The Dragon Prince's Bride
Chapter 198. What if I was just bait?

Chapter 198: 198. What if I was just bait?

Days went by extremely slowly. It rolled slowly and yet those days had somehow moved into weeks and weeks into months.

Neriah never went out of her room. Even when she tried to, the eyes and whispers she got were enough to make a person wish for the ground to open up and engulf her. Eventually she stopped going out of her room, she’d rather sit in front of her husband’s portraits and talk to the child that was rapidly growing in her belly.

"You know, have I told you about the time he called me a pain in the neck?" She asked while stroking her stomach. She had pulled a chair in front of the most recent portrait of Barak. "I haven’t?" She asked as though she had previously received a response from the child in her womb. "Oh, how could I forget? He called me a pain in the neck!" She felt a calm slow movement inside her and she smiled and nodded, taking it as her responding to her words. "Yes, he did."

" Imagine that!" She scoffed. "He even said I am no precious prize, that father of yours." She tsked. "Do not worry, for when he returns, I will make him take back those words." She said and all of a sudden her smile faded even though she tried to force it to remain on her face. It refused to. Instead her expression twisted, the corners of her lips curved downwards, her nose wrinkled and her eyes were wet as the thought of him enveloped her.

"He will return," She muttered. "He is not dead, he cannot be dead. He is Barak, dying should be impossible for a man like him. So he will return. I know he will. He has to. He is not dead, I just know it. He is alive somewhere. He is probably unconscious and that is why he is not here yet. When he wakes up, the first thing he will do is to come to us."

She kept repeating those words, that he would come back and that he could not be dead. However, that was just her trying to hold on to hope and not fall into utter despair. She feared greatly that he would never be found.

She knew Raknar and Regina were in charge of the search for her husband, she also knew that even though the king was busy with the affairs of the state, he still made time to listen to reports and updates of his son’s whereabouts.

But there was still no news. His picture was plastered all over the place and based on the description she had given, portraits of Lyle had also been made to hang as wanted posters in all of Trago.

Based on the explanations she had given, the knights, led by Raknar, had raided the shop where they usually met and arrested all who worked there. Neriah wasn’t sure about any other of the people they had arrested, but she was certain that the young man who always stood by the counter was definitely one of Lyles’ men. If anyone could have information on his whereabouts, then it would be the young man. Yet the man had refused to say a thing! His loyalty to his master was rather irritating.

The more time Neriah spent alone, the more she had to think. Lyle had told her the reason he could not ask for her hand from her father was because he had been expelled by his father, and he had told her the reason for that was because he could not unlock his elven powers. He told her he had no powers, yet Neriah could remember vividly. That night he had used magic. There was no other explanation.

He had somehow made and forced her to see her husband’s final moments and also sent those arrows using that dark shadow.

That was not ordinary. It was magic... And it took no priest to examine it.

Lyle had used black magic. That shadow that she saw was clearly an essence of dark magic.

And it made Neriah wonder about a lot of things. How long had he known black magic? Was it recently or did he always know it and had hidden it so well from her? If yes, then why did he do that?

That aside, for a man who had everything, status and power taken away from him by his father, he commanded so many men that day. Where did those men come from?

To have such men on standby would only mean that he had the money, power, influence, status, and resources to fund and command them. They were many, so_so many.

When he had first talked about killing Barak with her, when she was still slightly stupid, she had believed he meant that they would somehow cause the death of Barak themselves.

Even when he had suddenly shown up in Fortia, she still believed his only plan was to kill Barak with that woman who was made to look like her, but then those men had appeared which only meant that he was prepared to handle Barak with that many men if necessary.

The more Neriah thought about the matter the broader it seemed to be and yet as broad as it was, it seemed so simple but she was refusing to see that simple answer to all her questions because it would only mean she had been a fool from day one.

At that time when she was still very stupid, Lyle had told her that all they had to do was kill Barak and run away. He had said it with eyes that seemed scared of facing Barak one on one but had to do it because he loved her. If he had that much men on ground, why did he sound so scared?

"Unless—" Neriah muttered to herself and her hands slowly formed into a tight fist, clenching onto her skirt as she thought about it again and again and only this answer made sense. "Unless as good as a liar that I am, Lyle is an even better one."

She was slowly realizing it, "What if_" Lords it was hard to think of the possibility but, "What if I was just bait?" It was a possibility. "And not just in Fortia, from the very beginning? What if Lyle was never after me or never even loved me as he claimed to. What if Barak was his goal from the very beginning? What if—"

"My Lady!!!" Neriah jolted as Aria’s voice reechoed through the Kadan-Rana palace. "My Lady!!!" Aria shouted again and this time she could hear that the Ladies footsteps had gotten closer to her door.

"My Lady, My Lady, it is—" Aria pushed the door open, panting and breathing like she had been running for miles.

"Aria, what is it? Why are you panting?"

"My Lady it is—" Again Aria tried to talk but was stopped by her panting. "His Majesty the king and Her Majesty the queen." Aria said and Neriah stood to her feet in fear, wondering what could have possibly gone wrong with her father and mother-in-law.

"Aria, if you are going to speak, do so! What has happened to them?" Neriah asked, shaking Aria’s shoulder.

"Your Highness!" It was Riri’s voice this time, "Your mother and father!"

Before Neriah could see the little person the voice belonged to, hair as red as hers came into view and Neriah’s hands that held Aria trembled as her eyes met her Mother’s and then that head full of gray hair also walked into the room.

"Neriah," Just the sound of that voice was enough to pull out a years worth of tears from her eyes. That calm soothing sound of a familiar voice was enough to draw out all emotions that Neriah had been trying to control.

She suddenly felt like a five year old who had been away from her parent and had gone through so much hardship and finally her parents had returned and she just felt like it was all okay now. Just the sight of them made it okay.

Life was strange. The last time she saw them, she hated the with everything she had and yet seeing them now, "Mother, father—" She could not help running into their open arms, forgetting the fact that her stomach was slightly bigger than the last time they saw her.

All she wanted at that moment was to feel their warmth, to feel their arms encircle her. And they did. Her mother’s arms wrapped around her body and her father hugged them both at the same time.

"Tis alright my child, Tis alright." She whispered into Neriah’s hair and it only made her cry. She opened her mouth and cried aloud like she had not done since. She did not hide her tears, she did not muffle her sobs. She cried out loud and long because she was in her parent’s arms and although she hated them the last time she saw them, she never truly did. She loved them. She loved them so much and seeing them reminded her of all the lies she had told and all the troubles she had caused and how she had almost caused the death of her husband who is now dead or not dead because of her.