Ruins And Royalty

A Dark Truth or a Horrible Lie - Chp 10 Part 2

The essence of the night crept through the wide-open window of my sleeping quarters, carrying a cold breeze that stirred the sheets wrapped around my battered and bruised body. Time had slipped by so quietly, each day folding into the next. Prince Zander and the Windane Royals had yet to return to Emperos, and an uneasy weight pressed against my chest. The silence from him gnawed at me, a hollow space where letters and words should have been. Weeks had passed since I sent a message to Yarrow, and not a single reply had come, leaving me adrift in uncertainty.

Yet a letter had arrived for King Goran and Queen Nymeria, just as Princess Izara had predicted. Its seal gleamed in the dim candlelight, promising confirmation of the Windanes’ arrival and a request that I join them for dinner in the Triclinium. The invitation hung in the air like a challenge wrapped in silk. It was formal and polite but charged with expectation.

My mind wrestled with a hundred possibilities. Had Zander forgotten me? Was he angry or disappointed, nursing some silent resentment for my absence? Each unanswered question was a shadow stretching across the chamber of my thoughts. And yet, a flicker of hope remained, fragile as a lit candle, urging me to prepare. To face the Windanes and to confront what I had left unresolved, and perhaps to reclaim the thread of a friendship that felt dangerously close to unraveling.

My mind was scattered, thoughts ricocheting like shards of glass, making it nearly impossible to focus during training. I wasn’t used to feeling so flustered, so frustrated that each step forward felt like wading through molasses. Training was brutal. My bare skin constantly grazing against the sharp edges of the Chakrams, Dayron’s wooden sword biting with every swing.

I dragged myself out of bed, dressing in silence, and made my way toward the Arena for my first session of the day. But as I reached for the door handle, a sudden gust of wind swept through the open window, rustling the leaves of the potted plants and sending the curtains flaring like ghostly wings. I froze, a tight knot forming in my stomach, and pried my hand away from the door.

When the curtains drifted back down, my eyes locked onto a pair of sharp, yellow serpent eyes and a grin that was both dangerous and familiar.

“I thought you were in Yarrow, Druid?” I asked bluntly, pressing my back against the door as if distance could keep her out.

“I was,” she said, her voice smooth as silk, “but I decided to return to Emperos a few days earlier than the rest…” Her fingers trailed along the edges of my room, grazing over inanimate objects as though they held secrets she could read.

“You wear your scars well,” she continued, a strange admiration in her tone.

“What do you want?” I snapped, my agitation rising. I had hoped for more time before encountering her again, but something in the tilt of her head told me she wasn’t here to fight.

“I came to properly thank you for the Watcher’s Eye,” Princess Hyathene said, moving closer, her steps deliberate.

“You can start by giving that amulet back,” I replied, sliding my back further against the door. My hands flexed instinctively, gripping the invisible lines of defense as I studied her, wary of the intentions lurking behind that serpentine smile.

The Princess chuckled softly. “I promised you information, Prince Aaron. I would like to give it to you… if you’re still interested.”

I hesitated. Her words could be a key, but could I trust anything she said at this point?

“I’m listening,” I replied curtly, my eyes narrowing at her.

“The information I have will shatter a wall you’ve built inside your mind,” she began, her voice low and deliberate. “The truth about that day in the forbidden forest… when you returned with the head of a chimera.”

My breath caught, a cold shiver running down my spine as my muscles tensed. How could she possibly know what truly happened? I held my questions for now, waiting for her to continue. Somehow, I knew the Watcher's amulet had a hand to play in it.

“You would not have walked away alive if not for a God or a Goddess allowing it. The chimera’s head? It wasn’t just a trophy. It was a message… to the Council, to the beyond,” Princess Hyathene claimed, her devious smile returning like a serpent coiling.

“How would you know that?” I asked, suspicion sharpened to a blade. “That happened years ago.”

“Indeed,” she said, tilting her head, “but my powers have grown and intensified by the accumulating amulets. I grow wiser and stronger. And your eyes, Aaron… they are the mirror to your soul. With the Watcher’s Eye, I can see everything hidden inside you. Well, almost. That day you should have died but a deity passed through you and it has since never left you. I was able to see you through the eyes of the Chimera.”

“You’re lying,” I snapped, irritation lacing my voice. How could I trust her after the trap in the Woodlands of Solovey? I should consider each word uttered by her as a complete lie. With the watcher’s eye she peered into my pass, yet it didn’t make fully sense. If she’s able to track me through the chimera, why not me directly?

“If you don’t believe me… would you like to see for yourself?” Princess Hyathene asked, her fingers brushing the amulet at her neck, her gaze piercing as a gaze.

“You’re trying to trick me,” I accused, backing slightly. I would not fall prey to her sly games, not again.

“It’s a shame,” she said, disappointment dripping from her tone, the corners of her mouth curling into a wicked smile. “I think we should delve deeper together… uncover what the Gods and Goddesses of Atlas truly did to you.”

“They did nothing to me,” I shot back, anger flaring. “I killed the chimera and escaped the forest myself. Nothing more, nothing less.” I had reached my limit with her games, my patience fraying.

“No one gets that lucky, Prince Aaron,” Hyathene spat, her voice teasing, almost playful. “Someone is interfering.” But before I could even respond, a gust of wind tore through the room. Dark clouds coiled around her, forming from thin air just as they had in the Woodlands of Solovey.

“What-?” I started, but my words vanished into the empty space where she had been. The ominous presence lingered, heavy and unsettling, leaving more questions than answers.

Her warning unsettled me. A trap of her design but it could just as easily be truth.

I paused, taking a moment to collect myself, smoothing the confusion from my face. I could not afford to appear bewildered in public; there were eyes everywhere, and no one could know the storm brewing inside me. Restlessness clawed at me, a gnawing unease that told me this day would test me in ways I wasn’t ready for. The more truths and half-truths surfaced, the more my grip on reality seemed to slip, like sand seeping through my fingers. Yet, no matter the torrent of unsettling information, I pressed forward. My goal remained unchanged.

The Game of the Gods still awaited a champion, and I was determined, more than ever, to claim my place among the deities. The thought of standing alongside the Gods and Goddesses of Atlas was intoxicating, a promise of power that could erase all mortal fears. And yet, with every secret I unearthed, every shadow I glimpsed behind the gilded image of the Game, the perfect vision I had once held began to fray at the edges. Could the reality of what awaited me ever match the illusion I had built in my mind?