The Cursed Prince

"Your Highness," Elmer met Mars in the mansion's living room. His old face looked calm as he took out a box from under his robe. It was a simple black wooden box but he held it so carefully like it was a precious stone.

Mars immediately guessed that the box contained Ellena's heart. Ah... he let out a sigh of relief. They had finally got what they came here for.

Now that the witch no longer had collateral, they could just kill her.

"Is that Ellena's heart?" Mars asked the old wizard.

Elmer nodded. "Yes, would you like to see it, Your Highness?"

Mars had seen human hearts before. During battles, they sometimes had to fight the enemy to death and seeing body parts or internal organs was a common occurrence among soldiers.

However, he had never seen hearts taken out by magic before. So, he was quite interested.

The fact was, Ellena was still alive to this day even without her heart inside her body, so there must be some sort of black magic used to do this.

"Yes, please," Mars replied. 

"Very well." Elmer raised the box and carefully opened the lid. Gewen came closer to get a better look too.

When the box was opened, the two men were wide-eyed. So, this was how it looked...

Ellena's heart was placed inside the box. It didn't look like those bloody hearts they saw being ripped out from the enemies' chests during the war.

It was the size of a fist and looked more like a carving of a heart made of red crystal. It was actually very beautiful.

"This is a human life," Elmer said. "It may look beautiful, but it is quite fragile. If you dropped this heart, it will break into pieces, just like a crystal."

Gewen and Mars held their breaths. They felt horrified that it would be so easy to take the life out of Ellena. If they were not careful, Ellena might die.

That's why they didn't even ask if they could hold the heart in their hands. It was too fragile and they didn't want to take any risks.

When he saw the two young men had enough of looking at the heart, Elmer closed the box and put it back inside his robe pocket. "I will keep it safe, Your Highness, My Lord... Nothing will happen to this heart until we reach the capital and meet Lady Ellena."

"What magic is used to take her heart, Elmer?" Mars asked the wizard. "Can you do the same thing?"

Elmer nodded. "Yes, I can. Usually, high-level wizards and witches can use this magic. We mostly do it to protect ourselves."

"Protecting yourself?" Mars furrowed his brows to hear Elmer's response. "Meaning, you don't want your enemy to attack your heart and kill you so you hide it somewhere safe?"

That was the most logical explanation he could think of. And, apparently, he was right. Elmer nodded in affirmation.

"Your Highness is very clever. You are correct. Our lives are in our hearts. If we can keep it safe, the enemy won't be able to kill us. I would do it if I wanted to go to a battle or dangerous mission, so I can always stay safe and go home to my heart."

"So, you keep your heart somewhere safe where nobody knows?" Mars asked again. "That's so clever. Is it black magic, or white magic?"

"It's a little bit of both," said Elmer with a smile.

"Hmm..." Mars didn't ask again. Judging from Elmer's expression, the prince could guess that the magic used to take a heart out of the human body like this was not white magic, but he didn't pursue the matter further.

It was really none of his business. As long as the wizards or witches were on his side, they would always be good people to him.

"The highest level wizards could even store their souls in hocruxes. This means they would keep their soul in several different items, and hide them. Anyone who wished to kill them should find all horcruxes and destroy them. That could be a really challenging task to accomplish."

Mars was impressed by what the wizards and witches were capable of doing. Their world was truly different from what he knew. However, he now started to worry about Thessalis Morelli. What if she too kept her heart in another place? Or worse is, what if she kept her soul in several horcruxes?

They would have to find her heart or those horcruxes in order to kill her. Now, it seemed that the mission to kill the witch was no longer easy, even after they killed her guardian monsters. 

"Do you think she stored her heart somewhere else?" Mars asked. "What if she did? Would we still be able to kill her?"

"Yes, we can. I will stop her from leaving this place. As soon as she is here, I will cast a protection spell so that everyone inside the mansion cannot leave without my permission," said Elmer.

"That's good," Mars nodded in satisfaction. "Then, even if she kept her heart somewhere else, she wouldn't be able to go there and get it."

"That is correct," Elmer responded. "Also, we can still kill her even if she had horcruxes. She will try to use the horcruxes to come back to life, but if we find and destroy the items, she wouldn't be able to live again."

"How can we find her horcruxes?" Mars asked with interest. "Do you have a way to find out?"

Elmer nodded. "Actually... yes. We have someone here who is related to the witch. Once we kill the witch, we can interrogate the man and find information."

"There is someone in this mansion?" Mars was surprised to hear this information. "Who? Why don't we interrogate him now?"

Elmer glanced to his right and then motioned the prince to follow him.

"Because the man seems to have gone mad," he said in a low voice. "We will need to cure him of his madness before we can get the information we need from him."

"Can you cure madness?" Mars asked again. He had walked following Elmer's steps to the room next door. Once they entered a room, that looked like a library with many books, he saw an old man with white hair and a long beard sitting there like a statue.

"I think Bruinen will be able to cure him with extensive treatment," said Elmer. He stopped his steps and turned to the prince. "This is him, Your Highness. I believe he can give us more information."

"Who is he?" Mars asked.

The wizard sighed and replied. "I believe it's Duke Bellevar."

Mars's heart skipped a beat and his eyes widened in surprise. So, this is the man that his father had been hunting for almost three decades, together with the witch.

After the incident in the palace where Thessalis cast her curse on the royal family, the Bellevars had fled the country and nobody knew their whereabouts.

Only Ellena could find them five years ago when she was trying to locate the witch. Mars heard that Duke Bellevar was a valiant man and he was quite strong as he often led armies to battles.

However, before him now was an old man, who looked fragile and sickly. He was so old. Maybe 80? He could still see the gracefulness of a noble on the old man's appearance.

Mars felt sorry that the duke's life had been so unfortunate. One could argue that after the suicide of their only daughter, this family also suffered, no less than the Strongmoors.