The King's Beloved

~ [Music Recommendation: "Sunny Mornings" by Peder B. Helland (Instrumental only) - available in Youtube or Spotify] ~ Please listen to it in loop while you read this part to experience the utmost beauty of this chapter XD ~ 

It took Clavis a couple of minutes before he regained his consciousness from being appalled by the sudden truth that was spoken to him - and from Selena at that! Noticing Selena was unconscious, he leaned over her to check if she was okay. Clavis sighed in relief, finding that she was merely sleeping from exhaustion.

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"What just happened?" Clavis thought. "Why did she suddenly glow bright? And her eyes … they turned gold. Only guardians have golden eyes and she\'s a human! How could this be?"

Curiosity filled Clavis\' mind. He sat up and placed his palm above Selena\'s chest. His palm grew bright as he closed his eyes - he was concentrating, trying to feel something he was curious about. And there he felt it. 

"A spiritual core … growing. This is to be expected since I shared my life energy with her. But … there\'s another. A large but only half a core. Why does she have it? I never checked it before since I expected she\'s a normal human - or at least, I thought she was. Weird … whose core is this? I need to find out more".

Then, the glowing light on his palm intensified as he tried to dig in deeper - to probe more of the spiritual core\'s properties and find out who it belonged to.

"This core … somehow, it\'s familiar to me. If I\'m not mistaken, I felt it somewhere before. But when? Where? With whom? … I don\'t remember," Clavis contemplated more and his mind wandered through a lot of things and lots of possibilities - but none was enough to convince him and nothing proved to be right or make sense at least. 

Perhaps it was the dead of the night, or his exhaustion seeping through him, Clavis felt tired and sleepy so he joined Selena and took some rest. As he closed his eyes, he hoped that tomorrow, he would find out more about it.

A few hours only passed and the sun already began to shine. However, its rays didn\'t wake up Selena and Clavis. After everything that happened last night, they needed a couple of hours more to fully recover. They only woke up when it was already noon and the maids came in to bring some food. The old granny could let them skip breakfast but lunch was a big \'no\' for her. She woke them up even after seeing them sweetly cuddling each other - though, she did take some pictures first before waking them. 

When Selena finally woke up, she had a hard time moving her body again. She already rested but her body still felt dead tired. At least her private part wasn\'t hurting so much like the first time. Clavis helped her eat and spoon fed her, much to her enjoyment. They spent the whole lunchtime sweetly chuckling and teasing each other. Afterwards, they took a bath, dressed up, and rested at the balcony, sitting side by side with each other.

"Selena," Clavis turned to her. "I never mentioned to you before but … since I shared my life energy with you, you should be able to use magic now".

Selena spilled the coffee she was drinking. 

"Huh?! What did you just say?" Selena couldn\'t believe her ears. "Me? Use magic?" She knitted her brows in confusion. "But - how?"

"Yes, you can use magic now. I can teach you," Clavis smiled. "You have a spiritual core now. I noticed it last night. It\'s growing inside you," he said, pointing to her chest area, near the belly.

"A spiritual core?" Selena tilted her head. "What is that? Are you sure it\'s not a baby you saw that\'s growing?" she blurted. But upon realizing what she just said, her face turned red and she quickly covered her mouth. "He-he-he … I - I mean … well," then she mumbled, "you have been releasing it inside me many times already, it\'s no wonder if I happen to be pregnant already. Who knows?"

Clavis blushed. Scratching his cheeks, he answered, "Ahm, y-you have a point. But don\'t worry - you won\'t get pregnant yet. I … ah … put magical contraceptives in your womb whenever we do it so it\'s safe". Clavis eyes lowered in embarrassment. "Your body is still young and the preferable age for giving birth is around 25 to 30 for humans so I thought …"

"O-oh! I see," Selena smiled awkwardly. "And I\'m still 18 so that\'s like 7 years from now. I guess we could just enjoy it while - I mean …," she blurted out again. In her mind, she scolded herself, "What are you saying again?! It\'s like you\'re telling him that you can enjoy making love for the next 7 years! Waaaa!"

