The Demon Lord's Bride (BL)
Chapter 491: sometimes, people do bad things unintentionally

Chapter 491: sometimes, people do bad things unintentionally

"H...how..."

I parted my lips, trying to push more sound. But in the end, I closed them again, and as I did so, I realized that they were trembling. Natha tightened his grip on my hand, and I knew now why he was so afraid to let me hear it.

But...

"What...what do you mean?" I swallowed hard and looked at Amarein. "How could he...?"

Amarein took a deep breath and closed her eyes for some time, as if trying to see the best way of delivering the explanation to me. When her eyes opened again, they were no longer sad, but cold.

"Valen, no matter how pacifist we are, do you think it made sense for the kingdom to fall in the hands of humans while inside Mother’s territory?" she suddenly threw a question--although I guessed it was a rhetorical one. "While surrounded by nature?"

No--I shook my hand and could finally voice out some of my confusion. "I thought it was because the druids couldn’t bear to hurt even the aggressor, but..."

I touched my chest, feeling my heart beating in fury; feeling the grandfather’s curse flowing. There, in my heart, was the trigger to release the curse he set on Tsalinade. No matter how pacifist someone was, they wouldn’t choose to let their home get destroyed and their kin get killed. Not if they had a possibility for this much rage inside them.

"Of course, we prefer not to engage if we could, but there’s no reason to stay still if we’re getting attacked," Amarein said. "There would be no reason for the Alveitya to be shaped like a spear, in that case."

My left arm was vibrated slightly then. Of course, Alveitya was also the original resident of the palace.

But saying all of that could only mean one thing, right?

"Are you saying...there was a traitor?"

My voice cracked at the end, because there was only one implication from that statement. The traitor was the King’s brother; a member of a royal family.

But Amarein shook her head. "I don’t know if I could call him as such," her eyes narrowed with conflicted emotion. "The brand of ’traitor’ implies that one did a betrayal willingly, with a clear intention of harm, but...to be fair, that wasn’t the case with Prince Zurheien."

"How?"

"The prince, he...wasn’t the type of person with ambition," Amarein said while massaging his temple. "He was born late when all of his siblings had become adults, so he was pampered and lived an easy life. As far as I know, he loved his family, and loved spending time with his nieces and nephew."

So, she was saying that he would never betray the kingdom? What did he do then, to cause the kingdom’s downfall?

"But perhaps because of that, he was rather spoiled and loved to roam around, even to other realms--often by disguising himself."

At that point, my shoulder stiffened, as I could kind of guess where this story leading to.

"When he spent his time in the empty region of the border with the human realm, he was invited by a group of travelers and got drunk," Amarein said; the cold tone turned a bit sharper as if trying to prick our skin. "In that condition, the group of travelers kept asking him about the kingdom, and he kept answering them, naive as he was."

Oh--oh, no...

Amarein continued her story afterward, which she got from the drows. They caught one of the empty region fellows who was involved in smuggling, and in place of leniency, they shared the fact that apparently known to everyone who frequented the tavern where the Prince was getting drunk.

Nothing happened immediately, of course. The prince didn’t even think that the things he told them would bring harm; it was just the daily life of the people in the kingdom, or how many people were there, or how good they were at controlling elemental mana...

The naive prince didn’t think mattered, and even told them about the Great Tree. Such conversations happened repeatedly over a few months, sometimes with a beautiful woman in the group that lowered his guard even more. Between drinks and seduction, he didn’t even remember he had told them about the palace security system, or the fact that druids couldn’t function well without decent elemental mana.

At the height of it all, one of the women seduced him to go on a ’vacation’ with her in the human realm--which he did. And he stayed there, blind and deaf about the war, until everything was over.

At the end of the story, Amarein looked like she was aged a few decades. Natha gave her a warm mead and me a glass of water--which we needed. She even asked if he had something stronger.

It seemed like she had been keeping this fact to herself for a very, very long time. She even made a pact of secrecy with the drows who told her about this information. Naturally, she also did her own investigation, which only stressed her even more after finding everything was the truth.

Afterward, she went as far as convincing the Chief Council to stop looking for the Prince, arguing that it would be better for them to let the Prince ’healed’ by himself in peace, and that seeing another druid might trigger his trauma and all that shit.

"But why? Why didn’t you tell the others?" I asked with a frown, and Amarein looked at the scenery outside the window, where we could see the settlement.

"Because there’s nothing good that’ll come out of it," she smiled bitterly. "Right now, we have made peace with our current condition, especially after we met you."

Her smile turned soft and genuine this time, as she looked at me. I couldn’t even afford to feel embarrassed or flustered by that, however--didn’t even know how to feel about this.

Amarein was right; it was not an intentional betrayal. I realized then, why the Prince reacted like a crazy person, screaming and scratching his own face. He must have realized it was his fault, that the humans found out about the secret routes and the formation of the barriers because of him. The usage of the spell that disrupted and corrupted elemental mana was caused by his careless mouth. Getting seduced and leaving his home for months and months to follow a woman while his kin got annihilated was the icing on the cake.

"They don’t need to know," Amarein shook her head. "It won’t change anything, and if they know that the one who caused the kingdom’s downfall was another druid..."

They would feel what I felt, perhaps even more strongly. It might even cause a rift and weaken the bond between the druids, which was forged by the heartbreak of the war.

Well, it might be paranoid thinking, but...why risk the peace with a painful fact that would not change anything? We wouldn’t get the kingdom back just from that.

"So...the Prince had been staying in the converging spot all this time?" I asked after our emotions were calmed by the drinks.

"Yes, he said he wanted to protect the spot," Natha said, finally taking a seat on the chair rather than the floor--still holding my hand even then. "For you."

For me...

Was it because he felt guilty? Or...

"Where is he now?"

"We put him in Ahrat; the Mayor agreed to keep him under his watch."

"Did you say he wanted to meet me?"

Amarein nodded. "He was very close to Lady Yuralein, so--"

"No," my answer came swiftly. Now that I could use my heart and my head a bit more, the decision was quick and easy.

Honestly, I was conflicted at first. Tsalinade’s case was one thing; she did not cause the invasion, she just refused to help after the attack happened due to her cowardice and jealousy. But this...

This was different.

Even with Tsalinade’s help, the most she could do was hold the fort for a bit, enough to make sure Valmeier’s mother fled safely with a guardian. The kingdom would still fall, and the palace would still get razed. What the Prince did, however, was like putting a key and a knife in a burglar’s hand. Sure, the attack would still commence, but the druid would be able to fend for themselves without the elemental mana disruptor and all of their secret tunnels getting breached.

And I had no idea if I could forgive that. I understood why Amarein didn’t want the other druids to know, and I understood their concern about telling me before.

Also, if he wanted to see me because I was the last remaining royal blood and because I looked like my grandmother, then I wouldn’t want to meet him even more.

"Well...not now anyway," I sighed and leaned back. "Perhaps later, if I’m no longer this angry."

Natha gripped my hand tighter, and I could see from his eyes and how he straightened his back that he wanted to hug me. Oh, I would make sure he did that all night later.

"Yes, I think that is for the best," Amarein nodded. Oh, my poor Aunty...how hard it should be, for her to keep this to herself all this time? How lonely it must have been! But she looked at me and smiled after downing the rest of her drink. "It’s better for you to not get distracted from your child."

Yeah...the most important thing for me at this point was Shwa, and I’d rather focus on that.

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