Chapter 73 - Red Riding Hood (Part 5)

But just right before the blade could pierce past his sternum and into the wildly beating organ, the King had decided to put it to a halt.

"Good. You have now proven yourself, dear. That is enough."

He quickly yanked the knife away, and Sangfroid collapsed further into the soft bed, heaving as he bleed and staining the peerless white sheets.

The King bent down, and licked the gash on his chest.

"Nnghh....." A groan escaped from Sangfroid's lips as he felt the cold tongue on his stinging wound. It pricked him like a small, numbing electric shock. 

"It is not you that I want to be killed. At least not tonight." The king looked up at him with his bloodstained teeth. "Mmm.....If your blood already tastes this good, I wonder how good your flesh and internal organs would be."

He twirled a stray lock of hair over Sangfroid's sweaty forehead. "You wouldn't mind being eaten by your beloved king, would you? My little Red Riding Hood."

"Eat me, Your Majesty. Please...." Sangfroid managed to find his voice just to say this atrocious thing. He begged like his life depended on it, which His Majesty found delightfully ironic and amusing. "Consume me and let me be a part of you..."

"Now, now. Have patience, dear." His Majesty caressed his cheek. "Before I give you the reward of being consumed by me, there is something I must ask of you first."

"Anything, Your Majesty. I'll do it even if it costs my life." Sangfroid said with droopy eyelids.

"I prefer if it didn't cost your life. Because if it did, that would mean THEY have consumed you before I had." The wound on Sangfroid's chest began to knit itself back together, closing like it had never been stabbed.

The King licked the rest of the blood from the blade and handed it to him. "What do you think of my wretched royal family?"

"Your what?" Sangfroid's ears are ringing. His whole body was.

"My woman, Veridia. And my spawns. What say you about them?"

Sangfroid knitted his eyebrows, confused. "I don't..... I don't know what's the right answer to that, Your Majesty."

"There's no right answer. Just be honest." The King prodded harder. "What do you think of them who stands between us? Don't they just make your blood boil?"

"Hmm..... I feel that way about the Queen." Sangfroid nodded slowly. "But I'm not so sure about the kids. They seem alright to me."

"They were born from me spending the night with another person, that's still alright with you?"

"They were kind to me, and did nothing wrong."

The King's face darkened. "Sangfroid, their birth itself is a wrongdoing to me."

Sangfroid momentarily blinked. The King paused for a while, letting it sink in.

"You're feeling the effects of the mandrake now, aren't you? How are you feeling?"

Sangfroid covered his forehead. "Everything is so light. Like I'm melting."

"Light, you say?" The King chuckled. "And what about this area.....?"

The King pointed his long finger down, down, down.... And into his crotch. He pricked the bulge with a fingernail.

"Hnnn...." Sangfroid groaned, feeling the arousal now that it has been mentioned.

"It feels heavy, right? It's so full, you want to let it out." His Majesty got his pretty hands on the hem of his pants.

Sangfroid covered his mouth, his breathing uneven. "Why am I like this, Your Majesty? What....?"

"It's the mandrake, Sangfroid. It happened to me too, so I understand your pain." The King massaged and fondled gently, his face stuck with that sharp smile. "Veridia is a very smart woman indeed....."

It now dawned upon Sangfroid what His Majesty meant all along.

"She did what....!" Sangfroid's flusteredness disappeared and now rage overcome him. "Just so you would....? And the children, they are....."

"Yes." The King confirmed all these junctures with a brief nod. "She's quite lucky, she managed to get not one, but two for that single night. But believe me, dear Sangfroid, when I say to you that I have no desire to spend another night with that woman. I never did since the start."

"But it's a fruitless endeavor to get caught up in the past now. We have the present." The King touched his cheek, and gently pressed his lips again on Sangfroid's. "I've waited for a long time since we are bound by the Dark Gifts together. No matter how much hatred I bear towards them, I cannot kill them because I was their kin and they are immortal."

Sangfroid can now see the whole picture. So this is what was hidden behind the King's smile. The moon had turned its whole face, and it now had shone upon him that he felt he was going to turn blind.

He needs to kill Veridia. That is certain. And the Lord of the Dark Gifts who had started all this.

Yes, the Dark Lord was all to blame.

A Queen would not have this much power over a King, she is merely a puppet sovereign. Especially not in a place such as Ilvedia. Perhaps in someplace more uncivilized and free-spirited like Crescentia or Rekshaka, but in most cases, Queens of the Thirteen Kingdoms do not have anything besides the power to bear the King's children. Sometimes, the concubines would even fulfill that for them.

If it were not for the Dark Lord and His Gifts, Veridia would not last this long. The King could easily discard her once the heir to the throne was conceived. His beloved majesty would not have to suffer under a forced tight smile for all these years.

Sangfroid had recalled a slight glimpse of what the Dark Lord looks like. He came in tattered clothes, as quick as the night breeze. There was chaos as he came. Everything died down, the candlelight, the life forms, the people of the Palace.

But just as the royal family was to breathe their last breath, he offered them his pearls. Sangfroid had seen it from the distance at an oak tree just right outside. He lowered his bow when he saw this happen. It was his only hope back then, to keep His Majesty alive.

