24 Blood Drop Stone (1)

"Uwaaa! The food smells delicious! Midel, you gotta try this braised pork! So...so yummy!" Shiiba's eyes kept sparkling as she shoved food into her mouth.

Thunk!

Lucien flicked Shiiba's forehead making her choke.

"Ooff! Rhat washn't naysh!" As Shiiba rubbed the swollen spot, she scowled at Lucien with still a mouthful of food.

"Hehe..." Midel "Forgive her this time Lucien, Shiiba worships food." Midel scratched his head and smiled at the little blue girl devouring another platter of food.

"First Young Miss, let me help you with your food." Mira rushed to Yrah's side and started to feed her mistress.

"Thank you Mira." Yrah replied with a small smile. Somehow she felt a little bitter not being able to do some things on her own now.

"That reminds me. Midel, you said there could be a way for Yrah's sight to be recovered. Is there really a way?" Yllana turned to look at the man with silver hair. Everyone's hands stopped in mid-air.

The air was tense. There was a sense of nervousness in everyone's eyes inside the room, except for Mira who seemed not to mind the heavy topic.

"There is. But you still have to grow stronger before I tell you how. If you achieve a certain amount of power within you, you might just be able to retrieve her sight back but not the same as it was." Midel's serious tone struck Yrah's heart.

"Sister..." Yrah was about to say that it was ok that she will prevail in life even without her eyesight.

"I will find a way. I promise." Yllana held her sister's hand tightly reassuring her a promise that nobody thought possible but will take her years to fulfill.

After a moment, Yllana's statement shocked everyone, "I'm going to the palace."

"What?!" Everyone shouted in unison.

"There's no way that the Emperor and Empress will just hand over your parents to you seeing how ruthless they were barging into your family's estate." Shiiba reasoned out to her.

"Add the fact that they want the blood drop stone in your hands. If you try to exchange it for their lives, do you think they will let you go just like that? If they come to know that you have the stone, they will hound you endlessly." Midel also blurted out in anger.

"It's alright. I'm going alone. You don't have to feel burdened to accompany me." Yllana stood up from the table and was walking to the door when Lucien blocked her way.

"Not yet." Those two words held her in place. Why not yet? They have already spent days without any news of prisoners being released nor executed. Who knows how much suffering their parents have already gone through. Just the thought of it alone makes Yllana angry to herself for being too weak to even protect her family.

"What do you mean?" with every word, she enunciated them carefully and slowly while squinting her eyes at the man before her.

He twisted Yllana's left arm in one second and held it behind her then pushed her to the wall face first. "Resist." He commanded her. His tone was harsh with a hint of mockery. How could she overpower someone who is in a higher rank than her? His power overwhelmed her as he added a terrifying pressure behind her. Everyone else was stupified with what he did.

Hiss.

Yllana gritted her teeth and glanced at Yrah who held her own head down. "He is right, you know. We can't rush into the palace with these powers only. Not mentioning you somehow regressed to a very low level sister. I can sense it."

High commoner, and she hadn't told her sister yet that she became a mage. She hadn't thought of that yet. Lucien released after sensing that she had relaxed.

"Regressed? You mean, Yllana used to be stronger?" Midel asked what was on everybody's mind.

"High Honor...she's num-" before Yrah could even finish what she was saying, Yllana already interrupted.

"It was back then sister. No use in dwelling in what we could not change." Yllana also lowered her gaze to hide the sadness on her face.

"So you really used to be stronger?" Shiiba's eyes shined as she gaped at Yllana. "I thought Midel was making up one of his visions about you facing the dark forces from the Cursed Lands." she muttered, whispering only to herself. But even though she lowered her voice, Lucien heard the last part and his eyes fell in Midel.

"Let's talk." Lucien faced Yllana and pulled her into her bedroom and pushed the door shut.

When Yllana regained her senses, she wrinkled her forehead before stomping her way in front of him. "Rude! Don't do that again while we are talking. You can't just pull me anywhere you want when you want to!" She crossed her arms in front of her chest and huffed.

"Take out the stone." He demanded. His face was devoid of expression.

Yllana rolled her eyes first but then complied in the end. She pulled out the stone from her pocket and presented it to him.

As if waiting for him to take it into his hands, she raised her hand a little more closer to him.

"Nobody else can touch it except the one it has chosen to give the power to." Lucien flatly stated as if a matter of fact.

"I-It does that,huh?" Since it was her first time to see it, she didn't know. "How can I absorb it's power?"

"Swallow it. It will be painful at first, but you have to endure it...for days."

"Midel didn't tell me that. And I don't know if my parents really own this stone." Doubt crossed her mind. Her red eyes gleamed at the same color of the stone. As if it was enticing her to the great power it possessed.

"Where did you find it?"

"In our estate,"

"Then it's yours, idiot." he sighed exasperatedly and looked at the side.

Her jaw dropped as his words hit her. Did he just call her idiot once again? With bursting anger, she grasped the stone and threw it down her throat then glared at him.

Wait, what?

It was only then that she felt a gush of painful stabs from her chest. She fell down with a thud and her hair sprawled on the wooden floor. Her eyes were wide open as she clutched her chest. She felt like her heart was being crushed inside while thousands of ants were gnawing every bit of her skin. Cold sweat dripped from her forehead and her throat felt dry. She tried yelling out the pain but nothing came out.

Lucien covered her with a blanket then sat beside her. "Endure it."