The Royal Revenge
Chapter 164: Drowning In Other’s Voices

Chapter 164: Drowning In Other’s Voices

The girl’s scream erupted as she saw the danger that was plummeting towards them. Elysianne quickly raised her hand to the skies, and with deliberate concentration, she released a blast of light that eradicated the sign board even before it could fall on them.

Aleksander, who was watching how Elys operated, smiled in awe.

"That’s my queen," he proudly told no one in particular.

A knight sped after him, and soon thereafter another approached. Aleksander beamed at them and said, "Did you see that? That is your one and only Queen Elysianne Ardorlean!"

The knights were quick to acknowledge their king’s joy, bowing and agreeing with Aleksander as they simultaneously said, "All hail the Queen Elysianne Ardorlean!"

Aleksander gloated at the look of his men’s faces. He knew that most of them had their loyalty elsewhere, while a select was on his side to play safe.

The more that he and Elys show to them what they were capable of, Aleksander knew that they would soon realize that it was better not to stand in their way.

"Where is Sir Wiriam?" Aleksander asked one of the knights.

"He has separated to the other explosion, your majesty," the knight replied, "On the far eastern side of the capital, Sir Wiriam and a few knights went to inspect."

Aleksander was a bit skeptical. Nonetheless, he didn’t have time to focus on Sir Wiriam as of the moment. He quickly turned his attention to his wife, and then walked towards her as he also instructed the knights to spread out and save whoever and whatever needed saving.

"Are you alright? What do you need, Elys?" Aleksander asked her.

Elysianne’s eyes were focused on her surroundings, scanning the place to see any clue as to what caused the explosion.

"Have the knights secured everyone around the fire?" she asked him.

"I have instructed them to do so, my queen," Aleksander reassured her.

Elys nodded her head and said, "That is good."

Perhaps it was pure luck, or maybe it was a sign from the heavens, but something suddenly caught the young queen’s attention. From the corner of her eye, she saw what looked like a familiar looking vial.

It was a one out of a million chance that Elys could have spotted it, as the tiny glass bottle was broken into two and had been lying around other rubles of the fire that continued to rage on.

"What is it?" Aleksander asked her, his head turning towards where Elys was staring at intently. "Do you see something?"

Elys didn’t answer Aleksander and just pulled him with her. As they approached the area where she was looking at from afar, Elysianne pointed to the glass vial. The bottle was already broken in half, a tiny drop of bright moss green colored liquid underneath it.

"It looks familiar," Elys hummed. "Where have I seen that kind of liquid before?"

Elys and Aleksander each bent down on their knees and sniffed a whiff of the substance.

The vampire’s nose wrinkled with the odor, and he stood up as he said, "It seemed like rotten eggs there, bleugh!"

"And a hint of sulfur too..." Elys said, "This could be one of our explosives, Aleksander. Didn’t Sir Wiriam’s informant said that the suspicious man that they saw wore something vaguely of greenish color?"

"As he said, it was that," Aleksander agreed.

Elys turned to Aleksander and then asked, "Can you find that man? You can read minds up to a certain distance, can you not?"

"I can read up to a hundred meters, but the inner voices of people gets weaker as they go further away from where I am," Aleksander responded. "I will try, Elysianne. But I cannot guarantee."

Elys tilted her head and asked, "Why can you not? I thought you are well capable."

"Voices tend to get muddled up if I scan every single sentient being’s head at the same time," Aleksander explained. "It gets harder if I don’t really know who I am targeting. I would have to listen to several hundreds of voices before I could narrow down probable suspects."

His queen bit her fingernails and weighed in other options. Her eyes turned back towards the broken glass vial, and then towards Aleksander’s expectant eyes. He seemed to wait for her orders.

"I would also warn you that the stronger the individual is with magic, the harder it is for me to be able to see past their minds," Aleksander added. "Just as I couldn’t read your thoughts and other nobilities with strong magical affinities. Plus, we don’t exactly know if the suspect is human or not. Humans were easy to read, with the exception of you, my queen, and Cordelia."

Elys finally said, "Do what you can, husband. I believe that the perpetrator to this isn’t too far from the capital."

Aleksander cracked his neck and knuckles as he said, "Alright then. Give me several minutes to process this through correctly."

The young king closed his eyes and focused on finding anyone who could be their prime suspect for the mysterious fire that they couldn’t seem to put out.

Just as he said to Elys, voices started to swarm around Aleksander and his ears almost drowning with hundreds of people thinking aloud at the same time. It was a taxing thing to do, but Aleksander was determined to help Elys and also catch their mystery man.

As the vampire focused everything he got in the search, he heard several distinct voices in his head. Some spoke of familiar things, others quite unintelligible.

’This is too early for a fire!’

’We need to save my jewels... my riches won’t be taken by this goddamn inconsolable fire!’

’The King and Queen are in the capital center? Why would they even go there?’

’I hate these slaves, always needing to be saved. Why does the King and Queen even want them to be secured at all? They are all but scums.’

Aleksander was picking up not a single significant thing from the voices he heard in his head. Elys on the other hand watched as Aleksander’s face scrunched up with concentration. She could even see veins slowly popping out of his forehead.

"Are you getting anything?" Elys whispered.

"A little longer," Aleksander replied without opening his eyes. "I need to sift through all the useless voices I am hearing..."

Elys didn’t ask further, trusting that her husband was doing everything he could to get something out from the capital’s residents. The young queen’s eyes turned towards the burning buildings, and wondered if she could trace any clues from the mana that was around her.

She unclenched her fists and hovered a hand over lamp post. As she waited for Aleksander to finish with his search, she was going to study what kind of magic was the fire. Surely, she could at least pinpoint something out of it if she tried hard enough.

’What is this?’ she thought to herself.

The mana that was mixed with the magical fire reminded Elys of something she couldn’t quite put her tongue into. It was familiar, that was what she was certain of. But from where and what exactly it had reminded her, Elys had no idea.

All she knew was that she had already met the person who was responsible for setting the capital center on fire, endangering a lot of civilians and upper and middle class vampires at that.

Elys opened her eyes and saw Aleksander was panting in concentration. It seemed like he was using a lot of mana just to continuously read the minds of his citizens within the Western Kingdom.

She walked back towards Aleksander, and then waited for him to finish so she wouldn’t disturb his concentration.

By the time Aleksander opened his eyes, Elys was still looking at him intently. Her hands were tapping at her legs on the side. She was clearly slowly losing her cool, but Elys held herself as much as she could.

No matter how much her patience was running thin, she knew Aleksander was also doing his part – or at least she blindly put her trust on him now.

Elys suddenly found herself surprised.

’Wow... did I really just think to myself that Aleksander was someone I could blindly trust?’ she asked herself.

Things surely have changed for both of them. It seemed like a far away memory now to the times she and Aleksander were coming at each other’s throats every moment they could get.

"Wife," Aleksander called out to her.

Elys jerked back into reality and answered, "Yes? Have you found him?"

The vampire reached out his hand towards Elys and told her, "It looks like our suspect has been injured from his own doing. Come on, he isn’t that far away."

His wife raised a brow at the thought of how unlucky the man could get. It was his doom if she and Aleksander found him.

As they mounted their horses once more, Elys and Aleksander took off to their left. Little did they know of the things that await them.

Or perhaps, of the person that they were to meet.