Where The Dead Ones Go Book 1 -Magistracy-

Chapter 17

It is the woman from the pictures.

But something is amidst.

She is...

"Dead, Vivet," Morris said in my mind as he together with the rest of our class look at the woman sitting in a wheelchair staring silently outside the window, "Dead in a sense that her soul is locked away in her mind. She is not, living, no, not in a general sense. This is horrible. Who could subject a mortal to this kind of hollow life?"

It is Syden who voiced our question as he ran his fingers on his head in disbelief, "What happened to her, Zenith?!"

But it was our guest who answered his question, "It was my mother who cursed Lady Zenaira a decade and a half ago."

We all looked at her as she takes a single step forward as if admitting the mistakes of her mother unto herself in front of Zenith, "Whenever the Heavenly King falls in love with a woman, mortal or not, my mother will be surely at his heels. But for whatever reason, he always leaves behind the women he impregnated in the hands of my angry mother."

"And that's exactly what happened," Zenith said in an awfully calm and quiet voice which we never heard from him before, "As with all my siblings and their mothers before us, we are left at the mercy of the Heavenly Queen. Father managed to convince Queen Hera to spare me from her wrath but not my mother. She is cursed to live an empty life until the day she breathes her last the moment I began my transition to teenhood."

Rebie just bowed her head in sadness as Narcine cried out loud in sorrow.

"Zenith..."

The son of Zeus look at Vaski and smiled mockingly, "Happy, Vaski? This is how pitiable I am."

"How can I be happy when my mother is my life?" the son of Poseidon said scathingly at his rival, "How could I be happy when a son has to live through this kind of pain knowing full well that if circumstances were different, it could have been me in your position."

"So you pity me?"

Vaski heaved a sigh and shook his head, "No, Zenith. I feel your sorrow. We have our differences and we can never in our lives come into terms with each other. But your love for your mother is the same as what I have for mine. If there is anything in my power, no, in our emirate's power to help, just tell me and Rebie."

"There's nothing you can do for me, Vaski," Zenith said sadly before giving his bitter rival a grateful smile, "But I appreciate your offer. It's nice to know that your vulgarity has its limit."

The son of the King of the Oceans just nodded silently and looked at the rest of us who are speechless by what we learned.

"I want to help. I want to do anything that I can to right this..."

But Zenith just laughed at Avesa's offer, "Oh really? How can you right something when it's my mother who is in the wrong? Why does she have to accept father's advances?"

"Can someone deny him?" Avesa asked him frankly that made him stare at her speechless, "Even my mother does not approve of him but he forced his way to her. But I am not siding with my mother. I just want to say that someone in her position, she has to do something. She has to defend her honor and it's either she acts or be a laughingstock for eternity."

Zenith just knelt in front of his quiet mother who is not aware of us all in her room nor maybe is aware of the reality at all.

Our classmate rested his head on her lap and cried silently, "Every day we spent together is something that I will forever hold close in my heart for it's the only happy memories I have left of her. As the years went by, I am still the same but she is already far away. I just want her to speak to me again. To tell me that she loves me. Is it too much to ask to be with her again? All these years, I am lonely and forgotten. What would I not give if only to bring back the times when she is with me. I'd rather be not the son of Zeus. If I have to die to get her back then so be it. I just can't live forever like this. I can't pretend in the outside world that I am all right, that I am not carrying this in my heart."

"Zenith," Avesa just cried out his name as he began to bawl his eyes out from sadness.

"I just want to hear her say that she loves me. That she is proud of me. That she will never leave me..."

-0-

"Vivet! Wake up! Vivet!"

I thought I am only dreaming so I keep my eyes shut and push myself to sleep once again but the voice keeps on calling me out.

"Vivet, wake up! He is missing! Taurei is gone!"

Those words forced my eyes open as I groggily get up from the bed that was given to me by Brent earlier for my personal use.

"What?! Since when?!" I asked in my head and received an instant answer.

"Zenith's servants are doing their midnight checks on each and every one of us and they alerted us that Taurei is not in his room after several attempts to make him open his doors."

I quickly changed clothes and put on my jacket as I hurried to my door to open it and true enough, Estelle and Eonia are all running up and down the hallways and banging on the doors of our classmates.

"Vivet! Thank goodness you are awake! Please, hurry to Taurei's room! You might be able to help Asher!"

I looked around and saw Syden still wearing his boxer shorts and a jacket jumping up and down to get my attention.

I quickly followed him and the moment we arrived at Taurei's room, we saw the son of Lytta together with Morris and Avesa.

"I can't find his scent! He must've used the fresh snow from the blizzard to deliberately mislead me!" Asher exclaimed as he sniffs around the room while the daughter of Hera is standing at the open windows leading to the balcony.

