To His Hell and Back-Chapter 138: Moment of Safety?

Away from the brothel stood the castle. With the Crown Prince away, a rare calm settled over its halls, allowing the maids to finally resume their duties without the usual tension that clung to every corner of his presence.

Since Nora had been dismissed from her position as head of the servants, Karnala had taken on the brunt of the burden. The responsibility fell heavily on her shoulders which had doubled. She didn’t grunt, and instead prioritizing the perfection as to make sure it wouldn’t bother their Crown Prince’s rest. She could also tell the tension in the castle that had turned for worse after the last incident where Cassius had just pulled Lady Adelle’s fangs.

People began to wonder if it was finally the day where Cassius’s maternal family had turned away from him which Karnala knew would be impossible. Though this had made every servants unrest, worried on whose faction would begin to win as though they don’t dare to make a gossip out of it, all of them were quite well aware how Queen Morgana was desperate to take Cassius’ position to the son of her previous marriage, Malvo.

But Karnala didn’t pay any attention to the current situation. It was her job, after all, to simply do what Cassius had ordered. Like Renard, she was one of Cassius’ people who wouldn’t care what their Crown Prince would do or plan to do.

They were all nothing but his loyal subject, blindly following him even if he ask for their lives.

Karnala had only just finished changing the Crown Prince’s bedsheets from white to crimson silk as he preferred when suddenly a dark ripple broke her stillness. A small blot of ink black liquid appeared upon the center of the mattress, gathering her attention who had noticed this small change in almost less than a second since its appearance.

The blot of darkness pulsed once like a heartbeat before expanding outward into a wide, abysmal oval. It glistened unnaturally, consuming the red fabric beneath it in silence and from its depths, a face began to emerge.

It was a familiar face of a woman’s face pale, fevered, and squeezing from agonizing pain rising from the dark pool, followed by the rest of her body, cradled in the liquid shadow like a corpse in a dark water. That face was familiar, familiar of course as it was the human pet that their Crown prince had been fond of.

As Arabella’s body settled on the bed, the black liquid began to drip down to the rest of the puddle underneath her body, slowly evaporating into the air until there was no trace left.

Karnala’s breath caught in her throat.

She knew this spell as she had seen it far too often during wars where she had accompanied Cassius as well. Whenever Cassius had pushed himself beyond mortal limits and whenever he was wounded to the brink of death and was surrounded by enemies he couldn’t trust, he would summon this power, an odd power that other vampires never possessed, to pull himself to safety.

This was always used only as a last resort, a secret way to escape from enemies that had pretended to be allies. One only she and Renard were meant to know about this but then why was it here now? There is no war and they were in no battlefield. And instead of using this magic to escape, he had used it to bring Arabella to safety instead, which could only mean one thing, Cassius was ordering her to take care of Arabella now as she was in a situation where death was knocking.

Her pulse quickened as she rushed to the bed, ready to take care of the aftermath.

Arabella lay on top of the bad wet with sweat, her limbs trembling from the grip of a brutal fever yet at the same time she had shivered as if the world was far too cold despite her burning skin and across her face ran letters, an old ancient looking letters which Karnala had never seen before. They didn’t sit still as if it was inked on her or written over her body and face, instead they moved around, crawling all over her milky skin as if it was alive.

This was the first time Karnala had ever seen these kind of things and it was enough to cause for a a cold dread to settle in her stomch.

If Cassius had sent Arabella in his place, this mean he was in an even greater danger.

"RENARD!" Karnala yelled and at once he was summoned, running over the room as he had been guarding outside, his face looking at the room with confusion as he had only heard Karnala yelling at him during wars. This timing was odd and it was enough to put him into alert.

Then he shifted his eyes to the bed, frowning when he saw Arabella colored in letters, "What are you doing to her?" Renard asked, "Did you wrote those letters? Shouldn’t she be away with His Highness to the red light district?"

"Don’t ask questions," Karnala answered him quickly and snapped, "Go to the brothel now and make sure you bring everyone else. His Highness is in danger."

At once, Renard’s face that was once confused turned stiff. He nodded only once firmly before turning on his heels and rushed to the hallways, calling for his men to follow him.

Meanwhile, Karnala checked Arabella’s pulse that had quickened. She didn’t know what to do but as per Cassius’s order she had read a lot about human’s medicine. For now, she needed to find a way to lessen Arabella’s pain as she had been groaning with tears over her eyes. If she was in too much pain, she would even die from it and it had to be prevented.

On the other hand, she also had fever which needed a human medicine to work with.

Taking note of this, Karnala whispered to her ears, "I will come back as soon as possible, please stay strong." and she rushed outside the bedchamber, locking the door behind her as she knew no one would dare to enter Cassius’s room. She then ran across the hallway despite her long skirt, pacing like a panther across the hallway to her room.

What Karnala hadn’t expect was that someone had stood outside Cassius’s room, a grin wide on her face as she had just seen Karnala who had rushed too quickly to notice her presence outside the room.

Nora who had grinned, slowly opened the door.

Today she had planned for a revenge. Revenge against Arabella who she had pinned as the one who had caused for her job to be stolen from under her nose.