The Demon Lord's Bride (BL)
Chapter 395: The Ghost of The Past

Chapter 395: The Ghost of The Past

Tsalinade wasn’t her real name. But it was a name that she remembered the most; the name of a gorgeous queen in a desert kingdom of ancient era. The name was mentioned in a forgotten song that her mother used to sing to her.

A mother who was found dead in the bed where she served her client.

A mother who left the world with a huge debt that got her even more beautiful daughter sold off to a rich, cruel aristocrat. A rich, cruel aristocrat who killed her.

The young, barely teenage daughter had a feeling she would die soon, so she used the gift she had been keeping as a secret all this time. She couldn’t do much, but she moved the wheel of the carriage bringing him to the city. Just slightly. Just enough to make the carriage swerve in the middle of a muddy road, plunging into a ravine.

She had thought that if she was going to die anyway, she would rather die before getting defiled.

But she didn’t die. She survived on top of a plank from the destroyed carriage that brought her to a lake. And then an island. The island of fairies, she thought, like those in the children’s book belonged to the Madam’s child.

The island was beautiful; green and grey, red and yellow, violet and blue. It smelled of real flowers, not the sickly sweet kind that had been made into perfume and burned as incense to cover the scent of drugs and bodily fluids. The grass in the meadow was softer than the plank bed in the brothel. The water of the lake and river was refreshingly sweet, perfectly drinkable without boiling it. The trees gave her fruits and led her to a vegetable garden she couldn’t help but forage to fill her stomach.

She had nothing, but it was the richest she had felt in her twelve years of life.

On the fourth day, the owner of the vegetable garden came, with eyes as deep and rich as the forest around her.

The same eyes that were now looking at her with anger and disappointment.

"...Master--" she blurted out before she could help it. It had been so long; so long since the guilt had started to gnaw at her heart, her soul, her being.

The guilt that came too late. Far too late.

But she knew it couldn’t be her Master; the Master who taught her how to use her power--calling it a gift instead of a curse. The Master who took her under her wings and protected her from the world which was eager to prey on her beauty. The Master who taught her to embrace the bloodline she had and use it to her advantage.

The Master whom she left behind to die in the hands of her race.

"How laughable," the merchant with her master’s eyes spoke disdainfully. "You have the nerve to still call her ’Master’?"

Tsalinade had forgotten about all of the annoyance he felt toward the rude merchant earlier. What she felt now was fear. Fear and shame that swallowed her like a mudfield.

Like the curse that ate her away.

"How long had my grandmother spent to take care of you, to nurture you, treating you like her own children and let you live on this island?" the merchant raised from his chair and walked forward. "And I’m quite sure she did it without expecting anything in return, but--"

The merchant’s soft voice suddenly turned sharper, lower, and she was reminded not of her master, but of the one who cursed her.

"The least you could do, is to show your gratitude, don’t you think?"

The approaching footsteps echoed loudly in her ears, and all she could do was stagger back until her calf touched her throne. Those deep green eyes used to be so warm and forgiving, but now, it felt like a constricting vine.

"She just asked you for one thing--" the voice, which she found annoyingly nonchalant earlier, was trembling. "Just one little thing. She just wanted you to take her daughter away and protect her from the war; hide her on this island just like she hid you and protected you in the past but what--what did you do?"

She clasped her mouth as the memory of that day came haunting her.

But the young man had none of her silence.

"What did you do?!"

She flinched and fell down, back pressed against the leg of her throne. The throne she made when she was drunk in her new position as the most powerful magician in the region.

The region built upon the blood and ashes of her master’s kin.

"What--" her throne cracked again--this time not from the blast of the little bird, but from the young man’s hand. "--did you do."

The green eyes were harsh, like the jungle of the druid tribe she once tried to explore. Her master never looked at her with that kind of gaze, even during the last time she saw her, but she had been imagining it.

Surely, if her master was here now, she would look at her with the same disdain.

Another blast struck the throne until one of the armrests broke and shattered to the ground. "I--" she bit her lips and closed her eyes. "I left...I left her and her daughter behind, and...bared the entry to the Isla--"

"You were supposed to be the gatekeeper!" half of the throne was shattered now, and she, a veteran magician, could only close her eyes like how she used to in the brothel. "You were supposed to protect the border! You were granted ownership of this island and the blessing of Mother to protect the kingdom! But did she even ask you to do that? No! She just wanted you to hide her one and only daughter!"

She bit her bottom lip so hard it was bleeding. He master’s daughter. She looked up with shaking eyes. This young man’s mother, the source of her envy.

She was envious of her, who received her master’s full attention, which once belonged to her. She was scared, that in the end, she would be abandoned. This island too, would one day, be bestowed upon the real daughter... wouldn’t it? She would become nothing more than a shadow, living to service the newborn baby until the day she died.

No--she didn’t want to lose this place. Her place.

The young man closed his emerald eyes and took a deep, shaky breath as if to calm himself down. The little colorful bird and the little flaming lizard that came with him caressed his cheek in comforting strokes.

"I had thought...that you might feel remorseful now; that you are living in guilt and sorrow and try to do better, but--" he laughed, before looking down and giving her a cold glare. "But what is this, Tsalinade? You are scamming a bunch of good-natured kids?"

"I didn’t--"

"You didn’t what?" the glint in those green eyes was so familiar.

I’ll curse you.

"You sent them on a dangerous mission to go against another race’s leader and for what? You can’t even purify a land properly."

"No!" she argued, trying to get up but only managed to put her knees on the ground. "No--I didn’t lie. I can do it! I really can do it, as long as--"

"I told you to stop lying!"

The stone throne was completely shattered now; the debris clattering across the dais and bouncing off the wall before rolling into the circular hall. Tsalinade felt a huge pressure of mana come crashing onto her, pinning her to the ground.

"Purifying it? No matter what kind of blessing Mother gave you, you won’t be able to purify mana," he shook his head. "All you can do is absorb the corrupted mana so it won’t damage the land further."

She flinched and he turned around, walking back to his chair. The only chair. His throne.

"But in doing so, you have to absorb all the mana available in that land, and then what?" the voice turned low and grim. "Sure, the land would not be corrupted, but it also would be inhabitable, unworkable."

"But still--"

"You knew!" he turned in front of his chair so he could see her again. "Don’t tell me you don’t know what those kids were asking for you! They want a purified land; a land where the devastated people can build their lives again. Not the dead, cracked land where not even grass couldn’t grow!"

Tsalinade bit her lips, feeling her teeth clattering inside her mouth as the young man sat back on his throne.

"And Amrita? You think Amrita can cure you?" He tilted his head and sneered. "Don’t delude yourself, Tsalinade. What you have right now is not an illness."

I’ll curse you with eternal agony.

"It’s a curse."

You shall not use what she taught you! You shall not be freed from nightmare and misery! You shall not die! And you shall not live!

"A curse of an anguished husband on the verge of his death."

The curse of her master’s husband, whose eyes were as cold as the young man in front of her. The curse that took place the moment she tried to cast the magic her master taught her.

"So long as you’re not forgiven, you will never be freed of that curse," the young man said in his judgment. "And the only people who can forgive you know, is me."

She looked up, eyes shaking, and lips trembling.

"Go on, Tsalinade," the man commanded coldly. "Beg."