THUD….. "You…what did you say now..Don't take my name from your mouth, I don't want to hear it."
Dani was enraged and banged the pillar of the cell. She was fragile as it is, so she did hurt her hand.
The prison cell was made of pillars vertically arranged in a rectangular shape.
Dani wanted to avoid any sort of confrontation so she spoke outside the prison cell.
Casper was worried, "Lady Dani be careful you will hurt yourself like this."
"Thank you for worrying, Casper this wound is nothing as compared to the wound in my heart."
"Hey…you , your eyes are blindfolded how did you know it was lady Dani."
"You… I am talking to you, why won't you respond."
She kept her mouth shut. She was just blatantly ignoring Sarah.
"Rica, why aren't you saying anything? You were the empress best friend, she thought of everyone as her family yet you massacred her family. Why Rica why? She always used to talk about you and was proud of you. You have cheated on us all, Rica. When did you change from our friend to foe?"
"STOPPP..." The quiet Rica suddenly uttered a word. "I won't speak to you two….. but will only speak to Dani, you two can leave."
"Also, one of you remain my blindfold, this is the second condition you have to fulfill in order that I open my mouth."
"You.... ! !" Casper and Sarah were both enraged.
Dani tapped both their shoulders, "Casper go and open her blindfold. Also you two remain outside the cell, I will enter inside and talk to her."
"But what about your safety?"
"See Danver has put those mana draining hand cuffs, she won't be able to do anything, so don't worry about me and wait here."
"If you say so Lady Dani we will wait here but please take care."
She then whispered, "without the orb no one can return and currently I am in possession of it."
She smiled a bit then as soon as she turned her face towards the cell door her face became pale again.
lub dub Lub Dub LUb DUb LUB DUB....
An enemy attack, no, this sound was not coming from the outside but was Dani's heartbeat increasing and getting louder, the palpitations, with each passing second. As she had to enter alone and confront her.
She opened the magical lock, opened the door of the cell and went inside standing opposite to Rica who was seated in the corner with her legs crossed with both her arms tied.
"You are too eager to die aren't you traitor?", she screamed not in concern but in anger. "I won't consider our past relationship and go easy on you. So it's better you answer me, or you can go to hell together with your new comrade."
She stood up, did not walk towards the open door but towards Dani. As her feet were not tied. She then tried to put her chin on top of Dani's head. Dani pushed her slightly in disgust. "What are you doing..?"
Dani screamed. Listening to her voice both Casper and Sarah came inside.
" Don't worry I am not trying to harm you, if my hands were free I would have patted your head, you have grown up Dani, you dare to question me..
Nice! I will definitely tell you everything I now, you see as there is no harm in telling you everything as the plan emerged successful. And most importantly you are the one asking me, enough of a reason you see Ha ha haa...."
Rica became serious again.
"Tell these people to go out if you want to get your answers."
"Casper, Sarah,you can head outside, I am fine here. I can handle this traitor on my own."
"Okay, we are outside but next time we think you are in danger, we would come inside without a second thought."
"You….you are laughing now, how could you? don't you know how worried Melania was when she couldn't find you in the banquet, she told Danver to find you, you were her priority even when she noticed deux's disappearance and this is how you repay her huh.."
"Stop with all this sob story and ask some logical questions."
"By the way I noticed you aren't taking my name, soon you will do so…Ha…ha.."
"Even you stop joking, and answer me seriously".
"Okay, I will answer to your questions only if you ask the right ones…"
Dani , courageously stood, eye to eye with Rica and asked her.
"Did you plan all this with deux four months ago?"
"Is this what deux told you? Its funny how easily he told you this and fooled you, what did you do to deux ? Ha ha ha…I am amused as he shared, no even agreed to open his mouth and share some information with you."
"You answer me first, when did you plan all this?"
"Fine, deux was lying, I will tell you the real truth, my father had planned this all during the great war. He called out to deux to know about his opinion and deux agreed to join my father. But my father died before he could see today's day and as his daughter I couldn't disobey his final wish, it was also for the benefit of you know, our family. And as it's future leader, it was my final duty to do so."
"You are saying it was not your intention but your fathers? For a living relationship,a friendship, between you two, you decided to destroy it for someone who was dead? Don't you lie, you never had any sort of cordial relationship with him."
"When we were on the battlefield, you always used to badmouth you father, you never got along with him."
"Ah, you remember something so trivial? I thought you must have forgotten everything between us after you know what I did to you all. By the way, it was just an act to make you all believe we didn't have a good relationship, and see how easily you were fooled."
"So you are saying you had a fake relationship with Melania as well?
"You…!" I thought I told you I would only answer if you ask the right questions.
"That knight…."
"Wait you are talking about that knight who was lying dead there? It was not me but deux's subordinate…"
"What?" she was shocked..
But I didn't feel any sort of dark magic or necromancy from it.
This deux ,he has been lying to me all this time.
"So tell me how did he kill him, if it were not for your magic?"
"Now you asked the correct question. Well, he saw something he shouldn't have, it would have spoilt our plans hence he died by deux's subordinate.
You know, he can attempt our arcanum magic, even if it is low level spells."
"Fine I will believe you this time. What about those fireballs though, did his subordinate kill him because of that?"
"I am not answering that, I will wait for you to ask the right question, you see."
Right question, what could be it? She stressed her mind to think about it.
"Oh, why did you burn the city?"
"Correct, Ha …ha …ha…Dani how smart of you…
That was a bait to lure Melania out of the castle and ensure chaos within the castle."
"What? How could you have done it?"
"See, no one was harmed so I guess it was not that cruel."
Dani was in disbelief, she couldn't believe Rica had turned out to be like this, complete opposite of what she was before.
"I guess, its time you ask for the key questions now? Enough about these small ones…"
"When did you break the protection barrier? When did you give the sword to deux? How did you happen to make a skeleton lord appear with necromancy within? Why did you kill Melania's family?" Even Dani waited to ask these important questions, she couldn't wait any longer.
"Woah ! those are a lot...What will happen if I answer these questions, you know I am taking a risk as well."
"I will lighten your punishment and shift you from this dark prison. Is that enough?"
"Sure, that's enough….."
"It all started when Melania gave me that sword….So we made a minor change to the plan, I handed the sword to his subordinate while putting on the flames in the city, but before that I headed to the castle not to keep the sword but to disintegrate the spell of the protection barrier. Then I came out of the castle, wore that magical cape which hides someone's appearance and then mingled with everyone in the chaos when the fireworks had stopped. And the rest you know…As for the skeleton lord, I made him using the essence left by my father after he died, it was easy for me. You know how proficient I am in such things….
"Why did you break the protection barrier though? Weren't the flames enough ?"
"No….we wanted enough time to ensure Melania was outside the castle. It was another bait…"
"Do you know anything about the cruelmancers?"
" What, weren't they dead after the great war."
So, even she means the cruelmancers were nothing but an illusion? But then why did Melania say something about killing them? I guess I have to use another strategy then.
"One last thing, did you blindly follow you fathers order even knowing you would lose your friend?"
"Friend? I have no friends, everything is just for making connections and using them later, nothing deeper than that. Everything is superficial for me."
"You are speaking as though you are someone else, I am totally disappointed in you, but I guess this is not much of a surprise for your crimes speak for you. Did our friendship too never matter?"
"Well, it's upto you, what you think, I wouldn't have answered all these questions either if it was for that, and most importantly, you are different from Melania.
Jealousy? or something else? What could it be? And I am different than Melania,what does she mean?, she was in deep thought but then Rica called out to her....
"Dani, let me ask you something this time…WHERE IS MELANIA HIDING?"