Hey hey hey readers! Here's the next installment, some crazy things start happening in this one! I'll get the next one out Tuesday at the latest. Remember to show some love in the form of comments, follows, and favorites!
Descending onto the castle, I was a streak of gold, blasting through the darkness. I touched down right in front of a startled guard. He raised his spear at me, but once seeing who I was, immediately lowered it. "Sir Jeram," he said. "My apologies-"
"None are necessary, friend." I replied, putting my hand on his shoulder as I passed. I quickly ran into the castle, sprinting towards Elsa's room. It had to be late, but I didn't care. This was something that needed to be dealt with right now. Once I had gotten to her hallway, I stopped in front of the white, decorative door. I knocked, not expecting for her to be awake, but, as soon as my hand hit the door a few times, I heard bustling around, her scrambling to get the door.
"One second!" she called from inside of the room. It was another minute before she opened the door. Her eyes widened when she saw me. "Jeram! I'm glad you're back, I thought you weren't returning when we missed you at dinner, and we ate without you, and Anna couldn't stop talking-" I put my index finger to her lips to stop her. She had a habit of going on and on. She looked at me expectantly with those big, baby blue eyes.
"I found something." I said, turning away. The expression on her face fell. "In the mountains. I think it has something to do with our powers."
The disappointed expression on her face was replaced with one of curiousity. "Really? Well let's go!" she enthusiastically replied, whirling around to get her things. She went around the room, picking up things, saying as she went along, "I need this, and this, and this, and- oh! What's this doing here?" She took another five minutes before we were able to finally head out. She started heading out to a side exit.
"Where are you going?" I asked.
She turned around and pointed behind her. "Just the stables, we aren't going to be walking there are we?"
I smiled. "Nope, but we don't need horses either."
Puzzled at first, she then realized out mode of travel. Alarmed, she reluctantly went with me to the outside gates. "I didn't really enjoy this the first time," she said, getting ready to fly.
"Don't worry," I replied, picking her up. "We'll be fine. I've gotten a lot better since the first time I did it."
"Wait, you're telling me when we were getting chased that that flying was just an experi-wooooaaah!" She was cut short as I shot us both hurtling towards the stars. I looked down and saw a perfect circle of grass, contrasting to the snow, of where we had taken off. The fire from my legs must have melted it. I started finding my way back to the plateau where I had been earlier, which wasn't all too hard from it being the only area with grass. We touched down, and I put Elsa down gently. She looked a little dizzy.
"You okay?" I asked, laughing.
She put her hand to her head, then opened her eyes that had been squeezed shut during the ride. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just gimme a minute."
Once she had recuperated, she looked around. "What is this place?"
"I dunno, but I found it when I was walking, and there's something special about these two rocks that are here. When I touched this once with my powers, it glowed until it cracked down the middle. It's gotta be some kind of magic, there's runes everywhere."
Elsa glanced at the cracked boulder, running her fingers over the top of it. Her eyes soon fixed upon the fire emblem that was on it. "Hey this is the same symbol that's on your staff."
"I know." I said. "The symbol of fire magic."
"But there's something different." she added. "There's these two little things in behind it, come take a look."
I walked over and kneeled down as she scooted over. We both sat there, peering at this tiny symbol no bigger than my palm. She was right. There was something different between this emblem and the one on my staff. This one had two crescent shapes behind it, both pointing up, like two thorns maybe? I decided it must just have been decorative. "It doesn't matter." I told her. What we need to do is get you to the other one."
"Why?" she asked. I took out my knife and took her hand. "What are you doing?!" she blurted out, alarmed. She winced as I pricked her fingertip.
"Put some of that on the other stone." I commanded. "It's just how it works." She did as I told her. "Now, freeze the rock."
"Are you sure you know what you're doing? Because this seems a bit sketchy." she looked at the expression on my face and decided that I wasn't joking. With one lunge, she extended her arms, and ice shot up on and around the boulder. For a second, nothing happened. But then, a familiar sensation started to wash over me. A blue light was coming from the frozen rock, pushing both of us back with it's power. "What's happening?!" she shouted over the noise of the sheer mass of power that was escaping to their air around us.
"Don't worry, it ends soon," I called back assuredly. Sure enough, the blinding light subsided into a glow until it had gone away completely.
