NOTICE: Hello guys! The Sequel to The Dark Lord's Maiden is out💃💃 Kindly add up ''The Merchant's Bride'' to Library and offer some love. It has been successfully contracted.

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The side talks immediately began as confusion loomed over the Banquet hall.

". . .If the King made a mistake by saying this person was a creature of the dark and really wasn't, how can we trust from his judgement that the reverse is not the case?"

"You are right. News like this can only span from a source of truth. It is impossible for smoke to brew without lighting a fire first."

"Hasn't any one of you observed the strange girl in our midst?"

"Who? That maiden… I actually felt she seems off from the start."

"This man should not be called one of us in the first place because he has a half demon side ticking slowly, soon to explode on all of us in an instant."

"Did I hear you say half demon side? He is whole demon living in the flesh among us"

"My poor life! And here, I thought I was the most uncomfortable one stifling my fear to dine by his side."

"Not you! All of us! Even the Queen cannot contain the sight of him."

"Enough!!!!!!!!!!!"

Briceus' voice thundered violently slamming the hefty table with as much vehemence that should have left it split in half but instead a wheezing breeze swept through the table shooting up everything on it; plates, spoons, cups, jugs, pots, candle lit saucers, everything took to flight and suspended in the element of time and space, completely frozen.

"My god!" Somebody shouted.

The dread was REAL.

Also imminent was an ominous cloud of darkness turbulently fuelled about the King whose limbal rings had become coated with darting flames of burning hell which consumed his overall vision. 

Everyone trembled.

Men of essence cowered to their knees.

Those who could move fell to the ground.

Those who remained standing lost touch with their limbs.

Even Ezekiel fazed out, staggering a couple of light steps in retreat. He had never seen such dark fury.

The Castle guards stood aloof, their armoury slipping off their hands in the process.

Elizabeth's pulse ramped up and she froze; her breath trapped for more than a couple of split seconds. She felt her heart bounce off her chest with the same magnitude as the growing turbulence.

'Is this the end for me?' 

"Briceus!!

"Return to us at once!!"

Borlach, the Grand Duke shouted with a tone of fury salted with a tinge of fear. 

Athena, at the recent unfolding, was frightened to her bones.

A spiralling globe of pitch blackness then began to build up in enormous volume and portal behind Briceus. Seeing this, the Queen passed out. 

Aldrich, due to the urgency of the situation, lost his ability to move. His feet had since become numb and reaching out to his mother to help her was by far the least of his worries compared to his own life. 

Wauter's wife clung so tightly to his cloak that her nails soon began to dig deeper into his bare skin, piercing through his inner fabric and causing him pain.

Elizabeth's most pressing demands at this point was the dire need to relieve herself.

'.. He really is the devil!'