16 | ACT I, SCENE XVI

P R E V I O U S L Y

I clenched my fingers around the ruby studded hilt of my sword, Seraphine, preparing to go to Steffith at once to investigate. I needed answers and I needed the truth.

HARTINGTON CASTLE, ALNWICK, STORMHOLT.

ERIC

"VERONA? VERONA!" I CALLED OUT, roaming the corridors of Tristan's castle.

"I'm telling you, Eric. She'll be just fine. Worrying so much is not good for your health," said my father Eros from beside me, giving a wise nod.

We were both looking for Amphitrite's and my daughter, Verona. As the youngest goddess of Endollon, she was still discovering her powers - making her vulnerable to immortals who might have wished to hurt her.

Yet without any definite purpose in life, she had an absent minded tendency to wind up roaming in Tristan's library for they both shared the same love of books. Even though she was just seventeen, Verona still had the silly behavior of a highly amused baby rabbit learning about the world around itself.

My lovely daughter was a piece of my heart. I could not bear the thought of anything happening to her, or my wife, Amphitrite. Or my sister, Vanessa. My father too, I held close to me. The only one missing was my mother, Erida. She had disappeared since fifty years, the night she took a trip to explore Vezort Island with two of Cosmo's children.

That was the last time I'd seen her.

"You don't know, father. Amphitrite will be mad if I don't find Verona before lunch. She needs to eat!" my pace increased and worry clouded my thoughts.

Where was my daughter?

Amphitrite wasn't feeling well since three days, so I winded up booking an appointment with the god of medicine for her. It wasn't safe for her to go alone, so I would accompany her. But none of us was ready to leave until I made sure Verona was alright. For that, I had to find her in this maze of Tristan's castle first.

"That's not right, goddammit. You tricked me, uncle Tristan!" A high pitched wail hit my ears from the nearby corridor, and I jogged quickly towards the voice, a smile turning up my lips. I reached out to open the nearest room.

Sure enough, it was Tristan and Verona hovering over a chessboard, the black having clearly won the round.

"That's how my brother lost all his friends!" Llewellyn roared with laughter, grinning at the mutinous expression on my daughter's face.

Verona had the same golden hair as me, yet Amphitrite's light blue eyes. She was a piece of both of us. At the moment, her golden curls were tumbling down from her braids as she gave us all a playful yet murderous stare.

"I didn't trick you, I betrayed you. Trick makes it sound as if we share a playful relationship," Tristan grinned sheepishly, with a smug smile on his face, ducking as Verona threw at cushion at him.

The cushion toppled over a bottle of ink, making it fly to the far end of the room, and then hit me straight in the face, staining my cheeks and hair a dark blue. Tristan and Verona collapsed in howls of laughter, high fiving each other as Llewellyn sauntered to me with a silly grin.

"Looks like someone needs to lick you clean, cousin," he laughed, forcing a smile out of me as I stared down at the ink sopping down my nose.

"It looks like your snot is blue in color," Verona giggled hysterically, making Tristan spit out the water he had just drunk.

"Please. You know I look lovely," I scoffed indulgently. Once, when Verona had been young, she'd tried to paint my eyelids with her mother's lipstick. Amphitrite had come back home to find half her cosmetics missing, horrified.

"Lovely? Of course," Tristan muttered darkly. "I'd sell your soul to the devil for one corn chip," he said slyly under his breath, making Llewellyn and Verona go off into uncontrollable laughter again.

"Come on, young lady," I chided indignantly, tugging up my daughter gently. "I've been looking for you since hours, at least you could tell me before you decide to wander off?"

"But I was having fun, father!" she protested.

"Sure, losing five rounds of chess might be fun for you," Tristan rolled his dark blue eyes, trying not to smile.

"Next time, I'm going to carve out your pretty pinecone table if you don't let me win, uncle," Verona pouted. "That'll be a lot of fun."

"Stop calling me uncle. Makes me feel old," he grumbled, rubbing his temples and pouring out a glass of wine. "And as a matter of fact, this table is made of rosemary. I sculpted it myself just three hundred years ago," he said proudly, looking rather pleased with himself.

"Of course," Llewellyn smirked. "Next you'll be saying that you sculpted the chamber pots too," he said self assuredly, and this time, we all laughed while Tristan looked at us darkly, muttering something under his breath.

"No one likes my Castle," he scoffed, as I insistently pulled Verona out of the room against her protests.

"Now come home and have your lunch, Ronnie. I need to go out with your mother in the afternoon," I growled.

She gave me a mutinous stare and marched away with Eros at her heels, nose high in the air.

I was thinking of getting back home. Amphitrite and I would leave for Vertgate in the afternoon, another one of Endollon's Kingdoms. Vertgate was the seat of House Emmerson. Cosmo's children - Atherton and Cymbeline - were the heads of House Emmerson. Yet in their absence, their children, Vivian and Rosalva were the ones who ruled over Vertgate, keeping its peace and security.

Being the gods of medicine, healing and childbirth, I hoped either Vivian or Rosalva would be able to make Amphitrite feel better, relieving her of her sudden discomfort since the past few days.

"You look upset," I said to Tristan, whose smile had dropped, eyes darkening as the frown he always wore made its way to his marble brow again. Brooding over his glass of wine, he sighed.

It had been good to see him laugh again after so many years, but seeing him so sad always made me think that the pain he suffered after his sister's death would never leave him.

