Crown

Isse Iā Tolmiot Qrīdrughagon Jēda-In The Distant Past

Astrid and Tobi stared at the woman, unsure of what to say. Her blue eyes glowed within the darkness and the ground beneath her seemed to emit a soft blue light.

"Come now, I don't bite." She chuckled.

"Goddess Henaer?" Tobi asked. It was less a question of confusion and more for conformation.

The woman nodded. "That's right."

She looked between the two of them. In the blink of an eye she had vanished into a plume of dark smoke but before either one of them could be confused, she reappeared in front of Astrid. Henaer grabbed Astrid's chin and lifted her head to get a better look at her.

"You, you're definitely her child...but you..."

She turned her attention to Tobi, narrowing her eyes as she did so. Her gaze wasn't particularly intense but the way the hairs on his body stood up told him that she was definitely dangerous.

"You don't have it...the shi aren't as prominent in you as they are in this one. Who are you?"

Tobi had seen many of his mother's books mention the shi before, so he was entirely in the dark about the subject. Normally people without strong magical ability, were unable to see the shi within someone. The fact that Henaer could tell without so much as a glance, that his shi wasn't as strong, was proof that she was indeed powerful.

"Tobi...I uh...work for King Sana."

Henaer thought for a moment. "King Sana...I hear he has access to Aruma An..." The tone in her voice briefly shifted when she mentioned the forgotten land.

"Well, he doesn't. I'm the only one there who can pass through the shrine."

Henaer's eyes briefly flashed surprise. "Oh? And how, prey tell, is such a young boy, lacking in the magical support of the shi, able to pull that off?"

"...when I first found the shrine I heard a voice. A man's voice. He was the one who brought me through the rifts and to the ruins of Aruma An...He's a being trapped in a horned statue beside a small village in the Omphalos region."

Henaer seemed to beam at the mention of this horned statue. "Did he tell you anything else?"

"N-No he just told me than in exchange for doing what he asked he would let me explore the land...he also gave me a message for who I assume to be was Illya."

She smiled. Astrid and Tobi glanced at each other. Suspicion grew as her reasons for this sudden interest remained unknown. In an attempt to rectify this Astrid asked her a question. "Um...Miss Henaer? Do you know the identity of the horned statue?"

Henaer paused for a moment. "He was my lover....before....be...fore..."

Her voice trailed off, prompting Astrid and Tobi to send another questioning glance in each other's direction. So far she had not displayed any hostility and the way she spoke was calm and collected but there was a visible shift in her demeanor, one they hadn't anticipated.

"Before that man's wretched wife sealed him away in that god awful statue!"

Her smooth voice became dark and raspy and her words were dripping with an everlasting lust for vengeance.

"My beloved brother....my beloved brother....oh how I loved him so....I trusted him.....AND HE BETRAYED ME! SEALED ME AWAY! ABANDONED ME!"

The more she spoke, the angrier she got, the more her face twisted into something monstrous. The ground began to shake beneath them and Astrid tightened her grip on Tobi's shirt, bracing for impact. While Henaer's words were indeed drenched with a timeless rage, there was also an unimaginable sadness behind them. One that slipped through the cracks in her wrath as she desperately called out for her brother.