The Flower Of Eternity
Chapter 29: The Eye of the Truth

What Anna saw that afternoon in Aletheia's eyeball:

Xavier managed to sneak out, passing through the guards of the Main Palace without being noticed by anyone. He wore the hood of his robe so that no one could see his face. He stepped quickly into the hustle of the downtown market in Noord and paid the rent for the horse and then used the horse to go to a tavern very familiar to Anna.

Anna remembered the tavern. It was where he used to eat his breakfast with Leon and Louis when he first came to Noord for the selection of the Crown Prince's personal bodyguards long ago. It's been a long time since then, when it happened about a year ago.

Xavier walked towards a bronze-haired teenage boy. Anna recognized the teenage boy. That was Louis. Louis was killed by a bomb in Schere, along with Prince Alexis.

"Give this to the red-haired girl and only she can read it. Understood?" Xavier said while tucking a piece of paper at him.

From Aletha, Anna could see the look in Xavier's eyes that radiated longing and warmth as she looked at Anna's figure from a distance who was talking to Leon back then. But Xavier immediately lowered his head before Louis saw his face, as if worried that Louis might recognize him when Louis had never met Xavier at all.

Louis nodded stiffly in shock. He had no time to ask anything, and Xavier had already left that place.

Xavier drove his horse quickly to the horse rental place, then ran back towards the Main Palace. He entered his former room—the Crown Prince's room, and removed his clothes to replace them with official clothes.

Anna remembers the first time she saw Xavier's body when he was just her personal bodyguard. The body was like a perfect sculpture of the gods, stocky and athletic but filled with scars as if he had been more often on the battlefield than Leon. Xavier himself once confessed to him that his father forbade him to go directly to the battlefield because he was the heir to the throne. The scars on Xavier's body that he had suffered as a child due to the torture done by Selena, and can not be removed with the help of a witch though. But what Anna saw back then was Xavier's clean body without any scars.

The scars on Xavier's body should have disappeared completely after their first kiss in the greenhouse. And that hasn't happened yet because Aletha is showing the time where Anna hasn't been Xavier's bodyguard.

Before he could think about it any more, the picture changed back quickly. This time Xavier wore the same black hooded robe, he wore a mask that covered his entire face and left only the radiant sheen of his eyes. Then he took the lion emblem from his room and pinned it on his robe. The lion emblem belonged to Leon. At this time, Leon was the one who kept the emblem of the lion.

Xavier then jumped into the ice maze, right in front of Anna who was injured at the time. He turned around and immediately swung his sword towards one of the Black Mamba members who attacked Anna. His sword hit the heart and dropped the Black Mamba member onto the hard surface of the ice. With an extremely quick movement, Xavier turned around and prepared against the other two people.

“You want to run?” xavier said to them.

“Le-leon... Hey, it's Leon! Lion from the South!”

Anna knows that the man who helped her in the ice maze isn't Leon. He was already too familiar with Leon that even though Xavier covered his face and pinned the lion emblem on his robe, Anna was not fooled back then. Moreover, Anna was very familiar with Leon's voice. He wondered why he did not immediately suspect that the man who helped him was Xavier.

Now as Anna looks back through Aletha, she can see Xavier's emerald eyes clearly observing every inch of Anna's body wounded by the Black Mamba attack. Anna saw Xavier clenching his hand holding back the anger. Xavier is back against them.

How dare you touch her! How dare you hurt him! I will not forgive you!

Anna could hear his inner voice at that moment. Even the overflowing anger within Xavier could be felt through Aletha until Anna felt confident that Xavier would soon be letting out his fire. Actuallyno. Anna remembered the events of that day. Xavier didn't use the fire.

Despite being half-scared, the Black Mamba members advanced to fight Xavier without knowing who they were fighting. One of them holding a spear tried to attack Xavier, but with a quick movement, Xavier managed to dodge his attack. The other Black Mamba members fired arrows at the same time, but the arrows were captured by Xavier and instantly broken in half.

Anna who was there saw the Black Mamba member wielding the spear rise up and prepare to attack from Xavier's blind spot. He immediately threw Xavier's dagger right into the Black Mamba member's hand so that the spear fell. With an extremely quick movement, he immediately took out the spear and Xavier's dagger. He pointed the two towards his opponent.

"What are you waiting for? Quickly kill me with that spear."

"Who sent you?" ask Anna.

It's free, dear Anna. They won't confess. They would rather die than confess.

Anna was so shocked when she heard those words from Xavier's mind through Aletha. They had not met and were not close. So how could Xavier call out his name so lovingly. It felt like the Xavier he was seeing right now through Aletha was the Xavier he was familiar with at the moment. Her husband's. Her partner. Her love. It was not a Crown Prince who was still not convinced that they would live together in the near future.

"We won't answer your question. We'd rather die than betray."

The Black Mamba committed suicide.

"No!" Anna yelled to try to prevent it, but it was too late. All the Black Mamba members who were there also committed suicide.

Anna turned to look at Xavier who was still wearing his mask. "Who are you really? Are you the same person who sent me the letter?"

