The bastard child becomes the empires royal consort-Chapter 57: Late night [1]

"You owe me an explanation," Jack grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest.

Crackle.

The group sat around a small, orange campfire on the side of the road, behind a thick line of trees.

The sky was pitch black, and the only sound was the wind whistling through the branches and the occasional pop of the burning wood.

Alan sat directly across from Jack, Lucian was busy roasting several sticks of meat over the fire.

While Julia slept soundly, her head resting on Iris’s shoulder, after her tomfoolery at the tavern, she had finally crashed into a deep sleep.

"Not much to say really..." Alan shrugged.

"Not much to say?" Jack raised a brow. "Listen, buddy, I like money, I like my little merchant business, but I don’t like getting chased by hundreds of men all day long!"

"Hmm..." Alan tapped his chin, thinking back to the day’s events.

All day long, right up until night finally fell, the carriage had been pursued, it was only thanks to Jack’s questionably good driving skills that they had managed to slip away.

"And what is that thing?" Jack asked, pointing just below Alan’s chin.

"Greow?" Sparky let out a confused meow from Alan’s lap, tilting his little blue head to the side.

"That literally doesn’t sound like a cat either." Jack said, shaking his head. "You don’t even have to say anything."

Jack reached down and pulled out a crumpled newspaper. "You lot are the saviours of Elera, aren’t ya? So why are the so-called heroes getting chased like that?"

"Well... technically we aren’t heros, we literally didn’t save anyone."

"And the name..." Jack ignored his words and traced his eyes over the group, from the sleeping Julia to the focused Lucian. "The ’Bondage Bastards’, eh? That’s the name y’all are going with?"

Alan winced his face. "That’s a misunderstanding..."

"A very bad one." Iris added.

"Not only are you called heroes, but you also supposedly have a dragon as a pet?" Jack chuckled. "Yeah right, where is this almighty dragon, huh? Surely that blue cat of yours isn’t a supreme being."

"Greow!"

Jack finally cleared his throat. "Either way, who are you lot really?"

"What?" Alan raised a brow. "We’re just simple commoners."

"That’s the biggest bullshit I’ve heard in a while." Jack laughed, leaning back. "Even at first glance, it’s pretty obvious you’re something more than just commoners."

"How so?"

"Do I even have to say it?" Jack looked Alan up and down. "First, none of you look like commoners."

"Uh..."

"Second, what kind of ’unknown commoners’ get called the saviours of the capital?" Jack shook his head. "Just come clean about who you are, I don’t care if you’re some nobles on the run."

Alan stayed silent for a moment, he looked at Lucian and Iris, but they both just shrugged their shoulders, leaving the choice to him.

After a moment of contemplation, Alan remembered something.

"You said you’ve escorted a member of a Grand Duchy family before, right?"

When they first met, Jack had made that claim, the man said he escorted someone from a prestigious family, which Alan brushed off as a joke, but now curious, he still decided to ask. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

"Ah." Jack slowly nodded. "Yes, I did."

"Really?" Alan brought his hands to the black silk wrapped around his eyes and brought it down, revealing his violet iris to Jack.

"Not this shit again!" Instead of being shocked or lowering his head in respect, Jack grumbled the moment he recognised Alan’s eyes.

His reaction was so immediate and annoyed that Alan could already guess who Jack had dealt with. "...Did you escort a Zevril?"

"Don’t even remind me about him." Jack grunted, rubbing his face. "That boy was the biggest headache I’ve ever had to deal with."

"Was his name Alvin?" Alan asked.

"Yeah, yeah, Alvin Nyx Zevril, I heard his name to the point of my ears hurting." Jack massaged his head. "About eight years ago, that maniac forced me to take him to Kahl."

"You mean you escorted him, right?"

"No!" Jack shouted. "That moron literally jumped into my carriage and took me hostage!"

"Uh?"

"And that blondie that came along with him! They were literally a match made in fucking hell., absolute lunatics, both of them!"

"Blondie?" Alan turned his head to the side, specifically to the peacefully asleep Julia.

