The Scarlet Phoenix and the Prince of Winter

Chapter Eighty Three

"No! Prince Kao! No!" I was not expecting that he would do that. Why would he even do that? Chills enveloped my whole body as I saw him spit out blood. We looked at each other and it was evident that the pain was starting to take its effect on him now. An arrow was stuck on his back, of course, it would be painful.

"R-Run," he whispered to me before he fell to his knees. I tried to hold him up so that he will not fall down straight to the snowy ground but it was too late. The realization that the Crown Prince just got hit with an arrow while he tried to shield me from it made me weak, so it was hard holding him this way. "Run for your life R-Rainha..."

I shook my head at his order. "I will not leave you here no matter what," I said to him weeping. "I will not go anywhere!"

But the Crown Prince really wanted me to escape as he kept on shaking his head. "You must go... It is you that they are after... You must run, Rainha!"

"No, no, no," I told him. "I will not leave you here! We will die here together if that is what's going to happen!" I had already decided to stay with the Crown Prince even if it means that I will be in danger too. Plus, what is the assurance that I will not be caught if I try to run? Steffan seems to be extremely good with arrows. I think he will not hesitate to shoot me if I run too. And speaking of the devil, he was walking now in our direction. I can see his gloomy face behind the Crown Prince and just as I thought, he was ready for another shot if it was needed. "YOU!" I shouted at him. "How dare you hurt the Crown Prince! You are a traitor! Who do you work for? Who told you to do this?"

But Steffan did not reply. Instead, he pointed his arrow at me, ready to strike again. "Stay quiet, Rainha, or you and the Crown Prince will drop dead. I did what he told me. Not because I wanted to stay alive, but because I don't want the Crown Prince to get injured again. The arrow that hit him looked lethal enough as half of it sunk to his back already, so I do not want him to suffer more. "Good girl," I heard him say. "Now, I will need you to stay quiet." And then he slapped me so hard that I fell to the snow face first. And then I felt something hit me in my head, and then it was dark again.

***

Nievo was still asleep behind me when we reached the mansion where we wanted to go that badly. I shook him up and he jerked upward. It was uncomfortable sleeping in the seat of this chariot, but he was able to sleep well, perhaps an indication that he was more outside than inside their house. A middle-aged man came to greet us when we walked to the entrance of this huge estate at the top of the hills overlooking the sea and welcomed us to get inside.

This man was called Rico Forrester, the very same pirate who helped me years ago together with my followers when Kentan tried to kill me by trapping me in a golden ship. He married a Gypsy, that is why they are most welcoming to us. Nievo looked around as we walked to the corridor, probably reminiscing about the house that he just left.

"Our mansion would have been as pretty as this if my father did not waste his money on gambling," he said as we walked to the main hall where we were going to talk. "He is planning on selling it now that I can't even go back there, so I don't know if I will be able to go back there anymore."

"But your parents are not very nice to you right?" I asked him just to make sure my interpretation was right. "They did not even look worried that the Queen and a deity came for you."

Nievo laughed at that. "Well, they might have been scared by your presence."

"Or maybe they did not just care about you," I said too. "You don't need to cover up how they treated you, Nievo. You do not need to preserve their honor anymore if they don't even think of your welfare."

"Thank you, my dear deity... And I am sorry. I just can't say anything bad against them. They are still my parents."

"But are they now?" I asked and he looked more down than ever. "I don't think that is how becoming a parent works. You have to care for your child forever, otherwise, you are not a parent."

Nievo did not respond to that anymore and I know why. He knows that what I said was right. He had the bad luck to have parents such as that, but he still loves them. That is a curse, in my opinion, because why would I still care for people who do not care for me too? That is some martyrdom type of act and I do not like that. I was about to talk again when Colette came together with a young man who resembled Rico, and we started discussing the problem we have at hand.

"The Rain Phantom tried to raid this mansion months ago," Rico confessed to us. "He wanted the golden steering wheel and other precious golden treasures that we have here. My dear deity, I think he is thinking of trying to weaken you by using gold. That is why we made a special chamber only for those treasures so that he can't steal it from us that easily."