She looked at me in panic, "Look, Vivet!"

Avesa pointed at a snow slide still freshly made leading from the second floor of the manor to the ground floor all the way towards the other side of the wall.

"Yeah, this is Taurei's Ice Element, all right," Morris said with utmost surety as he looked at me and nodded, "Remember, Vivet? This is what he used during the entrance examinations?"

I nodded and touch it as Narcine and Rebie burst into the room and headed straight for me and Morris.

"Tell us what happened back at the courthouse, you two!" the daughter of Amphitrite said angrily, "We know something happened back then. He was no longer having a seizure when you returned here!"

Narcine nodded and cried, "He refuses to talk to us for more than a week now. Something is definitely wrong with him but we tried our best to make him speak to no avail. That and he made us promise to hide his condition."

"Condition?! What condition?!"

We looked up and saw the son of Zeus descending from the skies, shirtless and only wearing his shorts while barefooted. Clearly just out from his bed.

"He is having sporadic electrical seizures, Zenith," Rebie said plainly that made the daughter of Persophene gasp at her incredulously.

"Rebie! We promised Taurei not to tell anyone!"

"No use keeping it a secret when he ditched us, that i***t!"

Gala and Eonia joined us in the balcony together with Vaski and Estelle.

"Wait, electrical seizures?" our class president asked Rebie who nodded.

"Yes. He tries to hide it but at times, he will just fall down and writhe in pain and at worse, he will be electrified by arcs of electricity from his body that we don't know where it came from."

Narcine finally broke down as Estelle tries to calm her down, "We begged him to go to the school infirmary but he is getting harder and harder to talk to."

"Wait, I have also noticed in the past few days that he is really acting weird and withdrawn. Awfully quiet and moody," Gala said seriously.

It was Vaski who spoke for his retainer, "He was shutting you two out. That's odd. I for one think that he cares for you and Narcine more than he cares for his own wellbeing."

Syden shook his head as he looks out at the starless skies, "Where in Tierra has he gone to?! He is not the kind of guy who loves outside strolls so late at night like me or Asher. Heck, if Narcine and Rebie won't drag him out of his room, he won't leave it."

"You better tell us all what really happened earlier, Vivet, Morris," Gala pleaded us as I and my companion look at each other, "I can sense it, he is not thinking properly. He is driven by emotions."

Estelle nodded in agreement, "Father is certainly acting weird earlier but I decided not to press him for information thinking it is not that important. But now, this happened."

"Morris..."

The son of Thanatos nodded at me grimly, "We need to find him, Vivet. We have to tell them."

I nodded as he began to share what really happened inside the office of the Second Magistrate.

Taurei's seizures.

The electrical outage.

The owl being brutally attacked by a peacock.

Boreas' words.

"...If you want it all to end, you know where the answers you seek can be found..."

Zenith repeated Morris' words that he heard from the north wind god as Estelle and Gala looked at each other in horror.

"No! Not that place!" the daughter of Aphrodite shouted in disbelief as our close friend summoned an owl and sent it to the sky and she gasped when it headed straight north of us.

"It is, Estelle. He is headed to the Parelthon Glacier!"

Eonia stepped forward and looked at Athena's daughter, "Parelthon Glacier? What is that place?"

"A gigantic mountain of ice located in the north," Zenith said seriously as he landed on the balcony and prepared to enter the manor, "It is said that if someone wants to know the truth about one's past, you must get past the monster who has taken residence there and head inside its depths."

"There, you will find the answers that you seek, if you paid the price," Estelle continued as she calms herself down.

Gala steeled herself and nodded knowingly at the son of Zeus, "But journey too deep and you will be thrown into the past yourself. Or so our elders have warned us."

"Do you three know how to get there?" Rebie asked.

They all shake their heads.

"It is a forbidden place whose exact location is unknown even to the elders of the magistracy. It only appears to those who seek the past," Gala answered her quickly.

Estelle, however, looked at her boyfriend, "Are you sure you can't track him?"

"I can't, he froze all his belongings here to make sure I won't be able to use it to follow him. That sneaky git!"

"Peacock..."

We looked at the High Priestess who stepped forward and gave her handkerchief to the son of Lytta.

"Take this and try again, Asher!"

"What?"

"Just do it!"

He took the handkerchief and take a long sniff from it and his eyes suddenly turned northwards, "Impossible! I can smell his scent now! He is due north near the coast and still walking!"

"Avesa, how did you managed to do it?" Zenith asked but she just shakes her head and turned her back on us.

"I don't know for sure but what I do know is that we need to go after him right now! I will go ahead and prepare my things!"

She then ran as fast as she can as our president and the vice president looked at all of us knowingly.

"Get ready, she is right, we need to go after him right now," Eonia said as she walked away.

