Chapter two

The raid ended as the sun rose. The beasts Luckily there were less injured soldiers and none died since they're just lower levels beasts.

Two days passed,

It was a grand afternoon,

Queen Lunaris and the members of Rhysand's team gathered in the dining room. A huge long table was placed at the center of the room, a golden chandelier at the center of the ceiling, plates, forks, spoons, napkins and others were placed on both sides of the table on a row vertically with candle lights at the upper right side of the plates. The table was covered with Weber colored fabric, twelve wooden floral carved seats with sangria colored cushions and different kinds of meals were placed vertically at the center of the table. Lunaris sat on the seat of the upper part of the table while the others sat on the seat which was placed at the sides.

Harper ate a lot of sweets during dinner,

she sat next to Elara-which was kind of worried about Harper's health.

"You really like sweets, do you, darling?" Elara glanced at her.

"Don't touch my sweets." Harper glared.

"But I wasn't even-"

"Still don't."

Elara sighed, "Eat your vegetables, darling."

"Nu."

"My,my."

"How cute." Rhysand thought and stretched out a smile as he glanced at Harper.

Primrose drooled seeing roast meat on her plate, she took a piece and and chewed it slowly.

Kade stared at Jaydn-which she sat infront of him-as she ate with a smile on his face. Jaydn glanced at him, and almost choked. She hurriedly drank water from the glass and glared at him. She whispered to him. "You bastard."

Lunaris glanced at Harper which that reminds her of something. She cleared her throat as her face turned serious. "Harper. I have something for you." It caught everyone seating on the table's attention. She stood up from her seat and handed an object wrapped in a cloth.

She unwrapped it.

"Can you please call the new maid in the castle." Lunaris snapped her fingers. The maids bowed and hurried down.

Minutes passed and everyone kept silent while waiting.

"Yes, your highness. You've called?" The new maid arrived and screamed when she saw Harper.

"What do you see?"

Harper looked at her, terrified. Everyone in the dining room still kept silent.

"D-d-de." She stuttered as she pointed out on her.

Harper kept silent. She knew she had this curse but it made her feel like this. Some of her teammates at first reacted like that and almost attacked her, luckily, Lunaris told them to observe or looked deep down onto her.

It felt awful for her

but she tried to hide it.

Rhysand glanced at her again but with a serious face, he read her face, he knew what she's feeling right at this very moment. He was the first one in the team that sees her as human.

He didn't attempted to attack her at first since he's the one who saw her in the first place. At first he saw a demon lying on the ground but little by little his vision of her started to morph.

Lunaris rose her hand and spread it as symbol of silence and glanced back at Harper. "I want you to wear that mask."

Harper glanced at the strong white colored full face masquerade mask with golden spirals at the right side. She placed it on her face and it calmed the maid down.

"H-h-how did she become human." Her eyes widened.

"I knew my theory was correct." Lunaris rubbed her fingers on her her chin. "Harper, I want you to wear that starting today. Everyone who doesn't looked deep down will see you as a human now, don't take it off and also,  I plan to send you to Eleriya academy."

Harper's eyes widened and the team was surprised except for Rhys because he already knew about this.

She continued her sentence. "We could afford anyone to teach you privately but they would not be as great as the teachings of Mr. Gaius. This academy is something else and formerly Mr. Gaius was an administrator there before he became our private tutor, I want you to do your best and reach the top ten overalls." She sat back to her seat. "Will you do that?"

"Yes, your highness." Harper replied and smiled slightly although deep down, she knew that she's terrified.

"I don't want you to show your symbol to anyone when you enter that academy because you are our trump card. I also want to send Prim there too."

Prim almost choked. Her eyes widened and slowly glanced at the Queen. "But your highness, I am too much for that academy, wouldn't that be unfair for the others too?"

"Your new mission is to guide Harper there and since you're the second youngest among your team. It doesn't matter whether you take it seriously or not."

"Yey, I'm going to babysit a teenager, great." She whispered as she chewed the last piece of her meat.

...

Harper sighed as she gazed at the night sky. The star's light reflected onto her eyes.

She placed her hands on the handrail as wind blew her plum colored dress and made her braided hair sway.

Suddenly, she heard footsteps coming this way.

"Milady, what are you doing here during this hour."

Harper turned back. "R-rhysand." She wasn't expecting him though.

He stood next to Harper and that made her blush. Her heart palpitated and her hands shook.

He took a deep breath and stretched out a smile. "What a lovely night. You can see the stars clearly today, it's beautiful, isn't it?"

Harper's jaw dropped. "H-how?"

"Pardon?" Rhys glanced at her.

"How can you see clearly? your eyes seemed shut and uh, I alway wondered how you can see, is that even possible?"

He broke character and laughed, for a person who lived his life being prim and proper all the time.

"It's the first time I saw you like that." Harper thought. "Sorry for my rudeness, I shouldn't have asked you that."She bowed.

He cleared his throat and stood straight with his hands at the back. "No,no Milady it's fine. I should apologize for laughing unexpectedly. It's just that no one had ever asked me that even though their face seemed like they wondered how too. I guess you're the first person. Anyway, please raise your head, Milady or you might hurt your back."

"Yes, sir." She stood straight, rapidly.

He chuckled as he glanced at the starry sky. "You know someone told me that not everything is always what they seemed. I learned my lesson and kept that in mind. It's like my eyes, they seemed close but they're not." He glanced back at Harper.

Harper's felt like she couldn't breathe. "Oh my gosh, he's so cute, I can't face him anymore, I don't know anymore. I want to scream." She thought again.

"You're just like her."

"What do you mean?"

Her brain's having a conversation with her-"Calm down Harper, we don't know who this her is. You still have a chance. No, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't."

"You reminded me of someone. She told me that. You know at first when I saw you, I knew deep down that you're normal."

His words made Harper felt clear. It felt like time slow down around them. The both of their eyes met for the moment there.

"I should head down now." He covered his mouth as he yawned. "You should too, milady."

"You go ahead. I'm not that sleepy." She stretched out a smile.

"Yes, go please so that I could breathe." Her brain responded.

Rhysand sighed. "It's very rude of me to leave a lady here all alone, I'll accompany you for a while."

"It's okay, I'm really fine."

"No, I'm gonna die here, you're too cute that you're killing me." Her brain responded again.

"I'm sorry but I'm afraid I couldn't do that." He stayed at his position.

"I'm about to explode." She thought as she tried her best not to make eye contact with him.

He thought for a moment as he looked at her.

"Echo, why did you changed?"

While walking through the hallway, Jaydn heard voices coming from the balcony. She was surprised as she realized the twin door leading to the balcony's opened. She glared at her as she saw her with their leader, having a conversation with each other.

"I've always hated you in secret." She thought. "You're insulting us."