Shards of the Broken Heart

After dumping him outside, my anger subsided. His mug had been irksome since our first meeting. After making him suffer, I felt refreshed and entered the castle to see what Alice and the Luna sisters were doing.

I entered the hall and found out that there was no one present. After getting hold of a servant nearby, I found that the 'young misses' were in the Duke’s room.

I climbed up the stairs and reached the Duke’s chamber. This time, the guards on the standby didn’t block my path and let me in politely. After entering, I found that the Luna sisters were holding onto the old man’s hands and pleading to wake up soon. Alice was standing near them while the assistant was sighing and helplessly shaking his head.

I went to my sister and nudged her. Getting her attention, I looked at her and asked what was going on. To which she whispered back that the two sisters had locked up all members of the opposing family branch in their room, and she had formed a barrier to prevent anyone else from breaking them out.

The Luna sisters were overwhelmed by the decision on handling a complete family branch and thus wanted to wait for their grandfather to wake up before making the decision.

This was a family problem in which we outsiders could only help but make no decisions on the others' behalf. And thus, Alice and I finally decided to stay for a few more days till the gramps woke up from his slumber. A couple of weeks had passed with our stay in with the Lunas.

My days were primarily spent in the library. I tried to pick up and learn from the books about poisons and herbs. There was a decent collection of books regarding these, which helped me gain some new knowledge. The remaining time was spent in training with Alice and the sisters and my cultivation. The Luna sisters were also pulled out of their worries while spending their time with Alice.

After much thought, Alice and I decided that it was time we returned back to our home. According to the doctor who visited recently, the gramps had healed completely, and there were no more issues in him waking up from the coma. But it could not be determined when it would happen.

Also, the Luna sisters had handled their family problems quite impressively in the last few days and were now capable of handling the family without any assistance. So we decided to meet with Anais the next day and leave the city of Ruvendin.

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A couple of weeks ago, Anais was roaming in the cosy streets of Ruvendin. After separating from the siblings, she had become quite bored. She immensely enjoyed their company. According to their plan, it would be a few more days, before they meet up again and go back on their return journey.

The sister was quite innocent and bubbly. Anais liked her very much. Even her ‘puppies’ liked that girl very much. It seemed that if Anais didn’t give them more attention, that girl might even steal them away from her.

On the other hand, the brother was stiff as a stone. He didn’t show any expression to her but was quite responsive to his sister. She only got a reaction from him when she first met those two siblings. Nonetheless, he was a good student and had sound principles.

Now that she had gotten a request that the boy must fulfil, she had to think hard about it. It was just on a whim that she added this condition while doing the transaction with them in the Beast Hall.

If she had asked them about their friends, then she could have given them a surprise. But unfortunately, she couldn’t do so. She had to fulfil her mission within the next few days. Otherwise, her good days would be gone. While thinking about all this, she bumped into a man. The man fell to the ground and started cowering on the floor.

“Ahh! I am sorry. It won’t happen again! Please don’t kill me!”

Anais was surprised by this sudden development. Was she so scary-looking that this guy was so afraid of her? She looked at the man who was shrinking in fear. He had dishevelled blonde hair, and his yellow clothes were in tatters with patches of blood all over his clothes. Especially one of his sleeves was fully covered in blood.

But the thing that caught her eyes to look carefully once again at the man was the quality of his clothes. The clothes, if not for being in such a ragged state, would be on par with the clothes of the royalty. After looking over the man once again, she found him familiar. After raising the man’s head from his position, she saw the face and was flabbergasted.

This was the crown prince of the Vangan Empire, Prince Walton.

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The next day, Alice and I were ready to go back into the city heart and find Anais. Alice proposed the Luna sisters to come with them and meet Anais. She had told them a lot about Anais, how she was a badass, and about her ‘puppies’, the Snow Rekins, and other kinds of stuff.

The Luna sisters were tempted to befriend this woman whom Alice was praising so intensely and get the feel of the soft fluffiness of the beasts, but due to their responsibility, they couldn’t do so.

During their ‘farewell’ talk, a guard came into the hall where we were and informed the Luna sisters of the arrival of a Lady Delara from the Beast Hall, who was asking for an audience. Elfie gave the permission and invited the lady into the hall.

On the other side, Alice and I looked at each other with the same thought: what was Anais doing here? Elfie didn’t think much of our interaction and asked us to stay during the meeting as a support, to which we agreed immediately.

