Chapter 17 - Feel The Heat
Theodore decided to give a little visit to Queen Lillian and strolled away from the training ground. "So her name is Lillian? The name itself brings back a particular memory that I hate." Theodore narrowed his honey colored eyes as he remembered his own past that he was not proud of.
Osmond felt overwhelmed after Theodore used his Divine Eyes on him to look through at his past. He also felt as if his life was played in front of his eyes in super-fast motion. And with that his heart was very uneasy like it was being tormented by his past.
The General blinked his eyes hardly to see what was in front of him. He was still kneeling down and Nigel was teaching Adeline to hold the sword.
Osmond had no idea what came over him and why he was feeling so much pain. And he thought, "What just happened to me? They say one's whole life flashes in front of their eyes when they are about to die. Was I about to die? Wait… am I already dead?"
Osmond's mind was unable to think straight after what had just happened to him. His heart was thumping so loudly that he could clearly hear his own heartbeat. But he was unsure that his heartbeat was even real.
Adeline and Nigel were giggling and were now pretending to fight with the wooden sword. General Osmond cleared his throat and called loudly, "Your Highness."
Both Adeline and Nigel immediately turned their heads towards General Osmond.
"They can see me. Oh thank god! I'm still alive." General Osmond thought to himself and let out a sigh of relief as he got up from the ground.
He was still holding a wooden sword that was similar in size as that of Adeline's sword. "Princess Adeline, I am going to explain few things about the sword. Prince Nigel, you can also listen to me for now."
Both Adeline and Nigel were now paying close attention to their teacher.
Osmond pointed at the handle of the sword and said, "This part right here is called a hilt. This is where you use your hand to grab the sword. Princess Adeline, did you notice before that there were different types of swords on display?"
Adeline nodded her head and said, "Yes. There were long ones as well."
General Osmond nodded and continued, "Yes, there are long ones as well as short ones. For now you will be using this short one. And as I was saying, the hilts are different in different kinds of swords."
He again pointed at the hilt of the sword that he was holding and said, "Some have short hilt like this one, and some have long hilt. We hold the ones with short hilt with our one hand only, and we hold the ones with longer hilt with both of our hands."
Adeline proudly held her sword with her right hand but she held by sticking it very close to her chest.
General Osmond pointed at the horizontally placed piece of wood just above the hilt and continued, "And this thing right here is called cross. It is here so that your hand won't slip towards the sharp part right here."
He pointed at the blade and continued with his explanation, "Of course, this is made out of wood so it is not sharp. This long part is also called blade. And this pointy part is called tip. When you use a real sword, you can use this tip to pierce through things."
Osmond shifted his gaze from the sword to the Princess and asked her, "Princess Adeline, will you tell me the names of the parts of this sword?"
Adeline pointed at her own small sword and started to recite the names. "This is called hilt, this is cross, this is blade and this is tip."
"Very good." General Osmond appreciated the Princess and moved on, "Now, I am going to teach you how to properly hold this sword."
Then he gripped the wooden sword with his right hand and started to explain, "Watch me closely and copy me alright. First of all, you need to wrap all of your fingers around the hilt of the sword like you are holding a hammer."
Adeline copied the General and waited for his next instruction.
Osmond placed his left palm below the wrist of his right hand and said, "And after that you need to move this part, wrist, of your hand downwards so that the tip of your sword is facing the person in front of you. It should not be facing towards the sky."
He then swung around his hand to the left and to the right and said, "And you use your hand like this to swing it around." He glanced towards Nigel who was now staring at the shapes of clouds and said to him, "Prince Nigel, why don't you practice this strike motion with your sister?"
Prince Nigel was jerked back to reality when he heard the General calling his name and hastily replied, "Ye… Yes General… sir"
Then Nigel and Adeline faced towards each other and started to strike their sword.
"Go easy on your sister okay? I'll go and check everyone else." After that the General left them and went to the other corner of the ground where some of the Princes and Princesses had gathered around and were talking about something, most likely about the youngest Princess.
Queen Lillian was lying on her large bed inside her private chamber. Ida was giving her a face massage. Lillian cared very deeply about her beauty and would dedicate at least one hour a day to take care of her face.
She was enjoying the face massage with a peaceful environment. However, her peace was interrupted by the presence of a powerful demonic energy inside her room. Lillian straightaway sprung open her eyes and waved her maid off.
Then the Queen got up from her bed and shouted angrily, "Who dared to come inside my room without my permission? Show yourself!"
Theodore sneered and replied to the Queen under his breath, inaudible to the Queen, "As if that lame dialogue will provoke me to show myself." Theodore was standing in one corner of the Queen's room and was enjoying the panicked expression of the so called powerful witch.
Lillian glared around the room with furious eyes in an attempt to scare whatever was present in her room. Then she roared in a loud voice, "I am the Queen of this Kingdom and you cannot disrespect me like this. Whoever you are I demand you to show yourself."
Theodore pretended to be bored by the Queen's meaningless threats and yawned. Then he gave his soliloquy again, "Yeah yeah, you are the Queen of this Kingdom. But I am the Devil Prince. So, I win you feeble Queen."
The Queen then tried using a counter spell to reveal the power that was lurking inside her room. She closed her eyes and chanted some mantra but nothing… All she could do was feel the insurmountable power.
Lillian tried few other mantras but to no avail. She had a dazed look of bewilderment on her face and thought, "I have never felt such a great power till now. What could it be? Is it some kind of a powerful spirit?" She still tried a few more spells to see if anything works against that power.
Theodore brooded over the countless futile spells that the Queen used, "Puny human! Trying to break my superior invisibility spell with some weak counter spell… how pathetic."
Then he snapped his fingers and waited for the reaction of the Queen.
Lillian could see that her room was on fire. She tried to use her magic to extinguish the fire but her magic didn't seem to work. It was because, the fire was not real. Theodore was just using hypnosis and was showing some illusion to Lillian just to get back at her.
The fire soon engulfed the room and Lillian could even feel the heat. The fire even caught her beautiful gown. Lillian felt scared for her life and she shouted for help, "Help… Is someone outside? Help…" She coughed and shouted again, "Fire! There's a fire in my room."
After a few seconds Ida and few other maids rushed inside the Queen's room with buckets full of water. Ida had taken the Queen's word on face value and as soon as she entered the Queen's chamber, she instantly splashed a bucket of water right on the Queen's face. She was so focused on extinguishing the fire that she didn't even use her eyes to see if there was any fire in the room in the first place.
Theodore chuckled and he immediately clasped his mouth with his hand so as not to let out any sound.
The other maids were also ready to empty their buckets but restrained themselves when they saw that there was no fire.
Lillian was now out of the hypnosis of Theodore and she looked around to see that there was no fire in her room. The furniture which she saw burning were now back in their original state. Lillian wiped her face and pushed the wet strands of hair away from her face. She was flaring her nostrils and giving a cold stare to Ida.
Ida realized her mistake and she dropped down on her knees and bowed her head to ask for the Queen's forgiveness. "Please forgive me Your Majesty. I am sorry."
Ida was scared for her life. She started to remember how the maid that had delivered the false message to Hawisa and Osanna was never found again. And right now, Ida felt like her life was about to end. Her eyes were filled with tears.
Lillian slowly raised her right hand and pointed it towards Ida intending to punish her by using magic.. Her face really looked like that of an evil witch right now. She gritted her teeth and spoke through her breath, "I'm going to kill you!"
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