She Belongs To The Devil

The next morning, Adeline woke up early as usual and sat down to study. But she was constantly being distracted because of the memory from Lillian.

So as not to be overwhelmed with all kinds of emotion, Adeline took out a white sheet of paper, ink and a brush. Then she tried to visualize her mother's facial features and started to paint. With every little stroke of her brush, her mother's portrait was coming to life.

Adeline was enjoying the whole process of painting her mother. It was also helping her to restrain herself from having negative thoughts and instead she was able to focus her mind into something positive.

After around half an hour, Adeline completed the portrait of Auvera. And when she looked at the final result, a huge smile appeared on her face. She had nothing to remember her mother by, no memories of her mother, and also no paintings or drawings. Now, at least she had something that would remind her of her mother.

Before, whenever she would feel the absence of her mother, she would just grab a pillow and hug it imagining that it was her mother. She never really imagined a face or any other features. Now, she knew how her mother used to look like.

And she was thankful to Theodore for letting her see her mother, though it was through Lillian's memory.

At usual time, there was a knock on her door from her personal maids. And Hawisa and Osanna entered her room and greeted her, "Good Morning Adeline."

Hawisa noticed a drawing on her table and said, "I see that you were drawing today."

Osanna walked closer to Adeline to get a better look at the portrait. She placed her hand on her jaw and kept on staring at the portrait very keenly. "The woman in this portrait looks like you. But she looks a little too old to be you. Were you trying to know how you would look like when you get old?"

Hawisa also wanted to examine the portrait after hearing the comment from Osanna. So she went to the other side of Adeline and stared. "Yes, for the first time I agree with Osanna. It does look like you but at the same time it is not you."

Adeline happily smiled that her work was good enough. Then she revealed to her maids, "You both are right. This portrait is not mine; I tried to draw my mother."

"Oh! But you were too small when your mother d…" Before Osanna could complete her sentence Hawisa ran to her side and then stepped on her foot. "Aaaahh! What do you think you are doing Hawisa?" Osanna glared at Hawisa and snapped.

But Adeline already knew what she was going to say. So she looked at Osanna and said, "My father always tells me that I look like my mother, except for my eyes. And I did not have anything to remember her by. So I decided to draw an older version of myself. I think this is how she looked like around the time when she gave birth to me."

Adeline caressed the portrait of her mother and then smiled softly. Seeing Adeline happy, both of her maids were also happy for her.

"Okay, let's prepare the bath for our lovely Princess." Hawisa glanced at Osanna and asked her to follow her to the bath house.

Both of them were heading towards the bath house when Adeline called Osanna. "Osanna, are you alright?"

Osanna was a bit confused as to why she would not be alright. "Yes, Princess I am alright. Why do you ask?"

"Oh no, it's nothing. I wanted to know how you were doing. Carry on then." Adeline turned her gaze back to the portrait and let out a small sigh of relief. She wanted to know if removing her memory had any negative effect on her. But seeing her as cheery as always, she was glad that no harm had befallen her.

After taking her warm bath and eating her nutritious breakfast, Adeline headed to the training ground to train with her brother Nigel. She was glad that Fenris was not there with Nigel today. Else she did not know whether she could restrain herself from putting a hole in his body. She was not in the mood for any type of jokes and his pesky advances on her.

Nigel was much energized for the sparring match today. After discovering his newfound power, he wanted to test out several things like his stamina, his agility, and also his strength. And there was no one better to test it with, other than his beloved sister Adeline.

"Hey Adeline, are you late or am I too fast? I have been waiting for you from so long." Nigel greeted his sister with excitement.

Adeline smiled and replied, "I guess a bit of both."

"Come on! Let's not waste any more time. Let's start the match immediately." Nigel shouted as he ran inside the marked area for sparring sessions.

As Nigel was already involved in her secret about Theodore and some other things, she wanted to update Nigel on what she had found out before doing the fighting. But seeing Nigel that excited, she did not have the heart to deny him and she followed him inside the area.

They both took their fighting stances and charged at each other. Adeline was immediately thrown down to the ground by Nigel. She got up again and tried charging at her brother but he easily avoided the attack and landed a painful blow on her.

This went on for 4-5 matches and ultimately Nigel stopped because he was scared that he would hurt Adeline too much. "Sister, are you okay?" He asked to Adeline who was panting.

"Yes, don't worry, I am fine." Adeline tried to smile so that Nigel would not worry about her.

Nigel sat beside her and scrunched his brows, "Am I getting too strong or were you not fighting at your full potential today?"

Adeline chuckled and then pushed her brother with all her force to make him topple on ground. "Oh don't think of yourself that highly brother. I am still stronger than you."

Nigel got up from the ground and sat beside Adeline again. He would have loved to display his own strength but he was a little concerned for Adeline. "Then what was happening earlier? Is something bothering you?"

Adeline took a deep breath in and puckered her lips. "Yes, actually I have a lot of things in my mind." She then looked at her brother and spoke in a sad tone, "You know that Theodore knew about my kidnapper right?"

Nigel nodded, "He told you who that person is?"

"Yes he told me. Actually 'showed me' would be more appropriate words here." Adeline did not know where to start from and she blurted out, "It was Lillian. And she also killed my mother."

Nigel stood straight from where he was sitting and he was in utter disbelief. "What?" Though the sentences that Adeline said were short, it was too vast to grasp just like that. So he slowly reiterated what Adeline had just said, "You mean first Queen Lillian? She was the one who kidnapped you? And she killed your mother?"

Adeline explained everything that she saw in as much detail as she could. During the whole explanation, Nigel was on edge of his seat. As the story proceeded, Nigel would either cover his mouth, hold his head, slap his forehead, or clench his fists.

The very name of Lillian was now enough to make Nigel feel repulsive. He never thought that he could get this angry on someone, but he was. His eyes turned golden in color and he roared in anger, "Let's kill that witch. Come, we are killing her right now."

Adeline was surprised by the outrage of Nigel. Usually, she was the hot-headed one and he was the calm one. But she could see that ever since he turned into a werewolf, he was becoming very hot-headed.

She held her brother's hand and tried to calm him, "Nigel, don't say such stupid things. Killing her will not solve the problem; we are not killers like her. We have to take her down in other ways. First, we need a solid plan. We have to prepare everything beforehand so that she can be punished for her evil deeds."

"But I say killing her will instantly solve the problem, once and for all. If she is no more, she cannot do any crimes. She is a criminal and she needs to die." Nigel was still furious and was not thinking clearly.

Adeline sighed and tried to get through to her brother, "Nigel, how can you be so sure that she cannot harm anyone after she dies. She is a witch! And who is to tell that she won't wander around taking a form of vengeful spirits and harming even more lives."

Nigel exhaled deeply and tried to take control of his erratic emotions. Slowly, his eyes turned to their original sapphire color. "Yes, you are right. We need to be cautious while dealing with such dangerous person."

He thought for a while and proposed an idea to his sister, "How about we include General Osmond in our plan. He is a very tactful person and I am sure he also wants to take revenge for his daughter. Maybe he can help us devise a proper plan."

"You are right. We need some guidance from an experienced person. And he also knows Lillian more than us, so that will be an added point. But I will have to ask Theodore first.. To make General Osmond understand the depth of the problem, his identity has to be revealed and I don't want to do that without his permission."

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