The next day we were crowned as King and Queen of Theruma in front of everyone that came to watch. We were both dressed in fancy robes and were crowned at the same time. Everyone seems ecstatic at our new lives together and adore us. It's kind of heart wrenching to know that everyone thinks I am in a great, happy relationship with my husband but in reality I am suffering major anxiety attacks at night when he is gone when I think about my future.
It has been a few months since the incident and the crowning. I have been trying to sort out my feelings for Calum and determine whether or not I want to accept my fate with him. Everything seems set in stone for my future but I refuse to give up so easily still. I so badly want to just give up and rely on him, but something in my head is telling me to get away now before something happens.
The Kingdoms have been running pretty smoothly and I am surprised how well Karow has progressed. This drastic change in their economy and lifestyle had seemed to change almost overnight after the crowning. Magicals are now allowed to have passports to leave Karow and have a life outside of it. The people who chose to stay are helping tear down the walls between the outer city and inner city that divided them before. New architecture and buildings are being made to liven the place up and wealth is being distributed more evenly. All the tax money used to go toward advancing the richer cities, but now they are repairing roads and schools in the poorer lands.
As for Theruma, everything remains the same but more peaceful. No one has to fear for war and we have new medicines from Karow. Magic is being spread to other Kingdom's as well to further advance everyone's lives. To think that all of this happened because of Calum...
It is about midday and I am sitting in our new room. We decided to move into a completely different room separate from our old ones. This new room is bigger and provides a more private place for the both of us. I like this new room also because I can keep my old one as it was to relish in childhood every now and then.
My Mother has been begging for a grandchild for a week now. Luckily for me, Calum told me he'd wait until I was ready and would continue using the green magic. I've seen my Mother sneak time alone with him and pull him aside to persuade him to stop using it. If Calum truly loves me, he won't listen to my Mother and drop it for now. As badly as I want Yumi back in the castle, I don't want to swell up into a balloon just yet. Plus, this would leave me even more helpless and I still don't know if I fully trust Calum just yet.
Standing in front of my full body mirror, I brush my hair out and set the crown on my head. Calum had let me gain more freedom lately and lets me do whatever I want in the castle, I just can't leave it without him. He has gotten a lot more busier and so have I, but he does a lot more than I do. I was with him earlier for lunch in his office but had to part from him to brush my hair because he thought it would be funny to ruffle my hair. We are meeting with important people in a few minutes yet he decides it would be 'funny' to make my hair into a complete birds nest.
After the meeting with the King and Queen of Valeum, we show them around our Castle and then take them to their room. The Queen, Weiss, thanked us for our hospitality.
"We will see you both for dinner tonight." Calum addressed them.
They both nod and go into the room. Before we could leave, Weiss pokes her head out for a moment, "Y/N dear, did you happen to find where Jerrad went?"
Jerrad is their son that they had to bring along. He was with one of our maids for the time we had for the meeting and was supposed to be back in the room at this time. We had just heard about their child last minute because they had adopted. They must not be able to have children so they decided to take in a kid from their kingdom. Before I could open my mouth, a loud screech sounds behind me. Jerrad skips down the hallways with a frantic maid. He is very hyper and his eyes widen when he see's his mother. He runs passed me and inside the room. The Queen smiles and shuts the door. The energetic kid leaves me laughing in his place. Calum raises an eyebrow at me but doesn't say anything.
Later on, we have dinner with the rambunctious kid and his parents and then go back to our respective rooms. For the next couple days it has been the same routine, meeting up with various families from each Kingdom to discuss some slight business with the magicals being able to move. We wanted to make sure each Kingdom will allow this, otherwise we will restrict their passports to certain lands that want them.
After about two weeks of meeting with people, we finally have peace and quiet in our schedules. I am going through my drawers of clothes to find a certain pair of thigh high socks to pair with my dress for afternoon tea with Calum but I can't find them anywhere. I look over to Calum's dresser and decide that he wouldn't mind me looking through it to see if the maids mixed up our clothes. I rummage through his sock drawer and see the familiar pair of socks in the back. I laugh as I pick it out.
A glint of silver catches my eye as I shut the drawer. Was there something in there? I open the drawer again and look in the back to see two familiar silver game pieces. I reach for them and take them out, shutting the drawer back in the process. I set the socks aside next to my boots on the floor and sit down on the bed to observe the silver pieces. They are both pretty weighty for a game piece, about two pounds per small piece that is half of a hand sized. Was it always this heavy when I played the game?
The door clicks open and Calum walks in the room with something in his hand. He tilts his head when he sees what I have in my hands, "Why do you have those?"
I lay them next to me and bend down to pick up the socks I haphazardly threw on the ground next to me. "I found them while getting my socks out of your drawer. Do you think one of the maids think you like to wear thigh highs in your spare time?" I joke around with him. He sets a silver rose that he was holding down takes the king and queen pieces and sits down in their place.