"When I asked if my day could get any worse, it wasn't a rhetorical question," he told me.

"What's wrong?" I asked carefully, trying to make sense of his expression. His black hair kept on falling over his face, hiding his eyes.

"I'm married to a nightmare of a woman, Eric," Tristan hissed angrily. "She manages to get on every last one of my nerves."

"She's your wife, cousin. And speaking of Edwina, where is she?"

"It's not like I know," Tristan got up, his face white, eyes shining with unconcealed anger. "It's not like I care."

• • • • •

CALCHESTER CITADEL, STEFFITH.

EDWINA

"Your Grace!" an attendant boomed helpfully as I firmly pushed open the bronze doors at the entrance of the Citadel, fuming.

My father in law had threatened to rape me if his son didn't.

I was not disgusted, I was more than disgusted. I positively loathed Apollo and his sick, perverted ways, I could not string together any amount of words to express how desperately I hated him. I wondered how Tristan put up with such a filthy goddamned bastard and live in the same castle as him.

"Your Grace!" came the attendant's voice again, running at my heels as I purposefully strode across the throne room of the Citadel, my eyes fixed on the staircase to the room where we had spent our wedding night.

I swore to the heavens that I would find the piano which had been mysteriously playing that night, and I would go and dump it right on Tristan Valmont's smug face.

It was mid morning, and almost completely isolated at the moment. All the elder gods used to live in the Citadel - consisting of Cosmo, his children, and his siblings. But now, Cosmo and Titania were gone. Emerick and Justaline, his siblings, lived in Allington with the rest of the Rotavelles. Cosmo's eldest born - Helios and Nyx - owned a private mansion in Steffith. The youngest, Atherton and Cymbeline, were missing since their trip to Vezort.

Which left Cosmo's middle born children, Thanatos and Ambrosine, as one of the very few gods who lived in the Citadel.

"Edwina!" I heard Helios call out from behind me. "What's going on? Why do you look like one of the steam mills you used during your Monarch Trials?" he joked cheerfully, his golden face happy and glowing.

"I'm on official business here, grandfather. If you could step aside, please."

"But-"

"-no buts. I have work to do," I growled, gritting my teeth and walking past him with a murderous expression on my face.

Steam literally curled up from my clenched fists, white hot and burning, causing every person within a twenty meter radius to automatically step back from me as I climbed up the stairs to the room, now automatically innocent by daylight.

"If I may ask-" Helios began, but stopped immediately, gulping as he looked into my cutting glare. "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be at-"

"-clear the floor," I snapped, turning the knob of the door to our wedding room, bracing myself as the commotion started again due to everyone gathering around.

"But your Grace, the room-"

"-clear the damn floor!"

Helios looked at me suspiciously, scratching his chin. He was the only one still glaring back at me as I stared at him. Then he slowly shrugged and his expression returned to normal.

"Do as she says," he said finally with a smile. I relaxed and opened the door to the room, before turning back to the people looking up at me from the floor below.

"Secure the Citadel. No one enters this room in the next one hour, is that clear? And anyone leaving the Citadel will have to answer to me," I hissed murderously, and a tongue of flame shot up to ten inches in the air from my hand to demonstrate how serious I was.

And when I caught the person who had been playing tricks that night, by god - I would teach them the meaning of punishment.

"Have the builder of the Citadel sent up to me," I uttered finally, before closing the door behind me and turning to the previously occupied wedding suite.

The room was well maintained, now empty seeing that everyone else had their own chambers. The bed was smoothed over, sheets folded neatly, yet the red velvet drapes across the huge windows were iced with dust. The furniture was still there in place, yet the room was lifeless and dead cold.

And my instincts told me that somehow - something - it had changed here.

I paced about, looking or feeling for anything out of place. I even checked the walls for any sliding doors, then went over every drawer and cupboard. And yet, I could find nothing strange. I'd been hoping to find something out of place to get a clue as to who the woman was or what she had been looking for. Then I heard a knock at the door.

I casually opened it by an inch, my hand resting suspiciously on the knob to reveal a lean youth with twinkling eyes and a cheerful face.

"Yes?" I asked.

"I'm Adam, Queen Edwina," said the man with a deep bow after clearing his throat. "The man who did the most recent rework on this Calchester Citadel," he beamed proudly, before doing a double take. "I - isn't this the room you spent your wedding night in? Uh, I'm - I'm sorry," he said condescendingly as an afterthought.

"Hmm," I exhaled sharply, trying to rein in my temper. Then I sighed and let him in.

"I heard you required my services, your Grace?" Adam asked cautiously, sensing my peevish mood.

"Well, for starters, you can tell me who lived in this room before the King and I spent the night here."

"This room was left empty since a long time, your Grace. Its last occupants lived here millennia ago," he rattled off quickly.

"And who exactly were these occupants?" I inquired curiously.

The color left Adam's face in an instant.

"The - the last ones to live here..." he stuttered failing to meet my eyes. "The last ones to live here in this room... it was Zadicus and Pandora, your Grace. The oldest Titans."

• • • • •

Things are gonna go down. The next few chapters will be focusing on three different points of view - Eric, Edwina and Tristan! I'll be breaking them into parts to show that they happen at the same time, but I hope it's easy to understand. Please vote if you like this, people! Don't be a silent reader, I love to talk to anyone who reads this! Until the next chapter, bye bye!