Chapter 10

"... lady. My lady…"

Gasp!

She gasped from her sleep. The hot tears were streamed down from her messy face. This time, instead of the half-destroyed street, she woke up inside her brother's bedroom. The pale color of the room and the familiar extravagant appearance of the ceiling above relieved her sense for a while.

There's no haul of the lost children. There's no smoke abusing her nostril. She didn't have to inhale the ashes, dust, or dirt. Her Dada and Baba were safe here. She looked around. Eh? Baba? Dada? Where were they? Why were they not in front of her? Were they safe? They were safe and sound, right? None injury penetrated their body, right? It's all just a bad dream, right? Someone! Please tell her she was not dreaming at the moment. Please help her to distinguish between reality and a dream.

"My lady!" Emily hugged her in a hurry with her flashed red and tears. "You are okay. Everything is okay."

Elizebeth blinked. She was in a state of disoriented but the dream was so vivid. The horrific scream ringing inside her ears, still. The night inside her dreams shivered her whole body, the uncomfortable feeling seeping inside her whole skin, engulfed all her senses. It was too inky to see but the memory of the marching soldiers still fresh inside her hazy mind.

She then searched around. "Brother? Father?" She searched for them. The surge of panic all over her face and she cried again. "Baba! Dada!"

Emily gasped and cried harder than before. Her nightmare has worsened.

"They can't die, Emily. They can't die! Call them. Baba! Dada!" She attempted to get out of the bed but Emily held her down.

"I will call them, My Lady." Emily signed for a maid to take over her job in supporting Elizebeth. "I will call them in your stead."

"Baba, Dada can't die. If they die. I die. Why do they need to die, Emily?" She held the hem of Emily's attire in panic. The question was too painful for her to utter. Stabbed inside her heart, wounded her.

"My Lady." Emily shed another drop of tears. Still called the maid over. "No one is dead, My Lady. They are here. They are still breathing."

"Call them. Call them…" Asked her sincerely. "... please." She half-whispered while plopping exhaustively on the bed. The sight was so disturbing and heartbreaking to Emily.

"Stay here with the maid. I'll call them." She ran with a mission in her mind.

Elizebeth nodded. She hugged another maid in a hiccup. She had no strength to move to be truthful. She could feel the blister on her foot. She could feel the pain in her body. She could vividly remember everything as if it had happened before.

"They can't die. Dada, Baba can't die." She sniffled inside the hold.

The maid tried to comfort the otherwise calm lady. She struggled to do so as she didn't know how to comfort her properly. She just held the young lady, patted behind her back, and humming the calming sound that she learned from her mother from when she was small.

It saddened the maid as well to see the well-behaved lady having a nightmare right after she'd fallen asleep for short of time. The world they were living in was so unfair to her beloved young lady. She should be rewarded with nothing but goodness. Not, not like this. She should always be happy. She should receive all the love around her. Her kind lady deserves as much.

It succeeded because Elizebeth seemed to calm down relatively fast under her arm. Her head shriveled on her chest, the tiny hand fisting her maid clothes. The calm engulfed them for some time before the storm of two people and people behind their back barged inside the room with both identical pale faces.

"Elizebeth!"

"Beth!"

The duke and Demien called her at the same time.

Elizebeth, who was already comfortable, and shutting her eyes, opened it instantly and moved her head past the maid's shoulder, and blinked at them. Her green eyes wavering as she blinked to make sure she wasn't dreaming.

"Baba? Dada?" She muttered weakly.

The duke and Demien bewildered to see the dry tears and the messy face of hers. They ambled inside the room cautiously, holding their gaze at her still, and slowly stood in front of the bed opposite where she was sitting with the maid.

"Are you okay?" Duke asked calmly. Inwardly, he was already murdering whoever inside the dream that put his daughter in a fault mood as early in the morning when she had almost no sleep yesterday.

