Chapter 13 - Terrakinesis: The ability to manipulate land

Janes' POV

I couldn’t believe my eyes, our ship landed at the coast early in the morning, I watched from the sails, you could see the capital of the Vale; Luminous, it was built in thick browns I almost couldn’t see an inch of green anywhere, in the center of it all sat a giant pyramid the sides were smooth and they spilled into the vast city below.

I stood next to my father as we walked across the pier to shore, I was worried in front of us stood their army, they lead us through the town, children ran in front of me kicking rocks and chasing each other, the adults stood off to the side whispering about us, no doubt who we were and what we wanted here. I looked back to Con and Edur as they took in the vast landscape, Edur smiled while Con gave me a reassuring nod. As we inched closer to the pyramid my heart raced, the huge opening in the center lead us into a throne room, the whole room was pale and filled with shining objects I was blinded, in the middle on an elevated platform sat the queen, her dress was white and her hair was almost white as well, I could see her rich caramel eyes even from this far away, she barely glanced at me before resting on my father. “The King of Darkwell I presume.” Her voice was powerful and as light as the atmosphere yet as dense as the pyramid itself. My father bowed.

“Yes, your grace.” She motioned with her hand and a man stepped forward, he looked like a knight yet the way the queen and he looked at each other made me realize he was the prince.

“Hopefully you prove to be a worthy opponent.” My father and I exchanged a glance before someone grabbed my father’s arm to lead him away.

“Excuse me?” My father asked as I tried to step between him and the guards.

“Don’t make this more difficult child.” The prince said, I glared at them both.

“He is not fighting anyone,” I said, my arms were grabbed, my anger flared and I kicked the guard in the shin.

“Restain them and bring them to the arena.” The queen said, I looked back at Con and Edur who looked just as confused as me. Edur tried to take out his daggers and they tied all three of us up as my father was led away.

“Hey!” I yelled, “Unhand him!” I yelled, we were tied to chairs and carried to a huge arena, I felt nauseous. Diomedes must have already gotten to them, now they were going to kill us, but like hell, I was going to let them kill my father, the King of Darkwell. The arena was laid out before us, the prince stood in the middle as my father was brought out.

“We will duel before we speak.” My father blocked the prince's jab, I was already burning out of my ropes, I stood and punched the guard behind me, Con stood as well, they must not have tied him well, I nodded to Con as he went to untie Edur and I jumped into the arena.

“Excuse me!” The queen yelled, and my father and the prince turned to see me run to them, I lit my sword on fire and pushed the prince back, and my father and I circled him.

“I don’t understand, are you lined with Diomedes, why not just kill us?” My father asked.

“What are you talking about?” The prince asked Con and Edur ran over to me, we were surrounded by their army, and while I wanted to mow them down, Con grabbed my arm to stop me, the prince stepped back and the queen stepped forward to my father.

“You need to control your guard.” The queen said, angrily pointing at me.

“That is my daughter.” My father said, and the guards dropped their weapons from my throat.

“Apologies.” The queen said, I shook my head.

“What do you mean?!” I yelled, “If you are not with Diomedes, then why throw my father into a duel?!” The queen looked confused.

“It’s customary for different rulers to duel before speaking.” The queen said, with a huff. I laughed.

“Are you serious?!” I yelled again, “I’ve never heard of this custom anywhere else in South Heaven.”

“It’s what we do here.” The prince said.

“You could have warned us,” Edur said.

“I’m very sorry, I just thought you would understand.” The queen said, I was about to yell more before Con held onto my shoulder.

“I guess, we’re sorry for not knowing your traditions.” My father said,

Cons' POV

The queen looked embarrassed, as Jon and she exchanged apologies, the prince had led the army away. “I figured you two we’re from the Vale.” The queen said, all eyes turned to me, and Edur, the queen gestured to her hair when she got no response.

“We don’t know,” I said, the queen narrowed her eyes on us.

“I must invite you all to stay with us, while we discuss your terms for coming here.” We followed the queen back into the pyramid. Edur immediately ran to eat all the food, while the prince and queen led Jon away to talk. I half expected Jane to follow but she grabbed my arm.

“Want to go look around the city?” I nodded slowly.

“Sure.” We linked arms as we were led out of the place but a few guards, Jane stood out a lot, her red hair and green eyes looked so foreign here with everyone being blonde, Jane put up her hood, after a while to stop us for looking so suspicious, we walked down the straight rows as I pointed and explained what things I recognized from my reading, their market stalls, houses, and businesses. Jane wanted to go into any place she saw the Vale flag from our vision, and they were everywhere. We met a nice couple who made pots, and two women whose daughter took to Jane immediately.

