Chapter Thirteen
As the horses have become loaded up and I find my fingers numb from the chilling air, I look ahead to the path that only leads upwards, straying farther away from both the camp and the Temple: the only two places I can memorize my way around in this new world. With my body covered in the same cloak that reminds me of a fox, my horse covers the rough terrain of the side of the mountains with ease, the reigns of the horse tied to a rope that is attached to Duke Gravon's own horse. With what I know to be a three-day journey total, the horses are packed lightly, the food and water having passed the King's approval for the trip as he wanted to leave as soon as the sun was beginning to fall into the ground. As my eyes flicker to the male who I seem to only trust on this trek, he hands me a warm mug, steam rising from the surface as the mug warms up my hands the moment they wrap around the cylinder. Thanking the Duke, I take a long drink from the mug, welcoming the warmth of the liquid that reminds me of an herbal tea my mother used to make. It has only been at most an hour since I last saw sight of the camp that reminds me at least as a source of warmth and haven. But now I am out in the great unknown once more, surrounded by only two males who are not human, and on a journey to speak with some goddess. To think a month ago I was in my home, wrapped in the welcoming covers of my bed, the glowing light of my phone illuminating my room as I would chat with good friends about what the future would hold for us or reflect on memories that brought a smile to my face. Funny how things can be taken for granted and next thing you know, you are tossed into unfamiliar territory.
"Duke Gravon, how far away is the Temple to this goddess?" I ask, recalling how the Duke informed me a day ago about the Temples, about how they were built for the gods and goddess where worshipers could speak with their deity.
"Dregh?" The Duke asks, his horse slowing down so ours are walking beside one another, allowing for a more personal conversation. Looking from the Duke quickly, I see the King ahead of us by a few meters, concentrated on the path ahead as he seems to be consumed in the world of his mind. "We are not headed to her Temple, no, for that would mean we would be sailing across the oceans for a week before reaching the volcano where here Temple is built." So, they have volcanos here. It makes sense for a goddess of fire or dragons to have her Temple built upon the surface of a volcano although I would not wish to step foot on a volcano. "Children of the gods and goddess, they can seek communication with their parents by casting a simple spell at a high peak." It makes sense for why we are headed up the mountains then, to reach a high peak where the King can perform a spell to summon his mother. I remember Soka telling me of dragons, of how they keep to themselves for the most part unless disturbed, telling me it would be very rare for me to every meet one, yet here I am, to meet the goddess of dragons within a few days. Growing up, I found dragons to be mere creatures of someone's imagination from long ago, creatures that I found to be impressive when movies portrayed them with heavy computer-generated images. As a child, dragons were what I wanted to reach about when my mother's maid would tuck me in for bed because my mother had locked herself away in my father's office or was out on another one of her trips.
"Why must we speak to his mother? Why does he not do this on his own?" I ask, taking a sip once more at the drink in my hands. The Duke looks to his King, simply shrugging his shoulders as he takes the reigns of his horse, causing it to slow down as mine does as well. The King still looks lost in his own world, not once glancing back to us at all. He made sure my horse was tied up to the Duke's in case of escape, but he does underestimate me there. I would not be dumb enough to run off when these men could easily catch up to me because I am just human and have no sense of direction in this world. If I wanted to escape, I would be smart about it, not putting my survival on the line whatsoever.
"My guess, Lady Candice, is he has plans for you with his mother." I raise an eyebrow, looking from the Duke and to the path ahead of us, the path only becoming steeper the farther we travel in the winter chill. "For a child to reach out to their deity parent, it is often frowned upon in the ancient books dating back to the creation of Iduna."
"You make it seem like Iduna is eons old," I comment, recalling an old conversation that Soka once held with me when I had asked about humans. She told me that in the ancient days that humans would hunt down the supernatural species for sport or for what they believed to be defense, driving the supernatural to low numbers. If humans and the people of Iduna once lived in the same universe or realm, could it be that the gods or goddesses could be the last supernatural to live among humans before creating this realm of harmony? From what I have seen in my time in Iduna, they are stuck in some medieval age, perhaps an indication that Iduna was built at this time and the world has never been able to progress with things like electricity or thought like back in the world I am from.
