"Huh?!" a young Lara exclaimed in surprise and stepped back with cautious eyes.
As a princess, she was supposed to reignite the morale of the soldiers who were climbing up the mountains to find the item mentioned in the great prophecy.
But just as her carriage neared the camp at the bottom of the mountains, she was kidnapped by the person before her.
At first, she was scared, but she soon calmed down.
She folded her arms, smirked and asked, "You think the kingdom would stop because you kidnapped me?"
Haden placed his spear down, looked into her youthful blue eyes with his piercing red ones and said, "You think too little of yourself, princess. Do not forget — You carry the royal blood. So they have to do it, if they don’t want to lose a royal."
She looked into his eyes without a hint of fear or worry and asked, "What makes you think that I can’t run away from here?"
He leaned against the tree and muttered, "You can try."
She frowned and walked over to the edge of the cliff to gaze at the vast forests and mountains before her.
A few moments later, she said, "You live in the mountains, so you probably haven’t heard that Leonara’s swords only stop after they get what they want."
Haden chuckled and asked, "Do you know why your father, the king, has decided to attack us now?"
She turned towards him and shook her head. She didn’t know why the king had decided to attack now because he was too busy preparing for the war and thus was unable to tell her anything.
"You must’ve heard about the dark king..." Haden said as he stood up from his spot.
Lara’s face suddenly went pale, and she trembled in thought, ’T-The d-dark king?!’
Of course, she knew about the dark king, the ruler of the damned and the master of dark phantom gauntlets.
She also remembered how the dark king had descended into a one-sided war against all of the kingdoms to obtain the divine elixirs and techniques of the various royal and noble houses and had nearly won... until the forgotten protector of the realm — a dragon appeared.
Seeing the colours of her face fade, he concluded that she knew about the dark king.
"The dark king is dead," he announced as he walked closer and continued, "The dragon that was supposed to stop the dark king became one of their minions, leaving us no choice but to kill both of them."
She blinked a few times and muttered in disbelief, "What?"
He inched closer and whispered in her ear, "The dark king is dead, and your father believes that the dragon killed them, but... it was I who slayed the dragon and the dark king."
Her eyes widened in utter disbelief, she stumbled a few steps back and slipped.
But before she could fall, Haden grabbed her by the waist, pulled her closer and breathed, "The only reason all of your men are alive is because of our kindness as the godblood."
Her face reddened slightly, and she listened to him with hitched breath as a single thought ran through her mind, ’S-So close!’
He let go of her waist and stated as he stepped back, "Go, tell your father what I’ve told you."
Her lips dropped slightly, and her hand moved to grab him, but she lowered it sharply and mumbed under her breath, "What are you doing, Laerain?!"
He placed a hand on her shoulder, and her heartbeat began to quicken. She calmed herself and blinked.
Just as she blinked, he disappeared, and she was no longer at the mountain’s peak. Instead, she was standing before a tent.
"Huh...?" She looked around in confusion and stepped towards the tent.
***
A day passed, and Laerain Leonara, or Lara, found herself at the peak once more.
She turned around, and her eyes fell on Haden, who was leaning against a redwood tree. "What did he say?" He asked.
’Can’t he at least greet me? Hmph! Dumb barbarian,’ she thought and answered, "He said you are spouting nonsense and asked if you could kill the dark king, why didn’t you kill him before?"
He nodded and said, "The dark king never allowed the possibility of a threat, but with the help of other tribemen, I ran away from the red and black mountains and gained the strength to end their rule."
She murmured, "Oh..."
A chuckle escaped her, and she said, "You sound like a hero from the stories."
He turned his head towards the south and muttered, "Make your father stop this nonsensical war."
She nodded, folded her hands behind her back and said while leaning forward, "I don’t want to."
"Huh?"
She paced around him in circles and added with a smile, "If I make him stop, I would have to go back to those lifeless walls of the royal palace and politics... I like it better here."
He frowned and commented, "You are a princess; you should think of your people before yourself."
Lara shot him a displeased glare and snapped, "Hmph! So what? I didn’t ask to be a princess, and what do you even know?"
She stepped closer, jabbed her finger into his chest, and her voice rose as she continued furiously, "Have you ever been forced to do things you didn’t want to?! Have you been judged for everything you do?! No! You haven’t. But I have! — because I’m a fucking princess."
She stepped back and took a few deep breaths to calm herself.
Haden watched her and commented, "You have a crude tongue for a princess."
She glared at him and asked in a low voice, "Are you judging me right now?"
He turned away and answered, "No."
She narrowed her eyes and argued. "Yes, you are."
"I am not."
She appeared before him and breathed on his face, "Don’t kidnap me if you want to judge me."
He placed a hand on her shoulder and said, "All right."
Both of them vanished once again.