"What was that?!" Elsa said, befuddled.
"That, was exactly what was supposed to happen." I answered, moving past her to inspect the boulder. She squatted down next to me. A similar crest had popped up during the glowing, but this one was centered around a snowflake, as I had guessed. We must not have noticed the rock cracking because when I moved over to it and melted the excess ice on it, the same kind of gash was in the middle of this one too. Inside the gash, instead of a fire emblem, there was a rune of a snowflake. I stood up from examining it. "Huh. Well now that that's over with, I have no idea what's we just accomplished, other than breaking a couple of boulders."
As if there was a force that just heard me, the ground started to shake. In between the two stones, green light shot up from the earth, arcing through the dark sky. Even more power started exploding in front of us. Once the light returned into the ground, an opening was cut into the mountain before us. We walked over to it. Leading down was a series of old stone steps, carved into the earth many years ago. I tried looking down into it, but could only see the pitch black darkness. There were no torches to be found, but as I stood on the first step, I saw the engravings of the two symbols. I lit my staff on fire as a torch. "Come on," I beckoned to Elsa. "I think we're in the right place." I held out my hand to the frightened girl before me. I looked at her with an expression of comfort. That seemed to help her, and she took my hand as we plunged into the dark.
The tunnel seemed to go on forever. Minding our step on the slippery ground, movement was precarious at best. My torch was only bright enough to give us a few feet of visible distance. "How long do you think this goes?" Elsa asked, still with her fingers laced in mine.
"I don't know, it could go all the way into the heart of the mountain for all we know." That made her cling closer to me. We walked for what seemed like hours, but finally, we came upon an opening. Needing to see what exactly we were up against, I lobbed an extremely bright fireball into the darkness to illuminate the cave. When it lit up, I was starstruck. This place was huge. And when I say huge, I mean it. This thing was massive, as if the whole mountain was hollowed out. We could have taken ten castles and put them in here if we wanted to. But the sheer size wasn't the only wondrous thing about this place. Everywhere, lining the cliff-walls, were millions of pure-white minerals.
"Wow. I've never seen anything so beautiful." said Elsa in amazement.
"It sure is something." I replied, staring off into space. Once I had snapped out of the sort of trance I had gone into, I looked down to the bottom of the cave. The one thing that caught my eye in the distance was an altar, one with a red cloth, candles, and some other white object that I couldn't see from this far away. I nudged Elsa and pointed to it. "Look over there."
"What is that?"
"We're going to find out. Come on." I told her, descending once again down the slippery path. We walked for another good half an hour before we reached the altar, but once we were there, my fireball that I had thrown out in the middle of the cavern extinguished. The only light was from the ominous candles. Elsa went from holding my hand to clinging onto my arm, clearly frightened. My pulse had quickened too, but I wasn't going to let her know that.
"Jeram Igneal." a familiar voice called out from the dark behind the altar. I grasped my staff instinctively, knowing all too well when I'm addressed by my full name that usually means I'm about to get attacked. "The prophecy didn't lie. You did find your way here." My grip slackened. I knew that voice, but it was impossible. No amount of magic could make this so.
"Who are you, what do you want?!" I aggressively shouted back.
A large, floating brazier from above burst aflame, lighting up all around us. A figure came into focus. I started feeling sick to my stomach once I saw who it was. "Im-impossible! You're dead!" The woman standing before me was someone that she couldn't be, one who died in my arms: my mother. Wearing the same purple and black dress she had worn that fateful day of the explosion, she reminded me of what I had done and what I had failed to do.
"But yet I am here, Jeram. I am not your mother, merely a projection of her, conjured by a spell of those more powerful than you have ever seen. I am here to carry out a task for them now." she replied.
"And what might that be?" I asked, still shaken up. I could feel Elsa's scared but caring eyes looking at me, and felt her grasp on my right arm tighten.
