The Evil Emperor's Fragile Heart

"Bella is Bella, and you are you," Jules said in a total matter of fact voice. "Your good deeds and your bad deeds are your own, and those are your responsibility – even if you are the ghost corpse or some entity that once used to be her father. What does any of that have to do with my Bella?"

The captured ghost corpse could only stare blankly at Jules.

Queen Carolina and King Jaren had very proud smiles on their faces, and so did Mana and Raven.

And as for Bella, the adoration in her eyes as she looked at her handsome fiancé could only be matched by the equally fervent adoration that flowed out of Jules's eyes towards his lovely fiancée.

"Auntie Bella is very good girl," Azar piped up. "Azar likes Auntie Bella very much!" he declared proudly.

"Indeed," King Jaren said, rubbing the little dragon's head affectionately. "Our Azar speaks the truth."

Bella flushed and a shy smile appeared on her face. Then the smile disappeared again and her face fell.

"But what about the problems of my past?" she asked in a small voice. "What about my father's betrayal? I still have his blood. What if the problems of my past affect me or my attitude or my future? What if there are problems in the future?"

Jules took Bella's hands and brought them to his lips, pressing a reverent kiss on the back of her hands one by one.

Then he said quietly, "The problems of your past are your business – they neither affect who you are nor what I love and cherish about you. You are you, and you are the best woman in the world in my eyes, be it now, or be it a hundred years later. There is no one who can compare to you – not now, and not ever. You are not your father, however vile he may be, and you are not your mother, however great she may be. You are Bella, my Bella, the smartest and the most talented and the most beautiful young lady in the world, and the fact that you happen to be the Crown Princess of the Sapphire Kingdom, or that you happen to be the daughter of Queen Carolina and this – this person, all of that is ancillary. It is you who l love with all my heart and it is you who I want to spend the rest of my life with. And that is why I will tell you this now, and I will repeat it as many times in the future and I will prove it with my actions in the future, too, so that you will believe that it is not just empty words from your fiancé and the man who loves you with every single bit of his heart and soul. Please listen to me carefully and always remember this, my dearest Bella – the problems of your past are your business, and the problems of your future are my privilege. Whatever happens, whatever hidden truths come to light, whatever actions you may want to take, whatever issues or problems you wish to delve into – I will be with you. I will be right by your side, now and forever more, no matter what."

Bella stared at her handsome fiancé and his sincere eyes which gleamed with love and determination and warmth pooled into her entire body. She couldn't resist throwing herself into Jules's arms and hugged him tightly.

"Well said, son," King Jaren said, beaming at the young couple. "Well said. Bella, my dear child, you are ours to protect and cherish, you understand? You are my child as much as Jules or Mana or Raven, all right? And this old Papa of yours has full faith in you, that's for sure. So, do not let anyone tell you otherwise, at any point. You are a part of my family, too, and you are my daughter, too – and I won't let anyone disparage my daughter – not even herself."

Bella nodded tearfully. "Thank you, Papa," she said in a wobbly voice.

King Jaren smiled at her.

Bella quickly wiped her face and a determined look settled on her beautiful face. Jules smiled, too.

"All right, then," King Jaren said, turning to Queen Carolina. "What should we do about this ghost corpse?"

Queen Carolina frowned. "I am not sure," she murmured. "For now, let us wait for the Imperial Supreme Mage. Perhaps he will have some ideas about the whole matter. As I said before, to the best of my knowledge – my late husband's ghost corpse – even if resurrected – should not have this appearance at all, as if he were still alive. And if you look carefully, you will see that he also seems to have aged exactly like I have. It is almost as if he is still alive."

"He is," Raven spoke up in a soft voice. "This is an advanced level of necromancy, where a dead person's spirit can be transferred to a living person's body on an equivalent exchange basis. So, at the time of the person's death in their original body, their spirit is swapped with another living person's. Then, gradually, the body of the person who was taken over starts to change over a period of time to resemble the new spirit who took over the body. The spirit of the living person who was the recipient of this exchange, enters the dying person's body and perishes with it. The entire process takes half a moment and must be prepared for much in advance. The term for these beings is cursed living ghost corpses."

"Very big, very bad magic," Azar chipped in.

Raven nodded. "It is considered one of the most despicable magic spells, even within necromancer circles, because cursed living ghost corpses are not merely contrary to nature, but also create an anomaly within the very fabric of reality and the world as we know it," he said. "It is said that formation of one cursed living ghost corpse requires a very long time to prepare – about five years or so, and it requires a lot of despicable things, like the blood of new born babies and the hearts of young girls between the age of twelve to fifteen, and the livers of young boys between the age of fourteen to seventeen. Moreover, voluntary sacrifice for the cause won't help – every single victim, from the preparation stage to the final recipient of the cursed soul – all of these people have to be unwilling. Without enough malice, the spell is doomed to fail. I have never seen it in action, but I have read about the theoretical aspect of it – and there are no records of this spell ever being successfully performed in anything that I have read in my life. There was only one mention of this – and all these details I know come from that source. There are also some additional points I need to mention. It is also a cursed life – a half life, if you will, for the spirit occupying the new body, because the evil intention and malice for a spell like this is terrible, and it leads to an automatic curse being branded upon the person whose spirit escapes death by pushing someone else into it. They become especially susceptible to any form of nurturing magic – like earth magic, and this is why a simple magical net from Mana which is primarily inter woven links of earth magic with a little bit of water magic – such a simple net is fully capable of imprisoning him for a very long period of time."

Queen Carolina sighed and looked at the captured cursed living ghost corpse. "Oh, Vir, what have you done to yourself?" she murmured.

The cursed living ghost corpse and the former King Consort of the Sapphire Kingdom, Vir, responded to her soft question with a mocking smile.

"The little boy is right," he said after some time, clearly enjoying the utterly horrified looks on the faces of all the people in the room. King Jaren's face was a mix of disgust and anger, and the little dragon sitting on his shoulder hissed as if seeing a particularly despicable creature. Queen Carolina's face was a mix of horror and pity and exhaustion. Bella's face had lost all colour and she staggered again – which made Jules pull her into his arms in a protective embrace. Jules's face was full of horror and anger. Mana's face was cold as ice, and Raven trembled suddenly, as if a bucket of ice had been dumped on him.

Seeing Raven shudder, Mana immediately moved next to him in one fluid motion, and threw her arms around him.

"It's all right," she whispered gently in his ear, so that only Raven would be able to hear her words. "It's all right, Raven. You're with us," she added softly.. Then she let a strand of her healing magic flow into Raven's shivering body, and then she followed it with a diagnostic spell to check what was wrong with Raven all of a sudden.