The Veil of Darkness
Chapter 173: I Promise

Chapter 173: I Promise

"Didn’t the Midnight Queen also participate in the creation of wards back then?" Annalise asked curiously as she recalled reading about the current Midnight Queen being one of the only few people who watched the downfall of the Seelie Realm in front of their very eyes.

"My..." Valerius started speaking but suddenly stopped causing Annalise to turn her face around to look at him in confusion as his abrupt stop had taken her by surprise.

"I mean... the Queen was barely a child back then, it was actually the Previous Queen of the Midnight Realm who participated in the creation of wards. According to the queen, she knows very little about the secrets of the cores or the book written by the previous queen and others involved in the creation of the wards." Valerius finally explained and it did make sense.

Annalise returned her attention to the front as she once again settled down in his arms while speaking with a small sigh, "To put it simply, no one knows about the secrets of the cores or the book, or at least, no one you know of."

Valerius nodded his head in agreement and the two settled into a peaceful silence for the next couple of minutes while they both got lost in their own thoughts. It was already half past four o’clock in the morning and they should be heading to sleep considering the hectic day that was waiting for them ahead but sleep was currently the last thing on their minds.

"What did you find about the cores then? Because it seems like you ultimately found the way to fix the cracks in the wards." Annalise asked when she recalled their recent visit to Lakeshire. The sole reason behind their visit to such a faraway place was to get the Spirit Mer Coral from the Mer Queen as it was able to fix the second core of the wards.

Her eyes once again shifted to the portal and the twin trees with different magics as she tried to see if the core seemed fixed or if there were traces of darkness but no matter how hard she concentrated, there didn’t seem any trace of darkness present at that place. However, it did little help to make her understand the situation because if the core was indeed healed then why was the castle in such a bad condition?

Then another thought struck her. The castle started changing for the better recently, did it mean that the dark lords recently fixed the core, and it took away all the dark energy present inside or around tge castle, helping it to finally return to a better shape with time?

She was pulled out of her thoughts when Valerius started answering her question. "Though it took time, we eventually succeeded in finding out the answers that we were seeking with the help of the Royal Seer and the history of the castle."

"This one is the main core of the protection wards and to fix the second core, we needed to fix this one first. However, while we found out very early that the essence of the second core was made of water, we couldn’t find the same about this one no matter how hard we tried. And because we weren’t able to find the answer, we were unable to fix this core, leading to the delay in the restoration of the second core too."

Annalise pulled away from Valerius and turned to face the man as her curiosity was reaching its peak. "Then when did you find out about the essence of this core? Recently? Because only that would make sense considering you only restored both the cores."

"We didn’t...!"

"Huh?"

She stared at the dark lord in question as she failed to understand what he meant by his weird response.

"We didn’t succeed in finding out the essence of this core throughout the past four centuries. The only reason we were able to restore the second core was because the first core started restoring itself on its own from the very day you stepped inside this place, Annalise." Valerius spoke with his eyes boring right into hers, his words ringing in her ears while making her head spin.

Annalise shook her head as if doing that would help her at all. "How can that be possible? I don’t have anything to do with these cores... or this core..." She trailed off as her gaze landed on tge portal once again and the sudden powerful tug on her powers made her realize that even she couldn’t make herself believe in the lie that she kept telling herself and the others.

She was a normal girl with Seelie bloodline - whether it was the actual truth or just a lie that she had been made to believe all her life, now it was exactly what she wanted to believe for the rest of her life too... because the truth seemed too scary to her for some reason.

She felt strong arms surrounding her and the very next second, she was pulled into a tight hug as Valerius took her into his embrace, a place where she found solace as soon as she rested her head against his chest.

"It’s alright, Annalise. Everything is fine. I’m right here with you and so are Kenric and Damien." He whispered as his ice and air surrounded her in a comfortable cocoon. Right a second later she felt the rest of the three elements, fire, earth, and shadow, belonging to Kenric and Damien, joined Valerius’ ice and air and made the cocoon even more powerful.

The other two lords might not be there with them in the underground secret sphere but their powers were right there to show their agreement with Valerius’ words.

"You promise?" She asked in a barely audible voice but the man heard her loud and clear as his hands tightened around her before he replied in a firm voice, "I promise, my love. I promise."