brightened, "but I can still go home now, yes? I can still return to Bordeux. I can still surprise them yet. I know they will be happy to see me again." He rapidly improvised.
I looked away, feeling my eyes burn with emotion. He was still so much like a little child, and it was proving to be so difficult for me to explain the current situation to him. The fact that I understood and sympathised with what he was feeling all too well made it even worse.
How cruel would I have to be to wilfully prevent him from meeting his beloved family after ten, long and trying years of forced captivity? If I had been in his place, I would have had charged off to Bordeux the moment I was freed, and I knew it.
But did I have any other choice in my hands but to prevent him from doing so?
Nay! All because some devious, illegal organisation called The Order of The Serpents was attempting to kill him, his brother, and the rest of the family.
This was why my superiors had once advised me not to let emotions get in the way of my work. It made my job so, very hard.
I took deep, staggering breaths, before I forced myself to look at him again.
"Richard, I need you to listen to me very, very carefully, all right?" I began, "I am going to cut a long story short. Someone has been trying to harm your family for a very long time now. Even Nick had been poisoned once in a failed murder attempt recently. This person is being helped in his evil deeds by an illegal organisation, and strangely, some of its own members are also being murdered one by one these four months. Lord Anthony is one of them."
He nodded slowly to show me that he was following, solemn.
"If they were to find out that you are alive, they will try to kill you too," I continued, "in fact, the moment they discover that the fire they had set in that room you were held in did not kill you, your life will be in danger. Until I find the mastermind behind all this, and round up the whole syndicate for arrest, I need to hide you again. Somewhere remote, somewhere secluded. Somewhere they have no chance of finding you, and with someone whom I can trust."
He remained quiet even after I finished speaking.
"Richard?" I asked anxiously.
He exhaled with a sharp breath. "You mean to tell me that I have escaped a prison, only to move into another," he remarked bitterly.
I nodded tiredly. "I am not aware of their motives, or what they want from me. Every time they commit a murder, they use the victim's blood to tell me to stay out of their business," I ran a hand through my hair in frustration, "Richard, you have already been kidnapped once. I am not jesting when I say it can happen again. If you return to Bordeux now, you would put yourself, and the rest of your family in further danger. Will you not wait a little while more for the sake of your family?"
He stared at me for a long while, before he simply turned away and walked towards Aurora.
Dread settled in my stomach again. "Where are you going?"
He took hold of Aurora's reins and mounted her. "If you are going to hide me somewhere, then we had best leave now," he sighed, smiling sadly, "and this time, I am riding."