The Royal Mark-Chapter 243: Neia’s Mother
Everyone’s eyes were filled with worry upon seeing Chris by the door, especially Elsa. His arm is around Tallor’s neck to help him walk. Even though there was no visible wound anymore on his body, the pain from the operation was still there.
"What are you doing here? You should be resting. Just look at you, you obviously are not yet strong enough to walk by yourself," Elsa grumbled and glared at Tallor.
"I told you to let me know if there are any changes in Chris’ condition. That includes him waking up!" she scoffed at Tallor.
"B-But–" Tallor tried to explain but Elsa was not in the mood to accept any excuse.
"Enough, I don’t want to hear your reasons. You could have simply reached out to me which is faster than coming here. You put the life of my patient in danger," Elsa grunted.
"Geez, my doctor is as strict as ever," Chris jested, causing Elsa to turn her attention to him.
Chris smiled sweetly at her, and Elsa’s eyes instantly welled up.
"Do I get an ’I miss you’ kiss or a ’welcome back from the dead’ hug?" Chris playfully questioned Elsa.
She pressed her lips together as they curved upside down, her tears threatening to fall. She ran to her husband and threw herself onto him and in a tight embrace.
"Ugh... Love, I am still in pain, don’t hug me too tight, it hurts," Chris warbled.
Elsa pulled away and slapped Chris hard, astonishing everyone, even Chris as he covered his cheek with his hand.
"You jerk! How dare you make me worry like that?! Do that again and I will kill you myself! Do you understand?!" Elsa groused.
Chris smirked and saluted at her, "Aye, aye, captain. I’ll explain later. Let me talk to my uncle first. That’s the reason I dragged myself here."
Elsa and Tallor helped Chris walk towards Alaric. The former king coughed hard as he waited for his nephew to reach him. But before Chris was able to, Alaric coughed again and this this he vomited a dark grayish liquid, which Rylie quickly cleaned up.
"I don’t have much time. And I thank the goddess that you heard my call. You have to know something very important," Alaric informed Chris before coughing again.
Chris sat at his uncle’s bedside and urged Alaric, "Go ahead uncle, I am listening."
"I was under Yvonne’s spell all this time. After she stabbed me with the silver knife, all my memories came flooding in. I was never in love with her. She used me!" Alaric could not tell his story continuously for he kept coughing and it got worse as each moment passed.
"Uncle, you should rest," Chris said, seeing how struggling his uncle was.
"No, I have no time. The poison has spread in my body already. I can feel myself dying. I can no longer hear or feel my wolf. So, please listen," Alaric pleaded.
Chris nodded and took his uncle’s hand and placed it on his lap while holding it.
"Neia is my daughter..." he stopped as she coughed again.
His words stunned everyone. No one has seen it coming, including Chris.
Alaric continued, "Neia’s mother was my fated mate. She’s a human living in Vrenada. I didn’t know she was pregnant and she didn’t know that werewolf babies even the hybrid ones are born earlier than human babies.
She ran away from her family after they told her that they didn’t want a werewolf hybrid in their family and went to Arcanis to go to me, but she had an accident along the way. She was sent back home by her rescuers.
She died giving birth to Neia, and my poor daughter was born prematurely and was very sick. Her grandparents threw her away and left her in the forest to die. But my mate’s loyal vampire best friend took her and went to me.
She was already dying when I saw her. No healers could heal her. I was desperate, so I went to Yvonne. She had these tools and advanced things in her castle. She sliced her up and did some stitches to her heart and inserted a tube to her veins and after a while Neia made it, she survived."
Chris was speechless since he was shocked at his uncle’s revelation, and so was everyone except for Elsa who took a pen and paper on the console table and started drawing.
"Alaric, can you describe further the tools and advanced things that you mentioned earlier?" Elsa said.
Alaric cooperated and tried his best to describe what he saw and Elsa did the same. She’s not good at drawing but she was able to make a rough draft that was understandable for Alaric to recognize.
"Is this what it looks like?" Elsa handed her drawing to Alaric and his eyes widened in surprise.
"Yes! It is very similar to this, how did you know this?" he asked.
"Yvonne was working with me as a doctor before. The equivalent of a healer in Novus but with no magic. But this is impossible. She was in Novus before I arrived here. And Neia is seventeen years old already. And we now know that Novus’ time is much faster than Vectus. So does it mean that she traveled back in time? I don’t get it."
"No, it could be that she manipulated time. Similar to us, werewolves who can manipulate memories," Chris guessed.
"We have to look into that. If she can do that, then we are dealing with someone very powerful here," Drake said.
Elsa and Chris nodded before Chris turned back to his uncle who was coughing hard again.
"I’m sorry uncle, I know you are already in pain but I have to ask, how did Neia become my sister then?" 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦
"In exchange for Neia’s healing, I allowed her to experiment on a spell on me. I was so desperate to save my daughter. She was the living proof of our love, so I agreed without knowing what kind of spell was it. That was broken the moment she stabbed me," Alaric then laughed and coughed more after.
"She used me to get to my brother and to you. If it were not for Elsa, Arcanis is now hers. After Neia survived I took her to my brother Ulfgar, while under Yvonne’s spell. The timing was perfect, your mother just lost her baby, your real sister, due to some unexplainable disease.
And I assumed it’s Yvonne’s doing as well. I told your brother what happened to Neia and the cruelty that she experienced from her own grandparents. Of course, I left out the details of how she survived.
I asked your father to take Neia as her own daughter since I don’t want her to grow up without a mother. I was willing to sacrifice my own happiness for hers. My brother was hesitant to accept it, but your mother who was too depressed to even announce to the public that her baby just died saw Neia.
She was instantly mesmerized by her. I have never seen your baby sister but both your mother and father said that she looks like her cousin, your sister. Since your mother overheard our conversation, she easily convinced your father to take Neia as theirs. From then on, Neia replaced your dead sister. Your sister was never mentioned again," Alaric narrated.
"Thank you for telling me, Uncle," Chris sincerely uttered.
Alaric tears started falling. He placed his other hand on top of Chris’ and said, "I am so sorry, Christopher. Please forgive me. Whatever I did the moment Yvonne cast a spell on me, it was never what I wanted. I don’t know what I was doing until today. I am so sorry for taking what belongs to you, for putting our people in misery and your life in danger."
Chris began to shed tears as well. He recalled the times that his uncle was good to him when he was young before Neia was born and the times that he changed and started becoming harsh on him. It now all makes sense.
He now looks at the man who cared for him when he was young. That man is not gone, but soon he will be, and that is what hurts him the most. When he can finally forget all those bad years and create new memories with his uncle, he can’t.
This just made his anger at the witch queen even stronger. She had been targeting his family from the very beginning. She is taking advantage of the weakness of werewolves against witches.
His father made a bad decision in accepting Saldivar’s peace treaty. While Arcanis is honoring the agreement, Saldivar is using it to make themselves stronger and plot an attack on Arcanis.
But the question is why? Why would Saldivar want to take Arcanis so badly when they could just all live in peace and stay in their kingdoms without harming others?