The wall behind my mother's projection brightened. I heard a gasp from Elsa. The two crests that had been on the rocks from earlier were also inscribed on the cavern walls, but these were each larger than the courtyard of the castle. Mine still had those two thorn-looking things in the background, making me wonder what they meant. "About twenty years ago, two children were born, each on a solstice. One summer, one winter. They each had powers over the climate in which they were born into, but once was a gift, the other a curse. One's gift wouldn't have even had existed if weren't for the other's curse." She looked directly at me. "When I was pregnant with you, I became terribly ill. Neither medicine nor earthly magic could save me. So, we turned to the Deal Maker. He was an awful creature, one that lurks in the dark corners of the world, preying on those so desperate to seek him out. We made a deal. If I, along with the baby was to be cured, then the child was to be his to do with as he pleased once he had come of age. We were desperate, so we made the deal in hopes that he'd die or forget about you. But he never forgets. He never dies." I didn't like where this was going. I scrunched my eyebrows with hostility, but she continued. "I was healed, and you were born, but it was a hollow victory indeed. When you came out of the womb, you were born with those markings on your arm." She pointed to my right arm, covered in black tribal tattoos, stretching from my wrist, all the way up to my shoulder, and partially onto my chest.
"You said that you had given them to me as a symbol of the crowned prince when I was younger!" I exclaimed frantically, trying to keep a grasp on everything I'd been told in life, which was now slipping through my fingers.
"We lied to protect you, to help you feel normal." She broke eye contact with me. "No child should have to know that they're a demon."
My eyes widened as my knees buckled. I felt lightheaded from what she had just said, my brain trying to comprehend what she had just told me. I sat down, thinking. Elsa was worried as well. What did that mean for her if I was a demon? I stood up and pointed my finger at my "mother". "You're lying!" I cried. "I'm not a demon, I'm a fire wizard!" A ring of white flames erupted around us, almost scorching the ice queen. The projection of my mom had eyes as white as the flames. She was obviously enraged by my defiance in believing her.
"Look at that crest on the wall! What do you think that is?!" she yelled with fury. "That front flame symbol means fire magic, yes, but look at the additions onto the back!"
She was talking about the two pointy thorn-like things in the background. Then it hit me. They weren't thorns. They were horns. I remembered back to my brief education in magic runes, and remembered one important things about those: the symbol of the Devil. The Uber Demon. The second most powerful being for us to ever know about. She was right. I wasn't human. I was a cursed being, that looked like a human, walked like a human, and even felt like a human. But I wasn't. And that feeling was awful. I dropped to my knees, placing my palms on the craggy rock, blinking away tears of disbelief. "You're right." I exclaimed. "It all makes sense now."
Her eyes had returned to normal, and the flames around us had died down. "Actually, you're not a full demon. Only half. That's why you still appear human."
"How does that explain me then?" Elsa asked, her voice shaky with the fear of what she may be. Mother turned to her, and her expression softened.
"You, my dear, needn't worry. You are completely human." I could hear Elsa breathe a sharp sigh of relief, but when she looked over at me, still shaking on the ground, she became worried again. "When Jeram was born, it was the summer solstice, making him the most powerful fire being to walk this earth. Naturally there needed to be a balance to him, a light to his dark if you will. You were born on the winter solstice, as proclaimed by the Polar Mages. They came to your mother whenst she was still carrying you in the womb, and enchanted you with the most powerful spell that they could muster. They gave you the powers over the ice and snow, and all things cold, to cancel out the devil's fire. Yours was the gift."
I got up off of the ground and brushed the dirt and gravel off of my palms. "So what was the point of all this? To tell us where we came from to pit us against each other?"
"Because that'll never happen." Elsa said in agreement.
"Mom" smiled. "Oh no," she said. "That would be far too cruel to put two young people into a fight to the death. No, the sorceress has done her part." Then, she switched topics. "Look around son, what do you see?"
I glanced around the cavern. "Crystals. White crystals."
She smirked. "Your ignorance is cute. These 'crystals' you see are actually ice. Ice of frozen holy water, frozen here over twenty years ago by the Polar Mages. They never melt."
I was concerned for what was coming next. I nodded my head at Elsa, gesturing towards the stairs. "Elsa, run."
"But what about-"
"I said run!" She took off towards the entrance of the cavern.
"The girl's task was to deliver you here. She did that remarkably, although unknowingly. A demon's one weakness is holy water. And for a fire demon such as yourself, this will be especially painful." She said, raising her arms. As she brought them down, the entire cave felt as if it was falling apart. All of the holy ice shards came barreling at me at speeds that I couldn't even comprehend. When the first one touched me, my entire body wracked with unimaginable pain. And I only knew it was going to get worse.