Chapter 6: A Summer Date Between a Bartender and a Princess

When you walk down and up the sloping streets of Breen, you are there for the various shops and stalls that have been set up there. Perhaps you wanted to buy a souvenir, maybe you heard of a restaurant with the best food, or maybe you wanted to stay at the Sea Conch Inn that everyone had been talking about.

Little did anyone expect on that day was that a new attraction would appear. For a limited-time only, bystanders could watch a rare eye-catching couple walking down towards the coast: one is a handsome young man with auburn hair tied into a ponytail by an evergreen hair tie, his eyes shone a twilight blue; to his left was a stunning noble beauty with bluish-white hair and eyes that twinkled like a clear sunny day.

Both women and men could not help but watch with envy. The single men wondered how a normal man, especially a refugee from the South, could snag the Princess herself; the single women wondered how they could possibly compete with the Princess for their eye-candy bartender’s heart.

Despite the envy, all would definitely agree that the two looked good together. A painter who had long lost his passion saw the couple walk down that street. With sparkling eyes and a racing heart, he caught a carriage back home to quickly capture the beauty of the image that he saw. Marvelous, exquisite, elegant… No words could describe what he saw. All he could think was how the bright morning mingled with the dark twilight to form an indescribable symphony inside this painter.

That painting would come to be called A Lovely Sunny Day and would be considered a masterpiece even centuries later. Of course, that was another story for another time.

Contrary to others’ belief, Ryder was not exactly ecstatic.

Yes, he was currently escorting a princess as if he were her fiancé, but he was doing so under pressure to perform so she did not expose his identity. If his identity was exposed, he could say his farewells to a normal life.

Ryder looked at the people around him as he pointed out various attractions, shops, and stalls for Arulia to see. He could already see his ideal normal life falling apart.

“My, isn’t this a lovely souvenir? Should we get a matching pair, Aries?”

The princess held two rings in her hands, both with the same color as their eyes. It was a couple’s ring. Ryder looked at the jeweler who was pointing his eyes from Ryder towards the princess.

“It would certainly be lovely,” Ryder replied as he pulled out half of his gold coins that he had left.

“I should be the one paying for it since I want them.”

“I can’t have you paying for our date. I have my pride as a man.”

He dropped the gold coins onto the jeweler’s open palms. The jeweler counted the coins.

“Ah, sir, that is not enough.”

“H-How much?”

“Seventy gold for one.”

Ryder’s heart cracked. He just gave fifty.

“Of course, I can make it on the house for you as well.”

“No, there is no need… no need…”

Ryder cried internally as he took out twenty more gold.

“Ah, you’re such a kind sir. How about a necklace for the Princess as well? On the house!”

“That would be lovely. Thank you, jeweler,” Arulia thanked the jeweler while receiving the necklace.

She turned her back towards Ryder, holding the ends of the gold chain of the ruby necklace she just got.

“Mind helping me?”

She smiled teasingly.

Ryder forced a smile as he hooked the necklace around the princess’ neck.

“Tight?”

Arulia shook her head.

“It’s perfect.”

She turned around, stepping back a bit to show Ryder a perfect view of her, now wearing a ruby necklace that perfectly contrasted her eyes. With the sun shining above her, even Ryder’s heart skipped a beat.

“What do you think?”

“I think you look magnificent.”

The princess walked towards him and once they got the rings, she inserted the ring with the sky blue gemstone onto Ryder’s ring finger.

“Not the other one?”

The princess pouted.

“You know that you’re supposed to get rings that remind you of your partner, right? This is so you can look at my eyes any time you need, even when we are apart.”

This was really a couples thing. Ryder sighed before inserting the ring with the twilight blue gemstone onto the princess’ ring finger.

“Then, I guess this means we are intertwined together.”

Arulia chuckled.

“Till Death do us part.”

Ryder did not like that saying.

“If that is the case, then I should have a word with Him.”

“How cute…”

They continued to tour around Breen until eventually, they stopped at a popular restaurant. Of course, they did not have to join the line since his partner is the Princess. In addition, they got a good view of the coast. It would have been better during sunset, but Ryder was not here for a summer romance.

“So, what was that all about?”

Arulia placed down her cup of black tea.

“Why? Our alibi. There is no reason why humble bartender Aries would be walking with the Princess unless they are on a date, don’t you think?”

That was true.

“We did not need to buy the things we bought though.”

