Rosie's Games

Chapter 157: Robbery Gone Wrong 2

"If these objects are cursed then they would not be of any use to us, right?" she asked after a moment of silence. No one would be stupid enough to use a cursed object.

"This is why I brought you here."

"Hm?"

"Bless it," he gestured towards the crown in her hand. "With your dark Blessing."

She looked at him, confused. "What are you talking about?" The Darkness only destroys. It was the light that could Bless things, not her darkness.

"Bless it."

"Are you telling me that "

"Bless it with your darkness."

"How can that be? Darkness is only good at"

"At what?" he approached her, towering over her small frame.

"At destroying things."

"Then try it." He held her hand, the one that was holding the crown. "Close your eyes and try to Bless it."

While still confused, she closed her eyes and thought of Blessing the crown. She thought of the dark mist that she could control and used it to penetrate the defenses of the crown to draw the curse into her. Slowly, images of what looked like a war filled her head. Screams of agony and despair made her heartbreak.

She watched as pregnant women and small children were dragged out of their houses. She watched as the town burned.

Rosalind gasped, she could smell the fires as they ravaged towns and burned humans. She She could hear the screams of children as they watched their parents burn along with their houses.

Then the smell of blood, urine, and feces filled the air.

This time, she realized that she was in prison a dark, wet prison. Wails and sobs echoed, only to be interrupted by prayers to the Goddess and when that did not work, curses were thrown. She could feel the thirst and hunger. She could feel the hopelessness and despair.

Then it was all gone.

Rosalind opened her eyes when Lucas suddenly pulled her into his arms. She wanted to push him away, but she couldn't. The horrors that she just watched made her heart heavy and her head dizzy. Staying in his arms somehow made her feel warmer, safer.

Rosalind did not even realize that she was crying until Lucas wiped the tears off her face.

'What just happened?' She wanted to ask, but she could not utter a single word. For some reason, she felt like someone had grabbed her heart and pulled it out of her chest. It was painful physically painful.

"What did you see?" she heard him ask.

"Everything." She did not know what happened, but the horrors that the people experienced in that vision were real. "This crown was built with resentment." Somehow, the crown showed her everything.

"It was," his voice was gentle. "It seems that I made a mistake. It is too early for you to visit this place. We should leave now."

She did not disagree. She wanted to know more about the treasures but she knew that she was too weak to see the secret that these things kept. She slowly nodded.

"Take the crown, the curse is no longer there," he said.

Staring at the crown in her hand, she realized that it had changed colors. The golden sheen was gone and in its place was a pale, sparkly color. It looked white, except it wasn't exactly white. The stones and jewels on the crown that were once a pale red had turned darker, becoming the color of blood.

"You should have it," she said and handed him the crown.

"Hm?"

"It could protect you."

"Protect me?"

"From cursed objects, I mean weapons."

For a few seconds, he just stared at the crown before he nodded and accepted it. Then it vanished as he put it in his spatial bag.

"Do you want to take a look at the other rooms?" he asked.

"No. I would like to leave this place." After what she saw earlier, something about this place made her feel like someone was watching her. It was frightening.

"Then we should leave," Lucas said. He held her hand and then he instructed her to close her eyes. The next thing she knew, they were already back in her carriage.

It was a robbery gone wrong.

For days, Rosalind could not shake off the feeling that she felt while watching that vision, nor could she understand what happened back then. Lucas told her that she absorbed the curse and that might explain everything. Since she could absorb the curse from a person's body, she could easily do it to objects as well.

However, a curse from resentment was different from a curse from the Dark Lord. Rosalind could not explain it, it was simply different. Still, she chose not to ask any more questions until she was ready to hear the answers.

Right now, she had too much to think about.

However, this did not mean that her training stopped. In fact, Lucas seemed to think that letting her train more could remove all the images from her head as he decided to increase the length and intensity of the training and even introduced new weapons for her to use.

This time, he taught her how to fire a bow and arrow.

"The angle of your legs is wrong," Lucas said as he stood behind her. Then he held her shoulders and straightened her back. "Upright," he added.

"Oh," she gave an absentminded answer. To be honest, she knew that learning how to shoot a bow and arrow was essential, but she preferred her secret dagger as she could use it at any time. It was pretty convenient.

"It has been days since you started learning how to use a bow and arrow," she heard Fraunces' mocking voice behind her.

The woman was sitting on top of the carriage enjoying her apple. "I learned the proper stance in a day, and learned how to hit a target after a week."

Rosalind rolled her eyes. Since coming back from that temple, she decided to ignore the woman. She already had so many things to think about, she had no time for some petty squabble.

"Let me help you" Duke Lucas stood behind her. She knew what was going to happen next as this wasn't the first time that the man hugged her from behind to 'teach' her how to point the arrow at the target.

"No need," Rosalind said. She smiled and suddenly turned around then pointed the arrow to the sitting Fraunces. "I know my skills are very poor, but I believe I can hit a target as large as that apple in Dame Fraunces's hands."