Rey's Heart

CHAPTER 19

You earn to be a queen. You work for it for the rest of your life just because you'll get a crown one day doesn't mean that's where it ends. It doesn't. A ruler learns everyday!

Rey stared blankly at the sky as she recalled the writings in her mother's quotas. She sat outside Ellen's house.

"Why don't you ever want to be Queen?" She asked Renix whom she saw sit beside her, it was just mid morning and as custom, they both knew how much that moment was for them even back home. Some perks of being who she was, was that she could immediately tell who was approaching and if it was someone she knew.

"Because I've never wanted to." Renix shrugged. 

"You have Ren, we were in the same class and I know how much you wanted to learn about the Queen's rule when I took the extra classes."

"Maybe but I was a child, a child who was sometimes jealous of everything you got but I got to understand that everyone was preparing you for your future as Queen and I got used to that and now am proud, proud to be where I am, the position I hold and as your cousin but more than that as  your friend." Renix, the one who always has a way with words stated an honest smile all over her.

"And anyway I can never handle the pressure." She joked and maybe she was right in a way. Renix would rather spend the day at the Royal library, with the Queen or with the AI's but there was one thing Renix wanted to be, to do. She had once expressed her desires to be a guardian but not just any guardian, a royal head one but her dreams had been shattered when Rey was chosen and yet despite that she had clapped for her a smile on her face and said.

'You'll do better than I would have.'

But Rey knew that when her time came, she would change that for her. She would be the one clapping for Renix rather than how it had always been for them.

"You'll serve beside me when am Queen!" Rey said to her and Renix, Rey's words still intact in her sat still trying to process exactly what Rey had said, what her statement meant.

"You don't have to say yes right now."

"No, it's not that, but you know as well as I do what that means." Renix stated. 

"Yes, yes I do. This are my words to you, you've always been my choice because Ren you deserve it." Rey explained to her, a smile on her face she could almost see Renix burst into happy tears but she wasn't done yet.

"But before that, you'll have to become a Royal Head Guardian." She added.

"Rey, I trust that you also know what that means." Renix repeated once again. 

"Yes I do," Rey breathed. To give up her current role she had to take one she had since long refused. One she was not yet bound to. The Crown Princess.

"But I am ready."

"This earth has changed you so much, it's turned you soft, not that you were ever cold." Renix exclaimed. 

"It hasn't changed me, it's made me realise what I have back home. I have two curses living inside me and I don't know if I am strong enough to endure them but this I know, I am Arillia Rey Vasten, the reigning Princess, the next Queen and if am going to make it that far I need to use my voice of reason, I need not to fear anything."

"You are afraid?" Renix reached out for her left hand held it close.

"Yes." Rey blinked, trying to hide away her tears.

"Am afraid that if I don't get to get past this darkness inside me, there will be no place to call home. I won't have a legacy for Octus Nova to carry on." She added. 

"You have the purest heart in the whole kingdom, to ever exist. That's who you are so trust me, you will defeat this darkness, you will live with the curses but be strong enough to bond to them as one so that they will never have a negative impact on you or us. You will live to be Queen, to be married to Eyken, you will live to have a family and you will live to rule our home." Renix said softly.

"Thank you." Rey flashed her a genuine smile but then her facial expressions hardened.

"Someone is still trying to open a bridge in this earth again!" She stood up, so did Renix.

"I've felt it too."

"I need to check the border, something else is terribly wrong." Rey said, it wasn't just instincts or feelings or whatever you'd call it, everything in her was telling her that some place somewhere there was immediate danger and she could not shake that feeling no matter how much she tried.

"I don't have strong instincts like you at all but, but I can feel it too." Rey relaxed at Renix voice beside her.

"Eyken," She called his name softly and right on time, he appeared to her.

"Everything alright?" His concerned face fell on her.

"I'll never get used to that." Renix shook her head meaning Eyken time travelling powers.

"Am sorry but I can't help how my powers work when Rey calls me." He explained.

"Can they do the same for me?" Renix asked him."

"Yes, everyone who I am familiar with, I just get to learn different voices and their paths." He shrugged.

"Okay, you two will chat later but right now I need you to take care of E-."

"Everything okay here?" Ellen cut Rey off as she walked out Haley behind her.

"No, I need to check something but I'll be back, Eyken you are with them." Rey stared briefly at them then she set her eyes on Eyken.

"But," He hesitated a little.

"I'll be fine." She reassured him.

"And I'll be at peace knowing they are well protected, their siblings are not around this morning, so please."

"For you." He mumbled. 

"Thank you." She said softly.

