42

A Man Called Storm (Part 13)
"What is it Storm?" Gwen asked as she noticed the serious look on his face. He doesn't always have that face unless he was thinking something dangerous or wanted to do something dangerous, of course not to him but to someone else.....or he was thinking...
"The burnt," Storm replied, bringing Gwen out from her thoughts.
"And what about it?" She asked now interested as she also stared at the burnt corpse in front of them all. The bones were an odd color and smoke was still coming out from the bones, dry bones, she returned her gaze back to Storm.
"It looks so familiar like the one I have seen before. Exactly the way the body was dry, like this." Storm explained and faced Gwen, "Remember what I told you about my mother's fake death?" he asked and Gwen nodded her head, he continued. "Well this.... looks exactly the same."
"You mean it could be the same person who did it?"
"Yes, it could be the same person. The person burnt the woman so badly just like this so that we would think it was my mother, but I know how my mother looks, we had lived together before she.......broke me."
"Was the person's heart missing?" Gwen asked out of blue.
"What?" Storm asked, not catching up with what Gwen had asked him. He was thinking of his mother and that awful night she had left him behind, not that it wasn't a good thing, but she had exchange him with 100 pieces of gold. How could she, if she was still alive and out there, and he was very sure she was or probably held hostage by this fire guy who seems to be burning people once in a while, then she has a lot of questions to answer him and if it doesn't suit why she had left him. He will kill her.
"I didn't get to look at the dead woman, so no, I don't think her heart was missing. If it was, my father would have told me."
"Well this dead body has his heart gone, missing or eaten probably by your anonymous killer." Gwen told him with a shrug.
"Yeah...." he said in agreement as he saw the hole where the dead man's heart was supposed to be. "Make sure they are properly buried and the candles of the fallen are lit over their graves," Storm said loudly and no one dared utter a word, not even Warlord Marcus.
"Let's go inside and then you can have your bath," Gwen said and Storm didn't argue with her. They left.
*********
Empress Rose Room:
"Who could have thought that Storm of yesterday would give out an order and none of use said anything about it," Fred said as he stared at his mother who was sitting on her bed picking her fingers, his brother who was pacing round the room and finally his Uncle who was standing still, just like him in one corner of the room, Warlord Marcus. "Are you all fucking scared of him or what?"
"Point of correction, no one is afraid of him Fred," Morgan began. "And secondly, why didn't you say something at that moment? Or don't you know I am fighting for you and me, for our future. We are full blooded Royal's and he....he is just half blooded and he wants to take it away from me. Not going to happen." Morgan's voice was raised, he didn't care who was hearing him at the moment.
"Lower your voice Morgan, we are not deaf you know," Warlord Marcus said rubbing his earlobes.
"And you what did you do when he was ordering the guards around as if he is the fucking Emperor," Fred said in anger.
"You saw what he did to the three Kings of Ashland. Since they left here, we haven't heard a word from them, in fact the only word I heard from them was that they have agreed to Storm's terms, they have handed the three Kingdoms to him. I don't want my own predicament to be worse than theirs so I kept quiet the entire time," Warlord Marcus said. "For example you could talk back to him without fear but with anger and he could do you nothing, why? probably because you are both birthed by the same father. But me, I am from your mother's side, we are not related at all nor are we friends so provoking him would be my early demise and believe me, I still want to live long."
"I now see why father didn't give you the position of the 'Warlord' in the first place. You are a coward." Fred spit out in anger. "Mother, what are we going to do, what is our next step? We can't fold our arms and watch that nobody takes control over us just like that. We can defeat him with his stupid guards." he added.
"For now my head is empty Fred and you are not helping. Everyone should leave my room right now." Empress Rose told them and watched as they left her room one after the other. Once she was alone she heaved out a loud sigh.
'What is she going to do about Storm?' she wondered in thoughts.
***********
Emperor Ariadne Room:
"You shouldn't think too much about this, maybe it's a coincidence that both of them were highly burnt exactly the same way," Gwen said, breaking off the quietness that has engulfed the room since they came in. They were sitting side by side on the bed, Gwen placing her head on Storm's lap. She has been observing Storm and knew he was thinking about the dead man.
"You know I left him alive on purpose," Storm said, finally staring into Gwen's dark eyes.
"Sorry, left who, alive?"
"The burnt body, he was among the assassin's that was sent to kill me. I could sense his presence. I decided to give him time to meet up with whoever his master is so that I can track them and when I wanted to follow him, I couldn't sense him anywhere, he just disappeared."
"..."
A knock from the door interrupted Gwen's and she groaned.
"Who is it?" She asked.
"Sorry for interrupting you your highness, the Emperor has a visitor,"
Gwen eyebrows rise a little as she gave a lopsided smile. "Emperor and I highness, like seriously" she whispered.
"Who is the visitor?" Storm asked, smiling a bit.
"Rumi my Emperor. She said she wants to see you."
"Send her in," Storm said, his smile gone now.
"Are you sure you didn't have anything with that girl before coming to the Garden of Edenis?" Gwen asked in curiosity.
"No, not now or then," he said...well.... except..... Juno. He could give half of his life just to see Juno again, at least to show her he had become this cruel and cold all because of her. There are only two people who had offended him, his mother and Juno. The opening of the room door broke his thoughts away and he stared at Rumi who was just looking at him but glaring at Gwen in his lap.
"What, haven't you seen a pretty girl like me before?" Gwen said as she sit upright and went behind Storm, spreading her legs so that they were dangling at each side of Storm and then placed her head on one of his shoulders, batting her eyes on Rumi. She slowly runs her hands on Storm's chest.
"Gwen," Storm hissed at her in a low voice so that Rumi couldn't hear him. "Stop That, Now."
"Hush now handsome, I want to see what a furious Rumi can do, now play along," she said and kissed Storm's neck, her eyes never leaving Rumi's.
Then Gwen blinked. Did Rumi's eyes just change?