Chapter 188 - Three

"Except Ali's not dead. She's still alive…"

Huh?

A pin-drop silence hung in the room for several moments. The sound of the clock that ticked in staccato on the far side of the wall seemed to be amplified as the silence stretched into minutes. Both Fredek and Ivan looked at the Ritz King with a flummoxed expression on their faces.

"W-what did you say?"

Of course, Ivan had to ask that. He just couldn't process the earlier words that were said were true. If it was a joke, this was the right time to call it. But Alistair was serious.

"I said, Ali is still alive."

The second time around that it was said didn't make it any better. In truth, it only made things all the more confusing.

"What do you mean?"

Ivan's baritone came out blunt which almost sounded like a growl. It wasn't all the time that the Ritz King tried to make a joke out of him, but it had happened before. So, he was still waiting for Alistair to say it was such.

"I meant what I said: Alinea, my younger sister, your fiancée is still alive somewhere."

If it weren't for the fact that Alistair sounded so serious this time, Ivan, of course, wouldn't believe it. How could he? He was there when they found Alinea's lifeless body in the cavern, and it was he who had cremated her body in the lake a week after her death.

So, how could she still be alive?

Even if Alinea's a demigod, she was still part human and death was something permanent even for her in each lifetime. She could only live again if her soul's been reincarnated into another person.

Oh.   Maybe that was it.

Ivan couldn't think of any other reason it would be possible.

"Ali's been reincarnated already?"

If this was so then it was good news indeed. It meant Alistair didn't have to wait long to be reunited with her again. Ivan now recognized the reason why he was summoned. Alistair probably wanted him to find the child and bring her to him.

"No. She never died," Alistair answered with finality, waving the two confused men in front of him back to their seats.

It was best if he would explain properly himself rather than let them continue with their guessing game and assumptions. The king watched as Ivan and Fredek seated themselves properly, their eyes never leaving him as they waited. The two reminded him of hawks anticipating patiently for their prey to come and strike unawares.

"That spawn of the Black God had always known Alinea was Alencica," Alistair began his story, making the men's expression darker as he went on.

"She found out…"Alistair stopped, remembering his faux pas – the mistake that caused him to destroy the carefully catered plan he had to free his child from the curse. 

"Immortal War," both Fredek and Ivan stated, totally seeing the whole picture.

Their expression lightened as the light bulb moment hit them. Alistair studied their faces with his solemn amethyst gaze and nodded.

"Alinea didn't have powers. She was abnormally strong, but she couldn't command the lightning."

"But you gave that power to her during the Immortal War."

Ivan had been totally surprised before when Alinea suddenly commanded the lightning. But knowing his friend and how much he cherished his favorite child, he never wondered. It was actually expected of Perun to come to his child's aid when she was in danger.

But it was such a necessary, and yet, a very foolish move.

Because Perun gave Alinea his seal, she was able to command lightning and won the war, but it also made the enemy find her so easily.

Stupid. Very stupid.

At the cost of people thinking the Ritz King was such a weak ruler, Alistair never used his power to hide his identity. But at the moment Alinea's life was put in peril, he immediately sent her his seal to save her.

Thus, this invited the greatest danger – the one that had put Alencica into a tragic cycle over thousands of years.

"She was the one who had urged the nobles to assassinate Ali. But she didn't want her dead – at least not yet."

Alistair turned to the open window, looking outside but his eyes were unseeing of what's in front of him. His mind was somewhere else, searching for places where Ali must be at the moment.

Ivan sighed. "I do understand but not at the same time. Does that even make sense?" he asked in frustration.

Fredek, on the other hand, cleared his throat.

"Your Majesty, I just want to ask how this is possible. You had found the princess' body and His Highness even cremated her with his elementals. Even if she was just sleeping when she was found in the cavern, it wouldn't mean she would be spared by the flames."

Alistair nodded. Theirs was a solid argument after all. "I thought about that too. It doesn't make sense. But Czernobog's spawn wouldn't lie."

Ivan nodded. This he also knew very well. Also…

"And if Ali was truly dead, then her soul would have been absorbed by the darkness already and chaos would have ensued almost immediately."

The Flame Emperor's eyes were wide this time as if he just remembered this tidbit.

Of course.

It was why Perun became a returner to ancestry in the first place. It was to help prevent the great chaos that would ensue, as well as help his child break the curse.

"That's right," Alistair agreed.

Each time Alencica died, Perun immediately put her soul in the reincarnation cycle so she wouldn't get eaten by the curse and cause a huge catastrophe just as what was prophesized. This time, however, all the soul callers couldn't even summon her soul back when Alistair found her and wanted to try to revive her.

"I think…"

The thought that had been playing in Alistair's mind sounded more real now than when the thought first crossed his mind. He couldn't think of any other reason why Alinea was still alive after all.

"When I broke her soul to try to break the curse, I think she broke into more than two pieces."

"You mean there's another one aside from Ali and that… other part," Ivan completed his sentence with difficulty as he couldn't bear to remember what the other part was.

Alistair nodded. "There are three, not two Alencica…"