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“What about it?”

“We don’t even know if what you will find tomorrow is your heart mate or soulmate, Valda. Your sixteen-year-old self didn’t ask the question correctly. You asked the Oracle when you would meet your mate. You didn’t specify what type of mate.”

Valda closed her eyes tightly just as her mother stood from the bed. “You don’t have to remind me every single year.”

“Oh, but I feel like I should. Don’t be so adamant and open your heart to the possibility of finding someone that will work for you. Yes, I would love nothing more for you to find your soulmate, but there is a possibility that you won’t. The Sealian royalty is dead, buried under their own castle.”

Valda’s lips parted. Her mother wasn’t often rash with her words, but hearing the fact that the Sealian royals were dead, squeezed Valda’s heart. The death of people she didn’t knew shouldn’t affect her and yet it did.

As if feeling her distress, Cerberus stood and ran up to her, rubbing her tail against Valda’s calf.

“I need to get going. There are so many things that I must take care of,” Rionach said, giving Valda a harsh kiss on her cheek. “Meet me for supper.”

Valda nodded, as Rionach bowed her head, opened the door and left.

Maris was inside Oberon Castle. Placing her hand over her neck, she touched her necklace. Two wedding bands dangled from it, hidden behind her silk blouse. Maris didn’t have a lot of things. She walked inside the castle with only one large bag and a broken violin inside a worn-out case. Her most precious possession was her parents’ wedding bands, which she carried everywhere since their passing.

Melvian was more excited than she was. She pulled her along the halls as fast as she could, greeting the guards while they stared at Maris curiously.

As she walked in, Maris’s thought of ways to get closer to General Arwin but everything proved to be ridiculous and alarmingly suspicious. She couldn’t just ask to be his handmaiden. A Sealian working inside the castle was unheard of. If it wasn’t for Melvian, she wondered how she could’ve even put a foot inside.

Then, there was the fact that Maris could barely remember what the man looked like except his graying hair and the scar on his face.

Maris took a deep breath, clutching the necklace.

What could she ask him if she were ever in front of him? How would she react? Would she have enough strength to even talk to him? Her parents were petrified of him when they met the general on the outskirts of Ophelia Plaza during the Patrons Festivals nine years ago. She had been playing around with Melvian, eating from the kiosk when she bumped into Arwin.

Her parents had been so afraid. Her father stood between the general and his family. Maris wasn’t sure what they said, all she knew was that at the end of that day, her mother had locked herself up with Maris underneath a secret compartment under a desk in their study room as the sounds of marching boots, gruff voices, and slamming doors muffled through the wooden secret door.

Maris had tried to scream and call for Raan, to ask him to come back, but the commotion outside wouldn’t allow her screams to reach her father. Her mother made sure she stayed quiet, covering her mouth and holding her down with an iron grip.

But then the footsteps moved on, her father’s desperate screams dissipated through the house, until all went quiet.

It took her mother a while to release her. When they did, the house was incomplete disarray. The living room’s furniture was upturned. In the kitchen, the pantry was scattered about, food spilling on the floor as if whoever walked in had searched for something.

Maris remembered her mother quietly putting everything back in its place, every pencil, furniture, blanket.

But then, in the middle of the living room, while she cleaned up, Maris had found her father’s wedding band on the ground.

“I can feel his fear,” her mother had said, taking the wedding band from Maris’s hand, kissing it and hiding it somewhere in her clothing. Quiet hours ensued, mixed only with the sound of her mother’s hesitating footsteps through the house, mending what was destroyed.

Then came the sudden gasp, the tearing of something deep within her mother’s visage. Maris would never forget, her mother’s tears as she turned to Maris to whisper, “The bond is broken…”

A shiver ran down her spine at the mere thought of standing face to face with General Arwin.

What have I done? Maris thought, knowing well it was too late to back out now. She needed to somehow find that man, ask him about her father, and then what?

What could she ever do with the answer? Get some closure of course, but…

He was the general of the army, she was… well…

A Sealian.

As Maris stepped through the kitchen’s arched doorway the smell of spices and roasting meat greeted her, mingling with the sounds of clanging pots and crackling flames. She found herself standing in the heart of the castle’s bustling kitchen, a vast room filled with cooks, scullery maids, and kitchen hands, all working tirelessly.

In the center of the room, a massive stone hearth blazed with a roaring fire, around which skilled chefs are busily turning spits and basting joints of succulent meat. The air was thick with smoke and steam, and the heat was almost overwhelming.

Nearby, a team of maids bustled about, scrubbing pots and pans with abrasive ash, and cleaning vegetables and herbs for the chefs to use. In the far corner of the room, a group of kitchen hands were busy chopping wood and bringing in fresh water from the castle’s well.