“We need to sell the ruse more. You can throw the ring if you wish.”

“I’ll keep it. That was seventy coins down the drain. I must be stupid to throw something so expensive away.”

Arulia chuckled.

“I guess it would be indeed.”

Ryder looked around. The spot was relatively private. It was a good place for a discussion.

“So what is this terrible fate you saw?”

Arulia’s face turned solemn. Her tea cup clinked against the plate.

“Death. Thousands upon thousands of Rotten merfolk rushed onto the shore. Then, the water split apart and the sky turned red and it rained blood. Then, a woman appeared.”

Ryder raised his palm.

“I will have to stop you there before you think of her any further.”

“Don’t you want to know more details?”

“There are things better left not knowing.”

Ryder frowned. He was not sure what woman Arulia was talking about, but if it was the Siren Queen, it would have been dangerous.

“Had you done anything to avoid that fate?”

“Of course I did.”

Ryder bit his lip. The princess continued.

“I saw no paladins for some reason despite such a large-scale attack, so I thought that was the reason that the disaster happened. Therefore, I had all the paladins stationed at the wall, including my personal guard.”

Ryder grimaced.

“What else did you do?”

“Besides asking you, I attempted to close off the coast for civilians since I saw many being killed. However, the mayor did not want to do that though, so tightening security was all I could do.”

Ryder clicked his tongue. It was already too late to stop it. No matter what they did, what Arulia saw will happen.

“You don’t seem happy with the compromise.”

“I am unhappy with what I am going to say next.”

“What do you mean?”

Ryder took a deep breath and calmly exhaled.

He asked Arulia, ”Do you know the story of Cassandra?”

Arulia’s eyes widened and she nodded.

Cassandra was a woman whose beauty rivalled even the gods. Eventually, the God of Light gazed upon her and fell in love. Possibly as a token of love or the wish to not see her hurt, He gave her the ability to foresee the future. With this ability, Cassandra was able to foresee famine, war, and tragedy, and she was able to prevent it or minimize the casualties involved.

Fate did not like that.

So Fate cursed her. One day, Cassandra saw a vision of her country falling to their neighbor. Cassandra warned the king and just like they always did, sought to prevent this tragedy. Little did she know, she started the very war that caused her country to fall. Her pre-emptive strike had ignited hatred and vengeance within their neighboring country and caused the very exact war to happen.

“I hope you understood what the moral of that story is.”

“The future can never be changed.”

Ryder nodded.

A cold sweat ran down Arulia’s temple.

“But I don’t understand. Don’t you fatereaders divine the future constantly? They still get those futures wrong.”

“That is where you are mistaken. We don’t divine the future, we tell fortunes. What do you think is a human’s strongest sense?”

Arulia pondered for a moment before answering somberly, “Sight.”

“Yes, we gather details of our world through our sense of sight. Touch could be lied to, not everything can be heard or smelled, and taste was limited in reach. But sight has a long range. Everything can be seen and will be seen, even nothing.”

Ryder pulled out his tarot deck and placed it on the table. He pulled out one card, the Priestess, from the deck and placed it on the table.

“When we tell a fortune, we use card faces to indicate what has happened, what is happening, and what will happen. If you notice, we intentionally make our descriptions vague and abstract, especially for the future. For the scammers, this was so they could still be considered accurate since their predictions were broad. However, for fatereaders, it was to prevent you from learning too much about the future.”

Ryder’s tone darkened as he pulled another two cards: Devil and Death.

“Hearing itself could only give you so much. After all, it could be a lie. However, if you see something, you are more likely to believe it, because sight is the most honest sense in the world. Now, you just saw the future in its finest details and made movements to avoid it and defy that fate in hopes for a better one. But Fate does not like to be defied so to punish this defier, it decided to cut off all other possible fates, good fates, that would have otherwise happened.”

Arulia bit down on her lip.

“It did not matter how much you tried to change things to ensure the future you have seen was avoided. It will still happen.”

Arulia looked down.

“Then, what am I to do? Ignore it?”

“Ignoring it? Doing something to change it? Doesn’t matter when it comes to fate. If you see it happen, it will happen. End of story.”

Well, Ryder could lecture the Princess all he wanted, but the fact remained that his normal life was in danger. However, something was not right.

Arulia said she saw no Paladins on the scene when the merfolk attacked, but she sent all of them to the wall. That meant something had attracted those Paladins away from the wall. What could force multiple Paladins to head away from the wall?

