Chapter 52

This chapter has been copied from the original and may contain typos and grammatical errors.

~*~

Angus, Marco, and Rufus stood in the king’s office. It hadn’t changed much over the years, but there was another portrait of the king and queen Anwyn and the king. It was a replica of the one painted from when they got married.

The king then had dark hair streaked with grey, now he had grey hair and more lines in his face, but the same unsmiling face.

“Sir, we have news.” Marcus said. They had decided that he spoke the best and would be able to make it sound the best. There was a lot to say, and some of it wasn’t in their best interest.

“I’d hope so, I sent the three of you out to get Lucian back from his posting. Where is he? Why is he not with you?” the king said gruffly.

Rufus stepped forward. “I went to get Lucian from the Islands, as assigned. I found him, told him that it was time for him to come home, and he told me that he had found his target. My grace, he found your heir.”

The king’s eyes lit up. “Where is my child? What about my queen? Is she alive?” he asked in quick succession.

“Your heir is a young woman now, in love with Lucian. He almost didn’t convince her to leave the islands, and she couldn’t bring her whole family. The queen has had three other children, sire.” Marco said. “Lucian, your heir, Gloria, and Rufus left the islands and sailed for our shore. That’s where Angus and I met them.”

“Yes, but where are they!?” interrupted the king.

“They landed in the south, which is under Templar occupation. We were set upon by Templars in the night and- they took your heir and threw her into a river, drowning her.” Marco decided it was best if he didn’t say now that the heir was a witch.

“They will pay for this!” the king pounded on the desk. “But what of Lucian?”

“We were captured by the Templars as well, but we managed to escape. We overheard that there was news of the heir being alive, but being held at a compound. The templars were not forthcoming on where the compound was located, and Lucian slew them all. He decided to depart from us and find where she is, and rescue her.”

The king leaned back in his chair. “My queen is alive. My heir is alive. We are saved. But why did you all come here? Surely only one of you was necessary to come and tell me?”

They looked at each other. “Uh, Lucian told us we would slow him down. So he sent all of us to go ahead.” Angus said.

“Sounds like my boy.” the king smiled.

~*~

Montoya, now going grey, looked at the letter on his desk. It had been a very different 18 years since Anwyn, Romeo, and Liam had left the palace and while he was happy to hear from them, he had hoped he would never have to hear from them again.

They wanted to know how to get to the palace without being seen or detected. He would have to think about it for a while as there wasn’t an obvious answer to their problem.

The thing was, they would be recognized immediately and turned in if anyone else but him took them to the island. They couldn’t have changed that much in 18 years to not be recognized, and if they arrived to save their daughter security would be even higher than it was before. They would have to arrive on the island before the princess, otherwise the king would reject any extra people on the island.

They could stay in one of the staff houses. There was an empty one down a ways from the palace, and the king never went to visit them. He hardly went outside. Montoya could say that they were family insisting on coming to visit him. He could start talking about them now, build up character, then have them arrive. He could even keep the boat at the island for them to leave when the princess arrived.

Or, if they were caught, Liam and Romeo would be killed in front of the princess and Anwyn, the queen would have to live with the king for the rest of her life, and her child would have to rule the kingdom and marry Lucian Blake.

There had always been something a bit off about him. He was willing to do anything asked of him, no matter how… brutal. How a child of the loving Anwyn and Liam could have trusted him was beyond Montoya’s understanding, and he didn’t have all of the information to make a judgment on it.

~*~

Gloria shivered as she put her feet into her slippers. It was freezing now, and she wrapped herself in a thick sweater. She would have to go around her room and make sure that it wasn’t leaking heat rather soon. Even with the ability to make fire at will, she still couldn’t keep the place warm.

She shuffled down the stairs where Seneca for once was in the kitchen making breakfast. Henry wasn’t far away, making sure he could assist if he had to, and Seneca was grumbling to himself about things burning, but he gave Gloria a weak smile when she walked past.

She hurried to sit over by the fire, adding a few more sparks to the blaze to get it to burn hotter.

“Good morning, Gloria. How’d you sleep?” Henry asked. He asked this most mornings, and it was an easy way to start conversation.

“I slept fine, but waking up I was freezing! My toes went numb sometime last night. I need to add more stuffing to the cracks and windows. Light more candles, that sort of thing.” she shivered even as her face started to feel a bit tighter from the heat. She sat back a bit from the flames.

“Our candle supply is running a bit low, no matter how many you make out in the yard. I think I’ll have to make a supply trip. Get more spices, some more food, and definitely more candles.” he smiled. “I’m thinking I’ll leave tonight and be back later this week.”

“Leaving so soon?” Gloria asked. “I wasn’t aware we could leave.”

“He’s been thinking about this.” Seneca interrupted from the kitchen. “And it’s not like we sunk the boat, it’s just sitting out on the dock. We’re here for safety. But Henry isn’t in any danger, so he can leave.”

“You’ll hardly miss me, I’m sure. And I can let the queen know that we're all still alive and doing well. Making friends, even.” he smiled in Seneca’s direction.

