Chapter 57 - The Amulet Of The Dracon (Part 1)

On the other side of the woods, far beyond where the survivors are scouring for the vampire lords' tombs, Sangfroid was writing his newest discoveries and dreams the night before in his diary.

This was the first time he would write an official entry about his encounter with the Hermit. He listed down all the features he could remember and made a quick sketch as well.

"Spotted goat hide..... goat mask... hawkish nose.....long, grey beard...." He muttered to himself as he wrote on the back of his horse that trotted slowly on the dense woods.

Eventually, he felt something peeking at him, but when he turned around, it was gone. Just endless trees and dead leaves swirling as the wind blew them to the ground. He continued writing but remained vigilant until nighttime. 

He barely ate anything because he was too focused on writing. When he saw that the sun was already setting. His one eye dropped lazily from the descending ground, and he stopped to camp for the night. He wrapped himself with his old and worn-out scarf. The headaches are there again, and he's feeling light-headed, but he tolerated it.

It's a miracle that he's standing even now, someone might say. He had been giving pints of his blood for three days and most of the food he scoured and hunted was given to Leron. Vladstin had often mocked him for being so self-sacrificing but even the vampire lord is secretly impressed by his resilience.

Once he prepared to slice his wrist as always for the pint of blood, he felt sharp claws take his dagger from him before it touched his skin.

"You'll kill yourself at this point, Hunter." 

Sangfroid's one eye widened. Vladstin had come this time, in the flesh and not through Elenore or the glass shard!

"You don't even care about the parchment lines that I'm giving you. And I don't even like the taste of your blood anyway." Vladstin sighed and sat beside the log that he set for himself by the fire. "The deal is void. I'll just give you the rest of the lines for free, since you're all going to die by your own foolishness the way things are going."

"What do you mean? How are they in the camp?" Sangfroid asked.

"Oh, they're hilarious! Digging up dirt like ants day and night, looking for tombs and pages of your 'Book of Xendros'. More and more die from maladies, and tensions are high. I bet they might even kill each other soon." Vladstin chuckled. "When they needed a leader the most, that is when you left them. Don't your people mean anything to you anymore?"

Sangfroid frowned in worry from hearing this. "Of course they do. But this is for the good of everyone. If you become human—"

"Ah, again with the turning me into a human!" Vladstin cried exasperatedly. "Just go back to the survivors and help them kill me, Sangfroid! Let Leron go, he never wanted to be a ruler of a nation in the first place. He's not the same person as you once knew when you were kids. I can show you in the Looking Glass how much he changed because of the ritual he mad with his brain---"

"I don't care if he changed or not." Sangfroid remained stubborn. "He matters to me as much as the people of Ilvedia. I will not lose anyone if there's a way that I could stop it."

Vladstin gave an exaggerated sign and picked his opened diary up. "And this way would be through the magic Hermit in the woods, huh? How old were you again when you saw this old man?"

"Five and a half."

"So how sure are you that he's not just some imaginary friend that your young mind made up?" Vladstin read the diary entry. "Or maybe just a dream? It says here that after you ran away from the Hermit, Leron and the others found you unconscious clutching that scarf that he gave you."

"It's real." Sangfroid took the diary back. "Why won't you just believe me?"

"Wait." Vladstin looked at the diary's cover. "Has that blue gem always been here before?"

"Yes." Sangfroid nodded. "My father gifted this journal to me, he said he made it himself."

Vladstin burst into amused laughter. "Wahahaha! So it has been with you this whole time? And you didn't even notice?" 

"Noticed what?" Sangfroid knitted his eyebrows.

"Look closer." Vladstin pointed at the blue gem in the middle of the book's thick metallic cover. "Don't you see?"

Sangfroid squinted his eyes and saw it. Inside the blue gem.... was a golden flying dragon, identical to that of the flag of Ilvedia.

"This is the Amulet of the Dracon. The symbol of the true king of your godforsaken kingdom." Vladstin grinned. "Anyone who owns it is the rightful heir!"

Sangfroid froze, not quite understanding. "Why is it with me....?"

"Well." Vladstin took the glass shard from his satchel. "Let's learn the true story behind the parchment letter, shall we?"

Vladstin bit himself with his fangs and poured a drop of blood on the clear surface. 

The shard changed the scene and showed a man crouched on his desk, ink blotting his pen as he barely managed to write down on a single parchment stained by his own blood.

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"Gaug'in my lo....my friend. I do not have much time." A man with an injured hip and claw marks all over his tattered clothes with exotic patterns winced in pain, trying to keep his black plume steady.

