The Devil's Warrior Queen
Chapter 337: Worthy

Chapter 337: Worthy

Walking into the painting room, she felt as if she had walked into another world, one contrasting to the luxurious castle were tall velvet tapestries adorned the wall and every inch of the floor was covered in marble tiles or expensive rugs.

No ridiculously high ceilings above her or lavish items occupying every inch of the place, rather it was....simple and slightly messy, portraying the regular visits of an ordinary man who loved to paint in his favorite spot where the prying eyes and ears of others would not be upon him.

But then, as she walked further, surveying the vicinity, she realized how long it had been since it was occupied. Sliding one finger over the surface of a table, she accumulated dust on her fingertip.

"This place..hasn’t been cleaned for a while." She pointed out with furrowed brows, wondering why the maids wouldn’t bother to clean up the king’s private painting room even though he had disappeared.

"It hasn’t been cleaned for a year...since I was gone." He remarked with a soft sigh as he walked past her, staring blankly at the covered paintings.

"They should have at least cleaned it." She muttered under her breath.

Twisting his neck back, he gave her a quick glance as he said "I gave strict orders to them all, never to step a foot into this room, it’s my...sanctuary, I’ll clean it up myself."

"That is sentimental, why does it mean so much to you?" She asked, her curiosity pricking her to query him on the hidden sensations in the recesses of his enclosed heart.

"My mother taught me how to paint..." He paused hesitantly before continuing to speak.

"Once, my mother didn’t loathe me, there was a time when she believed she could evoke the light out of me, fuel the light out of a soul perished in the darkness, until she realized she was wrong. There wasn’t any light in me, no goodness, no kindness, and no compassion."

"You don’t need to have a light in you, but I can be your light and you do have me, light and darkness needs each other to survive after all. There can not be one without the other." Rama said as she locked her fingers into his, squeezing his hand tightly.

"You just love that phrase, don’t you?" He quipped with a barely visible smirk curving the corner of his lips up.

"It’s not just a phrase, it’s the only truth and if I have to remind you every minute of the day, then I will do just that." She said, beaming a smile at him.

"I don’t mind being the darkness, the light affects me when its too much any way." He said sarcastically.

"Do I affect you then?" She chuckled softly before scurrying toward a painting and like the rest of them, it was covered with a white cloth.

Extending her hand toward it, she hesitated for a split moment as she turned around to face him "Can I..?"

"Sure, you’ve seen them all before any way, might help trigger your memories." He said casually with a nod.

Eyes gleaming with suspense, she finally pulled down the cloth to reveal a painting that elicited mixed feelings within her, feelings she couldn’t even begin to fathom, she couldn’t even discern the tragic meaning behind the paintings, but one thing was certain.

It was a painting made not of a broken human, but of a broken demon.

Every stroke of the black paint covering the canvas portrayed the tragedy of his existence, broken and twisted, his soul had been. The terrifying image depicted on the canvas indicated not only the menacing creature he was, but also the malignant fate he was sealed to.

Her face subconsciously twisted into a grim one as she looked at the painting, her heart pounding harder in her ears. They were just paintings yet not so much, it seemed as if a fragment of his blackened soul was embedded onto the piece of the paper engulfed into the ink.

As she continued staring, lost in the sea of his dark emotions that were perceptible in the painting, he suddenly covered it with the white cloth, concealing it from sight.

"You don’t have to look at them if they scare you, we’ll look at something else." He said with a rather rigid look on his face, his jaws clenching.

Rather than her being at unease with the pictures, he seemed to be the one at unease, perhaps she figured it triggered not her memories, but his inner child, broken and damaged beyond saving, like cracks in a fine porcelain, rendering it irreparable.

"I’m not scared of your paintings, Draco." She called out to him softly as she moved closer with slow steps toward him, gently grabbing his arm that was planted firmly on the table.

Immediately she touched him, she felt his tensed body relax.

"Then what are you scared of, me? Do I scare you, Rama?" His voice was unusually calm as he spoke, while slowly craning his head to the side to look at her. Underneath the calm voice, there was a storm of unfathomable emotions brewing within, a storm of self-hate and guilt, emotions she knew he would never let go off, he would never release.

To him, he was the harbinger of chaos and destruction, he was the evil that everyone wanted gone since he was a child and he had lived with that for the rest of his life, the fear in people’s eyes, the stench of revulsion whenever they mentioned his name, like a curse rolling from their tongues.

He had lived with it, to be hated and unloved by his own parents, because they only see the darkness and power in him, he was no child to them, just a potent embodiment of melancholy, one his mother hated because she brought shame to him and his father abandoned because he was too powerful of a force to control not a child worthy of love.

"I’m not afraid of you, Draco, I’m only afraid of your past and the deep wound it has left you with." She said, her voice barely more than a whisper.

"Wounds heal, but the scars are always there to remind you of it, it doesn’t matter how much time may have passed. I’ve lived for a millennia and I still remember every waking moment of my life, how refreshing isn’t it?" He quipped sarcastically, but the whiff of pain couldn’t be hidden beneath satire.

"What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, doesn’t it or was that old phrase wrong?"

A smirk pulled his lips up as he looked at her "You’ve never been more right."

Sighing softly, she moved over to the other concealed paintings, pulling the cloth away one by one as she drank in the sight of the grotesque paintings, while he watched her and every reaction from her.

Silence hung for a minute or two before she broke it again "So..these paintings seems to be a reflection of your broken soul, a broken demon. I stand to be corrected if I’m wrong." She said with a light tone.

"There’s nothing to be corrected on, you’re right as always." He replied in a quipped tone.

Nodding softly, she stayed silent for a moment before choosing her next words carefully "Does this place hold a sentimental meaning to you because of your mother?"

Without letting him reply, she hastily but hesitantly let out "You said she taught you how to paint in this room, did you...love your mother before she turned her back on you?"

"Love...is quite a strong word to use, I did care about her but I was no fool, Rama." He replied with a hard look.

"What...do you mean?" She asked, unable to comprehend what he meant.

"Even as young as I was, it was effortlessly easy to tell between a mother who loved her child and a mother who feared the monster she had birthed into the world, and she was the latter." He pointed out with a scoff.

She could see the reflective pain in his eyes when he spoke, they had never truly seen him as a child worthy of love, they had always seen him as a monster, but they hadn’t birthed a demon, they had turned him into one.

"She only acted like she care about me during the first few years of my life because she believed that maybe, just maybe perhaps I wouldn’t turn out to be like him, Lucifer, but I was his spawn and as I grew older, her fear grew and she couldn’t pretend any longer." He paused abruptly.

"She couldn’t pretend to love the devil she gave birth to, so she chose to hate it instead, it was an easier choice. I did care for her, but love? I felt not." He said with a frigid countenance devoid of a flicker of warmth and the eyes that were once burning brightly with flames turned as cold as ice as he spoke.

"Did you...regret it? Killing your mother?" Rama asked softly, every word slowly rolling off her lips as she questioned him with prudence.

"Regret? She thought I lacked compassion, but she was wrong. I only made her suffer for a moment while Lucifer suffers for an eternity, how is that not compassionate of me? I offered her mercy through a quick death." His voice darkened as he let out a low growl, with a sinister smile tearing through his lips.