“No, don’t do that. She’ll be- you know how my mother will be-” he stammered.

“Relax, it was a joke. If she asks about the two of you, I’ll say you’ve hardly spoken to each other. I doubt she’ll question that.”

Seneca rolled his eyes and focused on not burning the food further.

As Henry left that night, Gloria and Seneca looked out over the water to the mainland. It had been two weeks since the full moon, so there was no chance they would be having shared dreams tonight.

It was unseasonably warm, and the stars shone beautifully. It had been a while since she had stopped to look at them, so she found a grassy spot and laid down.

“The moon settles… in a dusty sky…. The gentle eyes of the north star rest upon your sleeping face.” she quietly sang to herself.

Seneca walked over to her. “Why is it that I’m always asking you to tell me what you’re up to?” he asked with a grin.

“It’s a song my mother sang to me as a girl.” she smiled. “It’s about a child not being from this earth but instead from the stars.” she rolled her head to him. “It always gave me great comfort.”

“Another song about a refugee?” he asked as he settled onto the ground. The sky wasn’t as dizzying as it was in dreams, but looking up into the dark and unknown scared him.

“It’s not about refugees.” she paused, “There’s a lot about me you don’t know.” she said.

“We’ve got time if you want to enlighten me. I have nowhere to be.” he said snidely but interested.

“The king isn’t my real father.” she started.

“I know that.” he replied bluntly.

“But what you don’t know is that my mother was shot as she was fleeing from the king’s men and died on the way to the Islands.” Gloria said as Seneca eyed her suspiciously. “She was pregnant with me at the time, but we arrived at the Islands and were restored by a priestess and her wife. I have been special since birth, and there’s never been an explanation as to why. So I am my mother’s ‘celestial child’ she’s always afraid will leave her and rejoin the stars.” She waved her hands at the sky dramatically. “I even had a prophecy told when I was born.”

“Really?” he asked, intrigued. “Do you remember what it is?”

“I wasn’t even told about it, I found it while looking for a book one day. I must have been fifteen at the time or so, I think I had just met Blake a few months prior.

“It goes: There will come a soldier, who carries a mighty sword. He will tear down your doors but you will be happy when he comes.

There will come a poet, whose weapon is his word. He will slay you with his tongue, a trickster to be sure.

There will come a ruler whose brow is laid with thorns. He will be your rival and greatest danger in this world. I assume that the soldier is my father, who joined us at the Islands. He was a guard in the King’s Palace, so soldier isn’t that far off. But I don’t know who the poet and ruler are. The ruler can’t be the king, he’s hardly my rival.”

Seneca picked pebbles off the ground and threw them towards his feet. “Lucian Blake is a smooth talker, from what I’ve heard. Krista has met him on a few occasions, years ago. She said his eyes were like those of a shark, cold and unshifting, but that he had a silver tongue. Maybe he’s your poet. He’s certainly tricked you.”

“Blake didn’t trick me, I loved him.” Gloria said softly. “I loved him without thought.”

A shooting star caught them both by surprise, streaking fast and beautiful across the sky like a distant spark, but then they lay in silence.

“I haven’t been loved by anyone.” Seneca said quietly.

“That can’t be true.” Gloria assured half heartedly. She had seen the people he lived with, how they used him for his bloodline but didn’t care about him otherwise.

“It is. No one has ever loved me. Henry gets along with me, my mother treats me like an ornament, a key to be kept behind glass that can’t be used until the crucial moment. Barnabus has always been hard to me, and his wife is too busy to care for me. I barely know anyone else. Krista hardly knows me, she can’t truly love me, but she wants me to share her bed. And I can’t stop myself.”

Gloria reached out for his hand, trying to calm him down. He pushed it away, continuing. “I want to please everyone, but I don’t want to be their puppet. I want to love, but I can't get attached. I want to feel wanted, but no one wants me, and as soon as Krista does I fall over myself trying to make her happy.

“So when I met you in my dreams, I had a new outlet. Someone to build an entirely new personality around and I blew it! I tangled you into my reality and you’re caught in my mother’s strings like the rest of her puppets. She says I was born to rule the kingdom, what kingdom? Welcome to my empire of dirt, Gloria! There’s nothing here to be proud of.” he voice caught.

Gloria took his hand and stood up, pulling him up with her and wrapping him in a tight hug. His breathing was uneven and his eyes were turning a bit pink. “Seneca, my mystery boy, you are worth loving. You are more than your mother gives you credit for. You are more than Barnabus can shape, and you are no less than Henry.”

He stayed in her embrace for a while. He couldn't recall ever feeling this supported. The warmth he felt from her not only physically but emotionally was immense. He leaned against her, and he wrapped his arms around her shoulders.

“You’re the most enchanting person I’ve ever met, Gloria. Thank you.” he said into her shoulder, pulling away. “I’m going to make dinner, I’m hungry.”

“We already ate dinner.” she said, confused.

“But I’m hungry.” he responded.

“Well let me cook, you’re awful at it!” she said, jogging to the door.

“Not if I get there first!” Seneca shot off running towards the door, laughing.

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