Sangfroid recognized him. He looks like the younger King Casserome that he saw at the Chapel's masses when he was a child. But he soon realized this man cannot be King Casserome. There was a certain kindness in his eyes, something in his expression that suggests he is not one to live in luxury and prefers to live amongst the people instead of above them. 

This was indeed, the firstborn of Ilvedia that the parchment spoke of. The writer of the letter, the unnamed twin of King Casserome.

He was writing in a dark cave with only one oil lamp giving him light. A carrier pigeon sat beside him waiting to do its task to deliver its master's message, unaware of the predicament he is in.

"The king is out to eradicate your tribe. I had lied to you about the circumstances of my birth, I was not an abandoned orphan; I was an exile and the former crown prince. My twin brother, Casserome, believed himself to be more rightful to the throne than I was, or at least of equal importance, for I was only born within an hour before him." The man wrote, hand shaking and tears welling on his eyes once he recalled his tragic past:

"One day, I was accused of murdering the Duke's son which caused my exile, but believe me, I could never do such thing. It was Casserome who struck him in the head with a stone, and passed that stone in my hands, framing me who was merely 10 years old with a heinous crime. Despite being banished and stripped of my royal rights, my father let me keep the Amulet of the Dracon, the symbol of the Ilvedian king, my birthright. The one who wears it shall always be, according to the laws of both old and new, the rightful heir to the throne. He told me that the royals believed a curse will be put to the kingdom if the amulet went into the wrong hands, and so I entrust it to you, my dear Gaug'in."

The next lines made Sangfroid's heart drop.

"You and your child Sangfroid had become family to me, along with your amethyst-eyed tribe. The years I have spent with you all were the happiest in my life that I already know would be cut short by my envious brother anytime soon. As the true heir, I leave Ilvedia to the hands of your people. Reclaim the throne for me, and save the kingdom from the tyranny of my brother who bears the same face as mine. Just showing the amulet along with the parchment would prove your right. But if worse comes to worst, and my brother's hounds also chase after you, you must hide in the Chapel of my good friend, the Bishop of Santimieda, and stay there until Sangfroid comes of age to claim his right as my chosen heir."

The true king of Ilvedia breathed heavily as he signed the letter. "Remember that all my love and hope go out to you both, no matter where I'll be in the afterlife.- Vinsen "

He painstakingly rolled the paper and took out the amulet with a blue pendant that he's wearing on his neck, and used the lace to tie the paper with it and onto the carrier pigeon. The dumb-looking bird smartly flew as fast as its small wings can manage as the howls of royal hounds came to echo in the cave where the exiled Prince Vinsen was hiding. The pigeon managed to escape before the light of the oil lamp went out, and both the darkness and sharp fangs swallowed its master.

---------------

"Hello!!! Bishop!!!! Please open the door!!!!!"

The scene changed again, this time a bleeding man with brown skin kneeled beside a baby in the front steps of the Santimieda Chapel. He kept knocking and calling out with a thick accent but no one can hear him from the rain. The child was crying and the basket was covered in blood. Hounds would try to reach for the child but the tribal man would brandish a long stick at them to protect himself and the baby. "Back off! Somebody help! Bishop!"

The door finally opened and the younger-looking Bishop's eyes went wide as he peeked outside to see his late visitors. "Goodness, what in the world is happening—"

"Take the child. Read the letter." The man fiercely fighting off the dogs said, shoving the basket with the crying baby to him. "I will not make it. Go inside now!"

The Bishop followed these orders, took the basket, and closed the chapel door before the snout of a wild royal hound frothing at the mouth can take a bite at them! It was all chaotic, and the child continued to cry and cry that the Bishop feared it would die from so much crying. He looked and saw that the child was also injured, one of its beautiful purple eyes clawed and blood oozing from the three wide gashes. "Oh my Lord!" 

The Bishop called out to the nuns on a nearby convent. "Sister Caren! Sister Nina! Heal this child, quickly!"

The nuns who had just gone to sleep scrambled from their beds and were horrified when they saw the child. It is not uncommon for them to waken that a new orphan was left on their doorstep at night, but they had never received a child so bloodied and hurt! "Why, what demon would do this to a child!?"

"Doesn't matter now! Clean his wounds before it festers!" The Bishop order, giving them the child to be taken care of in the baths.

As they left, the Bishop caught his breath from the fright he had received so late into the night. His nerves have been deteriorating as he got older, and this was not good for his weak heart. He took the piece of paper wrapped with the amulet and read it. 

His face darkened.

Suddenly, another less frantic knock came at the door. It was slow and unhurried, like it has all the time in the world.

"C-Come in!" By reflex, the Bishop hid the amulet inside his pocket, and opened the door to the person waiting outside.

"Hello, Bishop." King Casserome greeted with an insincere smile.. "Your little Chapel seems to be so busy this evening."