★★★

41. The seventh key

"A secret war?" Currently in Victor's room, he called me here to tell me something, he handed me a report paper and it stated something about a war against the sapphire kingdom, spy's have entered the kingdom and now some nobles a missing one by one,

"I believe so, All the nobles that went missing all held a valuable treasury with them.....the keys to the hidden vault" the keys to the hidden vault? Victor explained, looking serious and thinking hard about something, I stared at the report paper even more, I don't like the sound of this....and my instinct never proved me wrong...

"The hidden vault contains many important and forbidden secrets and magic about our kingdom and our history, they have been locked away since the earlier time by the previous rulers of the land and until now no one have ever opened it or even dare to get their hands on it" he continued, I nodded my head while Listening, I never knew such a place like the magnolia kingdom had such a dark secret in it..

"The seven keys are given to six different family nobles and they have been passed on from generation to generation, The seventh keys were passed down in the royal family and it's currently in my keeping,
The Wisteria family,
The Calista family,
Orobell family,
Xin family,
and then The azalea family......The seventh key is being kept by....the Everhart family, which means it should be under your keeping, mistress of the Everhart residence.. " his red ruby eyes piercing to my soul, I slightly shivered, I never saw him this serious before!! But wait......Mom never told me anything at all!!

"That's imposible......My mother never passed down or even mentioned such a thing to me!, How can it be under my keeping?, My family never talked about something like this!" Both mom's father and mother died when they were visiting an old friend of theirs on the sapphire kingdom, the ship they were on sank, and nobody survived! Plus I don't even know if mom knows anything about this, but..... that idiotic father of mine might!

"I don't know too, but what I do know is we have to find it, if that keys goes to the sapphire kingdom's evil hands then it won't take long before they get the other three remaining keys, The current keeper of the keys are under the castles protection, unfortunately last week the wisteria family's key keeper were taken and now we still didn't find them"

Adela Wisteria, the current mistress of the Wisteria viscount/viscountess family, about to be married until she was taken last week, their key was hidden as a necklace so nobody would easily spot it,

Christopher Calista, the current master of the Calista Knight family, one of the Holy golden army's captain, He was the first one to be taken, their key attached to the sheath of their family sword heirloom, disguise as a decoration accessories,

Primrose Orobell, First daughter of the Orobell baron family, Second one to be taken, key disguise as a hairpin,

Yang Xin, Only master/child of the Xin family, The Xin family is one of the kingdoms Contributor, They own multiple school including the magic academy, key disguise as a pen..

Charlotte Evelyn Azalea, Only daughter of duke azalea family, Posses light magic and their key hidden in the family heirloom wand,

Victor magnolia, Crown prince of the magnolia kingdom, posses creation magic-- powerfull magic of all, Key hidden at the royal scepter,

The Everhart family was handed the seventh key, but for century no one knew where the key was hidden..

The key have been disguise as many things to avoid suspicious, meaning it could be anything and anywhere!!!

What should I should do!!!??

