Chapter 142: After The Coronation
Samantha had been thinking more about what that hunter had told her, but due to the unfavorable occurrence in the Palace, it had limited her from finding time to see the hunter again, moreover, she never expected to still find herself alive at the end of it. She had assumed her worst possible death which fortunately, didn’t happen thanks to Lord Ivan’s constant intervention.
In order to repay her debt to him, she decided after much thinking that once she helps Lord Ivan get what rightfully belonged to him, she would visit the hunter so he can tell her where exactly her brother was, and once she finds him, they would both leave EmptyHollow, whilst she’ll have to forget about everything, leaving her memories of EmptyHollow behind her and continue on with her life, in a new place, away from the haunted memories.
"Will you let me go?" She asked in a tender whisper, sounding more dolorous this time around.
Ivan, who listened to the request he hadn’t expected to hear, was immediately lost for words. His expression dropped glumly at her decision to leave him, and he wanted to refuse it, he really wanted to refuse it, but the way her doe eyes kept begging him to accept, Ivan still couldn’t bring himself to say it as he turned away from her, looking away from her eyes so he wouldn’t have to say what he didn’t mean.
"Is your brother alive?" He asked instead, and Samantha bobbed her head in response before moving to stand in his line of sight, and he probed further. "How do you know?"
"The... The hunter told me." Samantha stammered a bit, lowering her gaze as she revealed it all to Ivan. "He has seen my brother, he knows where Maurice is and... and all I have to do is just ask him about his whereabouts, I’m certain he’ll tell me where I can find Maurice."
"And you’re going to trust the words of a hunter who played tricks to get into the Palace?"
"He... he’s not a bad person." Samantha said to Ivan, meeting his judgemental gaze. "The princess had me locked in the dungeon, and the cell I was forced to stay in, he was there too, and he told me everything I needed to know about Maurice. All the while we had a conversation, I never brought up Maurice, he told me about my brother himself so how can I not trust that he’s saying the truth. I believe him."
"I’ve heard." Ivan swiftly ended her explanation with those sentences, and Samantha obediently kept quiet. Ivan cryptically contemplated what he had heard, but his main reason for keeping her shut was because he didn’t like how she defended another man in front of him. Regardless of his brewing jealousy, he was also concerned about her safety and wouldn’t let her fall into the trap of any other person, not anymore, and then he said.