Chapter 70: The Revelations and The trapped shadow
The hall was thick with silence, the kind of silence that seemed to breathe with secrets too heavy to be spoken.
Luca’s grip on Alessia’s phone was firm, his gaze unreadable he look at Alessia, her beautiful face and glowing skin tone, and her succulent ready to kiss red lips was already distracting him. He doesn’t know why he can’t restrict her, he had known he always felt something special, different and unique for her, more than what he had ever felt for any woman before, his body was burning for passion already. "Don’t let her distract you " he muttered to himself.
But the way she look at him and stare straight onto his eyes makes him yearns for her. That moment a lot of chemistry burns between them, it was pure and with sincerity.
"I love you, Alessia.. I love you without wax my lady".
"I love you too, My darling husband ".
Luca smiled, he still held her by the wrist, and his other hand on the phone, as Alessia also held it, not wanting to let go.
Until the soft flutter of silk interrupted the weight in the room as Alessia finally let him have her phone.
But before he could open the phone messages and read the anonymous message, princess Elowen entered with the air of someone who belonged to another realm altogether, her eyes alight with a joy too rare in Morano’s blood-soaked corridors.
"My father asked me to accompany you back to Morano," she said warmly, her voice carrying both authority and innocence. "And then I will check on Donato. I am not exempted from seeing him."
Luca turned slowly, his hand loosening around Alessia’s phone.
He studied the princess with the sharpness of a man who rarely allowed surprise to touch him.
Dropping the phone back onto the velvet table, his lips curved into a half-smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
"I finally get to talk to you," he said, each word dipped in intrigue. "How about the black book Donato came in search of?
Princess elowen replied, He lost it... but I found it.
Then a strange woman stole it from me." His gaze sharpened as though testing her. "I seem to have forgotten her name, but with time, memory has a way of crawling back."
Alessia’s breath hitched.
The black book, The cursed relic whispered in every shadow of their lives and it rose like a phantom between them.
She took a cautious step closer, her voice threading through the tension.
"So how do we find this woman?" she asked, eyes darting from Luca to the princess.
Princess Elowen’s expression softened, though her words were heavy with an unsettling certainty. "The black book should not be your pursuit," she said. "It does not stay long in the hands of thieves or the evil-minded....
It devours them. It finds its way back into destiny’s path, no matter how far one runs."
Before Alessia could press further, a deep, resonant voice echoed across the chamber, reverberating off marble and gold.
"Come and have my blessing before you embark on your journey, it’s getting late."
It was the king’s voice, timeless and commanding, like the sea itself had spoken.
****
In the suffocating darkness of Seraphina’s inner chambers, Daisy trembled.
The walls pressed in on her like a cage with no escape, the air thick with incense and secrets that smelled of death.
Her heart raced as her thoughts clawed at her sanity. Is this fate? Is this the end for me?
Every shadow seemed alive.
Every curtain whispered her name.
Panic clawed at her chest.
She pressed her hands against the cold stone wall, whispering frantically to herself.
Seraphina will give me a death sentence once I’m found.
I can’t let that happen. I need to think.
I need to act fast, before dawn breaks and she returns.
She searched the wide, round hall, her eyes darting to every corner. Curtains. Endless, suffocating curtains that swayed as if mocking her.
A labyrinth of fabric, a trap dressed as freedom.
Her knees weakened.
Was she even in a room anymore or in some bewitched prison that shifted with her fear?
*****
In another corner of this twisted fate, Bianca stood paralyzed, her eyes wide with disbelief.
Before her stretched a vision too vivid to dismiss, a voice that slithered into her ear like poison.
She saw làpatasodára vàlká the forbidden name of the cursed old witch.
"Please," Bianca whispered, trembling.
"Don’t go again. Don’t leave me here again, please i beg of you."
But the voice that answered was cruel, laced with mockery.
"You are too evil, Bianca. Too stained with dirt, This place will consume you."
Bianca fell to her knees, the sandy floor biting into her skin as she pleaded. "I will change. I promise, I will turn a new leaf. My child... my child needs me. Please, I cannot break the promises I made to him."
Her sobs shattered into the air, desperate and raw.
