IX: Treaty Of Peace

The man slowly walked in her direction, two guards were beside him. The assassin removed the red bandana covering her face, to catch her breath because she was already panicking badly.

He offered his hand to help the squatting woman to stand up. Lilith wasn't sure why she quickly took his hand and agreed to his offer.

Probably because she was quite nervous and terrified at the same time, and she felt complacent when she suddenly saw a familiar face in an unfamiliar place.

"You look beautiful in a white mantle, Lilith." The grinning man said, helping her up.

"Why do you know my name? Who are you?" Lilith asked, pulling her hand away from the man. Her defensive mode suddenly kicked into her senses. He eyed the man and the guards suspiciously.

The man chuckled a bit, observing how she got flustered in just a minute. "You can drop all your defenses now, beautiful. No one will harm you and your friends here. Not in my kingdom." He tells her.

Lilith didn't listen to him and continued to eye them suspiciously. "Where are my friends?" She asked.

"If you come with me, you will see them." He offered, giving out his hand to her again.

Lilith looked at him, and then at his hand before rolling her eyes. She ignored his hand and started to walk. "Okay. Let's go." She said.

Sven awkwardly dropped his hand, still smiling, because he was still amused with the sudden attitude of the woman. They started to lead her across a big hallway, and into the heart of the Kingdom.

When they arrived in the room, she met eyes with an angry Carina and Nathalie who were being held by two tall men, wearing a similar white suit to the one the man beside her was wearing, but not as extravagant as his.

"Your royal highness, we tried to take them here without being rough but they keep on budging." One of the tall men explained to the man beside her after most people in the room bowed to greet him.

"Lilith!" Carina shouted her name upon seeing her, her hands were being held by the taller guy who spoke, trying to get away from him.

Nathalie on the other hand was quiet but also trying her best to get away from the grip of the taller man. Her navy blue bandana hangs loosely on her face as she was glaring at the man behind her, who has a fresh bruise on his face. And that's the only time Lilith realized, that the man looked familiar.

Lilith then glared at Sven who was still standing beside her. "You said no one will harm us here." She spat.

Once again, the man just retained his smile. "I can do that, beautiful, but you have to tell your friends to calm down." He spoke.

She then looked at Carina and Nathalie to convince them of the man's request. It took Carina a minute to respond before nodding her head towards her, and then on Nathalie to follow through.

"Nathan, Sin-Hyung. Let them go." The man beside her commanded the two, and they followed right away, letting go of the ladies.

"Who the hell are you?" Carina angrily asked the man who was beside Lilith.

"Miss Carina. It's good to finally meet you." He declared. "I know this isn't a very pleasant way to greet a special guest from another city, but this is the only way for everything to fall into place." He added.

"You still didn't answer my question." Carina folded her hands on her chest.

The man chuckled. "I'm sorry for being rude." He slightly bowed towards the angry woman. "I'm Sven, and I'm this world's King. I want to welcome you to my Kingdom." He finally introduced himself. Lilith suddenly turned her gaze towards the man in surprise.

"King Sven," Carina repeated. "You are the newly reigned king, and you are the youngest one yet in your history." She added.

Lilith this time looked over Carina. "Carina, you know him?" She asked the woman. Carina nodded.

"Yes, Travis told me a lot about him." She answered the curious girl, but without removing his gaze from the King.

"I guess I don't need further introductions then," Sven smirked at her proudly.

"Yes. So why did you want to raise war against us?" The lady was still angry, not letting her walls down.

"And that's where our conversation should continue. There was a misunderstanding that happened here, Miss Carina." He said.

"What do you mean? You killed one of my men." She tells him.

"And we thought you killed one of mine too, but my assistant and my cousin said otherwise." He answered her, not breaking eye contact again.

The air in the room suddenly became competitive. This seemed to be a rare scene where two leaders of different worlds are both secluded in one room.

Carina raised one brow. "Doesn't make sense to me." She retorted, not trusting the man's words.

"Please allow us to explain it to you, Miss Carina. I think this should be the proper time for us to finally sit down." He answered calmly, motioning towards the long table beside them.

"The honors of explaining will be done by my right hand, Nathan." He motioned to the man behind her. "And my eldest cousin, Prince Sin-Hyung." He now motioned towards the man beside Nathalie. "They are my most trusted men who found out about this trap." He explained.

Sin.

The name suddenly rang a bell in Lilith's mind. The reason why the man behind Nathalie was familiar was that she saw him in Coterie City, two nights ago. The night when Mr. Capone was killed and the place it took was owned by him. She finally remembers. But she was suddenly confused about why it seemed like the two women in front of her, didn't recognize the man.

"What do you mean, a trap?" Lilith's jumbled thoughts were cut off when she heard Carina talk.

"Yes. A trap." The king repeated.

