Sold to a Prince!

Sylvia gazed at the coachman's inky black hair and then turned to the side again, sighing.

Since the man was tight-lipped, she could do nothing except look outside and pass time as the carriage flew by on the rickety streets.

They had now crossed the royal city and were heading further outskirts, which was why the paved paths on the streets were not well maintained.

Sylvia wondered what village or town they were about to head through next.

Her old town was quite far from the royal city and on the northern side, while the Eterna Kingdom was in the eastern region.

So she knew that they would probably not be passing through her hometown.

Sylvia yawned lazily and continued to look outside as she had nothing else to do.

Her nerves had calmed down by now and she was feeling a lot more relaxed. 

Since the carriage started moving and they left the border market, it had already been a couple of hours or more.

This small detail gave her a lot of courage.

If the devil or his knight perhaps noticed her absence and that she had fled, they would have definitely given chase by now and maybe even caught up to her, yanking her back to the devil's castle, dead or alive.

But here she was… still alive, free and breathing.

This could only mean that they had either noticed her absence but didn't care about it or chased after her but missed her or … hadn't yet realized that she was missing at all!

After all, the Quilin was a terrifying beast and most probably a life and death battle was still continuing in the forest ground where she had run away from.

Something terrible could have even happened to them.

Sylvia gulped thinking about this possibility and a slightly unsettling feeling arose in her heart.

She was a kind-natured woman by heart.

So even though they were her enemies, people who owned her and meant harm to her, she slightly pitied them for the misfortune that had fallen upon them.

She sighed hoping that at least the little kid would survive that calamity. The poor boy had his entire future in front of him.

It would be a tragedy if something happened to him at this young age.

And the devil…

"What the hell am I thinking about?" Sylvia hit her forehead with her palm and reprimanded herself for being an emotional fool.

"That man in a demon. He is a demon cockroach. He will probably survive anything and everything that falls on his head."

"And if he survives, he will come after me for sure! I would be better off worrying about my own future!"

"Those people don't have anything to do with me anymore." She muttered under her breath, shaking away her unnecessary thoughts.

She then tried to take her mind off of things and look outside the carriage windows once again, but she couldn't focus.

Her mind was still lingering on the issue of what could have happened back at the forests with the Quilin beast.

She hesitated for a bit, before reluctantly asking the tight-lipped coachman another question.

"Ummm… Mister, do you know if perhaps there were any causalities back at the forest?"

"Was the Quilin beast brought under control?" She bit her lips and asked.

And to her surprise, the man's movements unexpectedly paused a little, seeming a bit rigid. 

She could tell that he had clearly heard her words. Maybe he will answer me this time?

Sylvia waited a while but this time as well, she did not get any response back, not even a small nod or greeting.

In the end, she could only sigh, giving up once and for all trying to talk to this rude coachman.

She gazed outside looking at the tall trees with beautiful violet flowers. 

They matched the color of the dress she was wearing and it also reminded her of the trees in the castle grounds.

She wondered if these kinds of trees were common in this part of the Kingdom. They were everywhere.

As her eyes trailed on looking at the tall trees one after the other, trying to count them, before they faded from her eyes, Sylvia suddenly froze.

She sat up straight and stiff as if she had been electrocuted.

Her heart started drumming and her mind spun.

"This… This…" She stammered, shock and disbelief filling her eyes.

As the trees swept past her vision, Sylvia could visibly see the silhouette of a familiar castle, the dark stones lining its walls, and the four tall towers in the corners.

"No… No… No… This is not possible." She shuddered. Just like the trees maybe, the castles in the Kingdom were also similar to one another. 

"No… It can't be… This is definitely some other castle." She tried to calm herself down.

And before she could even catch her breath, Sylvia once again caught the sight of the familiar moat near the castle entrance as the carriage pulled up to it.

Gudang! The woman's heart sank and her face paled. She clutched the edges of her dress so tightly that her knuckles had turned white.

Sylvia's eyes then trailed up fearfully to look at the coachman for the third time.

She stared at him in a daze, refusing to accept the cold hard truth in front of her.

If this was true… then he… then this man…

Sylvia's eyes widened as her body froze in realization. The coachman sitting in front of her suddenly felt so familiar and recognizable.

The man's inky black hair that danced messily, the tall and strong back, and more importantly, his suspicious silence.

Sylvia gasped lightly gawking at the man in front of her. Theodore?

"Stop. Stop. Stop. STOP this carriage now." She screamed at the top of her lungs, hoping and praying for her fears to be wrong.

Her reddened eyes pleaded the man's indifferent back, but he still showed no reactions whatsoever.

The man simply kept driving the carriage forward as if he hadn't even heard her.