The Witch Queen

Chapter 6

The Witch Queen

Lucas used to live in this church, he was an orphan taken care of by the priest. Although this had been a small church in the dirty ghetto, he was happy. He didn't want anything from anyone. Only staying here with his beloved one already fulfilled his entire life.

He had had a dream growing up to be a priest here and continued to live peacefully. But life was something that he couldn't expect. The plan of the god wasn't easy as he thought. When he was around fifteen, the royal army declared that this ghetto was the hidden place of the rebel, and they decided to eliminate all of them.

"Brother contacted his old friend from the outside, I didn't want to go without him and cried a lot," said Lucas. He still remembered his unforgettable memory. It was something that he couldn't get rid of from his head. "So, he gave drugs to me, when I woke up, everything was late, everything vanished, and I couldn't return home anymore."

After that happened, he moved to stay in the city, his protector forged the documents and kept Lucas with him until he died four years ago.

Now, Rene had no words, she quite understood why Lucas hated her so much. It was not only his political point of view but his experiences. Now, she felt sad because of losing her brother, and Lucas used to have the same situation. He also lost his family.

Rene seemed to have emotion for Lucas's story, meanwhile, Ivan still didn't change his expression. He always used his feeling to decide many things around him, now from Lucas's story, he could feel only weird details.

And those facts couldn't make him pity.

"You said this brother was a priest," asked Ivan.

"Yes, he was a normal priest, since my first memory, he always stayed here," said he.

Ivan nodded and walked around the broken church. He was thinking in every step of his walking. What were the unusual details in this story?

"I think he was so brave to take care of a red eyes baby," said Ivan and he smirked, when he walked through the front of the altar he looked up at the statue.

It was not the god in the myth, but the statue was the first emperor, the king who conquered the great wars and established the dynasty of the current royal family.

From the legend, humans used to use AI for fighting and created multiple disasters around the mother earth, terra. Finally, the supreme intelligence AI decided the best solution for humanity.

Humans must have the one who ruled them, the one king with absolute power with cleverness and kindness.

The legend was told that the primitive king was the most intelligent man. He could do everything and had a great heart for humanity. He was the absolute perfect human.

"This sculpture was so solid, everything in this church were ruined, but…" suddenly Ivan walked to the plinth and touch the white stone.

But when he touched it, he rose his chin and looked up at the eyes of the statue. Then he saw something that was really strange.

The eyes of the statue…

"Ivan!" Lucas was frightened because suddenly Ivan used his power to fly to the top close to the statue, "what're you doing?"

"What am I doing?" he smirked and then touched the left eyes of the stature softly. The eye had the red spot on it, it was different from another. "I think your step-father was not a normal priest."

Beeps! Creak!

Immediately, they heard the moving sound from the plinth, before the eyes of them several tiles near the plinth were moving out, now they could see the hole, the space that was hidden in the ground of the church

"What?"

Lucas could see the trouble here, he had never known before that the place where he had lived had something like this.

"Why?" Lucas didn't understand, under the statue of the king, there was a deep underground that was hidden so long.

Hidden place? A rebel?

"No…impossible…" Lucas was thinking about the allegation, maybe that was not just a nonsense rumour. "brother… but…"

"Maybe, that brother was one of the rebels, wasn't he," said Rene, she walked to the hole and looked down at it.

There were stairs, and in the darkest, it seemed there was something.

Before she suggested them to go, Ivan used his power to kindle a fire, this hole seemed deeper than two hundred metres.

If you didn't call it the hidden room, how did you call it? Playground?

"If you want to see, follow me," said Ivan. Then he walked down the stairs without any hesitation.

Rene wanted to see inside too, but she could feel that Lucas was full of unstable feelings. Maybe because he always believed that that brother was innocent, until now.

"I think your brother had some reasons…everyone had their own reasons," said Rene. They stared at each other before Rene sighed. "I have my own reason to work for the government, my brother had his own reason for the rebel, you should respect the others' thoughts."

"Don't compare brother with your selfish," said he.

"Everyone has their own belief, you may not agree with the other, but don't think you're better," said she. "I'll go if you don't." Then she turned away from him and followed Ivan.

Lucas stared at the dark secret hole with reluctance, he didn't know why it seemed difficult to him to believe. But…

"I want to know the truth."

Yes, the truth was better than a white lie.

In the darkness, there was only the light in the palm of Ivan, they couldn't see where they were and what was inside.

Finally, Ivan stopped and they landed on the ground. It was a free space, there was nothing there. However, Ivan decided to light up his fire and suddenly, they could see what was hung up around them.

They were portraits!

"Paintings?" Ivan suggested and walked closer to one of them. He didn't know who they were.

What was the meaning of these paintings?

"They're portraits of the kings and queens in the past," Rene knew, she was the one who was taught in the compulsory curriculum of the empire, so she could remember both names and faces of the previous kings and queens. "I can remember them all."

"It's ridiculous," said Lucas. He didn't understand why people had to learn the names of the previous rulers like the religious testament.

No, in fact, currently, the royal family was the religion in itself.

"This's unusual," Ivan said.

It was the first time that the three of them had the same idea. The brother and this church should be a part of the rebellion group as he was charged, so it was impossible that the rebel had the collection of the royal family portraits in the hidden place.

What was the meaning of this?

Suddenly, Rene turned to see something that made her stunned. She tried to focus on that painting and turned to stare at Lucas several times.

"No…why?" she murmured with herself. Her actions made Ivan and Lucas had to follow.

And they saw…it.

The Queen…with her red eyes.

"Red eyes? Why the queen of the empire has red eyes?" Ivan noticed this unbelievable fact too.

"No, I mean in the book she had no red eyes…" Rene confused. "She was the first queen of the empire, Queen Stella the Great, but no one said anything about her eyes."

Because red eyes were the symbol of the witch, only the demon had that colour. In the legend, there was an evil tribe that everyone had those devil red eyes, so…

It was impossible that the witch would become the queen of the empire!