Clavis cleared his throat and wet his lips. "Cough … As I was saying, where was I again?" His mind completely went off track from what Selena just said. "Ah! Right, you can use magic now. I can teach you how".

Selena nodded. "Uhm! That\'s good!" Finally realizing the depth of what Clavis was saying, she felt quite happy about it. "Wooow! I never imagined I would be able to use magic! It\'s like those role playing games I\'ve been playing before! Amazing!" Her eyes twinkled at the very thought.

"Role what? Role playing games?"

"Yes! There\'s this game I really like with lots of installments! It\'s called Last Dream!" Selena\'s eyes continued to twinkle. It seems the concept of magic was greatly accepted in her mind. "There\'s Last Dream 1, Last Dream 2, up to 15 but my favorite is Last Dream 7! I just love Faerith\'s character! She\'s really amazing and she\'s my favorite!"

Clavis snickered. Seeing Selena\'s sparkling eyes, telling him things that she liked, was very amusing for him. He felt his heart squeeze from her overload of cuteness. He didn\'t notice he was unconsciously staring at her.

"Last Dream huh? Wonder where I could get that?" Clavis thought in his mind. "I\'m sure she\'ll be so happy when she gets it".

Selena continued talking on and on about her favorite game. "And it\'s just so sad that in the end, my favorite Faerith has to die in order to save the planet! My heart aches so much! It\'s so unfair! If only that evil villain didn\'t stab her with a sword, she could have lived!" 

When Clavis heard the word "die" he was reminded of what happened last night.

"Selena," Clavis interrupted her non stop babbling. "Last night, do you remember the prophecy I told you?"

"Hmm? Oh yeah, you did tell me something. Hmmm … what was it again?" Selena thought for a moment. "That\'s odd. I can\'t remember".

"I knew it. It wasn\'t her talking last night. It was the owner of the other core inside her," Clavis thought. 

Then Clavis mulled over if he should tell her everything that happened or not. Convinced that it\'s better not to keep secrets between the two of them, as how a good husband and wife should be, he decided to be honest with her. And so, he told her everything that happened last night - about the prophecy, her, glowing bright and her eyes turning gold, especially the part where she uttered words that completed the missing piece of the prophecy and that she had half a core inside her which he didn\'t know to whom it belonged.

Selena was bewildered.

"Me? I - I said all that? But I don\'t remember. And I don\'t even know how -" Selena got confused. "Wait, are you sure it\'s not a dream? I remember dreaming before about carving words in a door".

"No, it\'s not a dream. I was still wide awake and we were talking to each other. And the other core inside you - do you remember coming into contact with any other Magi? Actually, no - it\'s impossible to transfer cores anyway. It\'s a real mystery how you have it".

"Aside from the perverts I met before, and Malum, my former house leader, I never really met other Magi before," Selena shrugged. 

"I see. Hmm … this is going to be hard. I need to know more".

"Just don\'t go on leaving me for three days straight again," Selena pouted. "I\'ll die next time you do that. I need daily doses of energy from you," she murmured.

Clavis\' serious face turned happy in an instant. 

"Of course! What kind of energy though?" Clavis teased.

"Cuddles! I\'m referring to cuddles. Like hugs and kisses!" Selena blushed as she tried to defend herself. Her statement of "energy" was indeed vague.

"Alright. Just hugs and kisses," Clavis teased again.

Selena lowered her eyes and mumbled, "Well, occasionally, we could do more than hugs and kisses … just occasionally. Like … every other day - I mean, week".

"Ha-ha-ha-ha!" Clavis laughed hard. "Come here, Selena". He gestured her to sit on his lap while he continued to snicker.

"If you don\'t want it then don\'t! Hmf! I can survive without doing that for years, you know!" Selena pouted but she still followed Clavis and sat on his lap. 

Clavis pinched Selena\'s cheeks.

"We could do it anytime you like," he whispered and gently pecked her lips. "I love you".

Selena\'s annoyance disappeared and her face blushed red.

"I love you, too".

As the wind blew, their lips locked unto each other, gently touching and pressing, in a sweet and loving kiss.