Adelle's POV:

Those men dressed in black were about to kill us. I didn’t have any hope of survival left, they were beating Laurenz to death, and the pain from the stab wound on my left arm is increasing and spreading. To make things worse, I don’t even know why they attacked us, ours is just a simple merchant family who can only hire a butler and a maid, besides, I don’t think grandfather would have enemies wanting to kill his family… It doesn’t make any sense!

I was thinking that… when he appeared. He was a cute boy with red hair and golden eyes. He looked a year older than me, but the moment he saw what was going on, the air around him froze and he let out a bloodlust that made me shiver, I had never been so scared before, yet at the same time, I felt protected.

I’ll never be able to forget what happened afterward, he killed the five men who had attacked us, and it took him less than twenty seconds to do it. Seriously, who is this boy? Then, he turned around and asked:

Merlin: “Hello, what’s your name, little girl?”

I was so scared I couldn’t even speak properly.

Adelle: “Ad-Adelle.”

Merlin: “Ok, Adelle. I need you to drink this. Don’t worry it’ll make you feel better.”

After saying that he got out a vial and tried to cause me drink its contents. Only I didn’t want to drink it, so I spilled and wasted whatever potion that was. After spilling the potion, the boy looked at me carefully and observed the wound, his gaze told me he had decided on something, but I would have never imagined what that decision of his was.

He took out a second vial, identical to the previous one, opened it and kept the contents of the vial in his mouth. Then he approached me, kept me down against the ground in a way I couldn’t move a single muscle, kissed me and gave me the potion mouth-to-mouth. He stole my first kiss! I hate him! I hate him! I hate him!

I hate him for having stolen my first kiss, yet at the same time I can’t help but warmly look at him… No! What’s wrong with me?! I should hate him and yet…

When he was done with my treatment, he turned around, checked Laurenz’s condition, went out of the alleyway and disappeared in the night. It was only then that I realized I hadn’t asked him his name. Less than a minute after his disappearance, six knights came to the alleyway and questioned the two of us about what had happened there, and about the deaths of the guards. Usually, the matters related to security in Shephiria were left to the city guards, but when the knights learned of the disappearance of six city guards in an area close to the south gate of the Palace, they decided to go investigate so that the security of the Palace, for which they were responsible, wouldn’t be compromised.

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At the same time, in the 7th Tower of the Cathedral, The Oracle Tower…

A cry was heard in the tower, it came from the High Priestess’ room, inside the Prophecy Hall. Everyone on the tower went to the Prophecy Hall to help the High Priestess, for they thought she was being attacked, but what they found in there wasn’t a High Priestess being attacked, but a High Priestess who had fallen on her knees, was shivering in fear and on the verge of fainting.

They were curious about what could have possibly driven the High Priestess to such state, so they followed the direction of her gaze and what they saw gave shudders to them… because something impossible had happened: One of the prophecy tiles had shattered and became black. That had never happened before, as a matter of fact, the prophecy tiles were said to have been a present from the gods, they were indestructible, magic or blunt force, it was impossible to make a dent in them, much less shatter one.

Besides, what made them afraid the most, was the shattered tile becoming black. The prophecy tiles were color coded: They were white, but after a prophecy is given by the gods to the High Priestess, it is automatically recorded on a white tile, turning golden. Once one prophecy has been accomplished, the golden tile which contained it returns to being white and its contents are automatically erased. No one had ever heard of a prophecy tile turning black, and they feared the unknown implications it might have.

After the High Priestess recovered from the shock, she asked her attendants to look for any paper record of the prophecy contained in the shattered tile. Half an hour later, one of her attendants gave her a piece of paper with the transcript of the prophecy. The transcript gave her more questions than answers…

“On the night of the Sacred Moon the warrior princess will perish by her siblings’ hands in the shadows, and the Kingdom of Shephiria shall follow her in her demise”. After reading those lines, she started shivering again, because that night was the night of the Sacred Moon, but the prophecy mentioned a warrior princess, and as far as she knew, the laws of the kingdom forbade princesses from becoming warriors, probably due to the existence of the prophecy. But for the tile to shatter and turn black…

She finally ordered that the people who hadn’t been assigned a task yet should go to the basement and search through the old records, to see if a tale had ever shattered or turned black.

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Shephiria’s Palace. Conference room.

Laurenz had just finished telling the king about the events that happened in the evening.

Laurenz: “Your Majesty, don’t you think it’s about time to come clean and tell Adelle who she really is?”

King Dollan Shephiran: “I don’t understand what you mean, Laurenz.”

Laurenz: “But, your Majesty, Adelle is afraid, and what frightens her the most is not knowing why those men were after her life.”

