Theodulus Aies Olcay I May 22th,20XX

“Looks like victory will be mine, Theodulus.”

I smacked Votric's hand away from me and waited for the agonizing burn of losing a bet to hit me. Losing wasn’t a fun experience in general but when an official bet was made, the consequences were a lot worse than a bad mood.

The more powerful your opponent, the harsher the punishment and while I was stronger than Votric, he was close enough that I knew it would hurt a lot.

What would hurt more than losing a bet to Votric was what losing the bet meant on a larger scale, my mind was heavy and my heart, that old stale thing that rarely even beat for fun, began to hurt. I was disappointed

I waited for the backlash but was kept waiting and realized what that meant.

Votric’s eyebrow’s narrowed as he watched my lips curl back into what I knew was a cocky smile. It looked like that brat hadn’t let me down after all.

“What did I tell you about saying words you would have to eat?”

His naturally amicable face fell into a nasty scowl and he clicked his teeth in disgust, but I was too pleased to confront him on it.

The bet had been simple but had weighed on me like a rock. Votric had bet that my great-grandson would choose to give up his goblin powers in favour of his fairy powers, while I had, naturally, bet against him.

It had been a reckless bet, and not one that I had felt confident that I would win, but I needed him for two reasons. The first was to order Ion to help Aiesbut more so than that, I needed him to willingly come along with me.

Those witches had certainly had their fun scampering around the edges of my empire.

I had yet to receive a proper explanation of why they had given up the child so quickly to the fairies and had even let him get stranded in the human world. But that was an investigation I would have to run later. And I would have to do so in full.

The smile on my face slightly diminished as I watched Votric, my one and only cousin collapsed to the floor from the backlash. Silver blood ran down his chin as he bit his tongue to avoid screaming, and veins popped all around the surface of his skin. His backlash was harsher than mine would have been since he had bet against me, the emperor.

There was nothing I could do to help him, after all, he had made the bet. Reckless as he may be, I knew he didn't make bets that he wasn't prepared to lose. I was confident that he could deal with the backlash.

Blood seeped onto my silver tiles and his nails made indents into the floor but he still didn’t make a single sound.

He must have made another bet in an attempt to offset the effects of the one he’d lost.

It was a ridiculous way of doing things but he had always been slightly, or very insane.

I began to stretch as I waited for him to pass his trials and then summoned the twin goblins into the room.

Ever since their awakenings, they had grown taller and more robust, and power rolled off them in waves. It wasn’t even close to being enough to faze me, but it would be more than enough to bring a few witches to their knees.

“Suit up and bring my riding beast to the front entrance, bring the Cáel boy’s beast as well. We’re heading out.”

They forced their eyes off the trembling Votric, who had now taken to pushing his lips against his palms and biting at his wrists to avoid making a sound. He looked like a beast, but no one would dare say it to him while he was this frenzied.

Not even I was that cruel.

“Your imperial highness. What about the Lair?”

I scowled and restrained my twitching leg from kicking the one that asked into the wall.

Patience Theodulus, patience.

A closer look at the two intimidated cubs showed me that they were only a few decades older than my great-grandson and I was able to calm myself down a bit more.

It wouldn’t do to bully the young.

“Find a group of goblins that you trust and have them come and guard it. You have exactly ten minutes.”

The twins ran off to execute my orders and I sat on the floor, sinking into a light meditation to focus. I could hear the call of my blood in him and had a general idea of his location but I wanted to be a bit more specific. After all, it wouldn’t do to accidentally destroy the building he was in.

I focused and tried to pin down his exact location by feeling around for the scent of my blood, but whenever I tried to get a pin on it, it would ebb away like a wave.

I tried again, and again but the same thing would happen.

The signal would fade in and out erratically, sometimes feeling like he was on the edge of death and other times like he was bursting with vitality.

It was probably a side effect of whatever decision he had made instead of giving up his goblin powers. in other words, He'd gotten himself in trouble again, and I needed to be there for him.

He was my great-grandson after all.

He may have been contaminated by the blood of that fairy, but as long as he didn’t give up on his goblin heritage, then I wouldn’t give up on him either.

Heloise Regalis May 22th,20XX

I fought back the odd feelings that sprung up within me like weeds as I flew through the witches' lands. I knew I had been spotted, but didn’t mind it too much. After all, what could they do about it even if they saw me?

I may have been in rest for a few centuries but that didn’t mean I could be taken lightly. Even though my daughter had been more suited for war than I was, I still took some credit in getting her there. Fond memories of a bright golden cherub whining at my wings that she didn’t want to go to training bubbled up in my mind like the froth on a sea wave and were gone just as quickly.

Belpheobe, that ungrateful child.

How dare she pass before me and how dare she leave my only grandchild in the hands of that useless half breed she had kept as an Aide.

She had never liked to listen to me, even when I told her my suspicions about her aide. And it had come back to bite her in the wings. From the malfunctioning of her transporter to the dislocation of her child. It was clear that Esmeralda’d had a wing in it, and if my grandson hadn't already dealt with her, then I may have lost my temper with her.

And nothing good ever came out of that happening.

While I didn’t approve of the way he had handled her, it was more than enough for a child of his age. In fact, for a child that hadn’t even passed his second decade, it was more than impressive enough that he had managed to do anything at all.

Even Belpheobe had still liked to hang on to the back of her father’s robe at that age. Not that her shyness had never stopped her from trying to secretly follow me to work and mess with my aides.

A flash of rage burned through my mind again as I remembered the reckless way Belpheobe and her useless goblin of a mate had passed away.

I didn’t have much against goblins, but I couldn’t forgive that one for burdening my precious grandson with his blood and taking my precious child away from me because of it.

Aside from laying blame on the goblin I also nursed a grudge against the witches for driving them to such a state and even daring to curse my grandson.

My grandson. The one and only remnant of my precious daughter.

Those filthy creatures dared.

I struggled to keep a hold of my calm as I flew and focused on tracking down my grandson’s magic. I had never seen the child in person, and he had never come close enough to my awakening room for me to have gotten a good look at him, so I could only go off its familiarity to my own.

I considered the potential unfamiliarity of his magic but it didn’t compensate for the oddities in its appearance.

The magic ebbed and bayed like a wave, sometimes feeling incredibly strong, and other times feeling as feeble as a fluttermoth’s inner wings.

I could feel that my grandson was still alive, but that was about it.

I’d felt this sensation only once before in my life, but not nearly as strongly, and it hadn’t been this scary to me.

It only took a second to gather that the boy had decided to try and merge his goblin and fairy sides. But without proper guidance or protection, I feared he would end up like Milo, possessing neither, or even worse would turn into a ball of magic and explode.

I maintained my speed, going as fast as I possibly could when I suddenly felt all signs of the magic cut off and I couldn’t sense him at all.

He was hurt, or unconscious, or both.

My wings began to tear as I sped up even more and flew like a bullet toward the witch’s capital.

I didn’t even know what I was going to do there, but I knew that if I got there and found as much as a single scratch on that baby boy. I would make every witch in that place pay in kind.