The servant looked frightened before replying, "It's young master Lucian, he's—"
She didn't even let the servant finish before she hurried past, rushing toward the source of the commotion. She saw people carrying someone she couldn't recognize on a stretcher, coming from the direction of the training arena. She frowned, thinking it was probably one of the guards who had gotten himself hurt in a fight.
Then she looked behind, seeing Celeste following with blood-stained hands. Beside her was Aurora's small figure, who looked like she had seen the most traumatizing thing in her life, with tears streaming down her face.
Fear gripped Seraphina's heart, and as she shakingly turned her gaze to the person on the stretcher, looking more closely at his body frame, she knew who it was. She shouted, "Lucian!!!"
Then she ran to him, stopping before the stretcher. Seeing his disfigured face and head, she was about to ask what happened when she heard the healer say, "My lady, we have to hurry. He doesn't have much time. We might lose him."
Seraphina, hearing this, had her eyes wide open. She quickly assisted them in taking him to a proper room where he could be treated. She could already guess what had happened because of the blood on Celeste's hands, but that wasn't the right time to think about it. She really needed to get Lucian treated.
They got to the room, with Seraphina helping with all the preparations. The healer gave potion after healing potion to Lucian to close the wounds. The bleeding had already stopped; all that was left was to treat the injuries and have them cleaned up. After that, they wrapped his whole head with bandages, leaving only his mouth exposed.
Once they were done dressing the wounds, everyone left, leaving only Lucian on the bed, Aurora standing on the right side of him, Seraphina standing on the left side, while Celeste was standing close to the door. She hadn't moved from there since they arrived.
Seraphina looked up while shouting at Celeste, "What did you do? I know you don't get along with your brother, but do you want to kill him?"
Celeste was already crying. "Hic... hic... I don't know what came over me. We just wanted to train."
Seraphina snapped, "You call this training? You wanted to kill your own brother, and you call it training?" She said this while pointing to Lucian's wrapped wounds.
Celeste turned her gaze away while trying to say something. "I... I didn't know..."
Seraphina stopped her, saying, "Get out of here now! When your brother wakes up, you will explain why you planned on killing your own brother."
Celeste bit down on her lips, tears flowing, as she left the room.
Seraphina looked at Lucian's body while muttering, "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. I should have told her the truth about what happened, but look now. I promise I will tell her everything that happened when you wake up. I'm so sorry."
After saying that, she turned to Aurora, who was silently crying. Her eyes were red, and she looked traumatized, so Seraphina assured the child, "Don't worry, your father is going to be okay." She felt weird calling Lucian Aurora's father.
Aurora nodded but didn't say anything, just stood by his side.
Then Seraphina asked, "You were there, right? What happened?"
Aurora, who was faking her crying, turned her gaze to Seraphina before saying, "Hic... hic... Daddy just wanted to train, saying he was too weak, that he couldn't even defend himself. He came into his room early this morning with a look of regret. I don't know where Daddy went to and didn't know where he slept, but I waited. When he came back, he said he was too weak and was tired of being weak. He was muttering that if only he was stronger, he could have stopped it."
"I didn't know what happened, so I asked him, but he said nothing. I knew Daddy was lying, but he never lies to me, so I didn't know what to say. This morning, he said he needed to grow stronger and wait for his awakening so he could at least defend himself. During breakfast, big sister Celeste suggested she train with him. Daddy, of course, didn't accept, but she insisted."
"After they started, big sister began attacking Daddy, pinning him to the ground and punching him. I tried calling big sister, but she wouldn't listen. It seemed like she wanted to kill Daddy until the servant came and helped Daddy."
Aurora wanted to help Lucian increase the guilt Seraphina felt towards him. That's why she dragged the previous night's event into this, so Seraphina would blame herself, thinking it was all her fault.
Seraphina, hearing all this, had wide eyes while staring in Lucian's direction. Tears welled up and fell down her face as she muttered with a guilty expression, "It's all my fault. I shouldn't have let lust take over me."
Even though she didn't fully understand what had happened the day before, she felt it was all her fault—that she had pushed for it, that she had done those things to her son. Then she started crying silently. After that, she knelt down beside Lucian's bed while saying, "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean for any of this to happen... please."
She kept sobbing until, after some time, she fell asleep from exhaustion.
Aurora, seeing this, turned to Lucian before saying, "You can wake up now. She's fallen asleep."
After the whole episode with Celeste, though he was the one who had manipulated her into doing all that, Lucian still felt the pain. It only took him about 20 minutes to regain consciousness. By now, he could feel the bandages all over his face. If they were to loosen the bandages, they would see all his wounds had been healed, leaving no trace behind.
He knew his healing ability was quite strong, but to this extent? This was all the more reason he wanted to know his race, and it seemed the regeneration ability had already grown stronger. He was already awake when he heard Aurora telling his mother what had happened, and hearing how she added more details, he raised his eyebrow but kept quiet and simply lay there.
After his mother had fallen asleep kneeling beside his bed, he heard Aurora say, "You can wake up now. She's fallen asleep."
He sat up a bit, stretching his stiff shoulder that was already healed, and also his neck. Even if the chained collar was still around his neck, it didn't make him feel uncomfortable. He felt like it was part of him. He turned his gaze in Aurora's direction without any expression on his face before saying, "Well, that was convenient."
Aurora just stared at him and didn't say anything, so he knew what was going on in her mind. He continued, "Mind setting up a sound barrier? I don't want to take any chances."
She nodded, then snapped her finger. After that, she said, "I've done it."
He nodded and said, "Well, if you're wondering why I'm fully healed even after being nearly killed a while back, I myself don't know. I feel like it has something to do with my race, and I can't even tell."
He could feel Aurora's gaze on him. He didn't bother to hide what he knew about himself.
Aurora looked at Lucian before saying, "I can't really tell your race from the way things are, but I can safely say you are not just a druid, which shouldn't be possible if you're a hybrid between two races."
Lucian nodded. You could never be a hybrid between races; you could either be one race or half of a race, but that didn't make you any less of the race. So he knew he wasn't a hybrid. He was wondering if he was a different kind of druid, though it didn't really matter now. He would find out along the way.
Aurora looked at him, then asked, "So what next? I am loving your schemes so far. It feels like your brain is running at high speed, making me question how you really think. Is it your lack of emotions that makes you like this, or something else?"
He just stared in her direction but didn't reply. Instead, he asked, "How many minutes have I been out now?"
She made a thoughtful expression before saying, "Well, about 50 minutes, give or take. So what's your next plan?"
He nodded, then thought for a moment. "See if you can get one of the servants to inform Celeste that I'm awake."
She nodded, seeing she didn't get any further explanation. "Okay," she said, then snapped her finger, already casting a spell that would make one of the servants call Celeste.