K.Dollan: “Laurenz, Adelle is the daughter of my late mistress Lana, even if she has my blood, she’ll never be fully accepted in the Palace, actually, bringing her here would be signing her death sentence. I want her to be happy, to fall in love, to have her own family… I don’t wish to see her becoming a tool in the hands of the nobility. Trust me Laurenz, she is better off being the granddaughter of a merchant than being a princess!”

Laurenz: “I understand, your Majesty.”

K.Dollan: “Laurenz, about what we talked about before… What’s the information you have on the boy?”

Laurenz: “Well, he looks like a 5-6 years-old, has red hair and golden eyes. I saw him fight, and I can tell he is as strong as a regular knight of the Palace, maybe stronger. Although he shouldn’t have had his magic awakening yet, I’d swear he used a healing spell of water attribute to heal Adelle. Besides, I recovered the two vials he used when helping Adelle and took them to the chief alchemist in the Palace… but the results were... well… too frightening.”

K.Dollan: “Laurenz, what do you mean by that?”

Laurenz: “Well the result of the analysis on the vials was… It was ‘Amariena’, your Majesty.”

K.Dollan: “‘Amariena’?! And he used two vials?! Who the heck was that boy?”

Laurenz: “I don’t know, your Majesty, but he wore commoner clothes…”

K. Dollan: “So, a commoner who had in his possession two vials of ‘Amariena’ and didn’t hesitate to use them to help a stranger, a good fighter, and possibly a magus prodigy… Usually I’d want him for myself and keep him in my service but in this case… Laurenz!”

Laurenz: “Yes, your Majesty?”

K. Dollan: “Find that boy, then make him meet Adelle as often as possible, if we are lucky he’ll grow interested in her. If he is by her side, I won’t have to worry so much about her safety, and with his character he’ll grow into a fine man… he’ll make a good husband for Adelle.”

Laurenz: “With all due respect, your Majesty, I think you’re getting ahead of yourself. We don’t even know his name, this search could take months or even years… Besides, there is no certainty he'd fall for her...”

K. Dollan: “You’re right, I got a little too excited. Anyway, find him.”

Laurenz: “Yes, your Majesty.”

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When Merlin got home, he was reprimanded by his mother for being so late. She told him a letter had been received from Laklostia, it seemed the village had been recently raided by soldiers from Klausna, and although there had been two deaths, they didn’t get to kidnap any villagers thanks to the help of the soldiers from Dorka Garrison. On the other hand, the material damages had been great, so the letter requested that someone from the Pendragon family went to the village to confirm the damages on their property.

Anthon had recently been appointed as the instructor of the second and third princes, which meant he couldn’t go to Laklostia. Leyla was six months pregnant and in no condition to go travelling, so that only left Emelyn, and she had decided to bring Merlin with her. Merlin was about to protest, but then remembered that he had wanted to check something inside the well, so he didn’t say a word. His mother said that there would be a caravan departing the next morning, its destination was Katra. From there, they would go on their own to Laklostia.

The following morning, Merlin and Emelyn hurriedly went to join the caravan. Several hours after the caravan had departed from Shephiria, the city guards were ordered to look for a 5-6 year-old boy with red hair and golden eyes, and to report immediately if they found him, but at that time Merlin was already miles away from Shephiria. Merlin looked at his mother and asked:

Merlin: “Mother, why did you decide to bring me along in this journey?”

Emelyn: “It’s just that you’re always in the basement and for the last six months, aside from the meals, I’ve barely seen or talked to you. So I decided to bring you along, that way I can spend more time with my son, why? Do you dislike it?”

Merlin: “That’s not it, mother. It’s just that I thought you would have brought one of my older brothers…”

Emelyn: “Well, Bly said he didn’t want to come, as for the other two, they begged me to bring them, but that was only because they wanted an excuse to skip training.”

Merlin: “Ok, I understand, mother.”

After three days of travelling without any significant incident, they arrived safely to Katra.

There, they split with the caravan and went to rest to an inn. The following morning, after having breakfast, Emelyn told the coachman to go to Laklostia. She didn’t know how to describe it, but she could feel that something wasn’t right. She didn’t want to scare Merlin, so she didn’t share her uneasiness with him, but the feeling grew stronger the more they advanced towards the place where caravans usually camped to pass the night. Merlin also sensed something, but it wasn’t just the gut feeling his mother had, he felt strong magic signatures and smelled blood, so he deducted that something should have happened at the camping site. But what they saw when they arrived, left them speechless.

Tens of carriages had been destroyed, and the bodies had been mutilated… There was no way to tell if the attackers had been bandits or beasts, but the cruelty used wasn’t normal. Emelyn tried to protect Merlin from seeing the bodies, but that was impossible, besides he wanted to look, not for a morbid reason, but because it was something new to him and thought that if he memorized the marks on the ground and the broken carriages, he would be able to compare them to the ones in the books of the library.

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