Claimed by the Prince of Darkness novel Chapter 238

Chapter 238: Two Homes

Ruelle sat in her father’s chamber with Lucian next to her, while Lord Azriel had left to personally inform the king about Minister Sylvan and his mother, who had tried to break the treaty which was proposed by him and the Elder Minister.

Her father had stepped out of the room minutes ago. She had heard his voice through the heavy door as he spoke to the council ministers and other officers who had arrived.

"Something weighing on your mind?" she heard Lucian ask her.

Ruelle turned away from staring at the fire. "I was just wondering about King Septimus. Wait, won’t the others be able to hear us?" She looked at the closed door, where she could still hear other people’s voices.

"The room is warded. Nothing said inside carries beyond the walls, but sound from outside still passes through where you can hear," Lucian explained to her. "What about King Septimus?"

Her lips pursed for a moment, her eyebrows slightly pulling close and she explained,

"For a moment I thought he wouldn’t exist either. Because he was the one who let me know about having another way to fix things... So I thought it would affect him too. But it seems like Hailey took the fall for it entirely," it somewhere upset her. Lucian didn’t interrupt her, letting her speak, "There are some things that have made me happy, but then there are others where I have lost and I worry if I try to fix it, it will cause another tangled mess..."

"Maybe she is still around and we only need to look for her," Lucian squeezed her hand in encouragement, noticing the sorrow in her brown eyes. "It’s been less than a day since we returned," he reminded her.

The more she thought about it, the more she felt as if the reason her cousin had been pulled away was because he had been used as one of the ingredients for the spell to be able to work. The function of the Boline seeds was to grow into a plant and create a connection of pathways through the dead.

"Lucian," she called his name softly.

"Mm?"

"Do you think... we will be punished? For changing so many things... for altering many lives," Ruelle asked him, her stomach feeling queasy at the thought of it.

Lucian’s head tilted with a brief, thoughtful look. He then remarked, "Time isn’t a judge as it has done its part. We are changing things to avoid mass massacre. That doesn’t mean we’re being punished."

Her brows remained drawn together and she asked,

"But what if someone suffers because of what we changed?"

"Then we deal with it when we find them and this time carefully together," he answered, his gaze remaining steady on hers. "We cannot preserve a future simply because changing it might disturb something else. Because people suffered in that future too. What we are removing are the causes we already know led to that suffering and Sylvan is not an innocent person, Ruelle."

After a pause, he then continued,

"If time intended to balance what you changed, it already began doing so the moment you returned here. Lachlan. Hailey. Even my corruption didn’t return unchanged. It became something else."

Ruelle nodded quietly, finding comfort in his words.

When Carnifex finally returned to the room, he found them sitting close together before the fire, Lucian still holding his daughter’s hand between them. He muttered under his breath,

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