Chapter 52

Chapter 16:

Trisha’s P.O.V

Rose and I joined Damien and Lucas on the table and Rose motioned for Rissa, the woman in charge of the Kitchen, to bring out our food.

I was given a bag of blood along with a small bowl of beef stew and rice, while Damien was just given a bag of blood and a suspicious look. I gave Rissa a disappointed glance, but Damien shook his head, accepting the blood without complaints.

“So? Any progress with the expedition?” Rose asked outright, getting straight to the point. “You didn’t immediately teleport back, so I’m assuming you had some form of success.”

Damien nodded, taking a sip of his blood. “I found the castle. There was a fountain in the courtyard with the statue of a baby angel. It was made completely of jade, that’s why I remembered it. Turns out, that statue is still in pristine condition.”

“And the castle?” I asked, a sliver of hope blooming in my heart.

But Damien shook his head, crushing that hope. “It’s gone.” He said. “It can hardly be called a building, let alone a castle.”

“Take me there.” I told him, refusing to give up this easily. “Whatever’s left of it, I need to see.”

“Trisha, there’s no-”

Damien began, but I caught a hold of his hand on top of the table. “Please.” I told him desperately. “I need to see it with my own eyes.”

Damien sighed, but nodded nonetheless.

“Let’s go then.” I urged him. “Time difference is about 5 hours, if we get there now, we can get some time in the daylight.”

“Finish your meal first.” Damien ordered, looking down at my half-eaten plate. “Then we will teleport.”

*

*

Twenty minutes later, Damien teleported us to the middle of a forest with what appeared to be broken remains of what appeared to be…a house.

I don’t know what I had expected to find here in the first place. But this? No. I certainly hadn't imagined the castle to be a near-extinct excavation site.

Standing in front of me however, on a broken pillar that might have once been white, was a statue of a child angel, holding an urn up towards the sky. Roots and vines had crept up onto the marvelous statue, covering up most of its beauty. But the most striking feature about it was the fact that the jade was still a beautiful green and the centuries of neglect hadn't affected it much.

“Let’s look around, shall we?” I asked Damien, looking back at him to find him staring at the statue as well.

He didn’t say anything, simply nodded his head and pointed in the direction where the castle was…had been.

The trees in this forest had grown tall in the past two hundred years and I had a suspicion that it was because of the bombs that had been dropped all over the world. One of those bombs might have dropped on the Avestenin castle, destroying it forever, cleansing the land and making it fertile ground. Since Queen Maya had already been dead, there had been no point in reach out to locate any survivors. And Damien had already been having a hard time maintaining peace all over the lands.

Bits and pieces of stone; a few pillars and a lot of foliage. That was literally what was left of the castle.

Trees had grown over the columns, winding its stem around the structures and the ground too was covered in dirt and dried leaves.

The more I explored, the more my heart sank. This had been my last hope; to find clues at Damien’s maternal home. But that home had been wiped out long ago, wiping out with it any trace of hope for saving Damien.

“This is why I was reluctant to bring you here.” Damien told me, grabbing a hold of my arm to stop me from moving forward. “There’s nothing here, Trisha. There’s nothing left.”

“No.” I turned to face him. “Royalty didn’t have castles or hideouts at one location only. There are more. There have to be.”

But Damien shook his head. “The Avesteninian Clan had one flaw. Even though it held a strong influence in our world before the Wipeout, the Clan often battled and killed for rights to the throne.”

He let go of my hand and knelt down, picking up a piece of rock from the ground before he continued. “Brothers would kill brothers for the throne. Fathers would behead their sons to stay in power longer. It was utter chaos. That’s why, almost two thousand years ago, it was decided that there would be only one male heir. And only the son of the Queen would be considered the legitimate heir and other males would be killed at birth.”

“It was a harsh law,” Damien threw the stone far away and it flew at great speed before embedding itself on a tree trunk. “But if the heirs would ultimately go to battle and kill each other, what was the point? Daughters were married off to far away empires and only one male heir survived. My mother was sent off to marry King Dominic, while my uncle became King. The last I remembered, my uncle had two daughters with the Queen and a son from a court maiden. There had been a debate at their court if he should be kept alive until the Queen produced an heir or if he should be declared the heir.”

“What happened at the end?” I asked, intrigued by the story.

“The Wipeout.” Damien shrugged, putting his hands inside his pant pockets.

I nodded in understanding, looking around at the ruins one last time.

As a mother who had once lost a child, I couldn’t imagine what the mother’s would have gone through when their children had been killed in front of their eyes. Had they been at least spared that vision? Or did the kings not have mercy? Vampires or not, they had still just been children. Innocent souls who hadn't deserved the fate they received. Maybe that’s why their legacy was now in ruins. Their castles crumbled and their existence wiped out from the face of the earth.

“I’m not losing hope.” I told Damien firmly, looking into his gorgeous eyes in the golden hue of the setting sun. “I won’t lose hope until you and I are still breathing.”

Damien gave me a small smile. “That’s why I chose you, Trisha.” He touched my cheek lightly, caressing his thumb. “You don’t just use logic and reasoning, but you use your heart. You will make a good ruler one day.”

My breath got stuck in my throat at that comment. “Damien…”

Becoming his Queen? Was that what he meant? But that would mean…

“We’ll make it.” He told me firmly. “I’ll believe in it as long as you are by my side. I would believe that the sun revolves around the earth if you told me so.”

“Damien,” I clutched his wrists. “I won’t let you down, I promise.”

No matter what happens. I would save Damien at all costs or die trying. There was no other option for me. Now that I had tasted heaven in his lips, found my eternity in his arms…I couldn’t even imagine having to live without him for even a single day. No! I wouldn’t accept any other outcome. Either we live on together or die together. The end.

“I don’t doubt you one bit.” Damien told me then.

And with that, I saw his face turn into a scheming smile as he held onto me tight.