"Duchess Margarette wasn't the one sending the assassins?" Glaring at Snow with wide-open eyes, Rose couldn't believe what she was hearing.
"I've had my talk with her, she even sent two of her best guards in the duchy as personal bodyguards for me," sitting at the edge of the bed, Haruki finished tying his shoes before looking up to meet her eyes. "So now you don't have to follow me around everywhere, just manage the maids like you used to, okay?"
Patting her on the side of her arms, he moved right past her and headed straight for the door. However, with countless doubts still storming through her head, Rose wasn't about to let him off the hook so easily.
"So you talked to her and she said no, and you're just going to believe her?" Grabbing Haruki by the arm, she deterred him from going out of his room. "Not only that, you brought some random strangers she allotted you back into the castle?"
Giving him an intense glare dripping with suspicion, Rose leaned over to have him look right at her face. With their noses almost brushing against each other, Haruki felt extremely tense and uncomfortable. Shying his eyes away, he tried to move away from her, but being held by her hand, he had no way of escaping.
"What about the assassin that confessed to being her minion?!" Grabbing him by both shoulders she violently shook him. "Did you really think that she'll tell you the truth just because you asked in person?!"
Noticing the stern look on her face, Haruki was both threatened and annoyed by her meddling. For him, the matter was already resolved, and having to come up with further excuses to convince her frustrated him as it was only pushing off the real issues that he was worried about at the moment.
"Do you take me for an idiot, Rose?" Shrugging her hands off of him, Haruki took a step back. "Obviously I didn't just take her word for it, or else why would've I wasted so many days staying there? Wouldn't it be a short task, just to agree with whatever she spouted?"
Mocking her in a sarcastic tone, a tensioned glare shot off his eyes. Noticing the glinting rage in his iris, Rose knew that she crossed a definite line. Drawing her hands back toward her body, she huffed out a sigh in an attempt to gather her thoughts.
"I…I apologize, young duke," she whimpered, her eyes dejected down in shame of her conduct.
Scoffing at her lousy apology, Haruki rolled his eyes in annoyance. The further he drifted from his humanity, the lousier his attitude had gotten, and now it was so far loose that he didn't care for any pretense of dignity as a royal.
"Just stick to your station, you were never meant to be a guard or my adviser, the only reason you're even allowed so casually into my room is because some crooked degenerate decided to send some assassins in my direction," walking past her, he kept on complaining. "If you're so desperate to protect someone, why don't you go visit your kids? Or do you not care about them to even allow them near you?"
Petrified at the mention of her kids, Rose couldn't believe that the usual well-behaved Snow was saying all that stuff. Raising her head again, she looked back at him with jittery eyes.
"How…can you say that?" She mumbled right as Haruki opened the room door.
Turning just his head, he glared at her with half-open eyes. However, what he didn't realize was the violet glow in Snow's dead-silver eyes. Being more perceptive of the two, Rose quickly caught onto it, but when she blinked her eyes to make sure of it the Snow's eyes turned back to the usual shade of gray.
"How, you ask?" Turning over, he moved closer to her. Pushing himself up on his toes, he got as close to her face as he could. "Cause they asked me to, they told me how horrible of a mother you are. Even a monster doesn't abandon its cub as you have, and sure, they might have sent jolly words back with that messenger tiger, but do you really think they love a mother they can't even get to meet every once in a while?"
Putting himself down, he quickly flipped over and marched over to the door. Left behind as Haruki stormed off into the corridor, Rose's mind was anywhere but the right place. Raging with doubts her heart ached for comfort, but since she couldn't fly out to confront her children about the matter there was no solace to be found anywhere.
'No…don't, there's no way they think of me that way, right?' Looking down at her hands, a sorrowful tear fell onto them. 'The duke is lying…I know he is. He's just mad that I was being so pesky.'
Trying to justify his words, she placed the blame all on herself, and yet, even then as she kept staring at her hands being flooded with her tears, the memories of her past turned the tears into blood. The room itself turned into an inferno, and as she raised her head to look around all she saw was carnage and blood.
'A century more Roselia, you can't make the same mistake again…' Shutting her eyes, she took long deep breaths to soothe her own soul. The cries of those howling nights kept her own edge as she tried to wipe those memories off of her mind. 'I was young…shut up! Don't think about it! I don't want to lose control again!'
Her thirst for revenge against the duke for saying such things flared up her lung with burning rage and fumes. Attempting to fight her rage, her eyes were forced. But unlike their usual red glow, her eyes were charred black with a dark crimson iris.
"BURN THIS CITY TO THE GROUND!" She growled in a raspy voice trying to fight her own thoughts.
"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" Taking her own hand to choke herself, she knew what had to be done to deter those words from being realized. "Dragon's bane!"
Activating the ability a phantom bone-crushing force flung her body into the wall right behind her. Had it been any other time, she would've escaped the skill with a minor bruise but the mental stress straining her body paired with the impact on her head as she hit the wall forced her unconscious in an instant.
Updat𝒆d fr𝒐m freew𝒆bnov𝒆l.c(o)m