"Here we go," Renix laughed.

"I swear to you, you know what never mind." Rey nudged her, she exactly what her cousin was laughing at, the teasing would never stop, she knew that as long as Eyken was around.

"I love you." He walked to her and kissed her forehead.

"I love you." She said softly.

"I love you too Renix." He winked at her.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've got to go Rey."

"Okay, Ellen, Haley you'll be fine, I just need to make sure of that." Rey said to both Ellen and Haley and as they nodded in assurance she took in a deep needed breathe.

"This way." She gestured to Renix.

"Veey,"

"Am right here with you princess."

"Thank you so much."

She inhaled as they walked further to the boarder, the last time she had been there, there were altercations she choose to not remember, she had brought them all on the people who had given her a place to stay, on a community that had so much to lose on a kind of war that was to come but she had sealed her promise about helping them and there was no going back.

"Rey?"

"Huh?" Rey raised an eye brow turning to face her cousin.

"You okay?"

"Yes am fine." She mumbled but up ahead she could see for herself the distractions her fire had caused, she could feel the blazing anger, the need to fight within the air.

Everyone wanted revenge.

"Can you figure out what it is?" Renix asked as the my looked around.

"It's a human, they are close but we can't see them, I can feel their heartbeats miles away but it's like they are right here with me and yet there is no one on sight." Rey said to her as they both stood short.

"Do you want kids?" Renix suddenly asked, totally drawing Rey's attention to her.

"What?"

"I mean. I know Eyken does, so do you?"

"I-." She scratched her head.

"I mean, Octus Nova needs a heir whether I want to or not." She added.

"But for you, do you want them?" Renix asked honestly.

"Maybe but some day. I do partly because of the kingdom."

"But?"

"But, what if I turn out like mom, what she did with me, she was my mother but to her, her being queen came first." Rey said, there was a glint of anger in her voice. An anger she had yet to resolve.

"I thought you understood," Renix wondered.

"I thought you knew the responsibilities being a queen came with."

"I do understand, I truly do but I needed a mother so many times than I needed a queen." Rey revealed. 

"You should tell her that, there is so much you two need to talk about." Renix said simply and Rey nodded in agreement.

"But am going to be different, I want it to be different for my child not the way it was for me." Rey said softly.

"You'll be amazing." Renix smile at her.

"And you?"

"Do you want kids?"

"I don't have a definite answer for you right now but once we get home, I'll tell you all about it." Renix answered her.

"And about your mysterious suitor?"

"Yes, that to-"

"What is it?" Rey asked, seeing her cousin tense.

"I can feel them too." She said as she reached out into her pocket.

"We should head back, whoever it is, he/she is not from this earth, they don't have that humanness in them." Rey took a brief look around spotting no one, she turned to leave, following Renix who was just a few meters ahead but then like all instincts, she closed her eyes and opened them once more.

She could feel danger from within, she could tell that her eyes had already changed, they had been doing that every now and then, every time to alert her something was not right but for that cause, her heart wasn't hers, it was being consumed by the darkness. That was the only positive thing about the darkness that it could sense things she couldn't but that was just the start because it wanted her to embrace the danger, go after it, it was stronger in her than she wanted it to and yet she did give in as she choose to look, look exactly where her heart was directing her. 

She locked eyes with herself, it was just like as if she was looking in the mirror but the other her, just around the corner she had on a long black dress her hair fully braided, so different and yet the exact same person because the one she was staring at was herself.

Rey swallowed hard, she didn't panic, she didn't do anything but her right hand did. She closed it for just a second and she saw the other her clutch her chest as she struggled to breathe and in an instant she let it go glared at her one more time and then she walked away.

"Who was that?"

As they both walked away Renix asked Rey.

"I don't know but that, that was me!" Rey finally found her voice.

That was not part of who she was enclosed to the darkness because the other her, the dark one lived inside her but it was her, there was no denying that, there was no beating around the bush.

"Vee, I need whatever happens from this moment documented under Aunt Rydell's safe. Make sure no one finds out and that includes the Queen."

There was only one place where secrets could stay buried, where important drives for the kingdom were kept and that's in her Aunt's quotas, it was one of those places with a million safe rooms. It was a family emergency place and no one knew about it except for the royal family members not even Rey's half brother not even her own fiance. 

"Yes Princess, on it."

For whatever would happen Rey not only needed to be prepared but ready, there was not one battle to be won but countless of them, Rey didn't need her grandmother's voice to let her know that because what she had seen with her own eyes didn't need a heart to heart conversation, there was so much at stake already and she was determined to overcome them all.