I nodded. "That is great. However, I am more interested in his identity. I heard that he came from Plumba? Is that correct?"

Rico nodded, but it was the younger man that looked like him who replied to me. "He was a friend of mine," said the young man beside Colette and I think there is a brewing romance between these two already. This young man's name is Troy Forrester, and turns out to be the only son of Rico and his Gypsy wife.

"You used to be friends with him? Is he your age? We look like we are of the same age," said Nievo to Troy and the latter nodded. "Really? Then he must be young!"

"Indeed," said Rico. "That kid, he was the son of my long-time servant, who I already knew even during my piracy days. His name is Abel."

"He was a good person, my dear deity," Troy added. "Abel grew up with me, as he lived with us. We were like brothers. That is why until now I could not understand why he did such a thing. Of why he tried to steal something from us, then proceeded to live a life like that. And even so, we forgave him and even offered him money just so he would stop, but he almost killed my father, and that was the last straw."

"He went away from this town and we know nothing about him for the next three years. The next thing we knew, he became what the people call 'The Rain Phantom.' We knew it was him because he is the only person we know who can fight like that as if he had a power that only a deity just like you, my dear deity, possesses."

"He can summon rain," said Troy with awe on his face. It was clear that Abel was no ordinary human. "He can change the weather by just changing his mood and disposition too. When he is angry, suddenly the clouds turn dark. When he is pissed, there will be a thunderstorm. It was scary, my dear deity. We wanted to tell you about this sooner but you were on hibernation. And we could not go to the Ritual Grounds as the late Ova had told us since the key that she gave to us has been missing."

"Missing?" I repeated, alarmed that an important item that I gave them went missing. "How did it go missing? What happened?"

"We have no idea what happened to the key, but I have a theory," said Troy to me with pleading eyes. "And I think that you will not like to hear it, my dear deity," he added.

"Why? What happened to the key that I gave your mother?" I asked and looked at Colette as well. She was looking down at her feet which made me think how bad was this news going to be. The key, which will allow anyone to open the entrance to the Ritual Grounds without my permission, had been given to families of my Gypsies so that when they needed a place to take refuge, they can go there to that place. And now it is missing?

"I think Abel stole it," said Troy, and I yelled at them. But I kept my cool because I knew that I would not make any difference at all right now. "It disappeared the same time Abel left this mansion, so he is the only one that we really suspect. We are very sorry, my dear deity. You can punish us wherever you want. We will accept your punishment whatever it is."

"That is not what is important right now," I told them. "Besides, even if Abel indeed has the key, he cannot go to the Ritual grounds if he does not know where it is. There is only one map to it and it is very hard to understand."

"Yeah, it hurt my brain, you know," said Nievo but no one laughed as everyone knows that this was a serious matter.

"Abel might come back for you here," I told them too. "If he is who I think he really is, then he will do anything to get the golden steering wheel of that ship. He will try to use it again to weaken me, so you have to keep it safe, understand?"

"Yes, my dear deity. We have hired men to guard us and the mansion from now on, and we will do our best to help you catch Abel."

"You should, as you are in danger too if we do not do anything about him. Remember, he might be a reincarnation of a deity, so we have to catch him as soon as possible. Before he can create more havoc to us here." The meeting was adjourned after I said that. Rico Forrester took to heart all the things that In wanted them to do, so he was able to defend his mansion from any potential threat from that moment. I also let Colette stay with them so that I will have an informant when something happens. Now, the only problems that I have are Nievo and the young Queen. Since they are both human reincarnations of deities, I do think that they will be in great danger too. I could feel it in my bones. I could sense the negative energy that Abel or the Rain Phantom has been releasing into the atmosphere. He wants us dead. He wants to come back as a deity stronger than ever.

So we did what we had to do. We prepared for his attacks. We wanted to be ready whenever he decided to strike. And because of that, I trained Nievo to fight properly. We would practice and train together with other abled Gypsies and we got stronger the longer we did it so I was getting confident that we can defeat Abel once we face him. I also monitored the Palace in case something happened there. I did not want the young Queen Hayana to suffer, as she was already my friend. But one day...