He also watched as the newly turned immortals feasted on the flesh of the dead corpses. They were a pack of hungry wolves.

After that, there was a 'plague'. The Palace needed new officials and staff because they have fallen ill and perished. The Kingdom of New Ilvedia had been peaceful and prospered ever since.

Peaceful except for the occasional missing young men and women that was snatched away by a flash of Red Riding Hood.

And what of the Dark Lord now?

Sangfroid had seen his white hair, his yellow eyes. Both sickly pale and revolting. That was it, and then he vanished.

An image from before matched with his memory of the Dark Lord. The one that came with the voices.

Not what, but who.

Who is it? And what is that to him?

The answers would have to wait, because the King had just finished caressing him and he felt his release upon his warm mouth.

"Yo..our...Ma...jest...y...."

"It did not taste so bad as I expected." The King grinned at him. "You seem distracted the whole time though. What's on your mind?"

"Nothing....hnngh.... Your Majesty." Sangfroid could not fathom how His Majesty could take in and swallow such a dirty thing coming from a dirty peasant like him.

"Well, you have to remain focused if you want to succeed in ridding this castle of the pests that is Veridia and her sons."

Sangfroid blinked once, then twice, then thrice. His mind has cleared a little after his release. He wished it hadn't, because realization had dawned upon him even faster.

The King purposely spiked his drink to get him to do his bidding. That bidding was to kill his own flesh and blood. Though his sons had brought him pain, they are still his kin. And what he's asking is not only morally wrong but would also be illogical.

Who would succeed the throne if the sons died?

He mumbled these questions out loud.

The King's blue-green eyes momentarily flashed some malice, but it disappeared as quickly as it appeared. "I did not know that such things would bother you so much, Sangfroid. I thought your loyalty to me is absolute and there would be no need for explanations."

"It is, Your Majesty. I apologize for speaking out of turn." Sangfroid's eyes flitted back and forth as he bowed his head. Though he regained some clarity, the mandrake's effect is still messing with his mind. "Please do not be mad at me."

"Well, fret not. I am not mad, and I'm willing to answer your question as thanks for the...uh....." He pointed to the white substance spilling on the edges of his lips. "Treat. The one who will succeed my throne...."

"Is me, of course. I will never die, and if I choose it, I would never age. So New Ilvedia will forever be in my hands."

Sangfroid's eyes widened. "But the people will notice—"

"I will proclaim a new law." The King raised his finger to his lips. "For the safety of the next heir from possible assassins and usurpers, he shall stay at the Palace until he inherits the throne. Instead of his father, the King, a masked official called the Grand Hooded shall officiate the crowning. We will tell the people that this would also protect any possible schemes of the current King to the new heir, or any other vying parties. The Grand Hooded's identity shall be sacred and unknown to anyone except His Majesty."

He smiled at Sangfroid. "Do you understand now what Ilvedia's future would be, my dear Sangfroid?"

Sangfroid could not answer. The words just reverberated, sending an unending circle of thoughts that were like a snake biting its tail.

"Sangfroid?"

"The Grand Hooded must be immortal as well." Sangfroid finally said. "How? We don't know the Lord of the Dark Gifts' whereabouts or current state—"

"I do. He is inside me, Sangfroid."

The King pointed to his stomach. "The pearls are his essence and himself as well. He fed himself to us, my dear Red Riding Hood. We are now him, and he is us. We are his vessel. And you can still take away the contents of a vessel."

The King handed him the dagger. "Cut off the stomach of any of these vessels, and take the pearl before the body regenerates. Then consume it. And you'll finally be one of us."

Sangfroid's eyes brightened. "That means I could only kill one, and there's no need to kill Zavier and Zander—"

"The new law, Sangfroid. Do you trust that those brats would not go out of this palace for their whole neverending lives? Do you trust that they would not reveal our ploy or retaliate after we killed their mother?"

Sangfroid was already aware of this, yet he wanted to gauge even a bit of remorse or care for his children. "Then..."

"Sigh.... I thought you were my only hope. Turns out you would disappoint me as well." Tears welled up the King's eyes. "I never should have thought that I could escape this wretched fate. I should just be a good husband to Veridia, and a good father to the children, and let them use me as a figurehead forever and ever. You would die and be at peace, yet I would remain immortal with them, and knowing how much Veridia's ambition knows no bounds, who knows what clever tricks she would use just to get my seed and bore more children so she could build a whole clan of us savage beasts."

Leron, not the King, smiled wryly at him. "How I envy you, Sangfroid. Your life always seems so easy. Even if you encounter misfortune, it is like there is an invisible force that will help you rise back up from even stronger from it. Meanwhile, my life had only been ridden with misfortunes upon misfortunes."

The King wiped these tears away and turned the blade of the dagger to himself. "But I will be fair to you. I would give you the ability to choose fate itself. If you don't kill Veridia and her sons..... then you must kill me. Make your choice wisely."

It took a long while before Sangfroid could make a decision. He was about to make the wrong choice.....

But then a single voice came and saved him.