The Prince and the Dutch Captain opened the chains that closed the cargo compartment of the ship, and Alexa saw them disappear down the stairs.
The Princess felt the energy change around her, a great expectation and anxiety becoming melancholy and desolation as the Prince arrived at what was his.
He could continue his journey now. But his companions, men he had chosen to place his full trust in, would not follow him.
As soon as the two men disappeared from view, Alexa lit her Light.
The Shades were not long in coming, heeding the call of light, and free of their oaths to the Prince of Holstein at last.
The Shade of the ship's captain was the last to leave.
A loud, plaintive noise seemed to come from the bowels of the vessel when the supernatural forces abandoned the ship.
Alexa sighed, and sat on a step to the forecastle, stroking the head of Romeo, who looked at her intelligently.
Only one thing reverberated in his head.
The fact that Magnus had said he was terminally ill.
°°°
Hours later, the trio and the bird were sitting on a beach, exhausted after loading the chests and everything that was valuable, and paddling back to the mainland. The Captain took a small metal bottle out of his jacket, which he looked on with pride and affection,
"OH! This gets even better after slapping sea rats like those sailors who are sons of a b... "looking at Alexa out of the corner of his eyes, he corrected himself "itchingcentipede… AHHHH!" and gulped down the spirit, before wiping the mouth of the bottle with his shirt sleeve and passing it to the Prince.
Alexa had no doubt that the brandy should provide some warmth, due to the captain's satisfied expression.
"Ah! Blessed are you captain! A well-equipped man!" Magnus laughed, and Alexa was lost for a moment to look at how, when he laughed so spontaneously, charming 'little lines' formed around his eyes. How his beauty mark moved and his chiseled face looked yet more handsome, the slight hint of a dimple showing. OH! Her heart fluttered!
Magnus also took a long sip, and looked at her from the corner of his eye as well, beside him, while doing this. Upon realizing that he had noticed her, Alexa straightened up to wait her turn, and held out her hands eagerly, waiting for him to pass on the brandy.
Magnus closed his eyes, and took another little sip, wiping his mouth with satisfaction after that. He gave Alexa the small bottle.
At getting it, Alexa felt that the bottle was empty. Narrowing her eyes, she didn't give up. The princess still shook the container, and peeked inside with one eye. There must have been a few drops left, which she eagerly let drip onto her tongue.
"I'll buy us a round of drinks as soon as we get to Honfleur..." seeing the confusion and disappointment in the princess's eyes, the captain explained, "It's the port where our ship is docked."
"Our ship?"
"My father sent captain Dubois, after the shipwreck, to find us ..."
Alexa remembered, of course, going to ask Prince Gutard for help when they were shipwrecked on the English coast.
"Well, the fact that it was a secret mission was decisive for me to come with a small ship and be able to sail fast. The Sovereign Prince said that if I didn't find you in the Darthmouth's port, I would find you in Barfleur, where the rest of the group were supposed to be waiting for the Prince's return. They were, in fact…" The Captain removed the hat from his head respectfully, when mentioned the ones who died from plague in the ship. Then he resumed,
"But I was unable to dock here, because of the sanction to Holstein sh.i.p.s. We docked at Honfleur. So I came alone to Barfleur to find the prince, by land."
She nodded, and broke into a big smile, "Well, in this case, I will accept your offer of a drink. And when we return to Holstein, I will receive you at my home too for drinks in retribution!"
Magnus looked sideways, narrowing his eyes slightly. The captain laughed, getting up and removing the sand from his clothes and straightening his hat,
"Well then! I'll feel lucky in both situations! But ... I better move. I'll get the cart to take these chests to our ship. I hope I won't be long."
Alexa and Magnus saw him walk away, whistling an unknown song.
"Are you cold?" Magnus asked.
"Uhum," Alexa nodded, "But I can go back to my coffin ... You don't want to be seen hugging the corpse you carried around ... A little bit of brandy would have warmed my feet ...!" She pouted, and not expecting his invitation, she came closer to him. The Prince opened his cloak and covered her.
They were silent for a moment, watching the dark sea lick the beach rocks, and Magnus asked,
"What happened anyway? It was horrible to wait all day, not knowing where you were ... Wondering where you both were, and what had happened. Whether you would go back. Actually ..." he broke off, seeming to regret what he was talking about. Alexa looked up at him.
