The Crown's Entrapment

At Cordon Castle

Jayra shook her head as she watched her Master Kasper in disbelief. The man was practically swooning as she stared at Lena from the second floor of the castle hallway.

“How long do you plan on staying here anyway?” she couldn’t help but snort as she asked her wayward master. Well, not that his presence bothered her, but her days were much more peaceful without this old man constantly bugging her.

“I’m not sure, my pupil,” he seriously stated. “Anyway, I have such a beautiful view in my sights that I simply can’t ignore it…”

Jayra’s jaws dropped at her master’s antics. “I thought the only beautiful view to you are all the different kinds of alcoholic drinks you’ve been consuming? Since when did you even bother to look at a woman?” she scoffed. “Besides, aren’t you practicing celibacy to keep your youth?”

It was a mystery to her how one of her Master’s secret techniques in maintaining his youthful-looking body was to practice celibacy, but that was just the fact of it. Really, no one knew exactly how old he was, but Jayra once heard that he was old enough to have already roamed the world with their ancestors. It was like he was an immortal, but he swiftly denied such claims. Also, he didn’t really look much like a vampire, but no matter how Jayra asked, he simply refused to budge in disclosing more details about himself. All she knew was that Master Kasper rarely accepted a student, and if he did, then you were lucky… And she was one of those lucky ones.

Jayra frowned as she stared closely at her Master before then moving her gaze towards Lena herself. 𝒃𝙚𝙤𝙫𝒆𝒍．𝙘𝒐𝙢

‘Could it be possible that he…’ she inwardly thought, wondering if her Master knew of Lena’s identity as Helena? Or perhaps he somehow sensed that Lena was once the Fairy Queen of the Realm of Efereia, more famously known at Cordon as the Element Forest.

“Ah… Stop giving me that suspicious look!” Master Kasper mumbled with a pout, his eyes still gawking at Lena as the former guardian tended to some of the flowers in the inner courtyard. “I’ve been celibate since I was a child. Don’t you think that I’ve had enough after traveling all over the world for all these years?”

“And how many years are those to be exact?” Jayra questioned with lifted brows.

“Hah! That won’t work for me. No one will know of my age,” he eagerly boasted. “Mess with everything in my life, Jayra, but not with my age!”

And here he was again, constantly spouting his favorite lines whenever the topic of his age came up. Jayra felt her face twitch at this man’s ridiculousness. There was no way this ancient Master would keep his age a secret for this long!

“So after hundreds of possibly thousands of years of celibacy and meeting a lot of attractive women, no one caught your elusive eye until now with our Lena?” Jayra dubiously asked. “You do know that Lena is like a sister to our Queen and that she will soon reside at the Midnight Pack as a Lady of House Grant? She’ll be a part of the royal family as the King’s cousin.”

Kasper snorted. “So?”

“So there’s no way that you can easily get your way with her without facing the royal family,” Jayra grumbled. “Must I remind you of how pleasantly unpleasant your reputation is? Are you even stable? Do you even have a permanent residence to build a family?”

She didn’t mean to look down on her Master like that, but knowing how he lived freely and adventurously gave her an impression of how much of a homeless person her Master truly was.

A crisp of loud laughter roared throughout the hallway as Kasper beamed. “Oh, you look so adorable right now, my pupil. I’ll take that as you not looking down on me, but instead, as you actually being worried about me,” he confidently hummed. “Worry not, dear Jayra… This Master of yours is quite loaded. Even more so than you know…”

“So you actually have money,” Jayra frowned as she murmured. “Is that why I have to write all those apologies and pay for all of the places where you eat and rest before running away? Just so you can save your own money?”

“It’s been a while, but no… That’s just me having fun,” Kasper chuckled. “But anyways, Lena has weird remnants of energy gathering around her. Do you think she’ll be interested in learning spells and magic?”

Blinking, Jayra turned to Lena and watched her closely. Try as she might though, she was unable to detect what her Master had sensed. Indeed, she still had a long way to go before she could even compare to her Master’s prowess…

“Why don’t you talk to her and ask her then?” Jayra suggested. “Come with me, I’ll formally introduce you to her.”

She had nothing else to do at the moment anyway. Ever since her Master had stayed in the castle, he would often simply glance at Lena from a distance, never even bothering to let his presence known to the woman. His behavior piqued her interest, so she decided to observe as well. But now, upon confirming just what kind of interest her Master had in Lena, then why not help him just so he could at least talk directly to the woman he was eyeing?

Smirking, Master Kasper turned to her with a wide grinned and said, “I’ve been waiting for you to say that. How come you only decided to do that now?”

Jayra shrugged. But seriously, if Xenia ever found out about this, her friend would definitely make a fuss out of this.

“The Queen will not like it once she finds out that you’ve been eyeing Lena…” she mumbled with a pout as she started walking towards the stairs.

“Why wouldn’t she? I’m handsome, very fit, and very capable,” Kasper boasted.

Jayra could only shrug, wondering if she should just spell out how irresponsible her Master was according to Xenia. He was a wanderer who refused to settle in one single place. There was even a bounty on his head from some of the other kingdoms where his reputation was even worse than it already was.

Jayra paused and turned to ask him, “Doesn’t she look familiar to you? Lena?”

Master Kasper gave her a meaningful smile and said, “She does…”

“So you do know her,” Jayra accused her Master. Surely, her Master had seen Helena if he happened to watch the trials for every candidate entering the forest back then. Even now, everyone in Cordon was saying how Lena looked a lot like the Fairy Queen, but no one would ever believe that the mystery woman and the real Fairy Queen were one and the same. No one knew that truth except for the Cordon royal family, her, and a few of the King’s trusted men such as her husband and Gideon.

“Of course,” he blatantly stated. “She’s the woman of my dreams… So hurry along now and formally introduce me to her…”

Jayra could only shrug in disappointment as she turned around from her Master and walked again, failing to see how the man’s lips had curled meaningfully at her.