Xavier smiled at him. Anna who was there, looked at him suspiciously, but was also curious at his helper.

Again Anna heard Xavier's inner voice through Aletha. And that made him even more convinced that Xavier who helped him at that time was indeed Xavier who had known him.

"My respect to Her Majesty the Princess." Xavier said as he lowered his head in the noble man's salute to Anna, then he leaped high up the labyrinth wall and immediately disappeared from Anna's sight.

After that, Aletha showed her another thing. Other hidden truths.

Anna saw the Schere Tower from the outside. It was very late at night. Through midnight. Anna recalled the incident that happened there so well as if it had just happened yesterday.

But this time he saw it from another point of view. From Xavier's point of view.

Xavier ran towards the Tower while holding something completely foreign in Anna's eyes. Anna has never seen that thing. It's definitely not a weapon. It was long-shaped, like it was made of wood or something and had several holes around it.

Then Anna realized it, it was the Beatrice Grimoire Flute. The flute that Anna originally thought existed only in northern children's fairy tales. The flute that saved Schiereiland's children was enslaved in the Schere Tower.

Xavier blew the flute. At first Anna did not know what song she was playing with the flute, but her voice was as beautiful and gentle as a sleep-delivering song. After she listened carefully, Anna knew what the song was. It was a sleep song. The song is a sleep song created by Queen Isabella. A song that her mother sang when Anna was a child if Anna couldn't sleep. Anna remembers singing it to Xavier one night when Xavier woke up from a nightmare and Anna wanted to put him back to sleep.

Anna wondered why she didn't realize it at the time. At that time, he heard this song too. But there were other voices arising from the flute as he listened to it.

The sound of waves crashing on the beach near Anastasia Palace, in Eze. Then the sound of waterfalls and the sound of birds chirping in the morning. The sound of the spring breeze and the rustling of leaves on the newly growing tree. The sound of light rain at night. The sound of dance music that sounded familiar to him. His first dance music with Xavier was when Anna replaced Eleanor on the day of Xavier's wedding announcement with Eleanor.

After all that noise, Anna again heard Xavier's voice.

"My dear, if you hear it, quickly go out of the Tower! Follow those kids. Don't linger in there."

Then Anna heard the laughter of two brothers' sons running around the palace grounds on a sunny afternoon. And Anna realized it was the voice of Zuidlijk and Nordlijk. Those sounds were what he had heard from the Grimoire Flute back then. All of those were the voices he had longed for from the lifetime of a thousand years ago as well as the life to come. Those are the voices that make her happy.

And it turns out Xavier was the one who played the flute. But how can it be? At that time Xavier was still at Anastasia Palace in Eze, lying unconscious due to Morta's poison. At that time Anna herself still did not know whether Xavier would be able to open her eyes again or not.

Just as she was about to prepare to see another truth, Aletha dimmed. Anna returned to reality in the meeting room that afternoon.

And now, the shadows Aletha showed were again filling her mind all night long. Anna took out a stock of Bloody Berry fruit that she had stored in her room for times like these. He then took out two bottles of Carina wine that Xavier had stored in his study. Both of them were a perfect blend if he was not wanting to think of anything. Not often, but sometimes, if Anna was missing Xavier so much, or if she couldn't sleep because of too many things she thought of, or when the memories of Xavier made her want to scream, she said, Anna would combine some Bloody Berry fruit with Carina wine without anyone's knowledge. While waiting for the effect to start working, Anna tried to get rid of her thoughts by reading the contents of Xavier's journal book.

Shortly before the Bloody Berry and Carina fruit took over his mind, questions sprung up in his mind. But out of all those questions, there was a question that he could least find the answer to.

How could Xavier exist in two places at once? If at that time Xavier was still lying in Anastasia Palace in Eze, then who was playing his sleep delivery song with the Grimoire Flute?

***

The journal of King Xavier:

I had a dream again last night.

This time, in the dream, I saw Anna wearing a wedding dress—maybe because yesterday I saw her wearing a wedding dress of Duchess Francis. But the wedding dress Anna wore in my dream looked different. It is much more beautiful and seems to be made of the finest silk. It seemed like someone was sewing thousands of shooting stars on her dress because the dress seemed to glitter when exposed to the sunlight. Her red hair was already very long that time, neatly arranged behind her back. Her dangling hair curls looked like tongues of fire. It was as amazing as I remember it.

Anna walked towards the altar. His gaze was straight ahead, looking full of happiness. The most beautiful smile I've ever seen, painted on his face. At the end there, before him, General Leon was waiting for him, looking so fascinated by him. I watched both of them from the line of invited guests.

In my dream, they got married. And Anna was so happy that I had no choice but to be happy for her.

But as soon as I woke up this morning, it felt like my heart was hurting like someone stabbed me so many times. Is this what it feels like to be heartbroken? Is this the kind of pain I'll feel when they're really married? Because some of my dreams usually come true. Some of my dreams are the future that will happen. Even though I knew it would happen someday, it seemed like I would never be ready to watch it in person.

***