The Cursed Prince

The witch was very happy with Ellena's promise to give her more gold. She liked this young lady because Ellena was so generous and she seemed to know what she wanted exactly.

"Very well," the witch smiled. "You can come to me if you need anything related to potions and low-level magic. I know quite a bit. Enough to help you, should you need it."

"Will do, Mrs. Despear." Ellena nodded. "I will come to you if I need anything."

"Please, you can just call me Krista, Your Grace," said the witch. "I am only a few years older than you. You can just call me by my name."

"Okay, Krista. I like that."

Ellena thought it didn't hurt to have a witch on her side. It was true that Krista was still young and not as powerful as Thessalis, for example.

However, she had extensive knowledge of herbomancy which would definitely be useful for Ellena in the future.

After she took the potion to induce labor from Krista, Ellena went home. She made a point to stay at her family's home in the countryside throughout the whole two months that Mars left Draec's capital.

Ellena didn't want to be anywhere near the capital when Queen Elara was killed, and after Emmelyn was kept in the prison in Grey Tower. That way, nobody could link her to any of the events that happened there. She was somewhere else far away.

The next thing to do was forcefully induce Emmelyn to get into early labor. Ellena asked her trusted maid to give the potion to her cousin who worked in the royal palace's kitchen.

The plan was to serve it to Emmelyn, together with her meal, by saying it was a vitamin, prepared by Mr. Vitas for her. Once Emmelyn drank the potion, she would soon go into labor, and Ellena's plan would be in motion.

Once Emmelyn gave birth to her child, Ellena could ask Duke Preston to prepare a trial to execute her. Then, just like that... she could get rid of Emmelyn for good.

Ellena had her family's spies in the royal palace. So, she knew everything that was going on in there. When Emmelyn got into early labor, she monitored the situation closely from afar, through her spies.

Oh, how Ellena was so impatient when she heard the labor took forever, and even after 20 hours, the baby was still not born. Ellena thought the baby would die.

Fortunately, several hours later she received a pigeon with a message from her spy that Emmelyn finally gave birth to her baby, and both mother and child were alive.

Ellena was so happy when she found out the baby was a girl. This would work in her favor, obviously. Now, she just needed to make sure Emmelyn would be executed as soon as possible.

She knew she had lost some precious time and as days went by, Ellena became more anxious.

Ellena predicted, by then the prince must already receive the message from the capital about his mother's death. Ellena knew him very well and knew he would do whatever it took to get home as soon as possible.

He wouldn't even stop for sleep if he could, so he could reach home quickly. Ellena predicted the journey that normally took 4-6 weeks would only take him three weeks to accomplish if he put his mind to it.

Well, Ellena knew he would. He loved his mother too much. He would sacrifice his rest, his everything so he could see his mother. And he would be in deep grief.

This would make him unpredictable once he arrived in the capital. That's why Ellena must work fast. She had to kill Emmelyn using her uncle's hand and made sure Mars would never see her again.

They needed to have the trial and execute Emmelyn before Mars returned. Ellena knew they didn't have much time.

So, imagine her shock when Ellena heard from her maid that Emmelyn died several hours after she gave birth to a daughter. Emmelyn's death immediately changed everything.

Ellena was so mad. She threw the flower vase that was closest to her and screamed in frustration. She hated Emmelyn so much. That homeless princess was supposed to die in the plaza by beheading for her crime of killing the queen.

But no... Emmelyn had to die after childbirth that would free her from going into the trial, thus denying Ellena the pleasure of witnessing her gruesome death.

And what's worse, she would die a 'hero' for giving birth to the crown prince's child. Mars would always remember Emmelyn for that reason every time he saw their child. And he might even forgive the fact that Emmelyn 'killed' his mother.

No.. no... Ellena couldn't accept that. No matter what, she had to get rid of Emmelyn from Mars's heart after she died.

Ellena hated Emmelyn so, so much.

She didn't want Emmelyn to be remembered fondly. But, what could she do? Her love rival was dead and Emmelyn was already buried.

After several days of feeling upset and angry by Emmelyn's unexpected death, Ellena decided to visit Krista and asked about the sleeping potion. That's when suddenly she got an idea to make Mars truly move on from Emmelyn.

Ellena would make him think Emmelyn was not really dead. Emmelyn just used a sleeping potion to trick her captors, so she could escape. That sounded like a really good scenario.

"Krista, you told me that your husband was almost buried alive because he took too much of that sleeping potion that you made for him," Ellena decided to talk to Krista about it.

"That's right, Your Grace. Luckily they didn't immediately bury him at that time. It was raining hard for several days. Otherwise, my husband might be gone now. He suddenly woke up three days later and everyone was shocked," said Krista.

"So... if someone took the sleeping potion and sleep for three days, for example, they will not die?"

"No. Their breathing and heartbeat would be very, very subtle. People would think you are dead because all your vital signs become so weak. But you will wake up as you would after a long and restful sleep."

"Ahh.... this is good," Ellena muttered to herself. She just found a solution from talking with Krista. She decided she would tell Mars that Emmelyn faked her death to escape.

If she could portray Emmelyn as a selfish woman who only thought about herself, and that she was still alive somewhere after killing the queen and leaving behind her child, surely Mars would finally accept the fact that Emmelyn was only in it for revenge.

And he would realize that Emmelyn was not the best woman for him. It was Ellena.

After her visit to Krista's place, with the sleeping potion in her pouch, finally Ellena thought of a brilliant idea to do it.

She asked several henchmen who work for her family to secretly dig Emmelyn's grave and moved her remains somewhere else. That way, she could tell Mars that Emmelyn was really alive somewhere after faking her death.

If he didn't see her body, he would believe Ellena.

Ellena was very shocked when those henchmen told her, there was no body in Emmelyn's grave.