Maria - The Blind Princess

Chapter 14

Even during the nighttime, there was still the light of the candle at a corner of the hospitality, which reflexed Gerald's face among the darkness. Eventually, his body could feel better so he tried to study to catch up his skipped lessons. The sound of his feather pen echoed inside the peaceful space.

"I wonder how Maria is doing at De Laconte's mansion... huh?"

From afar, Gerald could see something flying to his direction. It was another pigeon? And this one looked very similar with Jacques's.

"Oh it's you again? And why does Jacques have to send me letter twice..."

Gerald took out the paper attached on Mia's legs and read. He went speechless when it told him: Maria disappeared from the mansion. She was currently missing and everyone was on their way searching her!

"What?! Maria is kidnapped?! God! This careless buddy..."

Gerald tried his best to stand up from the hospitality's bed. He felt his body being itchy, it might be because he hadn't practice combat for too long so now all of his muscles had been weakened. However, Gerald - with broken arm, hold a cane with his another arm and tried to leave the hospitality, despite the royal doctors tried to stop him.

"Mr.Tranchant! Please, you must rest here!"

"How can I stay here when my friend is in danger?? Let me go, I need to tell professor William!"

Gerald thought, in this position, only William could help him and Jacques finding Maria. The doctor hearing that, asked Gerald back.

"What happened to your friend?"

"It's the letter from the prince." Gerald showed the paper that he got from Mia. He then fall on the ground, kept breathing due to be exhausted "He is needing our help to find Richard..."

The royal doctor went speechless. She recognized that it was written by Jacques's handwriting.

"I understand." She nobbed her head, gently hold Gerald shoulder by shoulder to guide him back to the bed "Mr.Tranchant, I will give this letter to our highness. Now please, take your rest to make sure your shoulder won't become worse."

"I got it..."

The royal doctor rushed herself to William's office room. Luckily, he hadn't slept yet and still working on scoring his student's reports. When he was resting by taking a nap on the office desk, the sound of sudden knocking door startled him and woke him up.

"Come in." William fixed his hair and called.

"Your highness, my sincere apology to interrupt you during midnight." The doctor kneeled in front of him and gave him Jacques's letter "You have an emergency message from the crown prince."

After reading Jacques's message, William said thanks to the doctor and told her to leave. He rushed himself to the corner of his office and opened an old dusty curtain. It revealed a long glass chest on the wall, which contained William's personal royal sword.

"Since when have I given up my title Crown Prince...?" He thought, when seeing his face reflexed on the sword "But for my student, I will do anything."

***

Meanwhile, Maria didn't know where she had been hostaged. She just could feel herself being immobilized, with a shut mouth. Her hands and her legs had also been tied to not let her fight back or escape. The atmosphere during midnight became colder, but she had to endure.

"Madame, I brought him here. Your disguising magic helping me entering De Laconte mansion is indeed useful."

Maria remembered this voice. It was from the leader of the bullies group which caused trouble with her at the capital, also injured Gerald - Jean Noreau!

"Uhm!!!!" Being shut, still Maria yelled in anger. She didn't understand, Jean already hit Gerald that he got hospitalized, now her turn. Why did he do that?

"Well done.."

Maria stayed back to her cautious state. The voice earlier was completely new to her - a strange woman. She calmed herself down and focused on their conversation, to discover what that woman wanted from her.

Maria sensed the sound of the high heels clapping on the ground, it mean that woman was approaching Maria. Maria could feel something very wrong with her that she got chilled to the spine: The very strong smell of rotten corpse was surrounding that woman. "A zombie?!" Maria thought in her fear, while trying not to breath too often. Otherwise, she was afraid that her sensitive nose might be broken just by smelling it.

"What's your name?" The woman untied Maria's mouth to let her answer.

"Richard Tranchant."

"No, I want your real name."

Maria was shocked. How did she know 'Richard' was her fake name?? Maria hesitated how she would answer, the woman's creepy hand with sharp nails touched Maria's neck that scared her. In this hopeless situation, who know what that woman would be going to do if she was against her. Maria had no other choice.

"....Maria... Beauvallet..."

"Wait?" Jean was confused "That brat is a girl?"

But that woman didn't answer Jean. She kept starting Maria.

"Open your eyes."

Maria believed that woman's rotten smell hallucinated her mind. She didn't understand why that woman just asked her to open her eyes while she was blind.

"I said open your eyes." She was serious! - Maria thought. She then obeyed that woman and let her creepy fingers lifted her face up.

But it was her mistake, because suddenly Maria could feel something like slimy liquid dropped on both her eyes. She felt like her eyeballs could be melted due to its extreme acidity. It was too hurt that Maria fall on the ground, screamed in agony.

"Ma...Madame...?" Jean's face went pale when seeing what that woman did to Maria "What have you done?'

"It's not effective..?" Ignoring Jean's question, that woman dived into her own mind while observing Maria being hurt "But I won't have the second chance. Worst... maybe we need to take your eyeball away..."

"No! Please don't!!"

Maria was scared, she would surely die if that woman took her eyeball out. The survival instinct forced her to fight back so she used her tied legs, kicked that woman away. Maria desperately tried to escape. But then, the opponent grabbed her hair and violently lifted her up.

"Ahh!" Maria yelled. Pain was currently torturing her eyes and her hair that she completely lost her mind.

"You cannot go anywhere yet, until my Madame is done experimenting you." It was Jean who grabbed her hair and dragged her back, ignoring Maria's begging.