She blinked. Tried to see any foreign injury on both of them. Still could not distinguish the dream and reality just yet. "Baba and Dada? Are you okay?" The hoarse voice asked them this time without answering the question.

Demien didn't understand anything but studying her sister's feature, he knew he had to answer the question or else she would be worried sick. "Baba and Dada are okay."

She just scanned them both without answering them with her tears streaming down still.

"See…" Demien entertained his sister by flapping his arms.

"Turn around."

Demien followed the order without saying anything. The duke who was confused at the very beginning looked at Demien and Elizebeth simultaneously before mirroring Demien's action awkwardly.

"See…"

"Erm!" Elizebeth nodded in satisfaction. She detached herself from the maid and crawled on the bed towards her father and brother. "Hug me." She sat laxly while making a grabbing hand.

Demien huffed slowly. His sister was getting better as his father took Elizebeth in his arms. He watched his sister slumped her head onto father's shoulder and wrapped her tiny arms around his neck.

"Don't die, Dada, Baba. You can't die." She whispered close to his father's ear but Demien could hear her still. They became paler than before.

'What kind of dream she had?' Both had the same thought.

"I'll be good. I promise." The weak voice said again. Rubbing her face on her father's neck. The cold tears on her cheeks smeared on his neck, yet Duke didn't point that out.

"You are good." Duke rubbed her large hand behind her back in a circle.

"I will be even better than today." She said in a hushed voice, her eyes shut slowly. Feeling the warmth of her father.

Her day didn't even start yet. That devastated Demien more.

"Do what you like, you are my daughter regardless," Duke reassured his daughter.

"So Baba and Dada don't have to die." She added small.

She is acquainted with the words 'die' today. They were worried and she was worried too. Both parties had different worries inside their hearts.

"Baba, Dada, promise Elizebeth." The tiny being held her small pinky finger right in front of Duke and near to her brother. "Don't die. Please…" Begged her calmly, almost whining. She was serious actually.

Duke and Demien gulped at the sudden promise, they stared at the pinky finger for quite some time wondering whether it was a good decision to follow her will.

"Baba… Dada…" She whined. She knew it was her vital weapon to get what she wanted.

"Fine." Duke linked his finger to his daughter, then Demien followed right after.

"You promise!" She beamed, but her face looked so tired despite just waking up. Maybe because of the dream, she became more tired than before.

"Let's wash up, okay?" Her father patted behind her back again.

"Okay." She nodded obediently. "I want Baba to hold me after this."

Demien tried to conceal his satisfaction and he failed to do such because Duke surely saw the tiny smile on the almost straight line lips. He scoffed but could not do anything. It's what Elizebeth wants. He could not oppose it.

"Emily. Wipe away your tears. Attend the lady." Instructed Duke with his authoritarian voice.

"Yes, Duke." She quickly wiped away her tears and swiftly did what she had to do inside Demien's bathroom. Sometimes, they heard the order given by Emily to other maids either to pick Elizebeth's clothes or to do something else. It was no doubt everyone loved her efficiency. That's why Duke made her his beloved daughter's personal maid and uplifted the status of Emily despite her young age.

"Wash your body. Then, come down to a dining room." Duke kissed her head.

"With Baba?"

"With Baba." Duke and Demien agreed.

"M'kay." She rubbed her red eyes.

"You are precious to me. Too precious." Duke spoke in a hushed tone right to her ear.

"Thank you." She hugged her father, humming.

"Thank you for being born." He kissed her for the last time before giving her to Emily. Her tiny arms wrapped around Emily and smiled cutely to him and Demien when the gaze connected.

The facade crumbled soon after the bathroom door was closed. Both emitting the dark aura. Demien massaged his temple while Duke sighed heavily.

"I'll contact every physician. Even outside our Kingdom." Told Demien.

Duke agreed and called Haris. "I'll personally meet the king. Prepare the carriage instantly."

"I will do as I am told, My Duke." Haris bowed to both of them.