Light from the Shadow

Chapter 45

The king was sitting with his daughter having afternoon tea together in the palace. "How is your magi training going?"

"I have better control now. I'm managing it well, I think." Ayna said.

"You are not afraid of it anymore?"

Ayna hesitated. "I still am. But I won't run away from it anymore. Look!" She put the cup on her hand back to the table and drew a formula on the air. Suddenly, a strong wind came and blew to her face, ruining her hairdo. "Ouch..."

Her father laughed and patted her head. "You like your new instructor?" He teased her.

Ayna snarled at him. "Still as annoying as before."

"What do you mean annoying?" A man came into the room without announcing himself.

The king got up from his seat and greeted the guest. "Well, hello, Your Majesty."

"I beg you to stop addressing me with that title, Your Majesty." The former librarian said. "This is stupid. We calling each other in that fashion." The king and Ayna could not stop laughing.

It had been six months since Rishi was crowned as the new emperor. As an idle emperor, he often wandered around the empire and would visit Remblan often to see Ayna... and oversee her training.

Ayna turned to her father. "About that, Father... I've been thinking to ask you about mother."

"Your mother?"

Ayna nodded. It was hard to say the next sentences. "I want to know about her. I want to know what actually happened that day. Why my magi suddenly came out. I've been trying to recall the past but it was blurry."

A troubled expression crossed the king's face. He did not say anything for a while.

"Do you know how magi is summoned?" He asked.

"Magi formula?" Ayna answered.

Her father nodded. "That is one way, the common way for a true magi wielder. We learn the arts and call upon it consciously. Another way is we can compress it into a container so it can be used even by people without magi. Just like what I do with your glasses, Rishi." He looked at the former librarian.

"But there is one more way and I'm sure you already knew about it. It happened a few times to you, didn't it? Where the magi was forced to come out?" King Ekua asked. He had heard all the stories from Ayna.

Ayna looked taken aback.

"It's when your mind gives out danger signals, the magi will come out on its own to protect you as the host." The king paused. "And that's what happened that day."

"You mean someone was trying to harm me? But who?" Ayna asked.

The king was hesitant to reply. He nodded slowly. "It was your mother, my wife, the queen consort."

"Wha... what do you mean mother...?" Ayna's head turned white. She thought she was going to faint. Rishi who was standing beside her held her by the shoulders.

"It was my fault." Her father said slowly.

The king looked up and his eyes met Rishi's. "It happened days before the fall of Mehari. A man, a close aid to your father, came to see me, begging in his knees for my help to help the emperor."

It's Lord Remwar... Ayna thought, remembering the story the lord told her before.

The king lowered his gaze. "I refused to help him. I told him I couldn't do it because Remblan is not allowed to interfere with the empire's conflict."

Rishi and Ayna continued to listen silently.

"But your mother disagreed. She insisted I should help the Mehari in the war. She believed it was the right thing to do to return the gratitude for saving her and you years ago. I stubbornly stood by my decision and ignored her – and that was when she came to me one day, bringing you with her and threatened me that she would kill you and herself if I still refused to help the emperor."

He closed his eyes. He still remembered the look of his wife's face when she stormed into his study that day.

"This is the last time I'm begging you! Please help him!" His wife had begged him with tears in her eyes.

"Kui, I've told you we can't do that. We have agreed..." He tried to explain but his wife cut him.

"You have the power to save lives yet you refuse to use it just because of a piece of paper?! It's not just anyone! He saved us before, Ekua. Me and our daughter. We won't even be here if not for him!" The queen consort Kui cried.

"This conversation is over. Go back to your room now. I'm going out." He strode to the door.

"Ekua!" The mother shouted. The husband did not stop walking.

Queen Kui snatched a letter opener from the desk and pointed it at her own neck.

"Mother!!" Little Ayna cried.

"Wha... what are you doing, Kui?!!" The king turned his back when he heard his daughter cried.

"I'll kill myself! This life... is a life saved by him. If I have to sit here doing nothing and watch him die..."

"Are you threatening me?" The king clenched his fist. He was furious at his wife but she was determined and unyielding.

"Do as you like!" King Ekua left the room, shutting the wooden door with a loud bang and walked away.

Rishi noticed Ayna's trembling hands. He interlocked his hand with hers and held it tightly.

"And a moment later..." Her father continued. "I heard a scream coming from the study."

"That's..." Ayna gasped.

The king nodded. "I ran back as soon as I heard her scream. But when I opened the door, your mother was already lying there with a pool of blood under her body. One look and I knew it wasn't caused by the small blade on her hand." He covered his face with his hands. "She was killed by magi."