Minver took Martia to the cottage hospital and laid her on the bed. The nurses started to undress her and asked Minver to leave but instead of leaving the room, which they had requested, he continued looking at her.

  Acastius came in and pulled Minver outside. Acastius couldn’t

  understand Minver’s feelings for Martia, so he asked him bluntly, “Do you like her? Or do you desire her?”

  Minver looked at Acastius angrily and said, “Just keep quiet.” He

  turned to leave.

  Acastius loudly said, “If you really think you deserve to be with her, then first understand the difference between desire and affection.”

  Minver turned back and replied in a low voice, “I like her better right now, completely broken. At least I can have her, even for a moment.”

  “She is not someone who will remain broken for long,” Acastius

  reminded him.

  Minver replied, “As long as we have the Prince, she will never be

  powerful.”

  “Now I understand why, even when you tried to be her friend, she

  never considered you as one,” said Acastius disappointedly.

  Minver came up to Acastius and asked in rage, “Why is that, Acastius? Why didn’t she ever choose me? Is it because, at that time, I was not as powerful as her? I was not at the same level as her in skills. So she thought she deserved nothing less than that elegant and royal Prince of hers?”

  Acastius said, “You are still not as powerful as her. Making her

  unconscious and then torturing her to death doesn’t make you or the rest of us as powerful as her. Would we have been successful in this if she were conscious? No matter how well we had tied her, she would have extricated herself and at least killed everyone near her, and that includes Promanthae, Arigue, you, me, and the guards. She would have died only after that. Did you say she never thought you were at her level? Did she have a childhood, Minver? She was not even allowed to talk to anyone, except Arigue and Promanthae."

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  Acastius paused and looked at the isolated hut in which Martia was trapped her whole childhood, the hut whose window was never allowed to be opened,.and continued sadly,

  "I have seen her looking at us with longing, a longing to have friends. Twelve hours minimum of training for many years and the rest in studying. Did we work that hard? I always wanted to be like her, but Iam still not at par. You know why? Because it is difficult—not because of hard work, but because it is the loneliest path. I have always seen in her eyes a complete indifference towards life and towards people, as everyone talked the same, lived the same, except for that boy, who was screaming and pleading his heart out after seeing her in pain. Did he make even a single sound when we were brutally beating and torturing him? At that time, I thought what kind of person Is he? How is he handling so much pain when this kind of torture can break even most seasoned fighters? But

  I understood why she chose him over us, over you. He was the one who saved her from all the hatred she learned and lived and filled her life with love and affection. Being powerful is not about being able to kill people we hate, it is about making ourselves capable enough to save the one we love,

  and it doesn’t always need weapons. It is not desiring people and making them fragile to keep them with us. It is about being able to love someone unconditionally. She chose him because he is the only genuinely loving

  person she has met"

  Angrily he continued after looking into Minver’s eyes, “Can you

  die for her while saving her just because of one emotion—love? No, you can’t. But she and her lover, they both can die for each other without any regret. So that’s why, Minver, you can never be powerful like the Prince or Martia. None of us can, that’s why she chose him. And that’s why she will always choose him.”

  Hearing this, Minver said furiously, “Looks like they’ve got an ally in this netherworld. Good luck in saving them.”

  With a sardonic smile, Minver left, but deep down, he felt sad and

  disappointed with himself.