Chapter 68: The Devil’s bloodline and The sudden returns
Daisy’s breath faltered when Seraphina’s cold voice slashed through the chamber.
She was searching for a best escape idea, as her wishes were granted too suddenly.
More of Seraphina’s men came into the chambers to shower her with afternoon praise chant, according to the policy she had always given to them .
"Lock the door," she ordered her right-hand man.
Her tone was velvet woven with steel. "You all will have to remove your masks. I was about to catch a sneaky little rat... until one of you decided to shield her."
The room stilled. Shadows clung to the walls like witnesses awaiting blood.
The masked men obeyed, forming a perfect row before their queen.
Daisy’s heart pounded against her ribs, a caged animal thrashing to be free.
She felt Seraphina’s eyes like knives at her back. One command, one wrong movement, and her secret would be stripped bare.
One by one, the men pulled off their masks. Thirty in total.... Each face revealed, each breath heavy with anticipation.
But Daisy was nowhere among them.
Seraphina’s eyes narrowed, a slow smile spreading across her crimson-painted lips. "Clever little rat."
Daisy had slipped away in the chaos, her instincts sharper than her fear.
She dashed toward the door before it could be bolted, every step fueled by desperation.
She ran without looking back, her cloak swishing against her legs, lungs burning with panic.
The corridor felt endless, the tiles floors cold beneath her feet.
She reached the elevator, slammed her palm against the button, and pressed herself into the shadows, gasping for air.
Breathe.... Daisy,, Breathe.
Her chest rose and fell in ragged rhythm.
But safety was a fragile illusion.
"Hey, you...!
Her head snapped up immediately.
Two men in dark uniforms approached, suspicion etched in their faces.
Her blood ran cold. Without hesitation, Daisy yanked her head mask back on, her trembling hands barely steady enough to secure the ties.
She turned slowly, schooling her voice into false calm.
"Yes?" she whispered.
The men’s eyes scanned her up and down.
For a heartbeat too long, silence reigned. Then one of them shrugged. "We thought you were someone else."
Relief flooded her, but she did not let it show.
Daisy gave a curt nod and forced herself to walk away, her knees weak, her pulse still thrumming violently.
Behind her, Seraphina’s voice still echoed in her mind.
One day, I will see the face behind that sneaky rat’s face.
******
Bianca wandered deeper into a landscape that twisted reality itself.
What began as a familiar path had turned into something unrecognizable .
The world around her shifted, vast and empty like a desert, yet oddly alive.
The ground was littered with small jagged rocks that bit into her shoes, the air heavy with an otherworldly stillness.
She spun in a slow circle, confusion gnawing at her. "This... this isn’t where I came from. I don’t remember this part." her voice trembled in the silence. Panic clawed at her chest.
She turned to retrace her steps, only to find herself facing not one path.... but seven.
Seven identical roads stretched before her, like a cruel joke carved by unseen hands.
Bianca froze. The air thickened, pressing against her lungs.
"Indeed, the black book is powerful," she whispered shakily. "This must be its trickery. It’s damn curse."
Her knees buckled, and she sank onto the ground, tears spilling freely. "Just let me go," she cried to no one, her sobs echoing in the emptiness. "I promise to leave the Morano family alone. I swear it. I will never go near them again. Just... just let me go home". Her tears carved tracks down her cheeks as she staggered back to her feet.
Her body shook, but she forced herself forward.
"If I must choose, then I will choose my happiness and my freedom," she whispered, though fear strangled her throat.
But as she stepped onto one of the roads, laughter pierced the silence, cold and Mocking. It slithered through the air like venom.
Bianca’s head snapped upward. Her breath caught in horror.
Perched atop a tree, her silhouette framed against the blood-colored sky, was a woman both otherworldly and terrifying.
She bit into a crimson apple, juice dripping like blood down her chin, her laughter sharp enough to pierce bone.
Her eyes glowed with unnatural fire.
Her hair flowed like serpents in the wind.
Bianca’s soul shrank in terror as recognition struck her.
Làpatasodará Valkà.
The dangerous witch. The keeper of curses.
The one mothers whispered about to scare children into obedience.
And here she was, smiling down at Bianca as if she had been expected all along.
****
In the palace of Virenkai, the tension was a living thing.
