The Zodiac Stone

Chapter Twenty-Two: Status Means Nothing if One Leaves the Kingdom

"Who are you?" the other man said, repeating what the other said, a gruffer tone than the first man.

Aine cleared his throat and started again. "My name is Aine. This is Westerlee. We are from the kingdom of Heilakaa."

The three stared down at him making him feel like a child who'd done something wrong.

"And why are you here, children of the stars?" the woman asked.

"I am... an Ophiuchus," Aine said flatly.

The looks on the three changed instantly. They softened and turned to Westerlee.

"Are you also one?" the woman asked.

"I am not. I am a Libra," Westerlee said proudly. But that didn't get the reaction she had expected. The three jumped back and fell into defensive stances. They drew knives and a sword from places Aine couldn't see.

"You are not welcome here. Go back to that place," one of the men growled. He had a thick mustache that wiggled when he spoke, only now it wasn't funny.

"Wait! I– I can't. I don't have anywhere to go," Aine said, taking a step toward them with an outstretched hand.

"Why do you wear an academy outfit?" the man without the mustache asked.

"We haven't finished our year yet, we still go to Saziel. But," Aine said and stepped forward. "I have been to Vaad." He met each of their gazes. He saw the tension in both their expressions and their rigid stances. "And I know what they do to us there."

The woman nodded but didn't drop her sword.

"I– I have a question," Aine said nervously. His words stuttered from his mouth. "Did a man come here, almost a decade ago? He would've had fire powers but might have been looking for a place for his son?"

That froze them. Their bodies locked up and their eyes went wide where he could see the whites.

"There may have been, why do you ask?" the man with the mustache asked.

"That man was my father," Aine said.

"If what you are saying is true, there was a man seeking refuge for his son in years to come."

"What happened to that man?" the other man asked.

"He... died. He was killed, looking for a way for me to have a life without being born with magic."

The two men shared a look and then their faces dropped to the ground.

"I'm sorry for your loss," the one with a mustache said.

"For the short time he was here, it was an enjoyable time. We appreciated that while he couldn't understand all of our pain, and what we had gone through, us who have come from Heilakaa, but that he wanted to help his son and keep him from going there."

"But how do we know you are who you say you are?" the woman asked, not allowing the two who had met his father to be swayed by a story without any proof.

Aine stood for a moment not sure how he would prove his father was his father when he dropped the satchel from his shoulder and put his hands into the leather bag. He kept his hands hidden and lifted the lid of the box carefully and drew out the green fabric with his father's pendant wrapped inside.

"This belonged to my father, and is the only thing I have of him," he said and let the sun shine across the gold metal.

The yellow stone gleamed like the gold metal in the sun's light.

"He kept it!" the man without the mustache said and put a hand to his mouth. Tears sprang to the corners of his eyes and he bent forward with a sob. "I'm sorry, I just... I'm sorry for his passing. Your father turned out to be one of very few good men. I gave him that to pass on to his son in hopes everything would circle around. It was a promise to help his son– you, when you ventured out here. I wish he had been with you though. I would have liked to enjoy another drink with him around the fire, one more time."