Chapter 167

Chapter 167: Chapter 167

Their fishing expedition was suddenly cut short by the weather taking a turn for the worse. The sun’s rays were completely extinguished, covered up by large gray clouds with sparks of lightning in them.

Dulce looked up at the sky and sighed, what should have been a pleasant day of fishing had been abruptly put to a stop.

"We can come fishing another day," Asael said quietly. The servants would already be on their way over with horses and a cart to take the fishing tools to the cottage.

"We can," Dulce agreed easily, but his gaze was distant. "I might go pay a visit to Miss Moira today." He tagged on without much thought.

Asael knew the speed Vampires possessed, Dulce could easily outrun the thunderstorm. "When will you return?" He remained seated on the picnic blanket despite the wind picking up, whipping around Dulce’s hair.

It was almost like the Vampire was telling him so he wouldn’t follow him from a distance.

"In a few hours," Dulce kept his gaze on the gathering clouds, "Hopefully I don’t get caught in the rain on my return."

Asael watched him rise to his feet, his demeanor calm despite the sharp glint in his eyes.

"Could you help me tell Kath’tan as well," Dulce requested. He had only just made a short trip to Dewmire but he had made them worried, he didn’t want a repeat of that.

Asael’s eyes cooled as he looked away, "Sure."

"You also don’t have to come after me," Dulce said the Shadow Demon’s thoughts out loud, undoing his low ponytail that had become disheveled from the wind. "Fairwyn doesn’t look kindly upon Demons, I would rather not cause Miss Moira more trouble."

The Vampire retied his hair with ease despite the wind picking up. Dulce was simple-minded and straightforward, it was rare, like a drop of clean water in a muddy well.

Trust was something that had died in Asael as a child, but he somehow found it again to give to Dulce.

"I’ll return," The Vampire said with a bright expression, right before vanishing in a blur of color.

Asael didn’t move from the picnic blanket, as soon as Dulce said his plans, he had intended to trail him. But the Vampire hid nothing, it was disarming.

The mages of Fairwyn held no danger for Dulce - actually, the more time he spent around the Vampire, the more it showed him that very little held danger for him. Perhaps it was the pure and guileless air around him, but no one they had come across had meant him harm.

-+-

Asael finally returned to the cottage just as the first drops of cold rain fell. Finding Ruoxi in his room was startling, for a moment, he thought he could smell lotus flowers and he went on high alert. He quickly realized that it was just flower wine and relaxed, looking the scowling Incubus over.

"Did you miss your way?" He asked impatiently.

"Where’s Dulce?" Ruoxi demanded, it was rare to see the Demon well and truly upset.

"On a trip," Asael said leisurely, not sharing in the other’s urgency.

The rain had started to fall now, loud enough to be heard underneath rumbling thunder.

Ruoxi frowned, "To where?"

Demons could sense portals opening so Asael knew when the Incubus had returned but it would be expected that Dulce likely didn’t know that Ruoxi had returned from the Hells.

Asael didn’t care enough to explain, walking past the Incubus into his bedroom. "He’ll be back in a few hours, ask him yourself."

Ruoxi hesitated like he wanted to say more but he didn’t, warping away from the room without another word.

-+-

Dulce arrived at Fairwyn in a mere handful of minutes, easily outrunning the storm. Fairwyn was cloudy but it didn’t look like rain was imminent.

It was mid-afternoon as he made his way down the dim alley, drawing far less attention than the last time he had been here. It was cloudy but it was still daylight, so most of the shrouded figures lining the alley wrote him off as a mage.

He made his way to Miss Moira’s shop unimpeded, the black wood walls and purple chimney smoke familiar. It wasn’t until he was well into the bramble forest around the shop that he noticed something wasn’t quite right.

The door to the witch’s shop was barely hanging off its hinges, he had caused a bit of trouble the last time he came here but it was nowhere near this level of destruction.

Dulce didn’t slow down but now he approached with caution, unease heavy in his middle. Even when Miss Moira had been taken by the Vampire Queen’s men, her shop had remained untouched.

The broken door hardly prepared him for the destruction within, it seemed that a fierce battle had happened in the shop proper, magical tomes, vials, and magical items were all strewn on the ground, broken and burnt.

Dulce’s brows furrowed as he soundlessly walked deeper into the shop, wary of making a sound so as not to alert whoever had caused such carnage. It was difficult to tell how long ago the attack had happened, he had a rather pleasant relationship with the witch, it would be upsetting if something had happened to her.

He found nothing but more destruction, her workroom even worse off. All of her ingredients that had once been haphazardly arranged on tables were completely obliterated, there was nothing left of the once-organized room.

Dulce paused outside the room, frowning now, he didn’t know much about the witch, but it was unlikely she would acquire such ruthless enemies. To make things even stranger, the rest of the magic alley had been unchanged, no one seemed to notice or care about the state of the witch’s shop.

He was about to turn around to leave when a glint caught his eye, there was nothing to be found in the shop, so he planned to ask around to see if he would find anything useful. But before then, he stepped into the room, approaching the glint that had caught his eyes, it was a little piece of obsidian, and just as he lowered himself to pick it up, sigils lit up under his feet.