Marked Ones: Advent of the Demon Prince

Chapter 260 Dagger Practice

Natali rushed up the tower with Lyrah on her back. They had heard of an intruder in the castle that had gone after the King, but they were concerned for Rena and the child. It was possible it was a distraction. As they had feared, Grandpa Wally was pulled from his self-appointed post at the base of the tower.

Natali did not even wait to check if the door was locked or fully latched. She slammed through the doorway, shattering some of the wood. Inside, four startled women almost jumped out of their skin at the sudden intrusion. Mylene, in particular, looked upset with her daughter.

"What in the world did you do that for?" Mylene demanded.

"We heard..." Natali struggled to explain while gasping for breath from all the running.

She had run at full speed to the castle the moment they heard word about the incident. Natali did not wait for Lyrah to respond before she scooped her onto her back and ran out of the academy with her. No doubt they would receive some sort of reprimand, but Natali was not concerned about that.

She had promised that she would protect Rena for Lucius. Gods be damned if she would not see that task through to the end, even if at the cost of her own life.

"Rena, are you okay?" Natali whispered.

The redhead smiled gently and nodded. "Yes, of course. Nothing happened. We simply had a messenger deliver a gift for the baby and a letter for Lucius."

"Who was it from?" Natali questioned.

Rena's face took on an expression of confusion. Adellia also looked confused, as if they could not recall who had given them these items. "Some sort of messenger. I imagine the letter says who it is, but it is for his eyes only, so I have already hidden it away until his return."

Natali said nothing. She found the circumstances to be strange, but she was in no position to ask too many questions. She was the head wife, after all, and to get on her bad side would work against Natali in the end. Instead, she simply accepted the information as it was given and apologized for the damage.

The damage to the door would be easily fixed, and they would be able to have it repaired before the end of the evening. However, she was unable to escape her mother's harsh lecture about her actions. It reminded her of when she was a child and had gotten into trouble for breaking something.

"I filled it to the max with only daggers. This ring is only for daggers." The maid answered plainly.

"I-I see..." Rena stuttered in surprise. "Scary..."

Natali felt a blush creep into her cheeks. She could not completely tell if it was from joy or exertion. No matter which one it was, she had to clean up after herself. Being able to store the weapons was the worst part of the technique. She had to pick up each of the daggers before storing them in her ring, which meant she had to manually clean up two hundred and fifty daggers.

"You're getting stronger, Natali. I daresay you might be close to ranking up to Advanced!" Lyrah said excitedly. "Wow, you are getting so strong."

"He's still stronger..."

"I mean, you like that don't you?" Rena pointed out.

"Yeah..." Natali answered, "Hey, Rena could you tell me again?"

"Tell you what?" Rena asked innocently.

"About what he's like, you know..."

"And with that, I am out of the conversation. This is not information I think I need to know. If you need me, I'll be up in the tower." Lyrah shouted before covering her ears and running upstairs.

"Don't pretend. Last time we talked about this, you kept saying 'that sounds like my brother dearest' and claimed it was in his blood to be good in bed." Rena said in a flat, judgmental tone.

"Oh, that's right, continue!" Lyrah giggled.