As soon as Dilara exited the mansion, Mother and her daughters immediately glared at her.

"What in the gods' name took you so long, Dilara?!" roared Mother.

"Yea, we've been waiting for you forever!" Ingrid agreed.

"Sorry," responded Dilara, locking the door. "My mind has somehow distracted me. I won't allow it to happen next time."

"You better not!" snapped Mother. "I will have my daughters beat you, do you understand?"

"Yes, ma'am," said Dilara as she bowed her head. Shakila and Ingrid grinned viciously at Dilara, turned towards one another, and chuckled as they gossiped about Dilara.

Dilara and her family walked down the yellow path throughout the woods. Dilara simply ignored them and kept walking, containing her anger inside to avoid trouble from Mother and her daughters. Dilara closed her eyes for a moment, then reopened them with a serious face.

Jus' keep your cool and ignore them, Dilara. Jus' keep your cool.

The trees and bushes watched Dilara and her family walk forward on the dirty path. With the birds chirping around them, the wind hitted them as the trees moved with it.

Dilara took a look up at the sky, seeing the fluffy clouds floating past the golden sun. The air smelled like heaven.

Memories of Father playing with her now entered her mind. Dilara sighed and frowned when she stared at the floating clouds, away from the sun in the sky. She missed Father being around her.

She wondered why he married a woman like Mother. She also wondered why the gods allowed Father to pass away sooner, as well as made her suffer from Mother and her sisters' abuse. It was something that misunderstood her.

While they continued walking through the forest, an old woman in a brown cloak to their left walked through the forest, preventing them from seeing her. Her hood protected her eyes in the shadows while the cool autumn wind blew her hair that stuck out from her cloak. When the leaves fell from the tree branch, they rained on her as if they were pieces of paper.

Then the visions of the necklace haunted her mind. They reminded her of the prophecy of defeating the dark lord and saving Aniva.

"Aaah…This can't be…!" The woman spoke to herself as she sensed something near her. She saw four women walking in the woods.

She slowly walked towards one of the trees and stood behind it, watching them from afar. Her hand held onto her crooked walking stick.

"Ah, I found it at last!" She whispered when she sensed the necklace. "I have to get a woman with that necklace to save Aniva! One of these women definitely has to have it!" She followed after them throughout the forest.

When Dilara, Mother, and her daughters entered the kingdom gates of Castoria, they surveyed their surroundings. The passenger and merchant airships flew across the skies for trade and travel, bringing prosperity to Planet Arosca.

A few people's yabber echoed across the area as the majority of stores were closed for the funeral. It was less busy than usual. The majority of the people there all wore black. The men wore pants and the women only wore long skirts, with children dressing the same as adults.

The soldiers held onto their guns and reminded the citizens of the incoming funeral. The remaining citizens complied as Dilara's ears caught a man's yell. She watched the guards pin him down on the stony ground and arrest him for refusal to attend. Mother and her daughters also noticed this, haunting their hearts.

The woman in a brown cloak walked behind them, her walking stick clicking as it hit the ground with every step. "Oh, yes. Once I get to that funeral, I should be able to find the one with that necklace," she whispered to herself.

The closer Dilara, Mother, and her daughters were to the funeral, the more crowded it became. The funeral hadn't even started, yet the crowd was already boisterously chatting. They said their excuse mes while fighting through the crowd until they made it.

When they stopped near the guards, the soldiers blocked the people's advances while Dilara, Mother and her family moved their heads sideways for a better view. There they saw a young newly appointed monarch standing near the burial bed of the late old king's corpse with a bald head. The rest of the people behind them, who appeared to be aristocrats, stood away from them.

They all wore their silky black dresses and the women's faces were covered behind the see-through black veils. It was customary for aristocratic women to wear a veil for the late member of nobility in Castoria, not men.

They believe the veils colored in black would protect them from spirits of the recent dead, from invading their bodies and making their souls impure. The funny thing was those spirits never invaded aristocratic men, only women.

The fact is, no aristocratic woman had ever done this anywhere else besides in Castoria. And besides, those veils were expensive for the average person.

Aristocrats stood in front of the gray castle with gigantic, brown wooden doors. It was a sad day for them to lose another member of nobility.

Dilara gazed at Mother and her sisters chatting with one another. Then she turned to the late king with her dejected face. It was an awful thing for her to see the king go up in Heaven, but it was just how life was for her.

After a while, one of the soldiers blew his trumpet so loudly that the crowd came into complete silence. He shouted, "The funeral is about to began. No interruptions or you will be arrested as soon as possible."

After the soldier shook his head to the monarchs, the funeral had began. Dilara, Mother, and her daughters watched the funeral with their eyes moving a bit sideways. The women's cries vibrated all around the funeral and Mother and her daughters' cries were no exception. Their tears were poured down on their cheeks. They wiped their tears off with either their hands or handkerchiefs.

Dilara watched Mother, Ingrid and Shakila cry first before she returned her attention to the funeral. She was about to cry too yet she closed her eyes for a few moments and held her tears back. The woman in a brown cloak stood near the crowd without even an interest in watching the funeral.

Her visions of the necklace continued haunting her as soon as she stood near Dilara and her family. She scanned her surroundings to see whether or not people had seen her in the crowd. Once she was sure no one saw her, she began to search for the right woman.

Putting her hand out forward, she tried to determine if the three women near Dilara had the necklace but failed. But when she pointed her hand at Dilara however, visions of the necklace and the black silhouette person shone the white light from the necklace at another one wearing a crown.

Her hand was shaky a bit, looking up at Dilara. She smiled at her, believing she finally found what she was looking for. "Ah, yes, yes. This one's the one I'm looking for. Yes…I finally found her at last!"

She checked her surroundings before she turned back to Dilara, raising her hand up in the air, getting ready to snap her fingers. "Time to freeze the ceremony. Charozum!"

After she snapped her fingers, everyone was frozen except Dilara. Dilara widened her eyes when scanned her surroundings front and back, noticing everyone wasn't moving, not even Mother and her daughters were.

Wh-What the hell's goin' on here?! Why are people frozen all the sudden?!

"In case you're wondering why people are frozen," the mysterious voice echoed behind me, turning around, making me wonder who it was.