FATED DESTINY

Chapter Three ; Secrets &Shadows

Elias Returns to His Realm

The veil tore, not by a noise, but in a soundless tear, as as glass parting. Elias stepped through.

His feet struck hot earth which had been gold. The place of music and light gave way to silence. The trees, old, arrogant, centuries-old guardians, were skeleton-like. The black branches curled them upwards like withered hands that beckoned at a mercy which only answered no longer.

Snow-like ash blew down in aid of broken pathsway and withered roots, and falling on the ground was like a snowdrift. The heavens themselves no longer acted so as to be called sky, it was a dome of grey that only slightly trembled as though it were trying hard to breathe.

Elias stood still.

This was his kingdom.

This was his shame.

A slow breath escaped him. The magic was winding round his bones, and, toned down, weak, it was as much as possible that the land was repelled by his touch. When he had experienced infinity here. Vainly, every drawn breath was a memory of everything that was broken.

Onward he came, cloak trailing on dust, and bones of flowers, which once grew in colours too bright be the human eye, His foot had brought him all the way to the Heart Tree.

Or what remained of it.

At one time, this had been the crown jewel: a great tree, the bark of which was bound with gold and the leaves of which sang. Its origin was spread throughout the kingdom uniting the Realm by the light. Now it was empty, burnt, the trunk of the trunk collapsed inwards.

Elias laid a palm against the bark which was destroyed. It cracked beneath his touch. Rage. Grief. Guilt. His three-faced trinity that is unholy.

He did not want it to swallow him.

Cliff planning: The statue of his great-grandfather, still on the erect sworn as high as ever, guarded the shoreside temple. A symbol of unity. Of balance. Elias grabbed to the ground of the sculpture.

It crumbled.

Stone, too, gets tired of it.

And even with ashes and destroyance he sensed her.

Faint. Like the memory of a song. Isabella. Her caress still lingered in him, like a fire in the darkness, obstinate. She whistled at his periphery like a fiber connecting her to him whether he liked it or not.

The curse did not allow peace. Yet she had made him forget. If only for a moment.

The Hall of Echoes was there before him hewn of the cliffs, old and grave. Elias walked in and his steps were heard striking the polished centuries-old stone. Pillars sprang up like a skeletal guardian, hacked with a rune, which slightly glowed as he went, recognising his blood, but growing darker at the same time, as though without the confidence to recognise him.

Here his forebears had been dominating, here treaties had been made, here law had been made like hymns. The hall was now empty, like shadows.

He removed his cloak. His stripes had scars on his back and ribs, which were faintly glowing, the ritual burns, traces of old fights, traces of a failed deal.

He was the Alpha King.

He was the Cursed One.

He was the word that no one dared utter.

The Curse and the Council

His curse was the child of treachery, of an insulted goddess. It was not his lot, but blood ties generation to generation. The curse struck him when the very strand of his blood-line fell upon his cradle.

it grew with him, and nourished in him, and took a second soul.

He was not older than his twenty-second winter; he was not able to sleep or love. All efforts of happiness went to ashes. But worst of all his people rot with him.

There were rumors of Gipsying, which were burned in the archives, the Wounded Wolf, and the Girl of Light, a mortal mate who should heal the curse. But prophecies were stories.

Still, Isabella’s touch, No. He forced the thought away.

The great doors groaned open. The Council entered.

Crimson-veiled vampires, with cold hungry eyes. Fae covered with starlight, looks immortal and and entertains. Chameleons in plain clothing, tribal tattoos undulating on the flesh. And witches, clothed in darkness, without uttering the slightest sound.

Elias stood. “We begin.”

A vampire elder spoke. “The balance is failing.”

The youngest witch said: The Veil is tearing. Creature crossed, things that ought not to be.

A fae lord scoffed. “Humans remain ignorant. Their world will sense the violation first.

Here the corruption begins, grouded a shapeshifter. “In your kingdom, Elias.”

His jaw tightened. “Say what you mean.”

A broken link you are, said the witch. The curse spills in the Realm.

“And what do you propose? That I die? That you crown one of your own?” Elias asked.

Silence. The feudal lord smiled, and spoke as with a voice like poisoned silk: It is time the Realm might have a new monarch.

Elias did not flinch. “I welcome war.”

Echoes of the Golden Era

The room was throbbing with uncomfortableness. The littering of the Council fell after him. Let them dream of crowns. Nobody had a clue of what real power was.

But he remembered.

Memoirs of his grandmother, the Golden Age. Before the curse. Before the gods grew silent. Where light shot the domes together, different and the same.

Elias went down the Caverns of Memory under the cliffs. In the middle was a black stone, polished, antique, breathing history.

He placed his hand upon it. It thrummed beneath his palm.

A flash. The cavern vanished.

He stood in memory.

The air was golden. Shining with the Radiance of Leaves The Heart Tree opened. Wolves were seen dashing in fields. Stories of flame were exchanged by vampires and fae. Both beast and man Shapeshifters danced. Witches scribbled up blessings against the fireflies. Its sky was extensive and shaded in colours inexplicable by the artist.

The single Kingdom had lived, complete.

Elias shut his eyes with ache in his heart.

The vision dimmed, expiring light oozing. The curse was touching him, reminding him that this was just a memory.

At its dissolution he knelt and laid palm to cold stone.

He gave himself a moment to hope.

He rose.

Supposing the oracle had been fulfilled, assuming that Isabella was not a mere coincidence, perhaps the Realm could be rescued.

But hope was dangerous.

And Elias, already broken.