It was already late in the morning when Alicia regained her consciousness. After gaining her bearings, as usual, the first thing she did was to take stock and feel out the latest condition of her body, clench her fists to see how much strength she had left this time around before the memories from her last waking moments caught up with her.
With wide eyes she whipped her head towards the spot where she had seen Zeres sleeping at yesterday. Seeing that the spot on the floor was empty, Alicia sighed out in relief. However, she did wonder where did Zeres run off to this time.
Her gaze fell on the window and the moment she realized the sun was already high and beaming brightly through the opened curtains, she slipped off the bed, wore her cloak and hastily grabbed her things for washing up before heading off to the bathroom downstairs.
The men were all lounging outside the house. Lucas was sitting leisurely on the bench while Zeres and Kyle were having an intense sparring session. It had surprised Lucas when Zeres suddenly asked the young prince if he wanted to spar with him.
Of course, Kyle was overjoyed. He had been itching to ask Zeres for a long time now and it seemed the witch himself had long noticed the young prince's obvious desire to fight him. The only question was, what made Zeres even consider offering to do so now when he had ignored the young prince for so long? There have been many other chances previously and Zeres had not even bothered with the young prince other than just giving the cursory greetings or glances.
Lucas also noticed that the silver-haired witch seemed to have somehow changed overnight. But all he could do was rest his head on his palm and watch. He didn't like thinking too deeply into things that much. But it seemed he could not avoid thinking after all, as his brain already started planning on what he should be cooking for the prince and the other two witches for their lunch which was coming up soon.
"Ugh!!" Kyle fell on the ground hard. His sword was flung far away from him and he felt his sword hand going numb with the strong impact of Zeres' earlier attack.
Zeres walked towards him and offered him a hand to pull him up. The boy smiled, thrilled and happy as he accepted Zeres' hand.
"That move was so strong! And I'm pretty sure that's not even your full strength! Right?" Kyle said animatedly as he stood and brushed off his pants.
"Kiel can easily block and counter that attack though. If your brother's an immortal, he could probably beat both me and Alexander at once." Zeres replied as a matter of fact, causing the boy to widen his eyes in amazement.
"R-really? That's…" Kyle trailed off because something had already caught and pulled the immortal witch's attention. When the boy followed his line of sight, his gaze fell towards Alicia's room.
Kyle still wanted to talk to him. This was the first time they had sparred and chatted, and Kyle really liked him too. He wanted them to chat and fight a little bit more, but he also knew that this immortal's priority was Alicia. He had seen it since the very beginning, how this man seemed to have only one purpose in existing and that was to take care of the witch queen.
"You're strong, Kyle." Zeres said. A small smile curved on his lips. "If you don't stop improving yourself, one day, you could be as strong as your brother. Maybe even stronger, who knows? I'm not encouraging you to be like him though. You're still so young, don't focus on getting stronger so early."
"Why? Is that a bad thing? I heard my brother Ezekiel was already as strong as hell that he could beat every living vampire to pulp when he was my age."
"And that's why Kiel's bored as hell and as cold as ice now." Zeres smirked. "Or do you actually want to be like him?"
Kyle blinked and he looked away. "I do want to be as powerful as him. But… I don't want to be following in his footsteps in the matter of personality and attitude."
"That's great then. But remember there's always a price for everything." Zeres ruffled Kyle's hair and before Kyle could open his mouth again, the immortal witch was already gone.
Slightly pressing on the back of his neck, Kyle walked towards his sword and picked it up. He stared at it and muttered towards himself. "So… you're saying that if I want power, I need to pay something for it… I wonder just how much my brother had to pay for the power he has now?"
…
In the house, Alicia was done freshening up and already gotten dressed when Zeres entered her room with a tray of food for her.
"I am glad you finally entertained the boy. He looked happy." Alicia said with a pleased tone, turning away from the window and towards him.
"Yes. He's really strong." He smiled, surprising Alicia. It felt like forever since she last saw him smiling that she could not help but feel somewhat weirded out and stared at him.
"What happened last night?"
"Eat first. I'll tell you once you finish all your food."
Her gaze darted between him and the tray of food for a while before she sighed in defeat and sat down to eat. She knew it was futile in arguing with him as she has yet to win in any of their arguments since they started the journey. She still could not taste the food but without a word, she silently forced herself to finish it bit by bit.
"So? What happened last night? You guys didn't delay the journey because of me, right?" Alicia asked as soon as she finished all her food on her tray.
Zeres quietly collected the plates and tray to set it aside. She reached out for the pitcher but Zeres was quicker than her.
"Kiel and I went to the cavern and…" he looked straight into her eyes after pouring a glass of cool water for her. "We finally found it."