Alessia stood beside Luca, her lips trembling though she forced them into a smile.
His voice, low and commanding, broke through her haze.
"My lady," he murmured, bending slightly to catch her gaze. "Why are you smiling? Were you part of the plan?"
The words struck her like a blade.
Her smile faltered, her heart slamming against her chest.
"Ooh, my Luca," she whispered, her voice breaking with honesty.
"Please pardon my manners. I have carried many secrets, secrets I should have told you as soon as I found out. But know this... I was never part of the plan."
Alessia slowly closed her eyes after Luca had asked her the question.
The silence that followed was heavy, stretching across the room like a thick veil of smoke, suffocating and unrelenting.
Her lashes trembled as if her very body carried the weight of the choice she refused to voice.
Inwardly, she breathed a silent plea, a desperate prayer for peace, not only for herself but for him... for both of them.
Because she knew.
She knew with frightening clarity that they were too powerful, each carrying within them a force capable of shaking everything around them.
It was not only about strength, not only about lineage or blood.. It was about something deeper, more dangerous, the raw energy that bound them and threatened to tear them apart in equal measure.
If either of them let go, if either of them surrendered to the tempest inside, the world between them would collapse into shards too sharp to ever be pieced together again.
Her heart twisted at the thought.
The man before her was not only Luca Morano, the name that carried both fear and reverence in whispered tones.
He was her anchor, her torment, her impossible love.
And yet, the question he had asked burned at the edge of her soul, demanding an answer she dared not give.
To answer him was to pick a side in a war that already had no victors.
To stay silent was to build a fragile bridge made of glass.
One spark, one wrong word, and it would all shatter.
Her mind drifted to what peace would feel like... simple, quiet, and weightless.
A life where their powers did not exist, where the chains of destiny did not tighten around their throats.
She imagined walking hand in hand with him under an ordinary sky, free of shadows, free of enemies.
She imagined laughter instead of whispers, warmth instead of fire.
That dream alone ached in her chest, too sweet and too impossible to ever hold.
Yet she wished for peace, endlessly.
Her eyes shimmered with tears, her soul bared before him.
Luca’s gaze softened only slightly, though suspicion lingered in its depths.
He turned from her to face the man seated on the throne. "The king", the shadow of his late father’s bloodline.
"Uncle," Luca said, his voice resonant, commanding the attention of all present.
"I will call you my uncle, since you are my late father’s twin brother. My father was always known as a peaceful man".
He left no legacy of cruelty.
The few moments of darkness were only when others provoked him first, not once, not twice, but countless times.
And even then, we always prevailed. Because our gift was never in striking first, but in standing against injustice."
The hall trembled with his words, every syllable heavy with truth.
"We are family," Luca continued, his tone thick with restrained passion. "Two powerful bloodlines, blessed with gifts. We were never meant to turn them against each other. Not blood for blood. Not family against family."
His chest rose and fell as he stepped forward, his hand curling into a fist over his heart.
"Peace," he declared. His voice cracked with emotion, breaking past his iron façade. "Peace, I still seek."
Then, in a gesture that shocked even Alessia, Luca bowed his head.
The silence that followed was suffocating, charged with unspoken tension.
But before the king could utter a word, the sharp clang of metal rang through the air.
The doors of the chamber burst open, and a guard stumbled inside, his voice frantic.
"Announcing.... " he cried, his words colliding with the silence like thunder.
Soon, a thunderous voice rang through the air, echoing across the marble halls and into the open courtyards beyond.
"All hail the lost Princess....
The proclamation carried like fire in the wind, and murmurs swept through the gathered crowd.
People craned their necks, hearts hammering with disbelief.
Guards shifted, their armor glinting under the fading sun as the atmosphere trembled with anticipation.
Then came the whisper that ignited the frenzy...
"We can see her... Princess Elowen approaches..."
From the far end of the path, where the golden light kissed the horizon, a slender figure appeared.
Draped in silver silk that shimmered like moonlight, her presence commanded silence.
The weight of forgotten bloodlines, of untold stories buried in the shadows of time, seemed to walk with her.
"Tell Her Highness... tell everyone..." a herald cried out, his voice breaking with awe.
"Princess Elowen has come home."
And in that moment, the kingdom itself seemed to hold its breath.....