The Demon Lord's Bride (BL)
Chapter 324: a mother’s sacrifice is always present in any life form

Chapter 324: a mother’s sacrifice is always present in any life form

The feeling was more or less akin to passing through a portal. Well, perhaps because it was a portal.

We stepped into what looked like a...lobby? Yes; a lobby, or a lounge. A small room with two doors on the opposite wall, fitted with comfortable-looking chairs and tables. The room was circular, as if following the contour of a tree, although the size was nothing as wide as Alzeriya’s circumference.

"The left one leads to the artifact room, and the right one is for the documents," the scribe explained, and we automatically steered to the right.

There was another seal on the door, and while the scribe was working on unsealing it, Amarein told me more about the place. "This is not the only place accessible from Alzeriya’s gate," she told me. "Depending on the incantation, the door will bring us to different rooms."

"Oh? How fascinating!"

"There’s a treasury, a prayer room for me to speak with Mother, and..." she lowered her voice; it seemed to be a natural reaction due to caution, not to be discreet, "...and an arsenal."

I turned my face to her with widened eyes. I didn’t need to voice my question for her to reply. "It’s...something we add after the war," she said. "We realized that even if we don’t start anything, others might. And, if such a dreadful thing happened again, we should at least be ready to take on arms."

"But...what kind...?"

As far as I knew, druids only used elemental magic--I mean, they were more like a healer and a beast tamer. Even the ’spear’ wasn’t actually a spear, not really.

"Defensive armor, mainly," she smiled wryly. It was clear that she didn’t like talking about this topic very much. "And some cold weapons that could be infused with elemental mana, made of the Great Tree’s branches."

"Just like Alveitya,"

"Yes," she nodded, and then pointed to the door. "Shall we go in?"

The scribe had been waiting for us, and we followed her inside. We arrived inside another circular room, bigger than the lobby--perhaps as wide as the Great Tree. There were neatly arranged bookcases and protective shelves containing scrolls and parchments. A small table and an armchair were there, where Amarein led me to.

The scribe, meanwhile, headed into one protective shelf and took out a small book. It looked quite old but preserved well, the cover was made of thick sewn hemp and bonded with vines. She put the book in my hand, and spoke with a soft, yet firm tone. "Take as long as you like, my Prince, but make sure to be careful with it."

I nodded my head wordlessly, feeling the tension creeping into me again. Amarein patted my shoulder and left me inside the room with the scribe to give me privacy. They left the door slightly open, perhaps to not make it feel so claustrophobic, and I started to open the small book.

I had thought it was a diary, or a journal of some sort. But it was, in fact, a collection of letters. There were quite a few, and every single one was from the last Queen--my great-grandmother--written to the previous Chief of the Alnin tribe, who was Tiralein’s mother. It seemed like, just as Amarein and my grandmother were friends, the previous Chief and the Queen were the same.

I was worried that I would need to read everything to find out which one talked about her birth, but there was a newly added annotation that was probably left by the scribe. When I went to that part, I found the letter talking about what I was looking for, with an annotation that spelled my name on it.

"Oh, how nice,"

They truly looked after me, weren’t they? I leaned back on the armchair and started reading. From what I gathered, it seemed like the previous Chief had to deal with a group of dryads and asked for the Queen’s advice in the previous exchange of letters. It led the previous Chief to inquire about the nature of the Queen’s birth, because they didn’t have such a record in the tribe--nor the kingdom--archive.

Thankfully, the Queen was a rather generous person, and gracefully wrote what she had heard from her father, despite it might be a sensitive topic. Because, you see, there was no marriage--sacred union--between the Queen’s father and the dryad in question. I reckoned it was a difficult thing to do, since the dryads had no need for mating and no concept of marriage.

But anyway, the Queen told the previous Chief about what she heard from her father.

[...my father had always been the odd one, preferring to be alone and isolate himself from others. He liked to roam the realm alone, from Great Forest to Great Forest, and in one of his explorations, met my mother.

As you know, my dear, even for us, dryads had always been elusive. She saved my father, you see, and they engaged in conversation. But spirit is always free, and soon she became bored and vanished into the woods. For years after, my father ceaselessly looked for the same dryads that captivated him the first time. It took him years to find her again, and after that, he had to chase her around the realm because she was always moving around.

Eventually, she took an interest in his persistence--or so my father thought. I personally think she was just tired of being followed around. She told him to stop and instead, they made a promise to meet in a certain place at a certain time. She would give him a hint through riddles, and he would have to solve it to know where they would meet next. If he was unable to do so, then they wouldn’t be able to meet...]

Huh...how fascinating. This gave me an insight into what kind of creature dryads might be, and told me that my unhealthy curiosity about risky things, as well as my occasional recklessness, might be inherited from the Queen’s father.

Anyway...

[...the time was always during moonlight, and my father worked hard to solve the riddles and went to those places on time. From those places, he made the conclusion that she always chooses a place with a solitary big tree that acts as a center where all of the life force and the mana in the environment converge under its roots.

It was in such a place that I was conceived.]

I gasped a little bit. Thisisit! This was the information that I needed to remember. A place with a solitary big tree, where all energy around it converged. Noted.

[...my father said it was a lake with a tree standing at the center. The lake itself was shallow enough for him to walk across and not wetting his upper body. The water was pure, but it was covered in a thin mist. He said it was a mystifying place, with glowing waterdrop flowers flickering inside the mist.

He met her there, and this time, they were in love enough for her to stay for three days. And on the third day, when the moon was at its fullest, they made love under the tree, with moonlight shone upon them.

The moonlight, as it shone on her abdomen, bound their essence, and emerged from her, inside a cocoon of a dryad seed. That was me; a small seed. I grew inside that seed, which my father planted under the tree. It absorbed the energy from the surrounding, until I became a full-grown infant, just like any druid baby.]

I paused for a bit, blinking in surprise.

Well...that was...straightforward. I had thought I had to decipher things or solve riddles, perhaps analyzing poetry and such. But there was no reason to do that when she was only writing to a friend, which worked well to my advantage.

And it was as straightforward as it could be. They made love in a magical land--literally. I didn’t think it would be hard to follow. My only concern was...

We had to do it outdoors?!

My cheeks were heating up, and my heart palpitated. But I had no idea whether it was from embarrassment or...excitement.

I coughed and cleared my throat in an attempt to clear my mind. Focus, Val; you have a mission.

Right. I made a mental note to ask Amarein about this particular lake. But it would probably be best to note every place with a big solitary tree and mana convergence site.

There was still some entry in the letter, so I continued to read.

[...you might now be wondering what happened to my mother.

Well, my dear, as you know, dryads only made offshoot when they were near their lifespan, because the offshoot would continue their life as a new dryad. My parents didn’t mean to, never expected that their essence would be bound and emerging like that.

And so, unfortunately, the life force was being transferred to me, and my mother perished the moment I was born]

Oh...