Thus, that five royal guards followed them all the way from the inn back to lord Urdin’s castle. But the moment they took step near the castle’s gate, something bothered Elesil, the Elvas stood still with puckered brow, his gaze swept across all the buildings in the castle ground as if he saw something that only his eyes could see.

“What’s it, Elesil” –Samuel questioned- “You ok, mate?”

“I can sense magic energy radiating from the castle, a very strong aura” –Elesil’s answered piqued Samuel’s interested, after asked the five Aulacian Royal Guards to watch over their stuff and the velelis, Samuel dragged the group into a corner.

“Magic energy?” -Samuel gathered his word- “Was that… something like a… a… vibrating waves of invisible energy?”

“Indeed, it could be described like that” –Elesil surprised- “How did you know?”

“Well… I felt that too” –Samuel shrugged- “I have no idea how… just got here and I started feeling it, hell, I now, could even felt it from you” –Samuel rubbed his forehead in relief- “Bloody hell, and I thought I was having some kind of delusion and going crazy.”

“Hum… well that is very intriguing, what you sensing from me and the castle is the Quasum ener…” –Elesil intrigued.

“Wait, wait a minute, what’re you two talking about” –Emma cut off the men conversation- “So you saying that he started to show sight of magical potential?” –Emma pointed at Samuel in disbelieved– “How?”

“Fr… from what I’d known, the magic ability was gain by birth, and mage only shown their potential at around thirteen or fifteen year of age, how can a grown man only shown sight now?” –with a great astonishment mixed with confusion on her face, Emma continued- “Come to think of it, it was already weird to me that you befriend an Elvas and also was heading to the Eternal Forest, We Uppers were not exactly friendly with Elvas and also they won’t let anyone come to their territory, especially the Eternal Forest, if it isn’t for importance matter like the White Ring Council or that person is an important individual” –turned to Samuel, Emma asked- “Who are you, exactly?”

Awkward silent.

“Well? Spill it?” –Emma pressed.

Still awkward silent, with hand kept scratching his head and Samuel’s lip stretched into an awkward smile, he didn’t know how to explain everything to Emma.

“Wait, hold on” –Emma continued her ramble, tried to make sense of who Samuel was- “Are you from Bricatia’s royalty? Are you with Bricatia’s delegate and is on your way to the Enternal Forest to attend the White Ring Council? That… that would explain why the Elvas allowed you to go to their stronghold… Hold… hold on, that still didn’t explain about your magic ability suddenly… and I never heard of anyone in Bricatia royalty ever had born with magical potential…”

“Alright, stop! Stop!” –Samuel stopped Emma as he could literally saw smoke came out of her ears- “Er… the truth is… well, it’s not that I want to hide it from you or anything… it just I afraid that you wouldn’t believe me…”

“Believe what?” –Emma on her toes- “Just tell me.”

After a few glanced at Elasil for advice, Samuel finally told the red hair princess who he actually was, Emma was all ear, but it was obviously, as Samuel told her where he actually came from, her face slowly turned from an earnest curiosity to amazement then to disbelieve and eventually to a frown of irritation.

“W…what! You… you said you are…” –Emma’s face finally morphed into a mesh of angry wrinkles- “Wha… Who do you think I am? You think I’m some stupid farmer girl?”

“Hah, I think that concussion you had… had…” –Emma stopped mid-sentence and fell into a “lost for words” state a whole minute long, the angry wrinkles on her face dropped on by one and turned upside down into a baffling look again.

Back and forth, her green eyes kept glancing from one man to another, her jaw dropped and couldn’t close in front of the serious silent of the two men, deep within her soul she kept hoping that they just pranking her.

“I… I… I…” –rubbed her temple, Emma turned back to the castle- “I think… I need some time to process this information.”

Watched the girl went back to castle, Samuel couldn’t hold in a chuckles, by the look on her face, he could literally hear the gears grinding inside her head to crunch the information just dumped on her. After Emma was backed inside the castle, Samuel get back to topic before, the Elvas took great interest at what Samuel said about what happened between the young lord Harduin and his father.

An aura of magical energy kept radiating from the castle’s ground, and for it to be this strong and to be sense this clearly, the magic was being used in there must be very powerful to leave such trace to the surrounding environment like this. And the string of missing, and the inaction of the local lord. Then something interrupted Elesil’s thought.

“Er… did you… felt that…” –Samuel wondered out loud.

Elesil nodded in acknowledgement, both the men had sensed it, that magical aura radiating from the castle, had quickly died down significantly, perhaps, they guessed its intensity had fell downed over seventy to eighty percent compared from when they first notice it, when the men still wondered what the cause of that.

“Hey!!!” -Emma came rushing out of the castle’s gate toward the men.

“What is it, Emma?” –Samuel asked while Emma tried to catch her breath- “Finished processing?” Samuel joked, and made the girl pouted in annoyance.

