The Trio Odyssey

Part I: Soul to Soul

Chapter 17: The Princess of Insanity III

The dark surrounds the eyes of the Princess as she remains unconscious.

Time flies for a long time, and she’s still recovering from faintness. 

“… Mhmm…”

Until she hears droplets slowly dripping down onto the flat, concrete ground, hitting her face with some splashes. 

“Ahh—…”

Being a little aware, she gets to feel her wrists and waist carrying some heavy, solid, metal, weighing her back while she hunches her body. 

Her eyes begin to unseal from the heavy eyelid only to gradually see herself wrapped in the shackles of chains and kept behind the surrounding, dark walls with talisman-like hieroglyphs carved onto each pillar. 

She attempts to move around but nothing budges at all. 

She moves her lips a bit in whispers.

“It’s dark and painful…”

She slightly elevates her head, moving her irises from the east to the west, witnessing somehow terrifying, pitch black passages and one huge gap in her front.

Fears consume her by then; her voice starts shaking, her fingers start shivering, and her eyelids tense up high. 

“Hhhhh…, hu—u—uhh—?”

She perceives that the terror is blurring her view as she points her eyes to the front. 

From afar, a ricocheting voice of a woman she knows so well and so close to, her mother, appears.

“A cup of milk, and yet, with one drop of poison, will ruin the entire milk and will still bring fatality if someone were to drink it.”

“Huh—, Mom?”

That voice sounds too unreal to be her mother; she chooses to reject the fact that her mother is truly the one speaking presently.

The voice keeps ricocheting closer and closer to her ears, ringing her heart to weariness. 

“Or rather… ‘you’ are not a drop, but another, filled cup of poison, poured and mixed inside the cup of milk.”

The woman approaches her, revealing her face right there and right now. She’s the Queen Consort, Raesha.

“Isn’t that right, stranger?”

The daughter of Her Majesty, Raesha, along with the unintentionally transmigrated stranger from the void, tremble in extreme horror. 

She vibrates her throat, asking. 

“Huh—? How… how do you know?”

In low tone, Raesha interrogates the other soul she knows is there. 

“Answer me… The uninvited guest that is residing within Raeké: are you sent by His Majesty, Jaw, or His Majesty, Hotavar, for any reason?”

Maia has no idea, stuttering a lot as she answers. 

“Huh—, I—… I—… I don’t know…”

Raesha mentions her sentence in sotto voce. 

“Get out of my child.”

“What?… I have no idea how to do—”

In a split second, the muscles around Raesha’s face hardens, uncontrollably pressing her eyebrows to the middle, shrinking her pupils and her throat hits so loudly.

“I said get out of my child!!!”

As the earsplitting voices of Raesha reverberated, her daughter clashes her voices loudly too.

“I said I don’t know! I couldn’t do anything!”

Raesha’s voice grows louder. 

“You stole my child’s body from her! Do you have any idea what you have done?!”

“You must be—… a spy sent from any of the Spiritual Faction to cause dismay in the Federation itself! A corruption scandal that dares to dig their own grave for laying hands upon the Royal bloodline!”

Her daughter quiets herself as her eyes collect small tears of heartbreak, murmuring silently.

‘An abuse? No? I think—, I think that—, Mom too… is led by severe distress…’

Raesha yells to the back, echoing her voice to her daughter’s ears.

“Guards! Bring in the Clairvoyancer!!”

A man called ‘the Clairvoyancer’ steps into the room. He’s an old man with a saggy face, stern eyes and short, black that fades from gray hair. 

He summons an emerging Chimeric with its multiple bodies remaining undefined with a large, bare flesh, boneless, bloody, thin muscles sticking and spreading across the pillars of the room, and also having multiple large, moving eyes. 

Raeké’s eyes are locked aloft, unequivocally in terror as she witnesses such a large, disgusting Chimeric ever in her life as a 7 year-old lass, that is.

The Chimeric’s eyes just glare. Yet, it doesn’t attack her at all. 

Everything became so blurry and dark as the fear enshrouds her ears. She only hears faint, unfathomable voices afterward and back to hunching again. 

Her mother speaks vaguely in her listening.

“You fool!”

“(Keep her out of scary things! Make it quick!)”

“Huh—?”

The rest of the voices are like voices she doesn’t know. 

“(Yes, You Majesty. I will reconfirm the state of the Princess posthaste.)”

Almost getting consumed entirely by another faintness, she notices some light circling around her.

She wakes up again, sickly unmoving, seeing the Chimeric disappear and the Clairvoyancer pointing his palm toward her.

And, Raesha’s voice doesn’t leave her head.

“Unfortunately, the soul of the stranger inside Her Highness hasn’t been left separated since the day She came back from the Sanaje Coast.”

