I stared at the picture. They were right. The girl looked like me. Creepily like me.
"Do we know when this was written?" I asked.
"No. I don't think," Ashley said, looking at the first and last pages.
"It's old though," Alastair said.
"Okay. So who is this?"
"Uh, let's read and see because I don't know," Edmond answered.
I sat on a chair and started reading a few pages before the picture.
The great warrior queen Diana, said to be the daughter of our Goddess Artemis, wielded the mighty sword of Apollo and the bow of Artemis. The powers that she possessed help fend off a great evil that encroached on the lands, solidifying her position as leader of the wolf realm.
Diana is the first of all wolf queens, married to our first king and mighty leader, Aelfred. Their descendants have ruled over all of the realm for thousands of years.
Once the battle ended Diana and Aelfred prayed to Artemis, asking for all wolfdom to be protected from the human world, preventing anyone or anything from entering.
I stared at the picture. The silver-haired woman had the glowing mark of Artemis on her forehead, just like mine. Her icy blue eyes stared fiercely at the creature she was striking down.
"So, yeah, she's the first queen of our kind. Um, also the daughter of Artemis and she defeated a great evil that encroached on the lands."
"I thought Artemis had no children," Alastair said.
Ashley, Edmond, and I looked at one another.
"What?"
"I guess he should know," I said.
"This is a secret that isn't really secret anymore," Edmond mumbled.
"What secret? What aren't you telling me?" Alastair asked.
"So, no, Artemis hasn't given birth. But she has children."
"Of course, we are all her children."
"No. That's not what I mean. At all," I sighed heavily.
"What?"
"If Queen Diana is anything like...me, she's literally a daughter of Artemis."
"What..."
"That mark on her forehead? It is the mark of Artemis. I have the same one." I moved my hair from my forehead and showed the mark.
"That's not a scar?"
"No." I closed my eyes and focused deep within myself. On Artemis.
I could feel my body growing hotter.
"What is going on," Alastair yelled, jumping back.
"Elanor. My daughter."
I opened my eyes to the beautiful face of Artemis smiling at me.
"Mother."
"Is everything okay?"
I shook my head. "No. We are no further with finding anything out. And, we found this book."
"Who is that? What is going on? Why..I don't understand!" Alastair yelled, backing further away.
"Calm yourself, Beta. It is I, your Goddess."
"You know me? How do you know me? You're Artemis."
"Honey, please calm down in front of our Goddess."
He stared wide-eyed.
Artemis took the book from me and ran her hand over the image.
"Oh, my beloved Diana."
"You know her?"
"Yes. She was my first daughter."
"How many of us are there?" I questioned.
"Just her and you."
"What happened to Diana?"
"The same as with all of your ancestors. She is with me."
"Why was she born?"
"There was an evil. An evil that I knew was coming and who sent it."
"Could it be the same person?"
Artemis shook her head. "No. Not a person. Another Goddess. And no. There was a trial. Zeus forbade it. She wouldn't..."
"Are you sure?"
Artemis put the book down, her brow furrowed as she breathed heavily. "No. Zeus forbade it. She wouldn't. There is no way."
"Who, Artemis?"
"Hera."
"He-Hera? The mother of all Gods and Goddesses?" Edmond asked.
"Not my mother. She despises my existence. And Apollo's."
"What?"
Artemis took a deep breath and stood, a single tear sliding down her perfect face. "She has been attempting to destroy us and everything we love since our conception. Our father, Zeus, is not a very good husband to her. He has a bit of a, uhm, wandering eye. Our mother Leto, was one of his conquests. She fell madly in love with him and bore him twin children. Apollo, God of the Sun. And myself, Goddess of the Moon."
"So Hera attacked before?"
Artemis nodded. "She used humans before. They were possessed by a great amount of strife, anger, hatred, and discord. They had an almost superhuman ability during war and decimated so many of my beloved wolves. That was when I decided to grant a portion the ability to shift into human form."
"How?"
"Her daughter. Enyo. She's the Goddess of Strife and Discord. Her mate, Ares, is the God of War."
"But why? Why take out Zeus' inability to remain faithful on you? And Apollo?" I asked.
"I don't know child."
"Are you certain there is no way she could be behind this?" Edmond questioned.
"I didn't think so before. But, now, I am unsure. It would explain why I cannot see who is behind everything. Her powers far exceed my own."
"Thank you, mother."
"Be safe, my child." She leaned forward and kissed my mark.
As vanished as quickly as she appeared.
"That's my secret," I said, looking at Alastair.
"Our Princess is actually a Goddess?"
"Not really. No. I don't know. I'm a child of a Goddess."
"But your mother..."
"She birthed me. Artemis just put me in with Harmony."
"Okay. I'll need to process all of that information. For now, do we agree that it's probably Hera behind all of this?"
