BXBX NOVEL Chapter 88 - Who's There?
When the Princes and Princesses who had gone to the market reached inside the Palace, it was almost everyone's dinner time. The Palace was still lively, with the maids and servants walking here and there, carrying the food trays in their hand. Those who had just returned, however, had their stomach full. They did not even want to look at the dinner right now.
"Argh! Now I have to make my maids understand why I don't want to have dinner. They will keep on insisting that I have some food before I go to bed." Nefriti drooped her shoulders. She definitely was not ready to face her maids after having so much food already.
Claudia was aware of Nefriti's weakness, it was not being able to deny her maids if they insisted. "Just say that you are already full. You ate whole two servings of those dumplings all by yourself. You will get indigestion if you eat any more food."
"Alright everyone, my quarter is that way, so see you all tomorrow in the training. Goodnight!" Raphael waved at his siblings and then left towards his quarter.
All the other Princes and Princesses also bid goodnight to each other and then parted for the night.
Adeline was about to walk towards her quarter but she remembered about Rion. "I wonder if he drank water afterward…" She wanted to make sure that her horse was eating and drinking fine, and that he was not being a problematic horse. So she made her way towards the stable.
Now that she was alone and that her mind was free, she started to think back to what Agnes had said to her. "Lillian opened the door to the other worlds? What does that even mean?" she murmured to herself as she was walking at a slow pace.
"Theodore mentioned about three worlds to me. Heaven, hell, and earth. I bet Lillian has no interest in heaven. Does that mean Lillian somehow managed to open some kind of passage to hell? But why would she do that? What will she gain out of it?" Adeline was feeling very anxious to know what kind of evil Lillian was cooking up.
"Maybe I should go to see Agnes tomorrow. I need to know what that witch is up to. I need to be cautious. And if I can do something to stop Lillian from doing whatever it is that she is doing, then I should not waste any more time. What if she does something bad to someone and I am too late to stop it… Yes, I should see Agnes tomorrow."
Adeline reached the stable and then checked up on Rion. Rion was already sound asleep so she looked for the stableman and then asked him whether he fed water to Rion.
"Yes, Princess I did." The stableman answered to the Princess. He opened his mouth to say something but then he decided not to say it.
Adeline noticed that the stableman was thinking of something, as though he wanted to say something to her. "What is it? Is there something you would like to tell me?" Adeline asked that stableman.
And the stableman politely replied to the Princess, "I don't know if it is just my false impression but I think Rion understands what you say. Whenever you give some order to him, he follows. Before you left, you asked him to drink water and let me clean his stable. And he did. Not just that, he also follows other things that you say to him."
Adeline chuckled at this remark from the stableman. She thought that he was delusional to believe that. "I don't think he follows my orders. He might just be starting to get habituated to this new place and new people." Adeline tried to give a rationale behind Rion's obedience.
The stableman nervously smiled for having told such an idiotic theory of his to the Princess. "What was I thinking? That is a more believable reason."
Adeline softly caressed Rion and then left for her own quarter. It was already late and if she did not return soon then her maids would be worried out of their minds.
While returning to her quarter, she could not help but still think about that 'door' that Agnes had mentioned about. "How does this door even look like? Where did Lillian open that door? Did she do it inside the Palace? If so, where exactly?"
Adeline was subconsciously walking while falling into deep thoughts. She suddenly stopped her feet and then looked to her side. She felt as though something had just swiftly passed by her side. She looked around but there was no one.
She began to walk again, thinking that it was just some illusion played by her mind. However, just after taking a few more steps, she again felt as though a shadow just flew by her side.
Adeline's heartbeat was now starting to escalate. She was not the one to get scared so easily at night, but her previous encounter with the ghoul made her reconsider her power level. She was reminded that there were creatures that were far more powerful than her and that they could easily harm her.
Right now, she was wondering about the door to hell and why Lillian would have wanted to open it. And because of this, when Adeline felt like something was lurking in the dark, she was scared that Lillian might have unleased some dangerous creatures from hell.
She certainly did not want to go looking for such creatures at the moment. She was proud of her strength and skills but not that much to act like an egoistic person and go looking around in the dark for troubles.
So she started to run towards the safety of her own room. She ran so fast that she might have even broken her own previous record. She arrived in her private chamber in a matter of minutes.
She hurriedly opened the doors to her room but as soon as she did that, she screamed at the top of her lungs.
Adeline's room was dark, her maids had not lighted the lanterns or the candles in her room because she was not inside. A window of her private chamber was open. And when Adeline opened the door, a gust of wind entered inside the room, blowing the curtains to reveal a dark figure standing behind the curtains.
As Adeline had so much in her mind and as she had felt that something was swooshing past her while walking outside, her mind immediately thought that the dark figure was that thing which was following her earlier.
And she was so startled that she screamed very loudly.
That dark figure came running towards her and then covered her mouth. "Adeline, it's me! Why are you shouting like that?" Theodore asked her in a hushed tone.
After knowing it was no one dangerous but Theodore, Adeline was saying something. But all Theodore could hear was muffled voices as he was still covering her mouth very tightly. "What are you saying?" Theodore finally let go of her.
Adeline slapped Theodore on his muscular arm and scolded him, "Theodore! What were you doing standing there like that?" Adeline yelled at Theodore furiously for scaring the soul out of her.
"What else? I was waiting for you." Theodore innocently defended himself.
Before Adeline could scold him some more, Hawisa and Osanna came running to her room to check what was wrong.
Hawisa was carrying a lantern in her hand. She looked around the room, while asking questions to the Princess, "Adeline, what happened? Why were you shouting like that?"
"Are you hurt somewhere? Did something happen to you?" Osanna also asked in her worried voice.
Adeline was taking a few deep breaths in to calm herself down. And she spoke while panting, "No, I'm good. I was just too happy to be back in my room, that's all." Adeline lied through her teeth.
"Are you sure? You didn't sound happy…" Hawisa did not believe in the Princess at all because Adeline sounded like she was too scared of something. That was why she was searching for any signs of that source of terror as soon as she ran inside the Princess's chamber.
"I'm alright. You two don't have to worry." Adeline lied down on the comfort of her bed without even changing her clothes or cleaning herself up after a long day.
Hawisa didn't find anything strange in the room so she thought that the Princess might have just vented out her frustration about something. And she asked the Princess, "Should I bring the dinner for you? Or would you like to take a bath first?"
"I don't feel like eating anything. I had lots of food in the market. So just prepare a hot bath for now." Adeline asked in a tired tone.
But Hawisa was shocked at the carelessness of the Princess. "You did what? You ate in the market? Without having anyone to test your food for poisons?"
Either Hawisa or Osanna would always taste Adeline's food before bringing it to her room. The Royal's lives were too precious to let them eat something without being tested first.
There were of course, previous cases where the poisonous food would still be delivered to the intended person if the maids were bought by the conspirator. Which is why it was important to have a good relationship and trust with the personal maids.
"Hawisa… we were in disguise. Nobody recognized us there to poison us!" Adeline was trying to make her maids believe that she was really okay and that there was nothing to worry about.
But while Adeline was saying that, she remembered about Agnes. She had recognized each and every one of them, and had even said that she had been keeping an eye on the Palace. And she wondered what would have happened if it was someone with bad intention instead of Agnes, who seemed like a good person.
"I should be more vigilant from now on." Adeline reminded to herself that she could not afford to look at the world through her optimistic and trusting eyes.. The world was too dangerous.