Chapter 32: Ghosts Of The Past

Elara currently stood before her father with a confident smile on her face, her mother sat beside him with a calm smile and Redwyn rested on a cushion adjacent the trio with an unreadable expression.

Alavric started. “Are you sure of what you’re asking of me?”

Elara nodded immediately.

Alavric ignored her sign of affirmation and continued.

“You’re asking that I send my only daughter on a perilous journey that could prove to be of no benefit but could instead bring innumerable danger to you?”

Elara’s expression faltered a bit.

“F–father, I get that you’re worried, but It’s not as bad as you’re making it out to be, in fact I even—”

Alavric raised his hand to cut her off, his expression annoyed.

“This matter is not up for discussion. You shall continue your study in the Academy tomorrow and deepen your studies on Royal conduct and procedures. Is that understood?”

Elara’s shining eyes dimmed considerably after he finished.

Redwyn closed his eyes calmly.

Castilla squeezed her husband’s arm covertly.

“I understand, Father.”

Alavric’s eyes softened slightly at his daughter’s resigned tone, but he had deemed the expedition too risky to go on alone.

Yes, he had predicted that Elara would manage to escape the surveillance of the Shadow Guards. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d be doing that.

“But darling,” Castilla said, her voice drawing him out of his thoughts.

Alavric turned to his smiling wife.

Castilla didn’t let go of Alavric’s arm. Instead, she leaned in slightly, her voice dropping to that melodic yet firm tone she used when she was steering the throne from the shadows.

“Alavric, my love,” she began, her eyes shifting briefly to the silent Lord Redwyn before returning to her husband. “You are protecting her life, but are you protecting her legacy?”

Alavric frowned. “Her legacy? She is a Princess. Her legacy is the Crown.”

“The Crown is currently under fire,” Castilla countered gently. “The commoners in the border towns are whispering. They see the ’Grey-Cough’ spreading, they see the Shadow Guards locking gates, and they feel abandoned. They don’t see a King protecting them—they see a King hiding behind stone walls while they turn to ash.”

She paused, letting the weight of the Commoner Unrest sink in

“If Elara goes, she doesn’t go as a researcher. She goes as the Hand of Calyra. Imagine the news reaching the capital: The Princess herself, the brightest light of the Royal family, has braved the Waste to purify the land for her people.”

Alavric’s eyes flickered. He was a King, he understood the power of a PR masterstroke.

“It turns a disaster into a divine triumph,” Castilla continued. “Furthermore…” she glanced at Elara, whose eyes were beginning to sparkle again, “…we both know that the Scribes have failed to map the new Dissonant frequencies. If a mutation occurs and our Academy isn’t prepared because we were too ’cautious’ to send our best mind… then the next explosion won’t be in a jungle. It will be in the palace.”

“Let her go. But she goes with the Full Royal Procession. Not just Shadow Guards, but the Royal Healers and the Sun-Priests. And,” she looked at Redwyn, “perhaps Lord Redwyn would be so kind as to lend his eldest son, Kaelen, to lead the vanguard? A union of the two strongest houses protecting the border would silence any rumors of instability.”

Redwyn’s eyes snapped open. He didn’t like his son being used as a bodyguard, but he couldn’t refuse a Royal request in front of the King. “It would be an honor, Your Majesty,” he said through grit teeth.

Alavric sat in silence for a long moment, his fingers drumming on the arm of the cushion.

Finally, he exhaled a long, defeated sigh.

“Fine,” Alavric muttered, pointing a finger at Elara. “But you stay within the ’Gold Zone’ of the camp. If your resonance drops even by a fraction, Kaelen is authorized to drag you back to the capital in chains if he has to. Do you understand?”

Elara suppressed the urge to pump her fist in the air. “Perfectly, Father.”

Alavric clicked his tongue softly as he watched his daughter bounce away as if afraid he would change his mind in the last minute.