As far as he was aware, the first prince was in the Eastern Continent, along with his older half-brother, going by the royal bloodline, the prince’s hair would be blonde...

"The first prince travelled with Alvin?" Alan muttered under his breath.

"What was that?"

"Nah, nothing." Alan waved his hands dismissively. "So you’re not surprised to see that I’m another Zevril?"

"Not really." Jack shook his head. "Maybe if you were from House Caelis or someone from the Royal Family, I would’ve acted differently."

"Is that so..." Alan gave a small, secret glance towards Iris and Julia.

If only Jack realised just who was in front of him...

***

"Hah!"

Alan’s eyes flew open, snapping him awake, he sat upright, his breath coming in small, shallow gasps.

Confused and trembling, he ran his hands over his chest and arms, checking for any abnormalities.

Instead, he felt only the dampness of cold sweat, it stuck to his skin and soaked through his black robes, dripping down his face.

He grabbed his wildly beating chest, taking deep breaths to calm his agitated state.

"Not again..." Alan whispered in a very low voice, his fingers digging into his scalp.

He knew he was just thinking about something, something important, but the memory had slipped through his fingers.

It was maddening. It felt like trying to scratch an itch that he just couldn’t reach, a hollow void where a significant thought should have been.

He couldn’t remember what he was just thinking about, it was something, surely it was something, otherwise this state of his wouldn’t make sense.

As his heart rate slowed, he took in his surroundings. the sky was a deep, velvet black, indicating they were in the dead of night.

To his left, Iris was huddled up in her sleeping bag, up on the carriage, Jack’s rhythmic snoring echoed from the driver’s seat.

Lucian was leaning against a nearby tree trunk, seemingly asleep.

However, as Alan’s gaze lingered, Lucian flashed one eyelid open, he didn’t speak but instead gave a small nod, offering a silent acknowledgement.

And closed his eyelids shut.

Alan sighed, rubbing his face again.

It’s been three days since they started travelling with Jack, by now they completely shook off the pursuers, traversing down the road as usual.

And three days of having to constantly deal with recurring nightmares he couldn’t remember, ever since the day he coughed up blood, his sleep schedule worsened.

But at the very least, he wasn’t waking up with blood pouring from his eyes, nose, ears, and mouth anymore, compared to that, a racing heart and a layer of cold sweat were nothing.

"Greow?" Sparky, the blue dragon-cat, lifted his head from the dirt, those glowing azure eyes fixed on Alan.

"Go back to sleep..." Alan whispered, but as his eyes adjusted, he noticed something strange.

Usually Sparky would be asleep, rolled up right beside Julia, but as of right now the spot beside the cat was empty, and Julia’s sleeping bag was a scrambled, tossed mess as if she’d hurried off somewhere.

Ever since the alcohol incident at the trading post, Julia had been strangely subdued, she hadn’t been her usual, loud self, did something happen to her?

Slightly concerned, he stood up quietly, careful not to disrupt the others, and walked to the edge of the camp.

Air was crisp and smelt of pine and damp earth, they were deep into the mountain passes now, and the seaport city of Kahl was supposed to be just over the mountain.

Near a cluster of bushes, Alan spotted a trail of light footprints pressing into the soft mud, leading deeper into the forest, they were small but definitely Julia’s.

He followed the trail, pushing past low-hanging branches and stepping over roots.

The further he went, the quieter the forest became, until the snoring of Jack and the crackle of the dying campfire were completely gone.

Finally, the trees opened up into a small, rocky ledge that overlooked the valley below.

There, sitting on the very edge of the cliff with her legs dangling over the drop, was Julia, she wasn’t wearing her blindfold.

In the moonlight, her blonde hair looked almost silver, and her shoulders were slumped in a way that looked heavy.

She didn’t turn around and was silent for a moment, quietly gazing at the valley ahead of her.

"You should be asleep, Alan." Julia finally spoke softly.

"Well, yeah, I could say the same for you." Alan replied, walking forward and approaching Julia.

Alan reached the edge of the ledge and took a seat a small distance from her, not too far, not too close, letting his legs dangle over the stone just as she was doing.