Bride To His Darkness
Chapter 191: Encountering Trouble

Chapter 191: Encountering Trouble

In the end, Samantha finally navigated through the familiar routes on her own, still holding on to the bouquet of flowers Ivan had given her. She had passed a few houses that appeared familiar the minute she saw them, and it made her wonder if the occupants of these homes would recognize her the minute they lay eyes on her. The people of Fernwood had a strict schedule they always targeted during the day, making them less available in their homes, so it didn’t surprise her to find the path leading to her old cottage imperceptibly lonely at this hour.

From what she was seeing so far, this part of Fernwood hasn’t changed, to her relief.

After what felt like an hour of walking, Samantha eventually made it to her old home that had been left abandoned in its desolate land. The once leafless trees and the woods where she and her brother had used as a form of escape to avoid the vampires were now obscured by grown vegetation and wild bushes. Samantha could feel something hook at her throat upon sighting the place she once called home, and with her fingers hesitantly reaching for the rusted gate, it made a screeching noise as she forced it open, whilst she stepped inside with her hands feeling inexplicably cold.

Rays of sunlight filtered in through the dusty, cracked windows, illuminating the wooden floors and decaying furniture. The weeds were already stretching their stems into her home, replacing the whole area with their vegetation, and the memories of her life resurfaced right before her eyes.

Samantha’s heart grew heavy when the image of her home came flowing back into her brain, and she felt a sense of nostalgia hit her at the warm recollection. She remembered Maurice who would sit quietly on the steps, reading a book while preparing for his upcoming examinations. She couldn’t recall how many times he had used it as an excuse to avoid joining her do some house chores around their home, and her loving Father, whenever he returned in the evening he always brought home a special treat, or he would tell them it was Madame’s Ginevra’s homemade snacks. She remembered when he fell sick and was unable to sell his farm produce on a certain day, how she had mustered up the courage to go out and sell them herself with Maurice’s aid.

They rushed home that evening after successfully selling everything, she had shown him how much coins they made in one day, and she couldn’t forget her Father’s proud smile afterwards. He always told her he was a lucky Father to have her, and how he always wished his wife, their Mother, was still alive to see how matured she had gotten. Her Father was one of the people who had the purest soul on Earth, he was benevolent, yet his reputation... everything was tarnished in one day.

"Father..." Samantha could feel tears warm her eyes as the recollection of that night resurfaced. She wasn’t surprised that their home was left abandoned and unkept, no one would want to stay in a place where the assumed Murderer of the late King once lived, and the thought of it almost reopened the wounds she had managed to stitch together with time.

Since she was already here, Samantha took a tentative step forward, the floorboards creaking beneath her weight as she stepped into her old home.

She found herself making her way through the archway, whilst avoiding the broken glasses and piles of dust littered everywhere. The walls were discolored and starting to peel off their paints, but Samantha couldn’t stop herself from brushing her fingers through the wall. She could feel the back of her eyes grow hot with incoming tears but she knew this wasn’t the time to dwell on her past. Rather, she was going to take this as her strength and bring justice to her Father’s name.

Battling with her rising emotions, Samantha made her way towards the wooden cabinet that was nestled at a corner, inside the room that belonged to her Father. Taking a deep breath, she opened it, revealing a stack of different letters her Father had kept for confidential reasons. She knew this because he always told her never to go anywhere near his cabinet as it contained important letters and documents. Remembering this, Samantha picked out all the letters before finding a place to sit and go through them.

Unraveling the letter, she recognized her Father’s fading handwriting, whilst a flood of emotion swirled within her, intertwining with her current reality, but, however, she kept going through them, and some of the letters turned out to possess the royal seal of King Muzan, which meant they exchanged letters in secret while her Father still stayed under King muzan’s wings.

Reading the letters with her eyebrows creased, some of the notes contained matters that involved the royal court. As she skimmed through, she realized her Father and the late King Muzan shared almost everything together, including the subject of the Orb. King Muzan had written a letter to her Father, telling him to report to the Palace urgently, and when she looked at the date written below, it matched the same day when he was found dead.

"He called for Father that night." Samantha cryptically murmured to herself before going through other letters, and she eventually caught a brief conversation about the late King Muzan explaining to her Father that he thinks the Orb might be threatened. There were also conversations of the Mystic Orb having an owner who would do anything to get back his jewel, but there were no more notes on the topic since her Father had subtly ended it, stating they will talk more about it when they meet in person.

"The Mystic Orb has an owner?" Samantha’s pupils widened, "could Father have returned the Orb back to its owner? There are no more letters concerning the Mystic Orb.... I’ll take these ones with me...Ivan must know something about the Orb having an owner." Since everything was relatively intertwined with the Orb, Samantha was curious to know more about its history.

Going through more of the dust-coated shelves, she found absolutely nothing that would aid her in understanding the letter better. Stabilizing herself, Samantha was ready to take her leave when she suddenly heard the floorboard creak as though someone had come in. The footsteps were eerily soft on the floorboard, as though whoever it was was trying their best to stay quiet.

Instinctively, Samantha hid behind the kitchen wall to avoid getting spotted despite not knowing who it was. If she knew better, this home was abandoned, so who would come here if not a traitor.... Or did someone follow her here?

With her mind at alert, green sparkling lights danced around her finger as she called upon her powers, her vines yielding to her call as they slithered in through the window. When she stepped out of her hiding place, poised and prepared to strike whoever had followed her, a young girl about the age of eighteen immediately shrieked, instantly terrified to have ran into someone here.

"Don’t kill me! Please!" She begged, and Samantha, who noticed it was a harmless girl, immediately retreated her vine before they got noticed. Her stupefied gaze fell on the girl who opened her red teary eyes to look at her, but before Samantha could ask the girl what she was doing here, she suddenly heard the masculine voices of men just outside the gate, and from the girl’s frozen reaction, it appeared she had been chased here by them.

"Where did she go? She was just here!" One of the men dressed in armor said in vexation.

"Do you think she ran in there?"

"The house has been abandoned for ages! I heard whoever goes in dies since the owner was cursed! We’ll check around the vicinity! Sir Callum won’t be happy if we don’t bring her to him before midnight, hurry!"

When their voices were no longer heard, the confused Samantha looked at the girl who broke down on her knees, free tears streaming down her face as she immediately pleaded with her hands cupped.

"Please! Help me! Those men..... They’ve been after me and I... I don’t want to be sold to the councilman please!"

"The councilman?" Samantha immediately reached for the girls’ side. "The village council asked them to do this?"

She nodded, "I don’t want to be sold to them, they won’t leave me alone so please... no one is willing to help me and my family aren’t at home."

"No one will sell you to anyone, where do you live?"

"I live around this neighborhood, my home isn’t that far. I couldn’t go home because I was afraid they’d figure it out, so I ran away."

"Who is your family?"

"I’m... I’m Madame Ginevra’s daughter." She whispered, and Samantha’s pupils dilated at the mention of Madame Ginevra.

"You’re.... Madame Ginevra’s daughter?" Samantha wiped the bafflement from her face and helped the girl up to her feet. "You don’t have to be afraid anymore, they won’t come after you, I’ll take you home myself."

"But they must still be–"

"Hiding here won’t guarantee your safety, trust me. You’ll be safe, but we need to leave before they come back." Taking her bouquet and the letters from the kitchen table, Samantha led the frightened girl out of the cottage.