The Duke nods, agreeing with my comment. "It is very old, years and years as far as time can stretch back and all there was in the universe was a darkness. Did the elders of your community not teach you these things?" Duke Gravon asks, looking puzzled as he reflects on all the questions I have asked. "Did your elders teach differently." Only Kyril knows me to be human here, not Duke Gravon, or anyone else back at that camp. Asking too many questions could cause someone to question me, seeing how the Duke already is confused by my questions, wondering why my pack or community never taught me such things.
"My mother never focused much on teaching my siblings and me the history of Iduna," I inform, recalling how Kyril told the entire camp that I was a traitor and not a word I could say could be accounted for as trustworthy. Duke Gravon may be doubting my story right now, but he is not dumb, even someone who is willing to overlook the words of his King if he sees something to not be true. The Duke may question me with my background where I have said I grew up, but he is not someone to associate every word I speak with the words of a liar. "My mother focused on the future, on her daughters to grow up not in the shadow of men, but as individuals as influential and powerful as the opposite sex."
"Thus, you speak not just to the average male as if there is no status difference, but even to your King." I nod, finishing off the mug of tea and handing it back to the Duke. "It truly is a different way of thinking, and I take it then that your mother taught you how to properly use a sword?"
"Yes, she did." Not entirely false, for my mother signed me up for fencing lessons, allowing me to learn the skill. Although she did not teach me like the Duke thinks, she paid for those classes. One of the few awards ceremonies that she ever attended was for one of my tournaments where I placed second, one of the few times I was proud of my mother for trying to be a family. Kyril took that chance away from me to go back to her, to be there for her. I had thought she would be fine without me seeing that she has always been without me, that she would be out on another trip trying to find her husband and perhaps even daughter. But seeing her in my father's office, drinking away the pain, and trying to figure things out, it made me want to banish the thought of finding my father and just return home to her. Sure, my family has never been tightly knit since my father left, but that does not mean my loyalty does not belong to my family. Every family has problems, has that one person or perhaps even everyone that drives you insane e as the family crumbles. Yes, there are some things that are unforgivable and make you lose all loyalty for someone, but that is hardly the case. We all fight, all hate someone at some time, but being flesh and blood, being raised by these people, living your life among these people, you find that your loyalty dwells with them. My mother may have hardly been present in my life, but she is the woman that birthed me, who raised me, who taught me the things I never knew, who paid for my expansion of knowledge, and who sits all alone in the house once filled with her loved ones, wondering if my father or I are even alive at this point. My mother has been loyal her whole time to my father, eleven years after his disappearance still trying to find him.
"The King tries not to disturb his mother," Duke Gravon points out, drawing me away from my thoughts as my eyes lock to the back of the King, to the black locks upon his head, the contour of his back as you can tell that underneath all the layers of his clothes, he was built to take down kingdoms and rule with an iron fist. He is a man with a strong determination to kill my father, but my devotion to my father is much stronger than his sheer will to slay my father. But this could be a testimony of the King's own loyalty to his family, to the father of his that was murdered by my own. Even if soul mates were a thing and what the King said about the two of us were true, he would be right: fate has a sick sense of humor. "The gods and especially the goddesses to not care to be bothered, especially by their children."
"So why produce an offspring if they care not for a parent-child relationship?" No wonder why Kyril called the woman who married is father his mother rather than his actual birth mother. The woman that married his father acted as a mother to him, helped raise him, and died beside him was more of a mother to him than the goddess who wanted to have a strong offspring for some reason.
The Duke shrugs his shoulders, taking a quick look to the King, as if not wanting him to overhear his next words.
"It is because the gods and goddesses have this bet going, one of who can produce the strongest child. We are like gladiators," Kyril responds, halting his horse as he looks over his shoulder to us. "We are gladiators, ones who they train by giving us powers to learn how to us. They invest in us, how they find a suitable partner to produce a strong offspring as well as raise us. The gods like to see how well we demigods survive when tasks are placed before us."
"So, they have children as a competition to see whose child will become the strongest?" I ask, Kyril offering me a simple nod to confirm my question. "So that is why your sister, the one who died in battle-
"Dregh, my deity mother, mated with a strong warrior for my sister, only to become disappointed when she died in battle. Dregh saw her as weak and then turned her eyes to royals in the werewolf world. When my father came to power and was given the crown, she saw greatness in him and decided that their offspring would be valuable."