“We should leave now. Thank you for escorting me around.”

“Of course.”

That was the end of their date. They thanked the restaurant staff as they left. Ryder could tell that Arulia was about to break down at any moment.

She acted calculating and manipulative but she was really just a naive girl who wanted to save her own people. Ryder knew a girl just like her. That girl died before she could see the end of the war. Ryder thanked the heavens she did not see what had happened to her country and its heroes.

Ryder scratched the back of his head. Even though it was a fake date, he did feel bad for ending it the way it did. However, before he could try and comfort Arulia, a voice called out to him.

It was that couple he helped matchmake and stopped from entering the Hatter’s shop: Anne and… Ryder forgot his name.

The man quickly spotted the woman beside him and quickly knelt to the ground along with his girlfriend.

“Pardon my rude behavior, Your Imperial Highness!”

Arulia waved her hand. The couple gave a thumbs up to Ryder.

“You’ve outdone yourself, Aries!” Ryder could hear them say.

The couple stood up.

“I must say it is a welcome surprise. We’ll leave you two alone now.”

Ryder smiled and nodded as the couple walked past him. That was when Ryder caught something in the periphery of his vision: a wooden talisman with the Renhua characters of ‘luck’.

Ryder immediately caught the man by the arm.

“Oh, Aries! What’s the-!”

“Where did you get that talisman?”

“A-Aries, you’re somewhat hurting me.”

Ryder did not realize he was using too much of his strength but he could care less.

“Answer me. Where did you get that talisman?!”

“Why? Someone was going around, selling it to people. It is in the stall over there.”

Ryder swivelled towards the direction where the man was pointing at. A cloaked figure stood there, giving the same wooden talisman to a child. That was when they stopped and looked at Ryder, before making a wide grin.

“Oops, got caught.”

A telepathic message echoed in Ryder’s head. No one should be able to message him like that except a…

“Fatereader.”

Ryder attempted to grab the talisman from Anne’s neck, but it snapped before he could get it. Anne jumped back in shock. Ryder could hear more snaps of wood around him.

What could attract Paladins away from the wall?

As Anne checked the broken talisman, her shadow began to grow larger, wider, darker. Ryder dodged back, grabbing the man with him.

Before Anne could recover from shock, a dark tendril pierced through her chest. Then, her shadow grew out of the cobbled pavement, taking the form of a large maw and snapped shut.

“Anne?”

Anne’s shadow began to grow into a black grotesque featureless humanoid as it continued to crunch on its feast.

“Anne!”

“We got to move-!”

Ryder cursed as he dodged a tendril that protruded out of the man’s shadow. The man himself had his head chomped off by Anne’s shadow.

Ryder tried to find the fatereader, but they had disappeared. He would love to start searching for them, but Anne’s shadow was not the only one that had gained sentience.

Grotesque shadow creatures began to appear out of nowhere and began to feast on nearby civilians.

“We have to help-!”

Ryder grabbed Arulia by the waist.

“Not you.”

Ryder dashed into the alleyway. He did not know where to go. All he knew was that he needed to get them both out of the street. However, the shadow creatures were everywhere.

Ryder smashed one apart with his cane, but all it did was stall it. He could destroy it, but not fast enough to not be swarmed by the shadows coming alive in the alleyway.

“Damn it!”

Ryder jumped onto a rooftop as the ground came alive with shadow. Tendrils shot out and chased after Ryder, piercing into the buildings as Ryder continued to jump from rooftop to rooftop.

“Do you have a magic circle?! Preferably one with light!” Ryder asked Arulia.

Arulia pointed to her palm, “Just this one, but it is just a spell to light a room.”

“Good enough.”

Ryder grabbed Arulia’s hand and with a bit of force, expelled his mana into it. The circle began to glow yellow before becoming a blinding radiance.

“Close your eyes and I am sorry, but this will hurt!”

Arulia did not understand until she felt her hand scalding from the magic circle. Ryder aimed it at the tendrils chasing them. A flash of light burst from Arulia’s hand, incinerating the shadow tendrils.

Arulia cried out in agony as she squeezed her burning hand. It was not actually burning, but her mana pathways in her hand were.

“Sorry, I had to overload it there to kill those shadows. It should heal over time.”

“Wh-What is going on?”

“Your prophecy. It is coming true.”

The shadows began to grow, coalescing into a giant blob of darkness with hundreds of spear-like tendrils wiggling in the air.