"Adira, are you okay?"

Triton asked when he pulled the cart's curtain a little bit to take a peek and check on his wife's condition. Because she was a pampered noble lady her whole life, he figured that she would not be used to long distance travels like these.

"We're almost there. It's just a little bit more ahead. We can take a break here if you want."

He spoke and turned his head to check the empty road they were travelling on. This road wasn't frequented by merchants or people since it was the long and roundabout way towards a distant province.

Triton was taking Adira away—somewhere far from Casimir's or anyone's reaches, far from the capital or the Sylveris or Dalriada dukedom. They were eloping.

He even made Adira wear this black long sleeved dress with a brown leather corset binding her torso he bought from the first town they stopped over to make her less conspicuous. Her hair was also tousled messily so as to avoid people from recognizing her.

Adira shook her head in response before smiling weakly. It's the third day since she left her home and in these three days, she couldn't think of anything—or anyone—but the little sapphire-eyed child and the silver-haired man.

They were bothering her too much.

...

Back in the palace, at the capital, inside a dark office with the curtains down, Casimir was cooping himself up as always. He hasn't even so much as stepped a single foot outside that room ever since he came back from the Sylveris fief.

A knock came and he stolidly replied—as monotonous and cold as ever.

"Your highness, will you please eat something?"

"Mm. Put it there." The prince answered briefly while not stopping in whatever he was doing nor giving his aide that came in a simple glance.

Roman, Alexander and William were lounging about, without anything to work on as Casimir hogged all the paper works.

He was using work as a distraction and it was all he ever did these past few days. Even though he was very efficient with it, it was abnormal, his coping mechanism worried them too much.

He didn't sleep—or more precisely, he couldn't—groom himself or eat. He was wasting away in his study doing even the most menial tasks of reorganizing the rotation of guards around the palace.

Roman turned towards the table where his untouched lunch sat, now cold, and sighed. Ever since he let Adira go, he was deteriorating more and more each day. To the point that even he was afraid he'd suddenly succumb to the pain and loneliness and fall.

And when he does, the empire falls along with him.

"Is..." Casimir suddenly spoke and, finally, his writing stopped briefly. "Is there a new report on her?"

Yes, he did let her go but that didn't mean he wouldn't care. There was not a single second when he didn't think of her—of how she was, if she already ate, if she was dressed warmly, or if she was comfortable enough—so many things ran through his mind at a faster rate than normal.

And it was burning him out. But he can't stop. He can't help but constantly worry about his wife he chose to let go.

"Yes. They just passed the Border town of Ertz. With the path that they took, I believe they're heading towards the Alynthi Kingdom's Brita province."

Roman professionally supplied him the necessary information he knew what the man wanted. It was the other reason he came—aside from reminding him of his meals which proved to be utterly useless.

"Is she healthy?"

"Yes. She was made to change her clothes into a simpler one so as not to attract unnecessary attention."

"That's good. And Heise?"

"Still refusing to meet anyone. The child also hasn't touched his meals like you, you stubborn pair. And... He also hasn't heard of the Lady being kidnapped."

Casimir remained silent for awhile before bobbing his head softly and went back to his work and started scribbling things on the paper again.

He eventually stopped arguing with Roman's choice of words after a few times and let the latter rant as much as he wanted. He was far too jaded to even find the energy to refute and correct his aide.

If there were moments when this prince stopped, it was spent on asking about Adira's and Heise's whereabouts and statuses—basically reports.

"Will you please partake on your meal now?" Roman tried to remind him once again.

"Mm. Later."

...

Another few days passed, and they already entered the third week since Adira's been brainwashed.

Heise, who made up his mind on his course of action, travelled to the palace. If it was the only way for his family to remain complete—to bring back his mother, then he'll take the risk.

No matter if it meant exposing himself and his mother to danger. Should it ever reach that stage, he was resolved to protect her to the bitter end.

Upon arriving, the servants brought him first to his father's study. In hopes that maybe the child can convince him to take even just one meal.

It has been a week since he neglected his health and the results were finally showing on his fatigued and flagging figure.

Heise softly knocked on the door and uncaring of whoever it was, Casimir still monotonously replied,

"Come in."