The room was suddenly silent for a moment, with the awaiting men from the Kingdom, and the three ones from outside of it contemplating. It seems like everything is scattered all over the place and everything seems to be happening so fast.

"Wait." Carina finally spoke. "Before anything, I want my most trusted man to be here too. Where's Travis?" She eyed the man.

"He's outside." The king said, turning around to signal one guard. "Let him in." He ordered.

Travis was suddenly ushered by two guards. He was also getting dragged by the two as he was trying to break free from their holds. When he recognized the three familiar faces in the room, he calmed down, finally knowing that the three women were safe. Sven's face was also familiar because he had been searching through his background for the past two days.

When Carina saw that Travis wasn't hurt, she finally nodded. "Okay, we'll hear you out, but if everything we will be hearing is complete bullshit, we won't be bothered to throw hands. We don't care how many of you will be." Carina threatened, before sitting on one of the chairs around the table.

"Fair enough." The king answered before sitting as well. The other people in the room followed through.

Nathan and Sin explained the full situation in detail, getting a lot of different expressions from their audience.

After minutes of them presenting, Carina looked at Travis to confirm his reaction to everything they'd heard. "It seems plausible to me, boss. The Realm never took the wrong way to start a war with us for years. Only the Republicans would have the guts to do it. Maybe they wanted to let the Realm join the never-ending war between the mafia land and the democratic city, so they tried to trap us with them." He explained, getting a quick nod from his boss." But one flaw that I can raise from this theory, is the imposter. It seems like you haven't found the person yet." Travis continued, looking directly at Nathan.

"We are still trying to find out who that imposter is. We are sure the person is from this kingdom because they fabricated our symbol by heart." Nathan answered the man. Lilith suddenly raised her hand, so Nathan looked in her direction.

"I want to tell you something I also found suspicious that night." She said, before eyeing the people around the table. "When the super club was attacked, I was on the rooftop, and when I tried to go back to the event using the fire exit stairs I fought with a man in a gray suit." She tells them.

"A Republican army." Carina acknowledged so Lilith nodded. "Yes. So I was really surprised when I arrived on the scene and everyone that the others killed was wearing your royal guard suits. So ever since that day, I knew something was wrong. It even looked like the man was anticipating my attack." She continued.

"Did you try to talk to the person?" This time, Sven was the one who asked.

"I tried to ask him some questions but he was too loyal to the person he was working for, so I just killed him." She answers, leaning back towards her chair.

"But Lilith, when our police cleaned the area they didn't find any dead body on any fire exits of every floor, not someone wearing a grey suit in particular," Travis commented.

Everyone in the room stayed silent for a minute, contemplating once more.

"I think there might be an imposter coming from the Mafia land too." Sin suddenly cut the silence.

"Yes. That's what I also think." Carina nodded. "I'll try to get to the bottom of it." She answers, looking at Travis as if she was giving him some directions. The man just nodded, understanding.

"Okay. So what plan do we have to do? How do we get back at them?" Carina now asked Sven. Her voice finally became calmer towards the man.

The king placed his hands on the table. "I knew your number one priority after hearing this is to plan for revenge, but I think it will be better if two worlds would be against one." He said, which made Carina face him fully.

"Are you requesting a partnership with the mafia land, King?" She said smirking, one brow raised in amusement. The king smirked in return.

"Yes, but not yet." He said, motioning to Nathan, who nodded before handing Carina a piece of paper. The woman eyed the paper right away. It was a document that had royal writings engraved in it.

"Peace Treaty?" Carina asked the man again after reading what was written on the paper.

The king nodded. "Yes. Even though our city never raised war against your city, you never signed a peace treaty document with us. So here's the formality we need now. Let's officially be friends." He explained, smiling towards the Mafia queen.

"Are you sure you are ready for the Mafia people to barge into your domain, with guns and knives in their pockets? Are you ready to see one of your commoners high on cocaine or marijuana? I think you're not going to be ready for our world, your highness." Carina teased, thinking of the proposal to be a laughing stock.

"Well it's just a peace treaty, and with terms too. For further instructions on what our people should and shouldn't do after the partnership, we could talk about it in the future. In the meantime, we have to focus on the revenge against the third domain." He explained, not being bothered by the woman's attitude.

The woman rolled her eyes at him, before tapping her fingers on the table. "I need to think about this. I need to make a call." She muttered. "I'm sure you know that there's two of us leading Coterie City. So I need to know his full reaction about this." She looked over the King.

"I completely understand. I could arrange that for you immediately, and I'm sure you are tired of everything that happened so we can show you your rooms where you will be staying in the mean time." He concluded.

"Why do we need to stay here, if we could just go back?" She spat at the man once again.

Sven chuckled. "We don't have much time, Miss Carina, and we don't like wasting time here in the Realm." He spat back towards the woman. They seem to be not allowing themselves to be empowered by the other.