"What I do with thigh highs concerns no one." He smirks. I slide the first sock on and glance at him. He catches my eyes and steals the other sock from me and kicks off his shoe. He rolls up his pant leg and puts the sock on his foot.
"No! You're going to stretch it out!" I pout at him. These are my only good ones and he is going to ruin them. He ignores me and struggles a bit to put them on. I can already tell that they are not going to be snug on my legs anymore.
Once he gets them on, he stands up and strikes a pose with his leg up in the air and the tip of his foot resting on the bed. "Don't I look sexy, Y/N?" He asks me with a flamboyant gaze in the air. I roll my eyes and 'tch' at him. He smirks at me and throws the queen piece at me and I catch it. Is it heavier?
As I'm staring dumbfound at the queen, he throws the sock at me and hits me in the face. "Ew!" I spit out before putting it on my other leg so he wouldn't take it again. He seems to be in a good mood so he shouldn't mind if I ask him about the hidden items in his drawer. "Why were these in the sock drawer?"
He takes a seat next to me again and stares at his piece, "Remember we were supposed to keep it after we played? Destroy the game and keep the dare cards until used and game pieces." He rubs his piece with his thumb and watches the sunlight from the window make the color sparkle off of it.
"How did you get this game?" I ask him. What was the point of this game? Why would a game maker even make this game in the first place for it to be played only once and then destroyed? What would have happened if we didn't follow those rules? Wait, didn't Calum tell me that there weren't any rules when we played?
He moves his body to face mine, "I found it in my mother's room."
"How did you know the procedure to play it when there are no rules or instructions?" It is quite odd to believe that his mother would have it to just give to him. His mom died when he was young, eight or younger, so why would she have the game made for him?
He lowers his head and sighs. I can tell this is going to be a long story. I bring my legs up on the bed and face him. Leaning in, I give him my full attention. His lips curl up into a slight smile and looks down at his hands. "I got the game board and put it in my bags before coming over to Theruma to meet you for the second time. When my mother was alive, I had found it under her bed once when playing hide and seek with Rezin and she took it away from us. I questioned her about it a few days later and she explained that her friend had make the game for her and my father to tell the future of their relationship. She was distraught one day and wanted to leave my father but didn't want to break up the family. Her friend told her that it was only made for her and she must destroy it after use so no one can find it and abuse the game's fortune."
"When she played it with my father, he got mad that he kept getting bad cards and quit halfway through. My mother got upset and played the rest by herself and couldn't piece together what the game meant. She eventually found out the meaning of the cards and knew that her future wouldn't be good leaving him or staying. She wondered if she could change her fate by ignoring the rules her friend gave her and kept the game."
"Turns out, she did the worst thing she could have because if you don't destroy the game, you can't change the future. If you obey the rules of the 'friend,' you will be able to change your fate after the cards take place. My mother only sealed her fate and ended up getting killed. Since the game was still available to play I decided to play it with you to see our future and followed all the rules."
I look at my queen piece and then to his. "What does keeping these mean?" I had figured out what the cards meant a long time ago. They had related to points in time of our time together. If I put it together correctly, we are in the 'acceptance' card time. This is our last one and once we are done with this card, the future is undeterminable and easily bendable.
"We need to keep these for good luck in our relationship. If these were ever separated, our bond together wouldn't be as strong as they are together." He explains this to me and it makes sense.
"Why keep it in the sock drawer?" I ask with furrowed brows. Couldn't he just have told me about this before and kept it on the shelf together?
"If you ever got mad at me you'd throw mind out the window." He says while laughing. He isn't wrong. I laugh with him and nod. Once the noise subsides, he takes my queen out of my hand and places them both on top of the bedside table. "We should find a good spot for it later."
I stand with him and put on my boots. I wish I could just magically put them on, it is so frustrating with these strings. "Calum, aren't you supposed to teach me magic?" I ask him. I don't particularly want to learn magic because it would only be a burden on me. I'd rather him be the expert but it may be helpful in these situations.
"Oh yes. We've been so busy that I have forgotten." He smiles at me with his eyes closed. "Do you wish to learn now?" I nod and he bends down to tie my shoes for me. "Let's go down to the basement. I want to show you something."
That's very odd. Is he going to show me magic down there for safety? I haven't been down there since my Father was alive and let me go down there with him. Had Calum been snooping around by himself? I wouldn't doubt it. He had found the garden room on his own for our first date together so he must have found other things too. "Okay."
I sit back down on the bed and wait until he is done with my shoes and he stands up. I stand up to follow him but he pushes me back down on the bed and turns around. He leans down to my height with his back in front of me. I laugh and hop on his back and he stands back up. He walks down a few halls until he reaches a staircase down to the basement. He's careful not to trip on the steps and reaches the bottom. He pretends to fall and I freak out when we are a few feet next to a door. He laughs at me and I hit the top of his head with my closed fist.