"So, you are just a piece of entertainment for the gods?" I ask, the Duke immediately choking on air at the bluntness of my question. "Entertainment that they invest in and then watch."
The King allows a smile to dance across his face, tugging upwards at the corner of his lips as a dimple on his left cheek appears. "Years ago, there were many demigods born, born to fight one another just like gladiators in an arena. Compared to what those demigods had to go through, I get the royal treatment, literally even." Kyril turns his horse around, facing us now as he has the horse approach us, eyes locked to mine as my throat runs dry. "The winners were gifted with a Kingdom to rule. My father, his great-great-grandfather was a demigod of the goddess Selene, a very powerful werewolf, and after winning the gods' game, he was given a Kingdom in which one day consumed Iduna. So here I am, the King of Iduna and the child of Dregh as well as having the blood of Selene in me." Selene, the goddess or werewolves or something if I can recall all the teen books I had read.
"What of the others like you, the other demigods?" I ask, watch as the King undoes the side of the rope attached to the Duke's horse and ties it around his horse's reigns, my horse now tied to his.
Silence, only the sound of the powerful winds from the mountains consuming us. "Heka happened to them," Duke Gravon responds rather than the King. "Heka found every child holding blood from a god or goddess and slayed them, but when he came to the palace, he believed King Kyril's father to be the demigod, slaying him rather than the son of Dregh." My skin pales, learning more of my father's time spent here in Iduna. While my mother and I have been living without him, he has been slaying demigods. "Many of those demigods were children, unable to use their powers yet, and if they could, Heka simply cast some sort of spell never seen in this realm before." My father slayed children, innocent little children all for what? What was his motive? There must be some motive. Perhaps something that may even validate his actions...but nothing could justify the butchery an innocent child.
"Why?"
My horse is tugged forward as the King starts back on the path, bringing an end to our conversation as we leave the Duke behind us to follow. With the King by my side, I feel his eyes preying upon me, taking in every feature of mine a I want an answer to my question, but something tells me I will have to do more than ask to get the answers I seek. Perhaps Duke Gravon could answer for me, but something tells me this is a question for Kyril, for him to have the true motivation answer already in that strange head of his.
As the darkness of the night takes over and the temperature drops lower than I have ever experienced before, and the stars are brighter than ever, Duke Gravon and the King begin pitching our camp for the night, just three small cots with fur blankets surrounding a fire. Nothing close to luxury at all. With the camp all set up, just as I go to take a cot for the night, the King draws a circle around our camp with his sword, sprinkling a golden ask in the grooves mad in the snow, whispering unfamiliar words. Once the King comes full circle with the golden ash, I stare in awe as a globe forms around our camp, the snow no longer falling into it, a thin, light blue seal around the camp as the warmth is contained. Magic to say the least.
Taking my cot for the night, comfort is all I feel as I lay on my back, staring up at the stars that flood the night sky. We have been traveling for many hours and just not sitting on a horse makes me feel happier than ever. Just as my eyelids become heavy and I drift off, I catch a sign, one that informs me that my prediction of the supernatural of Iduna and my own world once being one world may just be correct. The Little Dipper, a constellation that as a child I loved to look at, is in the night sky, bight as my eyes dance across every constellation in the sky. My eyes widen as I recall every constellation in the sky, my heart rate going crazy as my home may not be as far away as I believe it to be.
"Candice?" Turning my head to the left, I meet the soft gaze of the King, time freezing for a few seconds as he offers me a small smile. "Good night."
As he looks away and shuffles in his cot to get more comfortable, a smile forms on my face as well, biting my lower lip as I cannot contain my excitement. My excitement for the realization of how familiar the sky looks to me now. Perhaps there is another way out of here besides that mirror, perhaps it is just finding the end of Iduna where my world could be just beyond some globe like the globe that surrounds our camp. Perhaps I am closer to my mother than I ever thought, and it is just a matter of time before I am back to seeing her.
Taking in a deep breath, I shut my eyes for the night, no longer never to return to my home.