Chapter 28

28 The Witch Hunt Incident

Anne felt threatened, she never expected Justice will be so apprehensive about her asking him about the incident in the forest, let alone, look so surprised that Anne remembered everything.

“You... you really do remember everything?” Asked Justice again, there’s tension on his face, “Please answer... my question...”

“Yes... I remember everything, what do you mean that I wasn’t supposed to remember everything about that woman in the forest.”

Justice curses as soon as Anne confirmed what he had feared, he couldn’t relax even one bit. Pacing through the room, thinking hard on his mind. He glances at Anne, the girl was so gullible about the whole thing.

She doesn’t know what Justice, Xavier, Henry, and Vale had done to her. As soon as he was brought unconscious outside of the forest, the other three were already there, waiting for him. Justice doesn’t want her to remember about their encounter with that mysterious woman. He asked Vale to do something unthinkable, erasing her memory of the encounter.

However, Anne is unique, she is not from this world. The forgotten spell somehow failed to erase the memory, Justice doesn’t aware of her origin. The girl in front of him is full of questions in her head.

“Justice... What is happening? Why are you panicking?”

Flustered by her question, he denied everything by staring at the door and scoffing, “Silly, I’m not panicking.”

“Scared then? I mean what’s the big deal about that lady anyway?”

.....

A sudden knock on the door gave Justice a sigh of relief, he open the door to see one of the guards carrying two boxes of food.

“Ah, your food is here!” He said with an exaggeration in his voice, “Let me arrange it for you on the table, and oh look at the time, I... I need to go now, get well soon, okay.”

“But... Justi...”

Before Anne could even complete her sentence, Justice is already gone, leaving her alone inside the room. Bernard and the guards were dumbfounded by their crown prince’s action.

“Your majesty, you’re just going to leave her?” Asked Bernard, with a comical face.

Justice glared at him, and whispered, “Yes, Bernard, I am! She was fine, and one thing... Don’t call me your majesty in front of her.”

They go outside and back to the carriage, Justice has a lot on his mind right now, while Bernard still looks at him with a permanent shock on his face.

“She... she doesn’t know that you’re the crown prince of this kingdom?” Bernard is genuinely curious and keeps trying to pry some questions from his crown prince.

An annoyance came to Justice’s face, with his red eyes and the combination of a frown on his face, he berated his chief of guard. He doesn’t need a distraction right now, what he needs is to meet with Henry, Vale, and Xavier.

Suddenly, Justice called a name while he stare into the window of his carriage, “Kirara.”

A pair of eyes appears from his shadow, ‘Yes, master.’

“You know what I want, and remember the usual place.” Said Justice without even turning his head.

‘Affirmative master.’

Then a huge white wolf jumps from Justice’s shadow, Bernard is already used to seeing Justice’s Familiar by now. The white wolf tribe gave to him, from his childhood. He knows by now, that Justice is going to go away tonight, without him by his side.

“I’m assuming that I need to loosen the schedule of our guard, tonight?”

Justice snickers at Bernard, he is aware of him doing a run from the palace once in a while, but Bernard never actually says it verbally about it, he just gives him a hint and Justice will give him some instructions.

“East gate this time, about ten at night.”

“Right, your majesty.”

The carriage arrives at the palace, Justice, and Bernard enter the hall when the Empress saw him from the second floor.

“Justice!”

He looks up, to his mother who’s now descended from the hall grand stairs.

“Hello mother, fancy seeing you here?”

A woman with red flaming hair and a pair of leaf green eyes were staring at Justice with her hands on her hips. The empress of the kingdom, the ruler of the Valorian kingdom, The empress Liberty.

“Where were you? Your fathers was looking for you?”

“I have a prior engagement at the capital, what happened?”

She looks at him with a glare, but Justice doesn’t even care about it, he is already used to his mother nagging at him.

“Ascend wanted to teach you the new trading strategy, and Edward needs a sparring partner.”

“Oh, let me go to them and apologize, I forgot about my schedule for today.”

Empress Liberty is in shock and her eyes now staring at Bernard, “Bernard! What are you doing as his chief of the guards for the crown prince?!”

Bernard is sweating bullets, he is always afraid of the empress, not because she s the ruler, but the fact that she is the former magic knight with tremendous power on her hands. She is a veteran knight with enough experience fighting the hoards.

“I... I’m sorry her majesty, he... I mean your majesty insists to go to the library, even though he knows about his schedule with the kings.”

Now, Justice is the one that glaring at Bernard, he just wanted to peek at Anne studying using his reserved seat, but instead, he had to carry her once again, and know the truth about their failure to erase her memory of the forest incident.

Empress Liberty let out a sigh and warned her son, “Look, just go to Ascend, for now, I’ll tell Andrew to spar with another guard.”

She walks away, leaving Justice, who’s now folding his arms on his chest, ready to chew on Bernard.

“Next time, Bernard, just said that you have already told me!”

“My apology.”

“Ugh, let’s just go to father Ascend now, I really need to get this thing to be done with.”

Justice has met his father, king Ascend the counselor, and learn some knowledge about the law of trading. At ten o’clock, he already running to the east gate, using his black leather jacket, Kirara, his familiar already back in his shadow. He ride his horse from his secret stable and dashed through the night.

Entering a bar on the dark side of Z street, where his best friends are already sitting in their favorite seating. Xavier pour a drink to Justice, he drank it in one gulp. Vale and Henry share a glance, for them, to see Justice like this, means some trouble is coming for them.

The last time he was panic like this, was when he asked them to hunt for a powerful witch that was speculated as the mother of the dark monster, the creator of the dark mischievous road. They call it, Witch of The Mountain.

“Finally, you sent Kirara for a meeting, that’s uncanny of you, so what happened?” Asked Xavier to justice.

Justice’s eyes wandered into all of his friends, and stayed at Vale, “It was Anne.”

“River Anne? What happened to her?”

“The spell failed, she remembers everything.”

Vale was stunned, he knows what he was capable of, and doing magica is his talent, and his talent never failed him before. “No... are you sure?”

Justice nodded his head, “Yes, and the worst part is, she was curious about her, about the Witch of The Mountain.”