The Crown's Obsession

Music Recommendation: Foolish Once again- Frizzell D'souza

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It took a few days before Beth finally entered the land of Devon from the land of Warrings, and she could already feel the nostalgic feeling hitting her senses. It had been many months since she had last seen her loved ones, and she wondered how much would have changed in that time.

She felt a mixture of emotions within her. On one side, she was excited to see her family, and on the other side, dread filled her. The stain on her had inked for so many years that she knew the backlash she had received from some of the people in the land of Warrings would be nothing.

The hooves of the horses clopped against the forest road while she occasionally heard them neighing.

From the letters that she had received from her sister, who had written to her diligently to make sure she was alright, Beth had come to learn that her parents had moved back to their original house.

The carriage in which Beth was travelling finally reached the village of the East Carswell, and her anxiousness only increased. The carriage pulled itself in front of the house of the Harris' residence with the horses stopping, and the coachman stepped down to open the carriage door for her.

But Beth had already pulled it open, and she stepped down from the carriage.

"Milady, would you like me to bring your luggage into the house?" asked the coachman while watching Beth admire the house from where she once wanted to run away and stay in a mansion.

"Let me check if my parents are here. I don't know if they are here or with my sister now," replied Beth, making her way through the creaking gate and knocked on the door. On receiving no reply, she walked around the house to step into the backyard to see the house's back door was locked too. "We'll be heading to the castle, Trevor," she informed him, returning to stand next to the carriage.

"Alright, milady," the coachman bowed his head.

And while the coachman waited for her to step inside so that he could close the door, one of the villagers who caught sight of the young woman called, "Is that you, Elizabeth?"

Beth turned around, noticing it to be Mrs. Parsley along with her daughter Pauline.

Beth had planned to meet her family before showing her face to others but caught near the carriage. She offered them a bow and a smile.

"Good evening, Mrs. Parsley," greeted Beth.

"Oh my! I cannot believe it is you. Poor you," the woman clicked her tongue. Beth wondered if the word had spread about her being bit by a werewolf. Not that she minded about it now, but she was aware of how the people of Devon didn't welcome werewolves in their territory. It was only the land of Warrings where people were tolerant because it was where the werewolves had originated. "The last I heard you were exiled out of this land for trying to kill the King."

Beth wondered if she would be living with it for the rest of her life, but then it was her fault why people held it against her.

"When did you come back?" asked the woman with false enthusiasm in her voice.

"Only a few minutes ago," Beth replied, and she noticed Mrs. Parsley's daughter, who was two years younger than her, keenly looking at her clothes.

"Is that what people have to wear when they are banished, mama?" the girl whispered, but Beth heard it quite clearly. Things that she had not paid attention to before could now hear as good as an average vampire.

During her training period, Jagger had not gone easy on her. In one of the training periods, she was made to sit in the forest with her eyes closed. Arrows were then fired close to her ears, and she had to catch them with her hands before the arrows would nip the side of her earlobes.

Mrs. Parsley sized Beth up and down before asking the question that her daughter questioned before, "What happened to your clothes? It is really pitiful to see that you are wearing something as dirty as that," the woman shook her head as if a great misfortune had fallen upon Beth. "This is why you shouldn't have felt jealous of your sister. Look at her now, she's the Queen of this land. If they don't get you decent clothes, as everybody knows what you did to the King, I am sure Pauline will be happy to lend you her old clothes."

More than a year ago, when Mrs. Parsley had asked Beth for some of her clothes for her daughter to wear, Beth had outright refused it. It was because Mrs. Parsley could afford clothes. It seemed like the woman was taking her revenge by rubbing salt over the wound. But Beth didn't have any wounds.

Beth offered the woman and her daughter a kind smile, "Thank you for your kind consideration about what I will be wearing. But I don't think I would be able to fit in Pauline's clothes. Especially considering how she's flat in the front unlike me."

Just because she had changed some of the things in her attitude didn't mean she had reformed every little thing about herself.

Hearing Beth's words out in the open while they were on the road, Mrs. Parsley's daughter turned red out of embarrassment.

"H-how dare you talk like that?!" Pauline questioned Beth. "We are being kind to you by offering you my old clothes, when people are talking ill about you."

The smile on Beth's lips slowly slipped away. She said, "I am grateful to your thoughtfulness, but my sister still loves me dearly. And don't think I don't know what you were trying. Try it on someone else and not on me," her eyes turned sharp, and she turned to Trevor, "Let's go now."

When Beth left in the carriage, both the woman and her daughter fumed in anger. "Let her come back. I will make sure to see that she pays for those words!" Mrs. Parsley shouted, looking at the diminishing sight of the carriage.

In the moving carriage, a sigh escaped Beth's lips. Before the carriage could continue its path, she leaned forward and pulled the window aside so that she could speak to the coachman. "Take the right path in the forward."

"Not to the castle?" questioned the coachman.

"It is a small stop," replied Beth and the man obliged to her words.

The carriage pulled in front of the two tall pillars with its gates that had been left open. The name of Hawthrone written with the help of iron rods that were bent and shaped into letters, Beth stepped inside the cemetery.

With the time of evening, the sunlight wasn't as harsh as it was in the afternoon, and the wind was gentle that breezed through the trees that were around the place.

Before leaving Devon, she had come here, and here she was again, back to standing in front of the grave that had Raphael's name written on it.