Cursed By The Gods Book 1 and 2

Chapter 24

Garius walked up to the tower where he knew Octavius would be. It was noon and the sun was high, there was a hint of cloud far away in the horizon marking the nearness of the raining season. Octavius was leaning against the high wall of the tower without his robe, his knee length tunic blowing in the wind and the only accessory marking him as royalty was the gold band that circled his biceps. Garius walked closer until he was standing a few feet behind his prince.

“What are you doing here, Garius?” Octavius asked.

Garius marveled at his accuracy even when he hadn’t looked to see who it was. Were you expecting me then?”

“You smell like sweat and leather. Wasn't hard to know it was you.”

Garius laughed. “I’ll take that as a compliment, Your Highness”

Octavius looked back once. “It is. It means you are hardworking. Lazy men smell like women and food.”

Garius laughed again. “That should be most of the soldiers in your army and I dare say Angus once fitted into that category.”

Octavius joined him in laughing. Garius walked until he stood side by side beside Octavius. He looked down at the village, at the people who moving about talking to each other at the top of their voices, it was so loud it was a wonder they could hear themselves at all. Gustoff, now old and bent was leading some young boys who carried bags of what looked like spoiled tools and weapons, the youngest one at the back carried two blackened pots and a pan. On another side there were priests who were pulling sheep and goats towards temples all in preparation for the crowning ceremony.

“Your Majesty is overseeing the preparations, I see.”

Octavius started. “What?’’

Garius pointed in the direction of the priests. “Those animals are for sacrifices for you, Your Majesty.”

“Oh.” Octavius’s mind had not been on the people, he had not even been watching them. His eyes had been on the horizon, watching the clouds and wishing he could wrap his hands around the neck of a certain insane woman and squeezing hard. He had come up the tower to summon her but of course she would never show herself to him in public unless he was publicly sacrificed to her and but she didn’t want that, she wanted him to secretly be her w***e. She was going to be at the ceremony, he knew that but he didn’t want it. She definitely knew Emilia, she was a goddess after all, but to have the both of them in the same place? He didn’t think he could handle that.

He resigned himself to the fact that he would have to crawl on his knees to Mount Kpamos to sell himself to Ashterah and that was enough trouble, having the woman that would own him and the one who owned his heart at an event that was supposed to be memorable for him was like driving the guilt far into his heart so in a bid to make agreements to Ashterah that if he gave himself to her she would be absent at his coronation he had come up the tower. He couldn’t go to the temple because he knew people would be there offering their sacrifices and the temple hands will be there to keep the temple clean, if they saw him shouting and venting his anger at Ashterah’s statue they would be curious and he didn’t want that.

“You don’t seem very excited, My Prince,” Garius observed. He was watching Octavius closely.

“I am excited,” Octavius lied, he seemed to be doing a lot of that lately. “Just not prepared.”

Garius scoffed “If there was anyone who is more prepared for the throne of Camelorn it is you. You were born for it and everything you have studied as a child to this very moment had prepared you for that throne.”

Octavius took a deep breath. “I don’t know Garius.” He took another deep breath, took a moment to think and decided he could trust Garius so he dug out the now wrinkled paper he had taken from his father’s hand on his death bed “Before my father died he said something about a prophesy, he wouldn’t elaborate much, I don’t even think he knew much about what he was warning me about. Before he died, though, he wrote this and I found it in his hand the morning he died.”

He opened the paper carefully and showed it to Garius who squinted at it, he mouthed the words carefully and as he did his bushy brows furrowed.

“You found this with your father?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“You never said anything about this, Your Highness.”

Octavius shrugged “I didn’t think it was important then. Besides, if father had wanted anyone to see it he would have spread it out and not have addressed it to me, at least I think he did because I as the last person to see him before he died.”

Garius studied the paper well, even turned it over as if looking for something important on it, something that would solve the question: What was King Philip all about?

He read the sentence once more before handing it to back.

“Your father was either just concerned for you or you could be right, it could be something else.”

Octavius tucked the note back into his pocket. Whatever the note meant time will reveal, prophesies never die. In time the prophesy will unveil itself and however way it came he would deal with it.

“What you did with Festus is good.”

Octavius c****d a brow.

“Sooner or later he was going to be replaced by someone else. Angus is the best replacement for a man as proud as Festus. News got out that he accused you of having something to do with your father’s death,” Garius threw a sympathetic glance Octavius’s way. “I am sorry about that, my prince, the gods only knows what other things he may have said if you had not thrown him out. Even worse, what he would have done if you had not stripped him of his authority.”

“Festus never liked me- or you, you know that as well as I do, Garius. He always thought I was too privileged to be a prince and the next in line to the throne. His hatred for me is more than my picking you over him.”

“It is.”

When Octavius’s head snapped around in astonishment Garius grinned. This was something no one else but he, Garius and King Philip knew about.

“Festus’s father once tried to kill your grandfather for the throne. They were friends and your grandfather was the only child of his parents. If your grandfather had died Festus’s family would have ascended the throne, especially if no heir was born again. I only know this story because your father told me but even I think there is a lot more than that to the story.”

“Father never mentioned this.”

Garius shrugged “He doesn’t speak much about it. Festus probably still feels cheated but that is his problem…”

“What if he killed father?” Octavius interrupted. It made sense that Festus would try to make him feel guilty about something if he had a hand in it.

Garius shook his head slowly with a grin “He didn’t. I know that. Your father, as Festus rightly pointed out died slowly and from something else entirely. But,” he clasped Octavius on the shoulder “My lord, you should not trouble yourself about this, the big day for Camelorn is a few days away and Camelornians are making preparations to have you as their king. Concern yourself about those you’ll have at your back serving the people with you and while you are at it prepare yourself to make an heir with your wife, an heir who will take over when you are gone.”