"It's looking like it. Now, how is she doing it? Is she able to interact with everyone more? If she had humans possessed before, could possess one of us?"
"I think we need to keep looking around here."
"Edmond, are the bow and sword in this picture still around?"
"Uh, if they are they would be in the vault beneath the library."
"Let's get to the library," I said, tucking the old book beneath an arm and exiting the old room.
We left the dusty, old, dark area of the castle in search of a car to take us into town.
"Our SUV is parked around back," Alastair said, running toward the stairs. "I'll grab the keys really quick."
"We'll meet you at the car," Ashley replied.
I stood against the black vehicle, thumbing through the book. Trying to find more information. Trying to find anything.
"The sword of Apollo and the bow of Artemis are necessary to defeat Hera's magic."
"So we can't beat her without them?"
"That's what this book makes it seem like. Maybe Anna can date the book and we can find ones in the same time frame?"
"That is a great idea," Ashley exclaimed.
Alastair ran from the backdoor with the keys to the SUV and hopped in. "Where is the library?"
"Head down the drive and at the T make a left," Edmond instructed.
I read the entire way to the library. The book detailed the battle, but not what the creatures were or who controlled them.
"Anna!" I hollered as we entered the building.
"Oh! Prince Edmond! Princess Elanor!" She dipped into a curtsy as we approached.
"Can you tell me when this was written?" I placed the book on the counter and watched as she looked it over.
"Is this from the library?"
I shook my head. "No. We found in the castle."
"Really? Fascinating." She picked it up and turned it over in her hands before flipping through the pages. "Hmm. It's very old. Older than most of the books we have. Let's go down to the vault. I might have to compare it to some of the others we have."
We followed behind the librarian as she led us to the depths of the building once again. The lights flickered on as she flipped the switch and walked to the far back. Opening a gate, she took out a brasskey and opened the heavy wooden door.
"What's back there?" Ashley asked.
"This is where we we keep our oldest and most valuable documents and relics."
"Would there happen to be a sword and a bow back there?" I questioned.
"Um, maybe? I haven't had a chance to go through our entire inventory. You're more than welcome to look. I do know the the dress you're wearing and the suit that Prince Edmond is wearing came from our vaults."
"Okay, so there's everything back there?"
"Pretty much."
Anna walked to the right and started pulling books from the shelf looking at the different old books. I walked around looking at the documents that sat behind glass.
Ashley reached out to grab one when Anna tsked her. "Please becareful. Those are old."
"Right," Ashley said, pulling her hand away.
"What behind that door?" Alastair asked.
"That's the relics area."
"I'm looking back there," Edmond announced, opening the door.
Alastair flipped a switch and let out a low whistle. "That's big."
"That's a lot of space back here."
Ashley and I abandoned the book shelves and joined the men in the relics area.
"Holy shit. There is that much that's important to our realm?"
"Yes," Anna called out. "It's thousands of years worth of relics. Just like the humans keep all of their stuff in museums, we keep ours in the vaults."
I walked around the different shelves and tables looking at everything that has been stored away. Small daggers, suits of armor, even skeletons, littered the room.
"I found a sword! I found a lot of swords," Ashley called out to us.
"Where are you?" I asked.
"Uh, row 25. I think."
I followed the sound of her voice to a row of shelves with a bunch of ancient weapons.
"That is a lot of swords."
"I found bows," Alastair called.
"Where?"
"Row 32."
"We'll look at the bows," Edmond said, popping his head into the aisle.
"And I guess we're looking through swords."
Ashley and I searched through the different swords. Thankfully most of them were labled with dates and owners. We'd made it back to the 1800's when she stood up groaning.
"This is getting us nowhere."
"Yeah. Well it seems that these are going in chronological order so how about we skip a few rows to the really, really old stuff?" I suggested.
"Yeah. Okay."
"These are from the 1500's."
"This seems to be the row with the oldest swords," Ashley said.
"There aren't many."
"No. So that's good?"
I shrugged as we looked through them all. I stopped and picked up one of the relics. It looked entirely too new and clean to be so old that it was in this row.
Maybe it's in the wrong place? But, the area is perfectly fitted for this sword.
"I think I found something. I need to go look at the book that Anna has."
Ashley followed as we went to find her. She had a series of books pulled from the shelves, examining them all.
"Do you know what this is?"
"No," I said. "A book?"
"This is the oldest book that we have. I don't even know when it's from. The oldest book we have dates back to 1462. This is much, much older than that."
"Can you flip to page 53?"
"Uh, yeah."
"I put the sword above the page and compared what Queen Diana held and what I'd found."
"Oh my God. Ellie..."
"They're the same."
"What?" Anna asked, looking from the book to the sword. "Oh my word. How did we never know?"
"Time forgot them." Ashley shrugged.
"We found it!" Alastair exclaimed excitedly emerging from the back. "The bow of Artemis!"
"We found the sword of Apollo!"