Grace's Point of View:
"We aren't lost," I heard Andrew's voice.
He stood near the door with a smile on his face. The smile wasn't sinister. His presence felt changed, it was as if his evilness got magically disappeared after he became conscious again.
I wondered how he came out of the room we had locked him in. His clothes were changed.
Our eyes met.
Images of him sucking my blood popped in my mind. I will never be able to forget that experience.
"Please forgive me," he said, walking near me.
Casper stood in front of me and Katherine, blocking Andrew from coming near us.
"You're a Slave of Darkness now, aren't you? Go back from where you came," Casper gritted his teeth.
Andrew's fists clenched, a few seconds later he took a deep breath in and unclenched his fists. He looked relaxed.
"Never talk to me in such a tone," Andrew said to Casper.
"I am not evil anymore. Drinking your blood saved me from staying on the dark side forever. When I drank your blood, I didn't know it would heal me, Grace."
I didn't know what to do? Believe him?
"I missed you, brother," Katherine hugged Andrew hard.
"Me too," he said, with a wide grin.
Maybe he had really turned back to the good side.
Casper didn't say anything, he went back to where he was standing, studying the herbs and stuff he had brought for the potion.
"I am really sorry, Grace. I would never do that again."
He stood in front of me.
I couldn't look in his eyes; I was still scared.
"Okay, I forgive you," I said.
"So, are you gonna help us with potion making?" Casper asked.
"Yes. Even though I'm not on Lord Darkness' side, I still have the dark mark on my neck. I can use magic. You need magic for the potion, don't you?" Andrew said.
I noticed a black tattoo on his neck. It was an outline of a circle with a pentagon inside it. Two horns were attached to the circle.
"Is that the dark mark?" I asked Andrew, pointing towards his neck.
"Yes, it's that. If Lord Darkness is defeated then I'll get my soul back and the dark mark will vanish," he said.
"What!? He has your soul!?" Katherine said.
Andrew sighed and nodded.
I looked at him with my furrowed brows.
"I promise I'll defeat him so that you get your soul back," I said.
"He's so powerful. I don't like the idea of you trying to destroy him, what if you get hurt? I won't be able to live without you," Andrew said, holding my hands.
"I know it's very dangerous but I will face him. The future of the Klataria is in my hands now. I won't let the sacrifices of Thomas, Flower and many others to go in vain. I want the Klataria to be a safe place again."
I felt euphoria when I said that. There was a lot of power and braveness laced onto my words.
Lord Darkness has to be destroyed, and I'll do it.
---
The problems were solved. Now, Casper could create the penetration potion. Andrew's magic would help in it.
I was so surprised when I found the book I gave to Gratala had the procedure to make the penetration spell. Only Gratala could read that book; she copied the procedure from the book to a paper and gave it to Casper.
It was evening, Gratala and I were sitting in my room. I was drinking tea and she was drinking blood.
"I am very glad Thomas gave you this book. I am clueless about how he found it," Gratala said and coughed a little bit.
"Tell me about it," I said.
"I guess I should tell you everything, Gracie."
My eyes lit up. Yay! This is the time I awaited.
She gazed towards the red sky from the window and started telling me about why she left Thomas and cursed Flower.
Gratala used to live with Thomas in the castle. They were very happy together. Flower was Thomas' best friend. She lived at the castle too, but alone because her beloved had died. Flower's beloved was the Minister of Finance.
They all were very happy when they found my parents were beloveds.
My mom and dad were gifted with magic as they were part of the powerful bloodlines. Both had very powerful magic in them. Flower and Thomas wanted them to learn magic from a scholar named Stezian Mariffla.
Gratala opposed them, she was afraid that my parents will turn evil. Stezian Mariffla was a powerful vampire but he sometimes did dark magic too. But Flower and Thomas didn't think my parents will turn evil. They shrugged off Gratala's intuition and sent my parents to learn magic from Stezian in the Runktala city when they were 15.
Mom gave birth to me in that city after four years. Mom and dad came back to the capital city after my birth. They wanted to continue learning dark magic, though.
I was my parents' mistake.
Dark magic was filled in their minds, and they wanted it more and more. They had turned evil.
When I turned five, my parents sold me to Elizabeth in exchange for learning dark magic from her.
"We didn't know at all that your parents had sold you to Elizabeth until some months ago when Thomas joined the dark side. Elizabeth told him what she did with you, My goodness, such an evil woman. How dare she send you to the Human word!" Gratala continued.
"My parents didn't want me?" I said, with tears in my eyes.
"I am sure they would have never given you away if they weren't in Elizabeth's influence. Don't cry," Gratala said, giving me a hug.
"So why did you curse Flower?" I asked.
She sighed and started talking again.
My grandparents didn't know I was sold to Elizabeth, they had thought I was abducted by some evil witches who were my parents' friends. On that day my parents had left the castle and went to Runktala city to master dark magic. Gratala was yelling a lot at Thomas and Flower because of it.
Flower told Gratala to stop yelling and then said, 'I wanted them to be famous, I wanted their names to be everywhere. I thought mastering the magic will make them famous as they were so powerful.'
Gratala got so angry and said, 'You wanted their names to be everywhere? I curse you that your name will be wiped from everywhere in this universe. No one will remember it.'
She had cursed Flower, and she left the castle and stopped living with Thomas. She left him because he had favored Flower's idea many years ago about sending my parents to Stezian.
"I see," I said. I felt very sad hearing all that.
"I wasn't cruel enough to keep that curse on Flower forever. I came back to the castle some days later to remove that curse but Elizabeth met me in the way. She didn't want me to remove the curse from Flower. She hated Flower,
"I was against her idea. She put a spell on me and removed the memory from my mind about how to remove that curse. While removing that memory, she also removed my other memories too, like how to create potions and all that."
Oh my goodness! I hate Elizabeth. All this had happened because of her.
"She put those memories in this book," she looked towards the book I had given her, "along with my ability to do magic. This is why only I can read this book. A very little magic had left in me. Elizabeth put a curse on me that I'll never be able to communicate with Thomas. I had tried to find Flower, but she had moved away somewhere."
Katherine opened the door of my room.
She looked terrified.
"What happened, Kath?"
"L-Lord Darkness and his army have arrived in this town."