"Actually ..." she insisted.
"Today had made me go back. I think I should get back to Holstein before something worse happens to you..."
Alexa looked down, nervous, and Magnus took her chin, making her raise his face to him,
"What happened?"
"Alexander is furious ... And he doesn't want to talk to me because I defended his father..."
She told him how things went in Ashgraufelsen, in every possible detail.
The Prince listened in silence, and took Alexa's hands carefully when the princess was describing the horrors she and Alexander faced.
And as the cult's new leader, Cordelia's unsuspecting mother and former follower of Letitia, was exposed. The princess was uncomfortable to remind the First Prince, with this fact, that the entire plot orbited around an attempt to invoke Letitia's soul.
Magnus's mother's soul.
It was so confusing!
"So that was really the reason behind it all? The woman worked for years to turn her daughter into my wife, to invoke the Dark Cult's priestess back to life ... Does that make any sense?"
"According to Gisela, the great evil has yet to be defeated. There is still something the two of them are running for, Magnus. At first, when I arrived in Holstein, I thought each of them just wanted to ensure that their son was the next sovereign. But now I see it's something bigger than that. Holstein is a strange place... It's a place where the dead have a lot more strength than normal."
He nodded, "I can say that I already noticed that."
"So there's something else we must discover, and do, so they can finally leave. I don't think this will ever end while Letitia is at the castle..."
Magnus sighed,
"We have earned some time, at least. Captain Dubois was the first to reveal to us the de Wits were involved in black magic. He was a captain working on one ship sponsored by Jürgen de Wits. And he saw things strange enough to step in and alert us, risking his career and even his life." The prince shrugged, "The day before you arrived at Holstein, actually."
"OH! This means that you already suspected…" Alexa gaped, and he smiled,
"Yes. We suspected. But at that point, we had no way of knowing the actual dimension of this whole mess."
"Is that why you always treated Cordelia so badly?"
The Prince's golden eyes seemed to spark with the question, and he waved his hand in the air dismissively, with a roguish smile,
"Me?! I already told you I am a gentleman."
"Hmmm ..." she shook her head childishly, refusing to acknowledge it as true, and realizing what she was doing, her cheeks got a rosy tone.
Alexa identified her own spontaneous behavior as one of the primary lessons of female seduction from Lady Eudoxia, when Magnus tensed, while maintaining a smile and a watchful eye on her.
Was she spontaneously acting all coquettishly around him? Was she happy that he had a good reason to act as he did from the beginning?
Oh! It was so pathetic that Alexa wanted to die out of shame right there!
Magnus looked around, and the princess followed his gaze. The light was changing. Dawn was coming, and she didn't have to be very smart to deduce that everything had been reversed. Now she would spend the nights with Magnus, making the trip even more difficult.
"I'm leaving soon ..." she controlled her voice as much as she could to sound like a whining little girl begging for attention. "Take care. Rest if you can, and eat well."
"Um ... I'll do that," the Prince replied, placing his hands behind his back. And then he turned around without warning, starting to walk on the beach. Alexa watched him for a moment, trying to understand why he was moving away. But I couldn't read the First Prince's thoughts, of course.
Then she ran after him, and caught up with Magnus, starting to walk beside him.
"Magnus… You said you were going to tell me later. About that. Your disease."
He stopped to look at her, incredulously. Then, seeming to reflect for just a second, a discreet sardonic smile appeared on his face. But his gaze was distant now,
"You don't know, do you?"
"No. I don't. You said you had a condition to tell me. What is the condition? I accept. Tell me. Tell me what your illness is, and why you believe you are going to die," Alexa had her hands at her sides, her fists wanting to close in a sign of struggle. Just as her throat seemed to want to close because of the frustrating feeling of knowing the hateful object of her love was sick. Terminally ill.
"Sure. I will tell you. The condition is: after I tell you about my illness, we will never talk about it again until we get back to Holstein. It should never be mentioned, you won't be able to ask me questions or talk about it. And of course, you won't talk about it with anyone."
"Right. I accept, I said so," Alexa was increasingly frustrated, and answered sharply. Magnus wanted to be in control. But she would keep her word, if he trusted her with his secret.
Magnus even moved away from Alexa a little, before turning back to her,
"My heart."
"What's with your heart?"