She Belongs To The Devil

If her father had simply said "Tell me what she did to you" then Adeline would have most probably lied to her father saying that she had no idea about what he wanted to know.

But when he added "It is an order from your King", Adeline would not be allowed to lie to him because he was asking the question as a King of Wyverndale and not just as her father. And if it was found out that Adeline had lied to the King then she could be punished for it.

But was getting punished for lying that bad if it meant it would not put her father's life in danger from the witch?

Adeline's mind was fighting with itself to decide which path would bring the best possible outcome, lying to her father or telling him the truth and revealing everything that she knew about Lillian.

Seeing her daughter hesitating to speak, he gave one more push to make Adeline speak, "Adeline, I know you have a good heart and you would even be willing to get hurt to protect others. But let me tell you this, Lillian might not be the person that I thought she was. I heard her shouting in her room this morning and…"

Dragomir exhaled sharply as he was trying to control the overwhelming emotion and hide his tears. After pausing for a few seconds, he spoke in a soft voice, "This might come as a shock to you but I heard Lillian shouting that she had killed your mother by poisoning her."

Dragomir had expected Adeline to be shocked, to cry, to shout, and show her anger towards Lillian after telling her what he had learnt. But to his surprise, he saw none of those reactions from his daughter. She was just staring down at the floor and avoiding any eye contact with him.

However, Adeline was screaming in her mind. Her worst fear had come true. Her father had found out about the killer of her mother and she feared that her father would go on a rampage, provoking Lillian to use her dark magic on the King himself.

Dragomir held Adeline by her shoulders and then gently shook her to make her look at him, "Why do you have a guilty look on your face? Did you already know about this?"

Adeline slowly nodded her head and tried to speak, "I came to…" But her voice would not come out. She cleared her throat a few times and said, "I came to know about it just a few days ago."

After hearing that, Dragomir's eyes were filled with pure rage and hatred towards Lillian. He gritted his teeth and clenched his fists. He didn't even ask how Adeline came to find that out, and didn't ask if Lillian had tried to do something to her as well, he just started to walk towards the door.

Adeline knew where her father was going to go and what he was planning to do. But she could not let her father take any action on the spur of the moment. She had to do something to calm her father down.

And before he reached to his door she shouted, "Father, don't you want to know how I found out?"

Dragomir stopped his feet and without even looking at Adeline he grumbled, "I doubted whether Lillian was just spewing some nonsense or was speaking the truth. But you just confirmed it that she had indeed killed your mother. I don't need to know how you found out, but I trust you. Now let's put the murderer to sleep."

But Adeline immediately shouted in an attempt to stop her father, "Then don't you want to know what she has done to me till now? If you want to punish her, punish her for all the crimes that she has committed till now."

Dragomir felt a sharp pain in his chest when he heard Adeline. "That was not the only crime that she committed?" He turned around and walked to where Adeline was standing and asked furiously, "Tell me what else she did? Tell me what she did to you. Tell me everything that you know."

Adeline let out a small sigh of relief after her father returned back to her. Now she had a chance to make him understand why she hid all the things that she knew from him.

Adeline asked her father to sit down and she also sat down beside him. Then she began to tell all the tales about Lillian. She made sure to start by telling him why she had turned out to be the she is today, how the lack of his love and care was the main reason behind it. It was not her intention to make her father feel guilty but she needed to make sure that her father would not rush to Lillian's chamber and try to strangle her.

Then Adeline gave out all the details about what Lillian had tried to do to her to get rid of her. How she had encountered Theodore and how he has been acting as her guardian and protecting her from Lillian.

And she did not forget to tell him why she had kept all these things to herself even after finding out about so many horrible crimes that Lillian had committed. She told him how Lillian has already been corrupted by the dark magic and how powerful she has become.

Adeline looked at her father with eyes full of tears and pleaded to him, "Father, I know that you are a strong King and I should not be undermining you. But when your opponent is Lillian, I warn you to not undermine her. She is a very cruel and cunning witch. If you try to punish her, I fear that she will do something worse to you using her dark magic. And I don't want to lose you as well."

These words from Adeline came as a shock to him. And he was forced to think, "Is she really that powerful that my own daughter thinks that I cannot win against her?"

However, Dragomir was no fool when it came to facing an unknown enemy. Right now, Lillian's powers were unknown to him. If Adeline was telling him that she was a great threat then he wanted to be cautious.

Dragomir's impulsive rage had somewhat settled down and he asked his daughter, "From what you have said to me, you already have a plan to take revenge for your mother's death. So, what is your plan? And is there anything that you need me to do?"

By the sound of it, Adeline had more knowledge about Lillian, dark magic, and even the Devil. So, Dragomir was willing to take suggestions from Adeline and was willing to support his daughter in his plan.

But Adeline did not have any concrete plan as of yet because everything depended on one thing. "I want you to keep on pretending as if you know nothing about Lillian's crimes. And I don't want you to raise any suspicion that we are going to do something to her."

Dragomir clenched his fist and a deep frown appeared on his forehead when he heard Adeline asking him to do nothing but watch. But he understood why it was necessary and nodded his head.

"My entire plan depends on one thing and that is me being the future Queen of this nation. That way Lillian will not have any direct power over the Kingdom. I can personally punish her without being afraid because her magic won't have any effect on me." Adeline loosely explained what she had planned to do with Lillian and how.

  "And even though the future ruler is not me, I don't want Prince Edwin or Prince Alan to become the future King. If they are to become the King, Lillian will still be in power as Queen Mother. Knowing her, she can even act as the regent Queen by controlling her son like puppet. The Kingdom will suffer if it is left in their hands."

Adeline knew that Prince Edwin had taken after his mother and was just equally evil. But that was not true for Alan. Prince Alan was gentle as opposed to his mother and brother. However, that would make him even more vulnerable to fall into his mother's schemes and traps.

Adeline did not like what she was going to ask next, however she swallowed her pride and decided to ask anyway. The future of the Kingdom was more important than her pride. "Father, it might be selfish of me to ask this but will you tell me about the test of worthiness? What kind of test is it? What happens in that test?"

King Dragomir was that kind of a man who upheld rules and law of the Kingdom with utmost sincerity. But after what he just heard, he was willing to bend some laws if it would be in the favor of the Kingdom's future. He would rather be a criminal than hand over the Kingdom to the criminal.

"I am not meant to talk about the test because then it will not be an impartial test. However, I fear that if I don't reveal the secrets about the test to you then the Kingdom that I built with my blood and sweat will meet its end soon."

Though Dragomir was confident enough that Adeline would not struggle in the test, he did not want to leave anything to chances.. So he went on and spilled all the secrets of the test to his daughter, to whom he would not mind handing over the Kingdom to.