At this moment, Maria suddenly thought about her father... Being killed in brutal agony like 6 years ago, she could understand how her dad felt before being murdered.

But then, Maria collapsed on the ground once again. She could hear the woman yelling with creepy voice that caused her goose bump.

"Don't-touch-her!!!!" She screamed.

"Yes... yes! Madame!!"

The woman lifted Maria's face up again. She thought she would die from now...

"Please.. Help me!"

Suddenly, Maria's sensitive ears allowed her hearing the messing noises from afar. There was also the mixed voices of people in pain, the metals impacting each other... Something happened outside the building where she was hostaged, Maria thought.

In a split of second, Maria couldn't feel the stinky smell of the corpse anymore

Everything happened so fast to her. Before Maria could guess anything, a noise of door breaking exploded and hit on her ears. Additional with it, there were two familiar voices that made Maria cry in happiness.

"TRANCHANT! ARE YOU OK??"

"THANKS GOD WE'VE FOUND YOU!"

They were two princes Jacques and William. Maria couldn't believe they together worked on finding and rescuing her!

William rescued her by untying her hands and her arms. She was so scared, so without thinking anything, she hugged her professor and kept crying.

"How... How do you know we're here??" Jean yelled in fear when seeing the princes coming.

"Thanks to my brother, he has a monitoring magic system around this capital and it led us to this place."

Jacques cracked his hands, ready for the murder to the one in front of him. He had been waiting for that guy for too long, since he dared to bully Gerald. His angered raised even more when knowing he kidnapped Maria and t*****e her as well.

"Now tell me, you pig. The reason I don't call you 'pig' without adjective because there is no word to describe how rotten you are now." Jacques pointed his royal sword to Jean "Why do you that? And how could you have a group of royal soldiers to help you k********g?"

"Hiiccc!!" Jean got panic when Jacques's royal soldiers also pointed their swords toward him "I... I just did what my madame said!!!"

"Who and where is 'your madame'?" William asked while carrying Maria.

"She... She is a witch and... She... She's already gone!!"

"A witch?" Jacques doubted "Anything to prove what you said??"

"Yeah Jacques. Come and look at Richard's eyes now."

Her aquamarine eyes have been badly injured by a strange liquid. It spread a very bad smell that William currently had to cover his nose by his royal cape.

"Brother! You bring Maria to the academy first! I will stay here to deal with this business!" Jacques ordered William "I also feel something very strange so wanna investigate more."

"It's already midnight. It's better if you escorted Noreau to the palace's prison first and interrogate him. I will go with you tomorrow as well."

Jacques listened William. He order his soldiers to tied Jean and escorted him to the palace. Both the princes ride their horses, brought Maria back to the academy for the treatment because Jacques's royal doctor was still there.

***

William carried Maria to the hospitality while Jacques grabbed her hand to ease her.

"Richard, you will be fine now."

The royal doctors began treated on washing the liquid out of Maria's eyes. Meanwhile, both the princes tried to convince Gerald to not to be worried because Jacques's doctors were chosen to be very skillful and knew certain of healing magic spells. So Maria would be fine if she was treated by her.

After the treatment, Maria then got the medicine to ease her mentality down and put her to sleep. One of the came to report the prince that Maria was currently fine and she could wake up tomorrow.

"It's so good to hear." Jacques felt relieved.

"Yeah."

William then changed topic.

"Anyway Jacques, I think you have improved a lot comparing before."

"What do you mean?"

"When encountering Noreau, you were supposed to execute and kill him immediately, not let him be prisoned alive like this."

"I see.." Jacques sit next to William. His face still looked down on his hands "It was thanks to Emily and Richard, they help me keeping my sanity..."

"Thanks to our effort as well." William rubbed Jacques's hair "Once you can control your emotion and judge everything objectively, you'll become a great king."

"Brother..."

Jacques was embarrassed by William's honesty. His respect toward the eldest prince was even more when he remembered how cool his brother was when finding Maria. The imagine of his holding royal sword and riding on the horse was indeed surprised him because it was so long time so see William holding back his royal sword. His battling skill against a group of 10 royal soldiers was so amazing, even better than Jacques. Jacques then felt it would be better if William became the Crown Prince, not him.

"What's wrong, Jacques?"

"Oh brother, it was nothing."

Eventually, William suggested Jacques to go sleep first so tomorrow he could continue teaching Maria singing. Meanwhile, he directly ride his horse, from the academy to Eurydia Palace to have some interrogations with Jean, who was already prisoned at there.

"Your highness." William's servant guided him to the palace's basement "Everything has been prepared."

William entered the dark interrogation room. Jean already was there. But he was tied on a cursed chair as a t*****e tool, in the case if he refused to cooperate with the prince.

"I don't actually care much about the witch that you talked about..." William said with calm face "I just want to know how you can use my royal soldiers freely for your illegal purpose. You know to order them do to any task, you must have a decree marked by one of my family member."

"Yes I know..." Jean answered "But the witch... I really don't know how she could get the decree..."

But what William could get from Jean was just only 'the witch'. It seemed to be useless to keep interrogating him, he thought with a sigh. Then he wondered, if he could find that decree who ordered the soldiers group during yesterday or today.

"Found it!"

William secretly came to his family's royal office and found only one decree which was classed at today. When he tried to open to check who signed it, a voice suddenly echoed behind him.

"Oh, what is my filthy child doing at my precious office?"

"Ah... fa... father?"