“Something happened, the Aulacia delegate is making a scene inside the castle” –Emma gave the men a brief explanation- “I heard that, when Hi was on the way back from the inn, some men attacked and tried to kidnap her, she escaped and not only that she somehow managed to capture on of her attacker, and that man was one of the servant of Lord Urdin, the Aulacia’s delegate is making a fuss inside, they even threated war.”

The trio rushed their way in to the castle, and quickly made their way toward the west building where a crowd was gathering. Samuel’s eyes quickly recognized the man kneeling next to the west building, that was the man he saw the previous night, hand bounded behind his back, sunken eyes, blank face with drool dripping from his haft opened mouth, and a cold blade of steel pressing against his neck. Not far from that man were Princess Hi, a few of Aulacia’s official and the young lord Harduin, who kept banging on the door calling for his father.

“Your Highness, are you unharmed?” Elesil asked.

“Thank you for your concern, master Ithilon” –Hi interlocked fingers and bowed politely- “I am unharmed, and I’ll get to the bottom of this,” Hi said, glanced at her prisoner.

“Enough of this!” –An Aulacia’s official ran out of patient and yelled at the Lord Harduin- “If he won’t come out then we’ll go in there to confront him” –turned to the Aulacia Royal Guards, the official commanded- “Men, break the door down!”

After a while of heavy pounding from several Aulacia Royal Guards, the heavy door finally gave in and swung opened. Welcome them inside was silent and a dim hall way, lit only by the daylight from the windows. Everyone were looking at each other in confusion then from a dark corner to the left of the main hallway, a shadow moved, caught Lord Harduin’s eyes.

“Hey, you, do you know where my father is?” –The boy approached that shadow, thought that was just one of his father’s servant.

Indeed, it was one of Lord Urdin’s servant, but the maid’s face was mortified to the young boy, sunken and unnaturally wide opened eyes, with bloody vessels zigzagged the sclera and made her eyes almost look red, the maid slightly hunched down and with a blank gaze, she locked her freakish gauntly face on the boy like a when a cat gave its full attention to its prey, with each step Lord Harduin took backward, the maid advanced. When Princess Hi shielded the scared boy behind her big robe’s sleeve, the maid suddenly pulled a knife and charged at them. Samuel quickly cut to the front of the crowd, tried to intervene, but it was unnecessary. With a catlike grace, the Aulacia’s princess shielded Lord Harduin with her body whilst twisted her hip and land a kick to the maid’s stomach. Yet, unwavering by Princess Hi’s kick, the maid sprang forth in second, with the knife raised high, about to plunged the shaft blade into any soft flesh she could get her hand on.

Samuel watched in amazement again, as Princess Hi took the initiative. Closed the distain in a blink of the eye, the Aulacia Princess caught the maid’s wrist, controlled her knife while the other hand clutched the maid dress-collard, and with the grace of cat and the strength of tiger, she perked up her hip and snapped her upper body downward in lightning speed. Stained glass panels shattered into a million pierces when the maid slam at the nearby window and slightly bended a few window bars.

Limbed on the ground, the maid completely went unconscious, came out of the bafflement of what just happened, and Aulacia’s official turned to the stunned Lord Harduin and accused him of not just attempted kidnap a foreign aristocrat but attempted assassination too, then turned to Princess Hi and urged her to take appropriate action toward such offences. The young boy panicked and overwhelmed by what was happening, kept stuttering and begged his guests to calm down and talk things out.

Then came footsteps from the far dark end of the hallway, shadows could be seen moving in the veil of darkness. Everyone seemed to held their breath as a group of five or six other servants steadily marched into the daylight from the windows. With some random housekeeping tools in hand, those servants stared at the crowd with their uncanny blank eyes and gauntly faces, then charged.

Together with some of the Aulacia Royal Guards, Samuel and Elesil quickly intercepted the attackers before they could reach the other in the crowd. Pow! Bam! and Crack! fists collided with face and feet removed some teeth, they fought the attackers. Samuel got close with his CQC training and served two men a generous feast of knuckle sandwich, while Elesil’s legs elegantly danced in the air and planted his sole on anyone dare jumped at him with the grace of a professional ballet dancer.

Eventually, the ruckus had been resolved and all the servants had been securely restrained. Then the maid who tried to attacked lord Harduin before seemed to had come back to her sense, looked around like a lost child, she mumbled in confusion when she realized she was being bounded.

“Wh… who are your people?” –the maid spoke in Bricatish, looked at the crowd in front of her in great confusion.

“You, why’re you tried to attacked me? Where’s my father? What on earth is going on here?” –Lord Harduin barraged the maid with questions.

“I… what? Attacked you? Young master….” –Stopped mid-sentence, the entire of the maid’s body started to tremble, muscles on her face tensed up, teeth grinding and kept rambling in coherently.

Samuel could only understand some generally idea from the maid’s incoherence rambling in Bricatish, something about some whisperings, asked she kept, that why couldn’t anyone else heard the whisperings. Begged she kept, that someone please make the whisperings to stop. On and on she moaned about the whisperings inside her head that told her to do what she did, and she could not help but compelled to oblige the whisperings.