"It has been three days since she last woke up," said her husband to Nievo and me, the current King of Aure. We were standing by the Queen's bed, and watched her sleep there peacefully. When you look at her you would not think that something is wrong, but Queen Hayana had never lost consciousness. "I don't know what to do anymore, my dear deity. She is pregnant, so this condition of hers might hurt her and the baby."

"Do not worry I will make something to wake her up. Relax and don't let your guard down. Enemies might come to finish her off." And after that, I flew back to the Ritual grounds together with Nievo. He was curious about what I was going to do, but I did not let him come with me. I went alone to a hidden spot in the fields of flowers and herbs, a place where a group of neatly arranged tombstones was lined. I stared at them for a minute before looking at the flowers that I planted there ages ago. "So you are still here huh... You flourished..."

Then I picked the flowers that resembled a bird in flames and put them in a basket that I brought with me. I was not expecting this to happen. I was surprised that I have to come here again after all these years of avoiding this place. "You have graves here," said a voice and I turned back to see Nievo looking at me with a confused face. "Who are they?"

I became angry that he was here. "You followed me," I said to him through gritted teeth. "I told you not to follow me!"

"I'm sorry. I was just curious about this spot. I have never been here before and I saw you coming here---"

"Which you should have never done!"

"I am sorry... Alfiora..."

I gasped. I was stunned, for right now, Nievo was emitting a strong aura that I can recognize even with both my eyes closed. "V-Volo? Is that you now?"

But he shook his head. "It is still me... But I think I am already beginning to become him. I can now remember my past as the deity of winter."

I was so surprised that I dropped the basket that I was holding. "Really? Then that's great!" I told him, although something in me was not...happy.

"What are you doing here anyway?" he asked me. "Why are there graves here? Who are these dead people?" I looked at him and thought hard. Maybe it was now safe to tell him about my past---my real past, since he was now turning back to become a deity again. "Is this where you cried a lot of times before? You told me before that you cried in this place a long time ago..."

I nodded. "That is correct. I have come here to waste my melancholy because something happened before, way long ago, that caused me to feel pain the worst way imaginable."

"What do you mean? What happened to you before?"

"Back at the beginning of this world, back when the humans were just learning about the world, I fell in love, Nievo... I fell in love with a human..." He was clearly surprised by what I revealed to him that he became speechless. And even I had started to find it hard to breathe... This was not something that I would want to share with anyone, but it was strangely good to just even speak about it right now. "I fell in love with a human and we got married. We had children and we lived happily, Nievo. I was not the cold-hearted deity that I am before. I only became like that after my family died. Ever since that day, I distanced myself from everyone because I did not want to feel the same intense pain again. I don't want it anymore."

"And...And what happened then? How did they die?"

"They contracted an infectious and lethal disease," I told him. "It was the time before medicine and cures were discovered or invented, so when you got sick you usually die. And I did not know that I could help them too... I was young and naive back then. I thought that they would survive the disease because I did. I was too confident and stupid to think that they can recover from that terrible disease the way I did. I forgot that they were humans... Mortals..."

"Even your children?" Nievo asked with wonder on his face.

"Yes, even my two children who should have inherited my powers. They died too, and that's why this place is filled with my tears. Even the rivers here were born from my tears. The mountains here were formed by my anger."

"I'm sorry about that," he told me. "I have no idea that you have experienced such a thing."

"That's a long time ago already. I have moved on from the pain, Nievo, but sometimes it comes back to me when I remember them. Pain is like that you know. It is like the tide. Sometimes it is high. Sometimes it is low tide. It does not really go away, it just subsides..."

"What about now? How do you feel about falling in love again?" he asked me, to which intrigued me.

"Why are you asking such a thing?"

He swallowed hard. And he looked nervous. “It is because of the future that I saw in that mirror. I even looked at it again back at the Forrester's mansion... just to be sure that it was not just my imagination..."

"What did you see there? What is it that bothered you so much that you went away?"

"I saw us falling in love with each other," he simply replied.