"Prepare for the worst, if the Parelthon Glacier indeed exists, then the monster who reside there does as well no doubt about it," the daughter of Athena warned us seriously, "Pack extra clothes, foods, weapons and just everything you can carry. We leave in thirty minutes! Taurei will return to us, is that clear?!"

We all nodded in agreement as we run back to our rooms and grab anything we can use and head out to save our classmate.

-0-

"Man, it's too dark in here. I can barely see my hands!" Syden complained as we traversed the cold forest while following Asher's lead.

Eonia raised her right hand in response, "Guide and lead, shine, flickering fires we will follow your way! Fire Element: Fire Candles!"

Dozens of small fires are released from her hands and surrounded us but it flickered out as quick as it came out.

"Persephone: Portulucas Glow!"

From Narcine's headband, grew several luminous flowers that floated in the air only to be blown away quickly.

"Okay, that's disheartening," Eonia said as she and Narcine looked at me, "Can you try, like the way you did during the entrance examinations, Vivet?"

I nodded and raised my hands above, "Elpis: Revolving Lanterns!"

Swarms of mayflies made of ephemeral light appeared around me and coalesced into floating lanterns that illuminated our way.

"Now that's light!" Morris said appreciatively as he looked above us where Zenith is flying, "Are we there yet?"

The son of Zeus nodded, "Yes, I can definitely see now the gigantic ice structure just a few meters ahead of us. We are nearing the edge of the forest just a few steps more!"

"Any signs of big, strong, and scary monsters?" Estelle asked tentatively as she looked around us alertly.

"None so far but it won't hurt to stay vigilant," Zenith answered as Gala unsheathed her sword and take the lead from Asher.

"I can smell a stench of battle up ahead," she warned but furrowed her eyebrows, "But it's already over. Impossible."

Eonia and Narcine screamed as Rebie and Vaski summoned dozens of boulders from the ground and let it rain from the sky directly in front of us.

"It can't be..."

The retainer nodded at her liege as one of my lanterns illuminated what is in front of us.

Morris quickly took out his scythe as I grabbed my staff on my belt while all of my classmates prepared for a battle when we saw the monster in front of us.

But...

"It's already dead," the daughter of Amphitrite said in a whisper as we gaze upon the still smoking husk of a creature I only saw in pictures during our Mosterology classes.

"A hydra," Avesa said in a hushed voice as she stepped closer to inspect it, "It's not only dead, it is brutally massacred with impunity."

Eonia nodded as she raised her left hand, "Hephaestus: Lingering Fumes!"

Green smoke appeared around her before encircling the body of the hydra completely.

"No weapons are used, no blunt force, nor any signs of resistance," the daughter of the god of smith announced as Gala snapped her fingers.

"Athena: Memories of Conflict!"

We gasped when we saw a short re-enactment of what happened as the snow from the rose to the skies and showed us a gruesome scene.

The monster with its thirteen heads rampaging as a giant peacock appeared and spread its tail magnificently before mutilating the beast that keeps on regrowing its heads faster than it can be destroyed.

Suddenly, a figure of a frail-thin boy appeared from the inside of the peacock and electric arcs were shot from the eyes of the tail obliterating the hydra until it finally died.

"Taurei..."

We looked at Avesa who began to walk again past the corpse and straight to the ice mountain as Zenith landed beside her.

"It is him, these static remnants in the air, it is my electricity he used somehow," the son of Zeus declared as we all followed the two on their way to the mouth of a glittering cave reflecting the light of my lanterns following us, "I can feel my electricity inside. He is in there."

Eonia looked at us all before we enter, "We don't know what will happen if we enter this cave. I am not forcing you all to risk your life just because I have ordered this expedition. I wouldn't think less of any of you if you decide to refrain from entering but as the class president of the Auxiliary Class, I will get Taurei back."

"I am going in. As your second, it is only fitting for me to follow your lead," Gala said with finality as she took a step forward.

"I will drag him out of here if I have to and you will not stop me, Vaski," Rebie said angrily as she began walking but her liege just chuckled and followed her.

"He treated you like family, Rebie so I will treat him just the same."

"I am worried about Taurei. I will make sure he will come back to us safely," Narcine announced as she followed the daughter of Amphitrite's lead.

Asher and Estelle looked at each other and nodded silently, "We're going in. Nuff said," the son of Lytta said as they are followed by Syden.

"Taurei is my man. I won't lose a chatmate in the class. Count me in."

Morris looked at me and smile, "Somehow I feel guilty about him being here, Vivet. I think we must own up to our mistakes."

"Exactly, Morris. He is also helped us back at the examinations, might as well return the favor."

Eonia shed a tear as she bowed in front of us, "I thank you all, now, let's get him back!"