Hey everyone! So, I've got some good news and bad news. Good: This is my last week of highschool! Because I will be graduating, I'll be starting work full time and hopefully getting a second job part time, because college is dang expensive and I've got to pay for it myself. Bad News: I regret that I must go on hiatus again this summer. I won't have time to get regular chapters out, as my writing time will be severely limited. Hopefully, when I start my college classes this fall I'll be able to get some writing done. Super sorry about this! However: I WILL COMPLETE THE ELEMENTAL SPIRAL. I've come too far to give up now! It just might take a few years, and I hope y'all can stick with it. And now, onto the chapter.
Chapter 20
Luca's POV
Selene smoothed the letter out, then started to read it aloud.
"Aurora, I am sending you this to inform you that your sister did not survive giving birth to her child. She entrusted him to me, and I will make sure to keep him well hidden and well protected. I know you may want to lay claim to the child, but she told me I was not to pass him off to anyone else and take care of him myself, and not even for you will I disobey her wishes. I cannot express how sorry I am about Aulelia, and she was very dear to the both of us. I know I will miss her dreadfully. This will likely be the last you'll hear of me, for I must hide the child—a boy—before your father finds out he was not killed, as was ordered. Again, I am so, so sorry.
Best Wishes, Conrad Schuyler.'"
She held it out to me, and I grabbed it, looking over it. "Yeah, it's his handwriting." My voice was small, and my heart heavy. This is why I spent the first fifteen years of my life trapped in what was essentially a box? A cage? Cut off from the world, from other people. Alone, in the most real sense of the word? I could've grown up with a family, because I've heard nothing but amazing things about Selene's family. But no, I had to grow up in a box. Trapped in a cage. All because…
I jumped when Marelda put her hand on my shoulder.
Marelda's POV
"Hey, you okay?" I asked, concerned. He brushed off my hand.
"Yeah, I'll be fine," he said, not meeting my eyes. He'll be fine, meaning he isn't at the moment. I glanced over at Selene, who seemed to have realized the same thing.
Selene pushed her last donut in front of Luca. "Have you tried this? It's the new kind, they only came out with it a few days ago. I'm not to partial to it, but then again, I didn't realize it had mint, which I'm not a huge fan of. Want it?"
Distract him until he can calm down. Selene was smart.
"I haven't, thanks." The extra food seemed to do the trick. The waitress came over with refills for our drinks, which relaxed him further. I decided to talk to him about it later.
"Well, now that we know Selene's end, why don't we tell her ours, Luca?" I suggested.
He nodded, whatever cloud that had been over him a moment ago almost completely dissipated as he went into what I'd began to call "scholar mode."
"Selene, if I said that our mothers were the Vanished Princesses of Myula, and that meant we were technically royalty, would you believe me?" he asked.
Selene released a sardonic laugh. "Maybe not two months ago, but now? Yeah, I could believe it. It's more real than finding out your half elemental and that your biological father is alive and not human, a royal non-human to boot. So that's not the strangest revelation in my life recently. Vanished Princesses, though? It seems vaguely familiar."
"We learned about it in his…wait. You weren't here for that lesson. Well, basically, they're the two sisters of the current king, who both vanished about fifteen years apart. No one knew what happened to them, and when King Wilikin took the throne, he dedicated a holiday in their honor. It's in the spring, late March, specifically. During the last full week of March, when the youngest princess had her birthday, and because both sisters' favorite season was spring. It's a big celebration, followed by feasts across the land."
"Oooooohhh." Selene nodded in understanding. "Klaus mentioned that when I brought up Thanksgiving, an American-Terran thing where it's a big feast every year. That's where I heard it. From the little of the journal I've read, our moms called him Wil. He was my mom's twin. Speaking of the journals, I've got the spirits of dead people and written evidence of all this. How'd you figure this out?"
Luca launched into an explanation of all his research. Somehow Selene was following it a lot more than I would. Those two were certainly related, that's for sure. I decided to just listen with one ear and focus on my drink. It was dark hot chocolate. Hot chocolate was a rarity growing up. It was expensive, particularly in the smaller towns. But in Stargate? It was only a couple of dollars for a huge mug. The stores in Stargate, well, I'd heard many students who came from the bigger cities complain about how expensive they were.
But compared to home? I was a merchant's daughter. Even if I had no interest in that career, I knew how these things worked. Sure, some things were generally more expensive, but overall? They weren't. A student could buy so many materials, magical or to create magical. There were so many things that were considered delicacies and rarities everywhere but the cities—and yet, they were affordable for someone on my small allowance (seeing as most of it was saved to purchased new weaponry and armor, and for the care for them) could regularly afford, if I wished, to purchase things like hot chocolate. I limited myself to once a week, twice over the holidays if I stayed. And, thankfully, the darker stuff cost the same as the milkier stuff, despite one having more cocoa than the other, so I was able to get the one I preferred, guilt-free. I'd take bitter and spicy and salty over sweet any day.
An hour later when the conversation petered out, we went and started back to the academy.
"So now that everyone is all caught up," I began. "What should we do about this?" Luca had filled her in about the Tower of Sorrow deal, but no plan had been put in place.
"Actually, I have an idea," Selene said. "I left them at home, but I'm sure I can get them sent over. There's these sealed letters, like an actual wax seal and everything,"—That's actually normal in Myula, to use wax seals. Is it unusual in Terra?—"with 'Wil' written on the front. I think there's like 20 or so. I left them sealed and at home, because I didn't think they should be disturbed. But, it's clear now my mom wrote them for her brother, the king, but never got the chance to send them. They probably explain everything she did and stuff."