"Fine. Then arrange it now." She finally agreed, despite her gut saying the opposite.

Sven motioned to some servers and the guards to start leading them out of the room. "You should just follow them." He instructed, before giving a small bow to the group. "If you don't mind, I need to be on my way to my brother's engagement party now, and also to attend to their flustered guests." He said, before turning around to leave them with his right hand and eldest cousin following after him.

Lilith suddenly remembers the man he saw earlier at the engagement party. She tried to convince herself once again that it was just a dream and it would be impossible for Jaxon to be in this place. She followed Carina, Nathalie, and Travis outside of the room as they were being led by some guards and servers as they walk. She called out to Carina.

"Carina, don't you recognize the cousin of the King?" She whispered, just enough for Nathalie to also hear. Carina shook her head. "No. It's the first time I've seen him." She answered, before giving her a questioning look. "Why?" She asked Lilith.

Since Lilith doesn't have an answer to her curiosity yet, she just shook her head, but she needs more information to come up with a conclusion so she asked one more question. "How about when you were at the party outside the garden, was anyone in the crowd seemed to be familiar to you?" She added.

Carina had a second to think, before shaking her head again. "No one." She answered, this time giving her a concerned look. "What's wrong Lilith? Is there anything suspicious that you saw here?" She asked the curious girl.

Lilith just nodded once again, not to expose her troubled mind. "No, nothing." She tried to assure her.

"Okay. But you need to promise me that if you've seen something suspicious, you have to tell me so I can tell to your brother, okay?" Carina tells her, and Lilith once again just nodded.

As they continue to walk towards the numerous hallways, Lilith looked back at both Nathalie and Travis, stopping briefly to be at the same speed as them. "How about you, have you seen anyone familiar when we got here?" She asked the two, knowing that they heard what Carina and she were talking about minutes ago.

Travis immediately shook his head but Nathalie who remained to be quiet the whole time, looked quite surprised when she asked them. "Uh- no. Nothing." She finally answered after some time.

Lilith heaved a sigh, before looking forward to just ignoring what was bothering her mind. She thought that her mind was just playing with her and she might be seeing those people in other men's faces, as she recalled her condition of remembering things so vividly, or maybe she was just tired, and everything about what happened tonight, will finally make sense tomorrow after a good rest.

When the moon was already shining over the castle, all of the guests from the Mafia land were sent to their chambers. Each of them had a room, which had only a bed, a bath, a living room with a TV set, and a balcony.

Lilith was kind of bored after they finished their supper so she asked the server outside her door to show her where Nathalie and Carina's room was. The guest led her to their room right away.

As the night deepens, the white Kingdom gradually became quiet. The king was in his office, still signing some papers that needed to be finished.

"Your royal highness, do you need anything else?" Nathan entered his office. Sven looked up at him.

"Nothing. Is everything okay with the Coterie people?" He asked, putting his pen down.

Nathan nodded. "Yes, your royal highness. I've assigned servers outside of their Chambers to provide them with everything they need." He assures him.

"And Lilith? Is she comfortable?" He asked once more, leaning comfortably on his sit.

His right hand eyed him doubtfully. "I think she is, your highness. One server took her to Miss Nathalie's room after supper. She said she wanted to drink." He tells him.

Sven chuckled in amusement. "Give her all the alcohol she needs." He commanded, eyes glistening in joy.

Nathan kept on looking at him doubtfully but still nodded at the King's request. His right hand had been very curious about why his King had always been interested in the said woman.

"What?" Sven observed how oddly he was eyeing him. The man just shook his head in response. "You can go now." He tells him. Nathan gave him a quick bow before turning around to leave.

The king retained his smile, his mind still lingering on the alcoholic woman he finally met again. He quickly opened one of his drawers, which reveals where the red flask of the woman was hiding. He made a mental reminder to give it back to the woman the next day, before closing the drawer in place.

He suddenly glanced towards the door that was opened abruptly. A woman in a white cloak appeared, closing the door behind her after entering. "Your royal highness." The woman turned to him, crying. Sven stood up when he realizes who it was. "My heart is broken. You promised me your hand, but you gave me to your brother." She sobbed, slowly walking towards the King.

"Adelaide. What are you saying?" The man asked, confused. "Are you drunk?" He added, as he suddenly smelled alcohol as soon as the woman entered the room.

The woman was now in front of him. She slowly removed the cloak that was covering her body. The cloth eventually fell on

her feet.

Sven was astonished when he realizes that the lady was wearing see-through clothing, without wearing anything underneath.

"Adelaide, what are you-" The king was supposed to pick up the cloak on the floor to cover up the woman's body but he was cut off when Adelaide roughly kissed him, making the man fall back on his desk with the force.