She Belongs To The Devil

About two weeks had passed and everything in both the Palaces was going forward as per the routine. The young Princes and Princesses of Wyverndale were busy with their training. The older ones were busy with their personal training as well as were busy taking care of the tasks assigned to them by the King.

Nigel was also progressing at a rapid rate as compared to the other new turners. He had impressed Rhea with his fighting skills. He could even go toe to toe with both Rhea and the Crown Prince. It was all thanks to his sparring sessions with Adeline.

And Adeline was also progressing at a faster rate in her defense training. She could dodge almost any kind of attack from the General. Since a few days, the General had even started to blindfold Alexis during the duel with him.

He wanted her to learn to defend herself in the dark as well. And by blindfolding her, he hoped to improve her hearing and make her able to predict the incoming attacks just by focusing on the sound from the opponent..

Adeline had bruises all over her body for a few days when he introduced that technique, but she was quick to adapt. She learned to defend herself before Theodore would go looking for the General to thrash him for putting bruises on the delicate body of the Princess.

The night routine was also going on smoothly. The succubus was slowly drawing out the life force of Prince Edwin each night. He was not a tough one like King Dragomir and he was easily fooled by the succubus.

And because of that, the Prince was gradually growing weaker and weaker by the day. A few strands of grey hair could be seen along with his raven black hair. He was losing his weight and a little too many frown lines were appearing on his forehead.

If Lillian had seen her son then she might have noticed what was actually happening to her beloved son. But she was too focused on keeping an eye on King Dragomir. She believed that she had put that succubus back in her place after she threatened her with her life. And she believed that the succubus was harvesting the King\'s life force when in reality the victim was her own son.

Adeline had not been able to take time to keep track of the tax problem of the villagers. Because of the extensive training, and the bruises and pain that she got from that, that problem had skipped her mind. So, today, she decided to visit Agnes and ask her whether the Royal Guards were troubling the villagers anymore or not.

She headed towards the King\'s Court to ask for permission from her father to visit the village.

"Adeline!" she heard someone calling her name from behind.

She turned around and saw Prince Alan coming towards her. And she thought to herself, "How does he appear when I am going to do something that is related to Edwin? Is he a psychic or something? He is the witch\'s son, so maybe that is even possible."

He stood in front of Adeline and greeted her, "Good evening, sister. Where are you going?"

"I was going to see father. What about you?" Adeline tried not to show the disappointment in her face after being interrupted by him.

Alan smiled and said, "Oh, I was coming to see you." And all of a sudden he had this worried look on his face. "I just don\'t have anyone else with whom I can talk openly."

Though Adeline wanted to go to the market to learn more about the village\'s situation, she thought that talking with Alan could also be fruitful to help her understand about the village. As per her previous knowledge, Alan was keeping track of his brother\'s fraud and he was also constantly keeping an eye on the village.

"Would you like to come to my quarter then? I can always see father later." Adeline made Alan believe that she was just going to see her father and nothing more. After all, he had warned her to stay out of Edwin\'s business and she didn\'t want to tell him that she was going to do just that.

Alan was more than happy when Adeline invited him over. He thankfully accepted the invitation, "Sure, I would love to. Sitting on the grass is really painful to be honest."

Adeline laughed as she was reminded of their previous meeting. They had sat in the garden for an hour.

"Let\'s go then."

Adeline turned around towards her own quarter and led Alan. Before leading her brother to the meeting room of her quarter, she called Osanna and then ordered, "Bring us some tea."

Osanna bowed and then left for the Kitchen while Adeline welcomed her brother to the meeting room.

They both settled down. Adeline was waiting for Alan to say something and start the conversation but he was just sitting there awkwardly. So Adeline took the initiative and asked, "What is troubling you, brother? You know that you can share anything with me, right? I am good at keeping secrets."

Alan warmly smiled at her and said, "It\'s about Edwin. He has been sick for the past two weeks."

"I know that I shouldn\'t probably talk about Edwin with you. You two never looked eye to eye with each other. And I know that he has done a lot of bad things but he is still my brother. And I can\'t stop worrying about him."

Adeline furrowed her brows as she was surprised to hear that Edwin was sick. "He is sick? What happened? And why hasn\'t he recovered for such a long time? Hasn\'t he seen any healers yet?"

Alan let out a quiet sigh which went unnoticed by Adeline. The main purpose behind him visiting Adeline was because he was suspicious that Adeline might have used some witches to curse Edwin. Edwin was sick since the day he had told Adeline about all his dark deeds, and he thought that Adeline might have had something to do with that since he knew how much she cared about the citizens.

And after seeing the initial facial reaction from Adeline, he was sure that Adeline had nothing to do with Edwin\'s sickness. He thought that it was a total coincidence.

"He has been seeing healers on a daily basis. In fact, he has already seen multiple healers already but none of them could find the cause of his sickness. They say that there is nothing wrong with his body, that he hasn\'t got any disease. But then, he is not getting any better. His condition is worsening."

Alan looked sad and really concerned about his brother.

But Adeline still didn\'t get what was wrong with Edwin so she asked again, "What condition is he in? What symptoms does he show?"

He shrugged his shoulder and said, "I don\'t know. He looks too feeble… and old."