Chapter 76: The Curse of Love [4]

A lock of hair, positive memories about her, and love for Lionel since he still retained some traits of Maximus. However, she didn't get the chance to take the golden spear, so she had to repeat the act.

But after that night, Lionel began protecting her personally, and she was no longer in danger of being expelled from the palace. She roamed around as if she were the lady of the place, taking her time to devise plans.

Several weeks passed, and she managed one night to take the golden spear from Lionel, finally completing the four conditions. She opened the heart-shaped pendant and placed the tangible items inside it, despite the considerable size disparity.

But in the end, that pendant was a legendary item; even an axe or dagger could fit inside. From that moment, the week's countdown began. All she had to do was keep things going smoothly.

At the end of the week, she would control one of Maximus's brothers, fulfilling the third condition. She had a lock of his hair, fulfilling the first condition, and she had certainly planted positive memories in his mind over those six months.

As for her love for him, she could think about that after the week was over. For now, she had to convince herself of her intense love for Lionel to meet the pendant's condition; otherwise, bad things would happen to her.

And after everything she had done in the palace among the three brothers, she was already able to deceive even her own mind. She manipulated one of the pure-blooded royal family members like a puppet, all because of a coincidence.

Of course, her natural appearance played a role in this; if she had been ugly, Maximus might have left her to die at the hands of the monsters.

Maximus StarHold wasn't a hero; he was someone with honor in certain places only, and his selfishness knew no bounds. And Lionel wouldn't have accepted an ugly girl either, nor let her get close to him.

With the help of {Necklace of the starry heart}, she finally managed to gain complete control over Lionel StarHold. If she wanted, she could have become a noblewoman for life, enjoying wealth she had never dreamed of before.

She could even carry a royal title in her name, the most famous StarHold name among the four royal families!

She would secure her life completely, relax, and do whatever she wanted without any opposition, even having a husband destined to reach rank S+ eventually. But she wasn't satisfied.

As soon as the week's deadline passed, and her control over Lionel was fully established, she immediately proceeded to perform the final rituals. And this time, the target was Maximus StarHold, her original desire, the reason everything began.

Their encounter changed her life from an orphaned girl with no shelter to a girl enjoying the wealth of the StarHold palace for over nine months now. Their encounter taught her how to aspire, covet, live, and desire! It taught her how wonderful life could be.

The person who was the reason she continued to live until this moment, and his immense strength that no one could match. Everything seemed like a fairy tale to her: finding a legendary item that controls love, then falling in love.

She thought she was a princess in a fairy tale, and Maximus was the prince. She believed that after making him love her, they would live together forever, and she would become queen. She wanted that, dreamed of it, it was all she wanted to happen, and then she would discard the pendant immediately.

She would make Maximus feel what had been in her heart all those past months, and then she would confess everything she did. If he rejected her then, she would be content because at least he would do so knowing what she went through and everything about him.

But in the end, everything comes with a price. She committed the sin of selling her honor and received the appropriate punishment. She managed to attract Lionel entirely, but at the cost of something else.

She felt intense pain suddenly and collapsed, mana waves continued to pour out from her belly. She wasn't even awakened, so how could she release this mana?

The answer was quite simple: that mana wasn't coming from her...

***

Generally, children of royal blood are different from others.

Firstly, due to the Legacy skill etched into their blood from birth, which requires mana to occur.

Secondly, the quality of cells they receive is significantly better than others, so their frail bodies can withstand that skill.

Although their ability to use it or not is determined around the age of ten, it's always imprinted in their bodies like this while forming inside their mothers' wombs.

Of course, the effects and process of birth are much harder on the mother, especially if she is a non-awakened human. Currently, with Lionel's blood, Kathryn suffered unimaginable pain, to the point that made her scream.

At that time, the pendant had already started working with Maximus as its target.

The emotions distracted by the pain, along with the sudden realization that she would give birth in a few months, caused the process to falter.

In the end, it failed.

She was condemned to an endless coma as punishment for her sin.

***

=+=

Killian clapped his hands as he looked at me, as if I had just finished telling a fairy tale.

"Your mind is truly amazing. You deserve to become a king indeed! I could never think of a story like that!" Alfred spoke hesitantly.

"..." I didn't know how to express my feelings.

Hadn't I hinted enough? Did they really think I spent an hour here telling a meaningless story?

"This story is true," I clarified immediately. "Kathryn is Lionel's wife and Lucas's mother."

I didn't tell this story just to waste time; it's significantly related to our current situation. But even after my explanation, Killian and Alfred still seemed skeptical for some reason.

Well... I don't really blame them; it doesn't seem very realistic.

A dark love story that happened in the past before I was even born, and I just narrated it to them.

"But how do you know about events before your birth? Even your father and uncles aren't supposed to know about it," Killian asked, slightly mocking.

He was a bit hesitant as he glanced at Alfred from the corner of his eye, not wanting to repeat the previous fight, certainly.

Then he continued:

"And what a coincidence, her emotions got distracted at that exact moment—"

I couldn't bear listening to his heavy voice, so I interrupted him.

"It's true, believe me. Besides, the ritual would have failed anyway. Even without that sudden coincidence."

 "She lacked two conditions to control my father."

I sighed as I looked at Killian's face, still unwilling to believe.

"Huh? Didn't she plant positive feelings in your father's mind? And she literally possessed one of his brothers and something from his body. She definitely loved him!"

Killian stopped speaking mockingly as if he suspected that everything I had done so far was just to mock him. His mental capabilities lack much outside his areas of expertise.

"Because of the obsession that corrupted her mind and her haste to achieve results, she made several critical mistakes and ended up with your level of intelligence."

Alfred chuckled a bit when he heard the last part; no one cared.

"The {Necklace of the starry heart} requires a tangible item the user cares about, and it must be handed over to the pendant. What Kathryn should have done was literally put Lionel inside the pendant, but even if she had done that, failure was inevitable."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean my father is more selfish than anyone else, he truly loved his brothers but they were far from being his most preferred thing. He also didn't hold any positive feelings towards Kathryn."

"But why did he keep her in the palace for six months?!"

I felt a bit annoyed as I listened to Killian's consecutive questions, like an author being asked about parts he hadn't planned in his story.

"Because she was easy on the eyes. Kathryn was actually beautiful, regardless of her personality." I gave a random answer and immediately tried to change the subject.

"Anyway, what we need to do now is—"

"Stop, stop! You can't change the subject just like that!" Killian complained immediately.