After a few moments, a lady in stylish full-sleeved bodycon dress with waist high splits that accentuated her flawlessly slim and long legs. The light blue coloured dress had green motifs designed on them. And the plunging neckline of her dress showed off her assets. Her smooth and lustrous auburn hair flowed down her shoulder, covering her ample bosom. Her cat-like, mischievous green eyes looked in my direction.

Her eyes locked onto my eyes for a moment, which stirred the primal desire in my soul. After giving a glance, she continued on her way towards the Luna sisters. She was none other than the incarnation of desire, Anais Delara.

I had been travelling with her for quite a few weeks and gradually got accustomed to her alluring charm, but she dialled it up a notch that day. Her appearance was so mesmerising that I was lost in it till she came near the Luna sisters and started introducing herself.

I pulled myself out from my daze and looked around me. Perhaps due to my previous action or lack of action, Alice was looking at me with a displeased expression. I mouthed off an apology to her, focused on the conversation between the Luna sisters and Anais.

Alice didn’t say anything and moved to Anais. She cheerfully introduced the two parties to each other. Elfie happily listened to Alice and started doing some chit-chat with them. Whereas her sister Seline’s eyes were solely fixed on Anais. If one would have looked closely there, he would have found stars floating in her eyes. It seemed Seline had become a diehard fan of Anais only after their first meeting.

The formal meeting between the Lady Delara of Beast Hall and the provisional head of the Luna family had vanished into a friendly chit-chat session between four ladies just because of my cheerful and bubbly sister. Seeing them make merry, I wanted to leave them be, but some matters needed to be discussed. I coughed a little loudly to grab their attention and asked Anais, a little formally, to remind them of the important matters.

“Miss Delara, could I know why you wanted an audience with the Lunas? Clearly, Alice and I haven’t mentioned where you could find us.”

Anais nodded and explained.

“Yes. I didn’t know that these lovely ladies were your friends. During my visit to a branch of Beast Hall in Ruvendin, I got to know that the Duke of the North was in a coma. In my family, there is a secret method that helps one treat a comatose person. After this treatment, the chances of waking up from the coma increase. I wanted to treat the Duke, to gain a favour from him.”

I felt something was wrong with her words. To check my intuitions, I used my newly gained ability to sense the colours of Anais. Her mix of colours was the same as before, and thus, I relaxed my vigilance. I had always inherently felt that she could be trusted and, therefore, didn’t give much thought to that nagging feeling.

Getting such help from Anais overjoyed the Luna sisters. They happily accepted the help and brought Anais upstairs to the chambers of the Duke. When Elfie was going to grasp the door handle, the door flung open, and the medical apprentice just stopped himself from bumping into her. Seeing us, he became elated and excitedly said.

“Young miss, the Duke is back! The Duke has regained consciousness. I am going to bring the doctor. You can go and talk with the Duke. But remember to not speak loudly.”

The apprentice talked fast and rushed out to get the doctor without waiting for a reply. The Luna sisters became excited at the news and entered the room. In the bed, the once frail man was sitting while leaning his back on the headboard. His eyes were slowly regaining the lustre, and he languidly looked at the newcomers.

The sisters saw their grandfather out of the coma and started crying out of happiness. They slowly went to him and hugged him. The old Duke saw his two granddaughters and, after a while, regained his wits and started gently patting their backs, soothing the girls.

The family of three nestled together, weeping and consoling for a while and then noticed our presence. The Luna sisters became embarrassed and started blushing. They controlled the impulse to run away to hide and introduced us. Then they started talking about the exciting happenings in the past years.

Alice was happy seeing their reunion and joined in the revelry. I looked at Anais and found her smiling gently, but I could feel that she was not completely happy. It looked like she was a teensy bit sad as she missed her chance to gain a favour from the Duke.

For the fact that the Duke had regained consciousness, he proposed to have a banquet in celebration and invited us all to attend it. The banquet was scheduled to happen that night after the doctor had the final check-up of the Duke. Elfie looked at us, and we took the cue to leave the room. It was going to be their private time to discuss their family matters.

After leaving the room, we three went to our assigned rooms, which the Luna sisters had newly arranged. Alice and I were going to our previous room while Anais was given a different room near ours.

While entering her room, I could not help but look at the complicated expression of Anais. The conflicting emotions on her face made me start thinking about it in the doorway. It was Alice who pinched my cheeks to bring me back to reality. Her expression was furious, and I knew I was the one to blame for it.