8 Chapter 8

"Stop here."

A day has gone by, Celestina isn't sure where they are now but according to Ginny, they need to stop here to rest and get ready tomorrow before the sun even rise.

Celestina looks at her surroundings. Except for the huge inn behind her, she is surrounded by vast land of greens and some farm animals wandering around unattended. This kind of sights are hard to fine in her old life where every place is filled with buildings, cars and the air smells bad.

She takes in a deep breath and feels the drowsiness drowns in.

Francisco has been paying attention to the girl ever since she got off the carriage. He pays attention to the deep breath she takes and the eyes filled with amazement as she looks at the green land. It takes only these small things to amuse her. Then he sees sleepiness in her eyes and her shoulders drop down while she drags her feet to walk to the inn.

He hesitates for a while before throwing the hesitation away and walks towards her.

"Louise take care of the rooms."

"Yes sir"

Celestina has been dragging her feet to the inn. Although she sits through the whole journey, it's still quite tiring.

Then she sees the duke walks toward her. She thinks he will walk past her to the knights behind her but contrary to her thoughts, he stops right in front of her before kneeling down and princess carry her.

"Uncle!!" Celestina shouts in surprise. He carries her like a potato before, when did he learn how to carry a child?

"Stay still, I'll carry you up."

"O-okay..." Celestina doesn't refuse his help. Her small legs are killing her and her neck are badly hoping for a pillow right now.

She thinks about the events in the novel. There aren't any plagues, there aren't any amazing events as well, the novel mainly focus on the main leads romance and their drama with villain and some scheming side characters wanting to humiliate the female lead.

'Oh! There is one! The male lead will find a cave in somewhere when he was tasked by the emperor to kill spies on the west side- I guess? Why is my memory so poor? The cave is filled with some magic stones that this kingdom lacks off and has to depends on other kingdoms for its supply. The magic stone is used in the barriers, weapons, what else? I can't think of anything else... let's just sleep first... his arms are so comfortable...'

Francisco places the girl in her bed. He made sure to have her room beside his.

'There're some insects lurking around, they must have heard by her presence. I didn't even remember to suppress the news. How stupid-'

"Sir! We've caught them." Louise whispers to him when he comes out of her room, he makes sure to whispers- the miss is so fragile, she night faint if she know some weird people are around her.

"They seem to be the people of the emperor, here- " Louise hands over a badge that he found from one of the men. The badge has the emblems of White Knight— the empire's greatest squad.

"How dare he use the empire's weapon for this" Francisco tries to suppress his feelings but the old emperor is too nauseating. Stupid, a fool, pervert- all the bad words that could be thought could be used on him. Not only he forces his people to pay the high taxes, he used them to pursue his own selfish needs.

"Calm down sir, there might be ears." Louise has always been the calm one, his master- although known as a cold man, is bad tempered if it concerns the well being of the empire, after all his father died protecting this empire. The emperor action has indeed crossed the line, people with brains will have known not to suspect this duke for any bad thoughts, the duke is loyal to the empire but doubting him will only bring doom to this empire. But the emperor is a well known fool, this fact has even crossed the Red Sea and heard by people from other kingdoms. It's indeed a shame that people can't choose their emperor...

"I am calm enough." Francisco knows the consequences to go against this foolish emperor. Although he's a fool, his brain works when it concerns his well being. Provoking the emperor isn't a good thing for now. He has 3 children to take care of. Two of them can care for themselves but Celestina can't. Leave your sights off her and she might disappear.

Francisco knew from the first time he saw her. Her gaze wasn't of a child's, he can't read her thoughts. He wants to protect her but whenever he saw her eyes, he feels like she will disappear at anytime. He has grown to like this child he just met for less than a week.

'Well... it doesn't feel so bad.'

"Louise, burn that badge and let those men go. Leave a warning for him- Don't ever come near my territory- Tell them that and make sure they remember to relay it to him."

"Yes sir."

"Sir, is the miss already asleep?" Ginny comes from the stairs. She took care of her belongings and places it to her room before coming upstairs to check on the miss but she didn't expect the duke to be here.

"Hn. Take care of her, make sure not to let anyone near her room. You may use any means to do that" Ginny is a trained maid- one of the special ones that were picked by Francisco himself. She might be old but that only made it easier for her to kill her enemies- people tends to underestimate woman and an elderly after all.

"Yes sir." Ginny knew that there were people trailing behind them but she never thought it will made the unbothered duke to be this bothered. 'Maybe it's due to the miss..'

The night goes on, with some deep in their sweet dreams while some wide awake waiting for the enemies to come out.

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