"Why have you trapped me here?" she screamed, clawing at the shadows. "I did you no harm to be sincere..."
But the laughter that answered was colder than steel.
"I did not trap you, darling bianca.
The book did, and I cannot save you either, It punishes its thieves, and you were its thief.
Yet it has been merciful with you, perhaps because you bore a child.
So instead of death, it gave you this... an endless wandering in the dangerous, beautiful garden of Larissa."
Her tormentor’s laughter rose higher, echoing against the seen trees until a storm of dust swirled around Bianca.
She shielded her face, coughing, her tears cutting lines through the grime.
And then, silence.
When she opened her eyes, there was nothing.
The figure was gone. Only the suffocating garden stretched around her.
"No... no, this must be a dream," Bianca whispered, slapping her cheeks.
The sting of flesh against flesh only deepened her despair. "Wake up. Wake up... "
But there was no waking.
****
Three days later, Alessia, Luca, and Princess Elowen were still on the vast sea’s trail back to Morano.
The journey was long, the salt air burning their lips, the nights filled with a silence that neither stars nor stories could soften.
When they finally reached Macello, the last river before Morano city, it was deep into night.
The moon loomed full above them, bathing the city in silver fire.
A breeze rushed across the docks, very powerful yet gentle, almost unnatural.
The others dismissed it as nature’s whim, but Alessia froze as she stood outside the boat chambers, while others were inside.
She knew the wind was not just a wind. And she was right, It was a voice.
"My child," it whispered, smooth and soft, as though woven into the strands of her hair.
"Whenever the full moon rises, you can summon the power of the red moon blood. Make a wish."
Her heart pounded in her chest.
She tilted her face to the sky, her lips trembling.
"I wish... I wish to know Daisy’s condition. And Donato’s."
The moon flickered, its glow bending into shapes.
And then pictures.
Visions painted across the night.
Donato lying weak but stirring, his eyes fluttering as though awakening from a nightmare.
Daisy was trapped, her body pressed against a wall of Seraphina’s chamber, her danger written in every trembling breath.
Alessia’s throat tightened. "I wish she could be free and escape from where ever she is," she whispered, her words trembling with desperation.
But before she could finish the wish, the breeze died.
The moonlight vanished into the clouds....
Time was up.
Her heart sank like a stone.
A hand touched her shoulder.
She startled until the familiar voice reached her.
"My woman... what are you doing here all alone?"
It was Luca. Emerging from the small chamber of the boat, his eyes dark and unreadable, his presence wrapping around her like smoke.
She forced a smile. "I was... admiring the beauty of nature."
It was a lie, but one she masked with elegance.
Luca studied her for a moment, then let a rare softness flicker in his expression. "You are always beautiful, Alessia. But tonight... you shine brighter than the moon."
Her lips parted to answer, but he pressed his finger gently against them.
"Shhhh..."
His hand lifted to her jaw, his touch commanding yet tender.
He drew her closer, his eyes burning with unspoken fire.
And then his lips met hers, fierce and desperate.
Alessia melted into him, her hands tangling in his hair as their kiss deepened, passion exploding like a storm between them.
For a heartbeat, the world dissolved, the book, the curses, the betrayals.
There was only this fire.
The fire of romance, love and passions.
*****
In Seraphina’s chamber, Daisy’s breath faltered.
Footsteps echoed down
the corridor.
She darted beneath a curtain, pressing her hands against her mouth to smother her trembling.
A guard entered broad, cruel, his eyes sweeping the chamber like a predator.
He sniffed the air, his voice low and menacing. "I smell something. Someone is here."
Her blood turned to ice.
She watched through the slits of the curtain as he moved closer, his boots thudding against the floor.
He turned just as a pin clattered to the ground at the far end of the hall, opposite direction.
The sound drew him for a moment.
Daisy exhaled shakily, relief spilling from her lungs.
Her heart thundered so loud she thought it would give her away.
Then without a warning, the guard spun back, his hand ripping the curtain aside.
Light crashed over her terrified face.
Daisy froze.
Her eyes locked with his wide and horrified eyes from his mask.
She had been caught.