Castilla chuckled softly before getting to her feet, her graceful figure further heightened by the purple dress adorned in glittering designs.

“I’ll be taking my leave now, darling. I have some matters to handle.”

The king nodded with a straight face, but the wink directed at him as she passed through the door nearly caused his façade to break.

With a soft click of the door, Alavric and Redwyn were left alone.

Redwyn spoke the moment he sensed her presence fade.

“What were you thinking? Sending your daughter to the same place where the ring could be?!”

Redwyn consciously left out the part of ’Daren’ being alive and the king silently noted this.

Alavric’s expression remained unchanged.

“I’ve made my own plans since yours proved to be a massive failure.”

Redwyn clenched his fists. “It wasn’t a failure”

The king’s eyes met Redwyn’s.

“It wasn’t? Then what do you call a plan that led two of the strongest pillars and enforcers of the kingdom to their deaths, a battle that wipes out eleven percent of the Kingdom’s population, causes an economic imbalance and the aftereffects of the attack still causing loss of lives as we speak?”

Redwyn grit his teeth and unknowingly averted his eyes.

“It was a miscalculation. There was a variable we didn’t account for.”

The king nodded with closed eyes. “Of course. No one could have predicated that the fallen hero of the Demon War would dwell in such close proximity to us.”

They were still young when the Demon War had begun, but the memory of their loved ones leaving the comfort of their home to battle for the safety of the kingdown was etched deep into their memories.

The Redwyn patriarch originally led the vanguard, but his fall at the hands of a High-ranking Demon sparked a turning point in the war. His death ignited a desperate ferocity in the human ranks, forcing the warriors of that era to shatter their limits—a trial by fire that birthed the legends of today.

Forty years ago, the conflict reached its end when Alavric’s father and Kaelthorn used parts of their very soul as a seal to banish the invading demons to a Void realm.

Fate showed its hands at this point and Alavric’s father lost his life due to the large amount of energy he was forced to put in the seal, and Kaelthorn managed to survive due to an imbalance in the energy output.

The people didn’t believe a strong warrior such as Alavric’s father could lose his life by something as minor as that, so they put on the blame on Kaelthorn, leading to his partial exile of the kingdom.

Those of the demon-kind who surrendered, or betrayed their own, were spared execution. Instead, they were exiled to the outskirts of the kingdom, forced into hard labor to harvest the rare ores that fuel the realm’s resonance.

“But how did Baldric ever come in contact with such a man, and what could have happened between them for it to lead to a battle to the death?” Redwyn asked

The king sighed. “That, I don’t know.”

Redwyn closed his eyes in resignation and decided to return to the original subject.

“So, what is your plan? You must be pretty sure of it to let your daughter be a pawn in it,” Redwyn probed.

An oppressive aura left the king’s body, causing the seat they sat on to crumble to dust alongside every furniture in the room.

Redwyn remained unfazed at the blatant show of power as he countered with his.

“Let’s not get all touchy with family. At least not now, Alavric,” Redwyn spoke.

The walls of the room birthed cracks all around and had they continued the tug of war, the impenetrable fortress would’ve become a pile of rubble within minutes.

“I wonder if you’d say the same thing if your two daughters were in the equation,” Alavric responded as he dusted his robe.

Redwyn’s expression tightened.

His body bent slightly. “I apologize, old friend, I spoke wrongly.”

Alavric studied him for a while before humming in approval.

They sat on the air as they continued their conversation.

“Your plan?” Redwyn repeated.

Alavric took a breath through his nostrils.

“I’m not planning on telling you. You’ll have to find out yourself.”

Redwyn’s eyebrows slammed. “This isn’t a time for games, Al.”

“Who says this is a game? I would never joke about anything I care about,” Alavric declared.

Redwyn brought out a ruffled a piece of paper.

“I’ll dance to your tune this time. I just hope it’s not worse than mine.”

A smile finally showed on Alavric’s face. “My plans are always successful, Evendur Redwyn.”

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