“So, their souls are entirely merged?”

The Clairvoyancer responds calmly.

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“You should leave at once.”

Then, while her daughter is still looking downcast, she hears sharp footsteps of leather shoes fading away.

At the same time, she hears a loud, hissing sound of exhalation from her mother.

Her vision is too narrow to look at things right now, but even so, she sees her mother’s tight, gripping teeth. 

A sudden scream escapes from her mother’s throat, with thrashing words she shouldn’t say.

“Arghhh—!!! What the hell! You damned political corrupts!”

It’s deafening. 

Raesha smashes her side fists onto the concrete, creating a quiet noise that’s still reachable into the ears of her daughter. 

No one knows what’s right and what’s wrong anymore; the confusion has blurred the line of differentiating Raeké and Maia apart. 

Her mother shouts, repeating after the situation of her daughter. 

“No, they’re merged! Their souls are merged!”

A few seconds later, solid thumps of footsteps come in. And, behind those veils of darkness lies the same colored eye of ruby red as Raeké’s. 

He’s tall, while in both of his hands, lies a set of dark blue gems tied around a chain.

Raeké still can’t believe that man is going to be her father, expecting another storm to break her. 

She flinches in a second.

She doesn’t even want to take a look at what the people she loves dearly are going to do to her.

The man kneels right in front of her, facing his face up close. 

His voice is really her father. 

“Sweetie, open your eyes. Take a look here.”

She trusts her intuition, opening her eyes gradually but tensely. 

Once she sees the face of her father, she can’t even bear her instinctive eyelids that are driven by shock of looking into another horror that she had to handle.

The dark pupils in Souht’s eyes are too pale, and the ruby red glare of the irises are too vast. Although, he bears a saddened face.

Raeké lacks so much breath just from looking, and so does Maia. 

“Hhh—, huh—? Da—d?”

From the way back, her mother stands up behind her father looking at her.

It’s an expression that’s way scarier and way more distasteful compared to the cold one she saw from Kostana back in the Royalty Gatherings of the Ivada Federation.

Raeké’s eyes can’t focus into any one of them and she blinks many times.

Her father’s gaze averted as her forearms, which sits at the back, suffer from strange burning. 

Also, something electrifying is penetrating straight into her skin and flesh. At the same time, it feels like some sort of sharp anchors all over her arms are getting buried into her bare bones. 

She lets out a silent, deep, scream when the electrical sensation is spreading her entire body. 

“Ugh—! Argh—!”

Once the sensation fades in an instant, she turns her eyes back to her parents. 

Her father’s gaze is rather bothered.

He closes his eyes and immediately states. 

“It’s not torturous, and not abusive either. At least.”

Her mother asks after that.

“Raeké, no… Stranger, what’s your given name?”

She looks toward her mother with a gaze she can’t separate her fear with.

“Ma—… Maia…”

Her father stands up beside her mother with the dark blue gems on the chains gone. While that, both of them are somehow apprehended.

Her mother explains about the situation.

“Maia, this is an inevitable contract that carved the soul of yours and our daughter to seal you alongside her. Anything that violates this contract, which may come from either of you will result in…”

As her mother’s tongue twists, her father immediately barges in.

“If you die, Raeké also dies. If Raeké dies, you also die.”

“This contract is clearly for you two. You have certain limits that you are bound to abide by, or death awaits you…”

Her mother suddenly falls in tears.

“My child… We’re so sorry for doing this… you are just an innocent child we love so much…”

“But now—… Now, you are starting to fade from the grasp of our hands. We are so powerless that we can’t save you from this cold war.”

Her father faces down, talking in riddles of fear.

“Raeké… Between the Ivada Federation and the Cazdae Empire… which one will you choose?”

The petite voice of Raeké breaks out.

“Huh—…, no… I won’t—, I won’t ever choose…”

And so, she cries out loud within the room for what happens, ranting about her crushed heart.

“No—! Mom and Dad are not even like this before! I don’t even wanna see Mom and Dad get separated!”

She moves aggressively within the chains, bruising her shackled wrists and hips.

“Why—! A death sentence?! A death that occurs after our violation?! Maia?! I don’t understand anything!” 

Her cries don't go away. She’s still dropping more tears, whines and groans. 

Her mother, too, is gloomy.

“Honey—…, stop moving, please… You’re hurting yourself…”

Her father looks at his back to some men standing behind the darkness.

“Undo the shackles except the ones on her arms and take her to the Court of Yotalis Palace.”

Nine bulky men come out full of armor, hiding their face behind the metal masks. 

The heavy metals that hurt her wear off, falling in clanking noises.

While she’s still shackled within the thick chains, the men pull her via the chains, remaining untouched while escorting her outside of the room straight to the court.