"And you're thinking we should mail them, is that it?" Luca asked. "But they certainly wouldn't explain my end, or anything that's happened in the last decade. Not to mention, if someone else managed to get them, it could cause a huge scandal. There would be huge upheavals, lots of investigating. And it might even cause problems with the Terran ministry. I mean, you said your mom was never registered with them, but your brothers and other family are. It's likely they'll accuse your entire family of being lying upstarts vying illegally for the throne, which I'm pretty confident none of us care about in the least. I think if we do that, we'll have to compile some unarguable evidence."
And here we enter the section Luca hadn't gotten around to telling me.
"And how would we do that?" Selene asked.
"The Dragon's Eye gemstone." Luca pulled out a new stack of notes, this one much smaller than the one he had used back at the cafe, really only a couple pages. "I only found this the other day. And technically most of it isn't actually available to students, so I'd appreciate not telling anyone."
I whacked his arm. "What have we discussed about illicit gathering of information?"
"First off—ow. And second, this was important," he defended.
I sighed, Selene snickering at the exchange, and he continued.
"I found a mention of it in an archive book, and then I slipped into the restricted back room of the archives where the more secretive files are stored, namely, the ones on the truths of the Tower of Sorrow." He pulled a certain sheet to the front of the ones in his hand, glancing at it as he started to explain. "The Dragon's Eye gem is what seems to be what the Tower of Sorrow is really protecting. From what the records said, it holds a mostly auto-biographical history of the royal family, back until the first king. The heir is generally taught all it's abilities, but each blood-born member of the House of Aprea is taught how to record their history via the sister stone at the place, which is only able to record history. It is impossible to lie to it, and it's recordings can be found in the Dragon's Eye, which has a lot more functions than the sister stone. I wasn't actually able to figure out the name of that one, because all the records just referred to it as the 'sister stone'. But it's only function, the history recording, is apparently the same way the Dragon's Eye records. It just has more abilities. One of those being the ability to declare yourself a member of the royal family."
"How would that give us the necessary proof?" Selene asked before I could.
"Remember that book I mentioned? The one the records the existence of the royal family members? Unless details are added, nothing shows up besides a blank portrait and birth/death dates, you know? It's either done with the sister stone, which is normally what the royal family does, but you can declare it to the Dragon's Eye and it does the same thing, and it'll put your name on the royal tapestry tree, giving you a gem. If we did that, no one would be able to dispute the rest of our evidence. And it would keep the rest of your family out of it until they feel ready to do it, if they ever." I was proud of Luca's level of consideration for those who weren't directly involved with this. It showed that he was thinking things through a little more. "Most members don't go to the length of using the Dragon's Eye. As far as my research can tell, the last time a ruler or heir used it was five generations back, when Eclos made a huge push to try and steal Geodonelunan lands. It can, apparently, raise a border around the country that is impenetrable by all who hold less than purely good intentions. So it's reasons like that which cause the Tower to be placed under such heavy protections."
"And how are we you get there? I mean, I know Katalina and Elias did, but Katalina nearly died a very painful death. I don't want them involved. Or Philyra. And I don't know how much Klaus would approve of all this, but I feel like he deserves to be involved. I mean, the fae magic woven throughout the East Forest is bad enough, but a Chimera? I highly doubt we'll get as lucky as Elias and Katalina." She paused, took a deep breath, and continued. "And, well, I'm sure Angel could take it out, but then I'm not sure if Celeste and I could get Angel to go back in. He's restless enough as it is, but invoking his bloodlust will end very badly. The biggest reason he was put back inside last time was because we'd been practically starved, in addition to being exhausted and bruised up pretty badly.
A little while ago, Selene answered some of Luca's questions about elementals. As a halfling, Selene's three "forms" weren't of one mind. The human blood caused the three to dissociate from each other, leaving her with Celeste, the fire and wind "element," and Angel, the highly instinctive and…violently protective draconian "animal." Celeste was easy to live with, but Angel instinctively sought to destroy anything he perceived as a threat. Selene said that Celeste was keeping him contained, but she knew that adding a little too much stress would likely cause him to break out. As it was, he remained in the back of her consciousness.
From the sound of it, it would be a bad idea to let Angel out to deal with a Chimera, because then we'd have to deal with Angel, who was more powerful than any Chimera.
"I've got some…contacts who would gladly answer my theoretical questions about what fighting various magical creatures would be like, including a Chimera. Elma would be suspicious, but Barin would give me everything I'd need without asking a question or suspecting a thing," I said as we stood about a hundred feet from the gate, Luca and Selene looking at me in surprise. "I'm a warrior-in-training. I'll figure out how to handle the monster. You two figure out how to counter the more vague-and-magical protections."
Selene nodded. "We can do that. I'll explain everything to Klaus tonight. I'm sure if I do it, alone, he'd help. And as prefect, he's got a little more access to certain kinds of things, like how to avoid the guardian mages, which includes the headmaster and Professor Schuyler. At the least, if he sees how determined I am, he'll probably help only to keep me from getting myself fatally injured. Additionally, I know a certain court fae that, if I can locate her, should be able to give us some insight on the protections. I'm going to tell Merlin, too, because I think he should know since he's here."
"And I'll do some investigating on that as well. Take a look in the restricted archives some more. I'll probably make a neater compilation of evidence, as well." Luca added.
"Then I guess this is where we part. Meet up again in a few days?" Selene asked.
Luca and I nodded, bidding Selene goodbye. For now.
ejwalker: Thanks again for pointing out I posted the wrong chapter! I'm glad you liked this dynamic couple's debate. And the world will probably never know how it began, or how it will end. Both sides are incredibly stubborn. But it'll be fun!