Come on, it's summer break tommorow! I should be relaxing at home, not doing this!

~~~~~~~~~

"Iris-sama may I ask what is wrong? Your look gloomy and troubled, my lady?" Butler han asked, My fisted right hand under my chin and elbow on the carriage window sill, I sighed out in frustration and closed my eyes..

"The crown prince gave me yet another troublesome mission" I said, Butler han that was sitting at the opposite seat nodded and asked

"And what may that be? Is it another Tracking mission or rescue mission?" This isn't the first time victor gave me a mission, So butler han knew very much about this, I shook my head in dismay before opening my eyes and looking serious, glaring at my own reflection, straigth into my indigo eyes

"No, it's something even more massive than that, if I make any mistake in this mission it may effect both me and the kingdom in an unimaginable degree" I said, from the corner of my eyes I saw the shock expression on butler han's face and his body stiffen up,

"How long have you been serving in the Everhart family, butler han?" I asked, the old man snapped back from his shock and started to count with his fingers, until

"I've been serving in the Everhart family since I was 13 years old, iris-sama,
Me and your grandfather are best friends even since then, He was my first master until his sudden death along with Sayako-sama(iris grandmother, Ayame's mother) in the sapphire eastern sea, their deaths shook me to the very core of my soul" he said sadly, remembering the death of his best friend, I nodded and stayed quite for a while

"Can you tell me more about grandfather and grandmother? Mom never really talked about them much when she was still alive" I said, removing my hand from the window sill and sat up straight, both hands on my lap and looking at the old butler who nodded in response...

"Hijiri-sama(iris's grandfather, Ayame's father, sayako's husband) and sayako-sama are both incredible and kind people,
Hijiri-sama always wanted for ayame-sama --your mother to marry the one she loves, hijiri-sama never liked forced arrange marriage, neither does sayako-sama's,
but he forgot about the family tradition that happened to befall on your mother's generation" tradition? What family tradition?

" No one really knew why but both the azalea family and Everhart family ancestor made a promise, on both their family's 23th generation, The eldest son or daughter from both family will have to marry each other, Your mother and duke azalea was the 23th generation in the family history, so they have no choice but to fulfill the family promise" eh? I never heard of that history, How come nobody told me about that? Ah right, Mom died before she even get to tell me.......

"I've been wondering, Who is this old friend of grandfather and grandmother? The one that live on the sapphire kingdom?" I asked, butler han pondered about it for awhile

"If I'm not mistaken, it should be master kei" master kei? Who is he?

" Who? " I asked

"I don't know his last name or where he is from but I do know is that when ayame-sama was about 8 years old, Hijiri-sama and sayako-sama brought in kei-sama and the two would play all day long, he would drop by or stay's overnight at the mansion, Those two were inseparatable..... But kei-sama suddenly disappeared and ayame-sama was greatly lonesome because of kei-sama's absence but when she ask her parents about it, they will just say that kei-sama have some unfinished business to do, I never saw kei-sama again, I only knew that hijiri-sama and sayako-sama mentioned that they're going to visit him in the sapphire kingdom, I don't know for sure if kei-sama is from the sapphire kingdom or not" that's weird, mom never mentioned him to us before, This is the first time I heard this story, The carriage stopped, indicating that we have arrived..

★★★

42. The secret my mom kept..

yesterday I didn't do anything other than scribbling through mom and my grandparents things, searching for something that may have a connection to the key but To my dismay I didn't found anything...

I sighed out in frustration, Opening my eyes, seeing my room's familiar sky blue painted ceiling, I groaned as soon as I felt my muscle aching from all those searching yesterday, I struggled to sit up while being careful not to make my shoulder cramp worse,

"Good morning, iris-sama, are you feeling ok my lady?" Aki-nee asked, with the other trailing behind her as they rushed to help me sit up, I nodded with a groan

"I'm fine, just some muscle cramps" I said, After they cleaned my bed I dismissed them and changed into my casual sleeveless plain dark blue dress, my hair in a ponytail, Ugh! My body hurts so much!

I walked to my desk while holding one of my shoulder and A frowned on my face, Struggling to reach my chair but unfortunately I tripped and fell flat on the floor beside my desk, I groaned even more,

"Ouch...." I said in a muffled, my face still on the floor, Great, Rolling my eyes in annoyance, this day could not get any more worse! Still on the floor as I used my right hand to reach on the desk and help myself up but something unexpected happened..

I accidentally pressed something under my desk, A button? Did I just pressed a button?! Why is there a button under my desk top!? It's a small button though, I unpressed it and instead of standing up, I crawled on my back, using my legs to push myself under the table..

Now let's see...

It should be around----found it!

I instantly pressed the button for about 20 seconds then I heard a clicking sound coming from the top desk, I crawled out from under the table and stood up, dusting of the invisible dust from my dress and hair, I gazed at the top desk, for some reason I think the table changed a little bit but I can't point my finger where, I removed Everything from the top desk, the papers, ink, pens and other stuff until I finally saw it...

A square part of the table popped up a little, I pressed on it, the square sank a little before I let go and it bounce up, A spring?, I then pressed on it with a little amount of force until it bounce back but now it fully revealed a box, I picked it up gently,

Interesting, A hidden compartment on the table, This must be related to either mother or grandfather since only the head of the family gets to seat here, There's a square shaped mechanism where you can put this box in it and it will instantly look a part of the table, Clever I must say,

It's a small wooden box, I sat back down my chair, putting the box on the table and scanning it with my eyes, let's see what's inside, The suspense rised in both my heart and the room, slowly lifting off the top lid....

Letters??

These are just letters, and there's a lot of them, they looked old and crumpled up...

White and brown envelope filled the box, I grabbed all of them and shove the now-empty box on the side as I put the letters down and scattering them..

Picking one up and turning it, to see if there's an address written on the back but I found nothing--in fact all of these have no address or even a stamp behind them...... that's odd

I opened one up, and seeing an elegant and clean handwriting, my eyes started to read it

"Dear my darling ayame;

I hope your doing well, I'm sad to hear
About Alex's health worsening by day,
But don't worry my love, I have found a
way to save him, I will sent the cure to
you by the help of my trusted aid, Wait
For him in the kingdom's gate three
days from now, I hope it will help alex in
His health, and I'm very proud to hear
about natasha's love for his brother and
her determination in saving his life..

Don't worry, Will be together again my
love

Love by yours dearly;
Kei"

Silence...

My body froze as I read each words on the letter, My mind trying to process all of this....

My mom is having an affair----but then again so is my idiotic father, I mean Charlotte is two month older than me and alex which means he was cheating on my mother when they were still husband and wife and This letter is when Alex and I were still 12 years old so it's not actually cheating because she was already divorced by then...I think?

But wait my love, my darling ayame, together soon? Ok this is no simple thing, My mom and this kei are obviously madly inlove with each other, And he cares about me and alex despite us being the daughter and son of duke azale----oh wait!! What if---what if---WHAT IF THIS KEI GUY IS OUR TRUE FATHER THEN WE'RE NOT ACTUALLY DUKE AZALEA'S CHILD!!??---well that will explain why alex doesn't resemble anything about duke azalea--BUT WAIT, THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE! AS MUCH AS I HATE TO SAY IT--BOTH ALEX AND I HAVE INDIGO EYES AND ONLY THE AZALEA FAMILY HAVE INDIGO EYES!!

That day, I found out the secret that my mother have been hiding from us, but with one mystery solved another one came..

Who is kei?

Where is he from?

Did that cure that he spoke off never worked on alex? Why?

Is he or is he not my real father? If he is then why didn't he showed himself up?

Could this all be related to the seventh key?