Chapter 273 - Gavrael (Part XXX)

Gavrael did not know that his soul had been stuck in a world without Evie, a fake world created to make him suffer. This was his greatest fear, a world without her, a place where she does not exist. And this was the price he had to pay. He was going to continue living in suffering, always looking for her, forever. He would be stuck living in this world without her. And he would suffer and be tormented endlessly, continually looking for someone that he would never ever find.

He was not aware that his soul had been trapped in an illusionary world inside his own body. He was also unaware that he had turned back time not just for a matter of days or weeks as he had intended to, but in fact, for many years into the past.

Instead of just days, to return to that night he decided to leave Evie, had he returned many years prior. He had reversed time up till when he was still a little boy.

He woke up alone inside the deepest part of the dungeon under the Northern Empire's imperial palace. Because he had been asleep for a long while, he had lost the little dark magic he had as well as his memories before he could even wake up and remember anything about the Under Land.

The little boy lost all characteristics that made him recognisable as a half-dark fae. His body had become just like any other vampire's body, and he had no memories at all. 

The little boy could only wonder what he was doing there in the darkness. He followed the tunnel he found and ran and ran until he reached the end of the tunnel. But he arrived in the Middle Land and was forced to fight against many wild and vicious beasts for a long time, somehow managing to survive all on his own.

And then, he entered another cave and coincidentally, it had led him to arrive in Dacria.

The duchess' daughter found him inside the dungeon.

"What's your name, young one?" the duchess had asked him, and the boy simply uttered one word. "Gav…" that was all he could remember. Apart from that, there was nothing more no matter how hard he squeezed his mind for any wisp of memories. Though he was disappointed on not being able to remember anything else aside from that one syllable of his name, he kept his feelings within himself and just looked at the duchess with a placid and blank expression. One glance at him and the duchess already know that this child was one was someone special. Those black hair and grey eyes... that's the feature of the real vampire royals!

Basing just from that one syllable of his name that the boy could remember, the duchess named him Gavriel.

And since then, Gavriel began to live and grew up as a vampire.

However, when he grew up, Gavriel had begun to have nightmares. He always kept seeing himself in his dreams, running around frantically, suffering, looking for someone he could feel was very important to him and he could feel the pain and great agony even through the dreams. It was as if he was experiencing it himself.

And when he was sent to the Middle Lands for the first time and saw the place and the dragons, Gavriel began to see someone else's memories. 

He began to see a girl's face. It seemed that she was someone familiar, but he could not place where he had seen her. But what he could tell was she is a very beautiful girl. Even not being able to recognise her, his heart skipped a beat when he saw that face in the other person's memories. And he then experienced the feeling of déjà vu whenever he stumbled upon certain places from time to time.

Unbeknownst to him, his father, King Belial had been visiting him on the surface. He knew that something tragic had happened to him. When Gavrael turned back time, only the timing on the surface was affected. The time in the Under Land was not affected at all. And that was why King Belial could deduce and guess everything that had happened to his son.

However, the king was not aware about Gavrael's punishment or the price he had to pay for turning back time. All the king knew was that his son simply returned to the past and lost not only his powers but also his memories.

Thinking that the same tragic event will happen to his son again in the future, King Belial tried to meddle with some events to change the future of his son. This, he thought was the last and only thing he could do for his son. This was because he knew that there was no way his son would ever remember them ever again. All he wanted was for him to not have the same tragic end as he promised his wife.

And thus, the first thing Belial did was to stop his son and that girl's meeting. He thought that if his son does not meet the girl like what was supposed to happen, his future would definitely change.

So secretly, the king ventured out into the southern empire before Evie's coming of age ceremony. And a few nights before her ceremony, he used his dark magic to suppress her natural awakening. This was the reason why Evie did not experience her faery wings growing and the glow that came with it when her coming of age ceremony finally arrived.

What the king did changed the course of a series of events. If he did not, Evie would have been sent to the citadel as she had been as previously and since Gavriel was sent to the Middle Land at that same time to search for the dragon's nest, the two would have definitely met in the Middle Lands.

Unbeknownst to Belial, the two still met with each other. Gavriel ventured out to the Southern empire out of curiosity and meet Evie there. He had coincidentally saved her from some vampire's attack and fell in love with her at first sight. He did not understand what he had felt when he first saw her. He just knew that he wanted her to be his that very moment he saw her. Though he did not show up before her, knowing that she fears vampires more than anything else, Gavriel sneaked up into her room quite a few times before leaving the Southern Empire and going back to the North.

And then after some time, Gavriel had heard Lorcan talking about giving Prince Caius a human second wife. When he overheard Lorcan mentioning that the bride-to-be was Evie, the dragon guardian's daughter, Gavriel immediately did everything to ensure that he was the one to marry her instead. In exchange for that privilege, Gavriel had to kill a dragon and give the credit of that kill all to Caius, allowing him to gain the much-coveted fame as a dragon slayer.

Gavriel immediately did as the emperor had demanded and that was how he was chosen to be the candidate for the marriage alliance with the humans by taking Evie as his wife, instead of Caius.

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A/N: I just want to say many of you guys are so good at guessing. Your theories amazed me so far. I have amazing readers and I love it. XD

Feel free to drop questions that are still bugging you. I might answer some in the next chap.