He lets me off of him and enters the dark room. He takes ahold of my hand and we make our way into the middle of the room. There is various furniture around the room and dusty artifacts lying around. Old picture frames of old family members are crookedly placed on the walls. Their faces are stoic but their eyes seem to be trying to tell me something. In the center of the room there is a small pedestal of some sort with a dusty blanket on top. Calum tells me to stand back as he takes the cloth up and is careful not to spread the dust around the room and pollute our air.
The black pedestal is level to my hip and has a curved edge on the top. Calum walks over to something on an abandoned sofa and brings it over to me. He places the crystal clear orb on the pedestal and it fits perfectly. Calum's eyes are the only source of light in the room until he flips on a switch which brightens up the room. Something about this orb is familiar..
"Look at this." He calls me over, "Put your hand on this."
I hesitantly put my hand on the clear glass and a fuzzy feeling in my hand is felt. As the tingling progresses, white color is seeping out of my hands and swirls around the orb. Soon, the whole orb is white and the tingling feeling stops. Calum places his hand on the orb next to mine and black seeps out of his hand. The black liquid dances and swirls around with my white color until it mixes up together and forms a grey color. Grey? No it looks more silvery than anything else. Doesn't black and white make grey though? This silver looks too familiar...
I try to pull my hand away but Calum tells me to stop and keep it on. I obey and wait for anything to change in the orb but it remains the same color. This feeling of the orb is really familiar. It is exactly like the one used to transfer the magic over from the Sorcerer to me when we were with Yumi. Is this the same orb? Calum did go back into the building for a bit, did he take it?
With both of our right hands placed on the orb, I look over to Calum's face and see him in deep concentration. One day he said that he was glad that it was easy to get her magic for himself but then corrected his words saying that what is mine is his. Was he planning on taking the magic for himself this whole time?
Right when I was thinking this, a loud thud from behind me is heard and a man steps through the door. He is the guy that was with Zenon! He is dressed in all black with a hat casting shadows on his face. I turn more to face him with my hand still on the orb. Since my right hand is occupied, I had to turn in a way that my back is against Calum's chest. He slinks his left arm around me and pushes me against him. Before anyone could say anything, a kid comes running through the door and stops quickly when locking eyes with Calum. That kid is the King and Queen of Valeum's child. What is he doing here?
The tall man takes out a gun and points it at my husband and me. "Y/N. Step away from this demon." The unwelcomed mysterious guest speaks in a low voice to me. Calum's grip on me tightens and keeps me in place. "Take your hand off of the orb now, Y/N, and get away from him."
"Don't listen to him. Stay behind me." Calum lets go of me and pushes me behind him. We both take our hands off of the orb, him quicker than me, and I stand behind the orb and Calum. He angles himself so that the man with the gun only points at him and doesn't harm me.
This whole situation is tense. I need to think of a way out of this. First, why are we using this orb? It seems exactly like the one used to transfer magic over from one person to the other. Is Calum trying to take my magic? Aside from that, this mysterious man is here in Theruma with that kid?
I grab the orb and step away from both of them. Whatever is in this orb must be important so I will be the one to have it. They both look at me, Calum is panicked.
"Good, Y/N. Come over here." The man tells me. I shake my head and he starts to get angry. "This man you married is a mental disorder walking on legs. He killed my master and for that he must die." Calum tenses up and stays still while looking down the barrel of the gun. The man takes steps toward him and puts the gun to his head. "You act like you are innocent and perfect, but I know your sickness. I also know what you are doing to your poor wife."
He looks over to me and smirks, "Tell me darling, did he ask you before he took your magic from you?" My breath hitches and I look at Calum. His eyes are pleading to mine. "I should tell you that you are quite lucky I decided to stop by at this moment. This kid here had been mapping out your entire castle and giving the information to me. I say the term kid loosely, he is actually a magical transformed into a kid. Boy am I lucky that those stupid rulers of Valeum took him in just in time to visit you." The child transforms into some weird animal and goes to the mysterious man's side.
"Y/N, it is up to you now. Both his and your magic are in that orb right now. He is almost completely defenseless and doesn't have enough magic to fight back. I can kill him for you right now and you can take all the magic for yourself and be free. I can tell he hasn't been the best to you when I was watching you two, orders of Prince Zenon since the ball, and I am willing to give you this choice. I shoot him now and you be free, or I shoot him and you live in sorrow over your dead husband."
He is not giving me much of a choice. Either way Calum is dead. Do I want to stay with him or do I resent and despise him for all that he has done to me? This is my chance to make a decision for myself. I can finally get retribution for everything he had done and watch him die, or I can think of a way to keep him alive and stay with him.
It all boils down to my decision. What do I do?
Kill Calum
Save Calum