Chapter 223: The Book’s Glowing Cover

While sitting on the secret chamber’s floor wondering what was happening outside, Lauren looked at the satchel bag she had been carrying around this whole time.

Inside the satchel was the mysterious book from the spellbound ship.

She made sure she kept it with her in fear that someone with ill motives might get it if she left it anywhere in her room.

If only she knew how to break this curse and cure her illness, she wouldn’t have to be locked up for her own safety. She would have been fighting alongside Alec, protecting their kingdom as the queen.

She was of royal blood from the moment of her birth. She was fated to rule the kingdom, yet here she was, hiding at the brink of Evardin’s ruin while everyone was out there fighting the rebels.

Lauren pulled out the book from the satchel and stared at it with anger.

Why couldn’t she open it?

She was waiting for the right time, hoping that maybe it would open to her at the right moment, but would that time ever come?

She summoned her magic and tried to forcefully open it again. She kept trying until she exhausted herself and couldn’t use more magic.

With her weak body, tears formed in her eyes while she held the book on her lap.

She could never understand why she needed to suffer so much. Why it was so hard for her to be happy. Ever since her mother died, she had been suffering at the hands of her stepmother and half-sisters.

Why was the world so cruel to her?

While she was silently crying, Lauren was suddenly stunned when she noticed a subtle glow of light from the book.

"What is happening?"

Half of the book’s leather cover now had thin lines like vines, glowing with white light. And it was only then that she noticed some teardrops on the book.

Lauren’s lips parted when half of the book’s lock was now open.

"Wait. Only half of the cover has glowing lines..." she muttered to herself while thinking about what could be the other key. It must be something similar to teardrops. A form of liquid.

A liquid from a person.

Lauren thought about it and she could only think of one thing that was liquid in a person’s body...

Blood!

In the past days she had done anything she could, even poured blood in the book, but it didn’t work. She guessed there was a right way of doing it. The teardrops must come first and should be followed by blood!

Lauren’s face lit up. It wasn’t guaranteed that the answer to her problem was in the book but it was the only thing she got from the spellbound ship. It was fate that brought Alec to the ship, and it was fate that she married Alec. It should also be fate that brought the book to her!

Lauren pulled out the dagger she always carried with her. She had faith that the second key was her blood.

She couldn’t wait to discover what was hidden in the book. For it to be kept in a painting in the locked room of a magical ship, it must have contained something very important. A piece of information that was connected to the root of this all.

Lauren drew a deep breath before cutting the center of her palm with the dagger.

She then pressed her palm and drops of blood started to fall to the leather cover of the book.

The droplets of blood continued to fall.

Then all of a sudden, a glowing red light filled the lines on the other side of the cover, now occupying all the vacant lines.

It felt like Lauren’s heart stopped beating for a moment. She couldn’t believe that after all those days of trying to unlock the book, she finally did it!

* * *

In the courtyard of the castle, the battle went on...

"What a filthy bastard!"

Vincent wiped his cheek with the back of his hand when a bit of blood went to his face after he pierced his sword straight into a black mage’s eye.

The majority of the rebels’ army were black mages. There were vampires and mages, but there was no deranged human who made it to the castle since deranged humans were wreaking havoc in the city. Vincent was sure it was the rebels’ plan. It was a perfect ploy to divide Evardin’s forces.

Vincent noticed the arrival of a newcomer. It was the impostor of Lauren’s mother riding an oversized crow. When she unmounted, her gaze immediately found Alec who was standing at the center of the courtyard, his eyes blazing with unforgiving wrath.

"The real battle has come..." Vincent smirked and whistled before proceeding to behead another enemy.

Meanwhile, Alec remained unmoving as he watched the woman slowly walk toward him.

"We have met once again, King Alec," she said in a sweet feminine voice with a smile on her face as if she had gone there for a social visit. "Or should I say, my dearest son-in-law?"

"You have no son-in-law here, madame," said Alec in a rather diplomatic tone, which was in stark contrast with the darkness looming on his face. "I don’t remember my wife introducing you as her mother to me."

Why you people still don’t believe it? Is it because I died thirteen years ago?" The woman chuckled. "Of all people, it is you who should know that there was a powerful person who could resurrect the dead, King Alec."

It caught Alec by surprise. Resurrecting a dead person could be done through forbidden spells. It was widely known, yes, but in the past thousand years, only very few people managed to do it. It was something against the law of nature, so the complexity of it was beyond what most people could comprehend.

However, Alec knew there was one person who was born with the ability to revive the dead. A pureblooded vampire mage who possessed an ability never seen before.

He knew the person very well...

...because it was his father.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by Aunomay Read