So he tottered close to his father's desk where the man was bending over, immersed in all of the papers around him, and didn't even spare him a glance.

"I want to see grandfather. Help me meet him." Demanded the child, who, until now, refuses to address him as father.

Surprised at the little and cute childish voice—different from the usual voices he heard every single day—he jolted and made a mistake on his writing.

He finally looked up from the paper and his tired and dead platinum orbs met brilliant and firm sapphire eyes—the eyes that loudly proclaimed that he wasn't giving up and that he's bringing his mother back.

The child only knew of his mother's disappearance a day before he decided to head down to the capital—and that was yesterday.

"Why do you need to see the king?"

"I will make him utilize the army to bring Mommy back."

"Son, doing that will only hurt your mother."

"No! Mommy's crying right now! I'm sure of it! She can only truly smile when I'm with her!! She smiles the prettiest when she's here!"

And for the first time in a long while, a smile graced this iceberg's emaciated countenance and he nodded softly.

"Of course. How could I forget that?" He mumbled before he finally stood up and walked close to tousle the little child's hair in a heap of mess.

"Mommy indeed is the prettiest when she's with her family. Let's go fetch her now."

After a little bit of grooming up and fixing himself, Casimir took Heise with him to face his father. Now, how to make the old man concede and mobilize the army to find Adira, he'll leave that up to his son's charms and skills.

...

"Grandfather!" Heise babbled before toddling closer to the man, who sat on his throne, with his arms wide open.

"Oh! My cute grandson. Come to grandfather!" The king coaxed in a soft voice and received the child, lifting him off the ground and made him sit on his lap.

"Grandfather, do you not want Heise anymore?"

Heise asked and looked up to him with beady tears pooled on the edges of his eyes, threatening to spill, looking very wronged and upset.

"Whoever told you such nonsense!? Grandfather loves Heise the most!"

"Then do you not want Mommy?"

The king faltered and paused at the child's question. It seems the misunderstanding ran deeper than he imagined. It seems he needs to explain it again and more properly so a child such as Heise would understand.

But before he could even speak, Heise continued,

"Will you want her then if I told you that she's the Maiden of Light?"

"What?!" Both Casimir and Anastasius reacted to the child's words.

This prophesized Queen didn't appear even after a millennia, heck! All their life they thought her existence was just a mere fantasy—a legend! And now the child says there's another one?

Anastasius, after briefly reeling in his initial shock, thought that maybe the child was saying this thinking that he didn't want Adira because she wasn't this legendary Queen that everyone coveted. And that picked at his heartstrings.

"I understand that you love your mother so much, my dearest child, but there cannot be two Queens in one era. Let alone in one kingdom."

Anastasius gently explained to the little child but the latter only shook his head.

"Mommy really is the beloved daughter of the heavens. I'm sure of that because when I forged a contract with her, I coated her with my darkness to hide her—thinking that she would be in danger if people found her."

"Heise, what are you talking about?" Casimir spoke and went closer to the child before squatting down so they were of eye level.

"I am the last divine dragon of darkness. A direct heir to the lineage of the black progenitors.

Contrary to how humans use the darkness in hurting people, we, dragons, use it more as a defense against all kinds of magic. Mommy's not only a fire user. She's also a light."

Casimir's mind was working faster than when he was minding all those tedious tasks about running the empire as he thought back to the barrier back at the Great Forest of Khoth—to the phoenix and the black spot that it was protecting.

It was Heise! Heise was the darkness the phoenix, Adira, was protecting!

But...

"But if your darkness was protecting her, why was she brainwashed?"

Heise looked sullen as he turned to his little hands that failed to protect his mother when it mattered the most—the moment when he was at his weakest, the eclipse.

Casimir could see the pain and guilt vitiating the child's beautiful sapphire eyes and didn't press him for answers anymore. It wasn't only Adira who believed whatever this child told her, he also believed this spoiled son unconditionally.

"Mobilize the army, Father. I will personally lead them."

Casimir proclaimed and the king, that short-circuited with the information overload, only nodded his head in acquiescence.

His grandson was, in truth, a dragon. His daughter-in-law might be the maiden of light. And his son personally volunteered to lead the army to that foreign land.

Goddesses, wouldn't this mean war?