Chapter 38: Cracks

"No," Aries refused to believe. "You are not her."

With his dual blades, he pushed the dagger and the possessed woman away. But he did not stab her. He let Princess Pieffer took care of that housemaid.​​

Right at that moment, the princess knocked out two more vessels and she quickly caught on to the one that Aries had pushed away.

The dual blades transformed into a bow and Aries quickly absorbed the hovering corrupted souls with his arrows.

As the remaining guards attacked, the bow instantly changed back into dual blades. Aries parried the weapons slashed at him but he failed to land an effective counterattack.

"Kill them! Or my brother will be killed!!!" the crazy corrupted soul had bellowed.

Princess Pieffer was momentarily confused but she did not allow herself to be distracted. She knocked out two more housemaids and Aries had to run away from the remaining guards to change his weapon back into a bow.

After absorbing the corrupted souls, his focus returned to the guards that were trying to hit him. His dual blades were eager to strike the vessels but the remaining three were quick to dodge his attacks. Whenever he tried to run towards Prince Sunrei, they were swiftly blocking his way, and their harmonized offensives were forcing Aries to take a few steps backward, away from the prince.

Princess Pieffer was also struggling. Panic was making things worse for her. It was only the crazy corrupted soul but she was having more difficulty knocking that vessel down than the rest of the nine housemaids.

Aries could see that Celestial Knight Sunrei was halfway in reclaiming his body. If they fail to help the prince, he would become a homeless soul. Princess Pieffer would lose her beloved brother.

Aries had to be ruthless. He eventually had to listen to that crazy corrupted soul. Tightening the grip on his sword, he aimed for the throats of the guard but stopped when the water from the pitcher suddenly stopped flowing downward and intensely poured towards Merrick.

He and the guards were caught off guard and had been hit hard. The water had thrown them a few meters away from the prince then it changed direction and hit the crazy corrupted soul that Princess Pieffer was fighting.

The streaming water altered its course one more time and hit the three guards Aries was fighting.

"Aries, why are you just standing there?"

It was Quaria. She was gliding a few feet above one of the shallow waterways connected to the fountain. Aries remembered that was the area where they had always been transported but he could not see where the transport gem had been placed.

Merrick, the guards, and the housemaid were all wet but they had not been knocked unconscious. They were getting on their feet at a snail's pace as if the water had slowed down their movement.

Aries raised his dual blades and rushed to the guards. Princess Pieffer stopped the housemaid from blocking his way.

Grateful to the slowing effect of the water, Aries made sure that his blades would hit home. He had easily stabbed the guards and absorbed the corrupted souls from their body.

Merrick dodged the blades that Aries slashed at him but he did not return to the prince. He dashed towards the housemaid.

"Let's go!" he commanded at the woman.

"Aries! I will wait until you are ready to come with me!" the housemaid yelled before trailing Merrick.

Out of the thin air, a crack had formed in front of Merrick and it opened a dark pathway for him and the housemaid.

Aries was too late in throwing his blades at the two corrupted souls. The crack had closed and his dual blades hit nothing but the trees at the perimeter of the Central Island.

Prince Sunrei was too tired to get up but he was safe for now.

"I think my house will collapse soon," Quaria gracefully touched the shallow water at the waterway and sadly approached Princess Pieffer.

"It will not," the princess reassured the house leader while healing her brother. "The barriers had cracks on them but you can fix it."

"One border needs an entire day to fix. Corrupted souls can enter anywhere. I cannot fight them while I am fixing the barriers. My guards are good but not all of them are immune to the influence of the corrupted souls. My wards against them are getting weaker. I think it is because of Mercielle. Her knowledge in countering spells is only getting deeper while we are only starting to learn it. And that portal… to think that they can use their abilities even though our barriers are still up…"

"It only happened because of the cracks," Princess Pieffer insisted. "They could not use their abilities to the fullest because of the barriers. Just concentrate on fixing it."

"We can only start once the sun is up and it will take four days," Quaria seemed embarrassed.

"Don't worry," Aries had said. "This is for the kingdom. House of Scale can wait. And," he cleared his throat before adding, "You should be taking a one-day off. I'm sorry that you have to cut it short."

Quaria tapped Aries a little harder on the shoulder and told him with a smile, "Thank you. It's enough that I saw Tauren and I got to spend some time with him. It is my decision to return early. I am a house leader. Though I love to be with Tauren, I also love my house and my people. I should take care of them."

"I will keep my promise to you and Tauren," Princess Pieffer said. Her eyes filled with determination. "A time will come where the two of you can spend time together without worrying about the safety of your houses."

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Quaria smiled affectionately at the hopeful princess.

"Let's rest while can," Aries offered a hand at Prince Sunrei.

"I will show you the guest rooms," Quaria motioned for them to follow her inside the house.

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Aries, Princess Pieffer, and Prince Sunrei ended up resting in the same room.

For Aries, Prince Sunrei should not be left alone. That was the reason he volunteered to stay in the same room with him.

Princess Pieffer agreed with his idea and she insisted to stay with them. She also told Aries that she had questions for him.

"You two can talk," Prince Sunrei rested his back on one of the couches in the room. "I'm dead tired. I need a lot of sleep."

"You cannot sleep yet!" Princess Pieffer sat on the adjacent couch. Her eyes were filled with worry. "You have to tell us what happened. And why did you call us too late? If Quaria did not arrive on time, we would have lost you!"

"Do you really see me as your brother?"

There was bitterness in the eyes of the prince as he stared at the crackling fire at the hearth.

"Why are you asking that question?" Princess Pieffer was confused and so was Aries who had settled on the window sill not far from the couches.

"I am only important to you because I can keep this body away from him."

Tears brimmed in the eyes of the princess. She was hurt by those words.

"Yes. She wants you to stay because she doesn't want that Celestial Knight to ever return in the body you are inhabiting," Aries was the one who answered the annoying dramatic prince. "But that is not her only reason. You 'are' her brother. Not that Celestial Knight. How can you doubt her love for you? You've been together for more than a decade. You've been through many life-and-death situations. How can you believe those corrupted souls more than your sister?"

"I'm sorry," Prince Sunrei rolled on his right and buried his face on the backrest. "I'm just tired."

"Brother…"

"Let him rest," Aries leaned his head on the wall and gazed outside the window. "You have questions for me, right?"

Princess Pieffer let out a heavy sigh before asking, "That housemaid… I think… we know her…"

"We don't," Aries and Prince Sunrei had chorused.

"As Aries had said, we should not believe the words of a corrupted soul," the prince added without looking away from the backrest.

"The corrupted souls… are getting stronger…" Princess Pieffer rested her head on the backrest of the couch.

"No matter how strong they had become, we have to defeat them, right?" Aries reminded the princess.

"Yes. We have to win," Princess Pieffer agreed with a weary smile.

"You should get some sleep," Aries advised. "Lie on the bed and rest your mind."

The princess nodded and did as she was told. It was easy for Aries to say those words to the royal siblings but he could not do it to himself.

That woman kept bugging his mind. He knew he should not believe those dark essences but a part of his mind was telling him otherwise.

He lightly banged the back of his head on the wall and repeatedly told himself to stop thinking about that corrupted soul. She was not who he thought she was.

The Pieffer I know will never become a corrupted soul. She was a good person and always will be.

He continually chanted those words until sleep had finally claimed him.

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