“You two are a lovely couple.” One of them commented, I blushed.

“No, we aren’t together.” She frowned.

“I’m sorry, I just thought maybe this was her first time at the Vale I’ve never seen her before.” I smiled.

“Both of our first times actually.” She sat next to me while her wife showed Jane the few weapons they had while holding the little girl that wanted to pull at Jane’s hair.

“We don’t get a lot of other provinces here, it's good to see new faces.”

“Yeah, I’m here to see if this is where I’m originally from.” The women smiled.

“Then why is she here?” I looked at Jane.

“She’s helping me.”

“That’s nice of her.”

“Yeah, it is.”

“Look, even if you don’t find what you're looking for, it seems you have a good support system already, not all family is blood.” I nodded as Jane came back over.

“We should start heading back,” Jane said. We said goodbye to the three before walking back to the pyramid. “What a nice city,” Jane said. I sighed, yeah but I still wanted to know who I came from, what they were like. Jane hit my shoulder with hers. “Don’t lose hope.”

Janes' POV

The inside of the dining room had two small Vale flags on the wall and Valien decor everywhere else, so narrowing it down by flag was not going to be as easy as I hoped. The queen and my father brought us the update of their conversation. Diomedes had not contacted the Vale and they didn’t plan to align with him and wanted to remain out of our wars, which I could understand, yet for some reason it just made me feel more on edge. Edur had been eating all their food and turned in early, Con remained quiet the whole time and when he took his leave I followed him. “Con?” I asked, he stopped before he shut his door. “Is something wrong?”

“Jane, you don’t have to pretend to care about this.” I was confused.

“About what?”

“Me, we’re not family you don’t have to-” I pushed him into his room and shut the door behind me. “Jane?” I looked at him with rage.

“Well too bad.”

“Too bad?”

“Yeah, you are going to be my family whether you want to or not, whether we are related or not.” I grabbed his hand. “I care about you, I care about what happens to you, and as crazy as it sounds to both of us when you have a problem I’m going to care about what it is because, after everything we’ve been through together in this short time, I can’t help it.” I finally looked at his face, and he looked emotionally shocked. “Say something.” He swallowed, then lowered his head to my shoulder. “Con?” He wrapped his arms around my abdomen.

“Thank you.” I ran my fingers through his hair.

“Anytime.” He chuckled. “Conrad, I’m serious you really can’t push me away now, you're stuck with me.” His grip tightened.

“I’m fine with that.” I nuzzled his head with my cheek.

“Good.” We stood like this for a while before Con stood up straight, his eyes looked puffy and red. I put my hand on the side of his face. A crash in the hallway drew our attention, I opened the door to see Edur laying on the ground with a side table on its side. “Uh, Edur?” He looked up at me and Con.

“Oh, hey guys.” He sat up.

“What are you doing?”

“I guess I’m not as agile as I remember, I heard the queen and prince talking about something, and I tried to follow them and ran into this table.” He pointed to the overturned table and I chuckled.

“Nosey much,” Con said, Edur shrugged.

“Thought I could be useful.”

“I was going to go talk to the queen anyway,” I said. I picked the table up off the floor. “Try to be more discreet.”

Cons' POV

We both watched Jane walk away before Edur threw his head back and smiled at me. “Sorry for ruining your moment.” I rolled my eyes.

“We weren’t having a moment just talking.”

“That’s enough of a moment for me.” He finally stood up and patted my shoulder before continuing his path through the pyramid. I shut my door behind me, and touched my cheek, Jane’s heat still lingered there, I smiled.

Janes' POV

I saw the white fabric turn the corner, I looked through the opened walls to see the queen sitting and looking outside sipping tea, I took a breath and walked over to her. “Your majesty, can I have a moment?” She turned to me clearly not expecting me here.

“Sure.” I don’t know what I was expecting but it wasn’t that, I sat down next to her. “And please call me Raena, if I’m going to be seeing more of you all the titles will just get in the way.” I nodded, I could differently agree with her on that.

“Raena, I want to ask you about a woman I know, I think she may still live here.” The queen nodded.

“I figured you were here for something else, don’t take this the wrong way but you don’t give off the best first impression.” I shrugged.

“I’ve been told, I just need to find a woman, she would have lost her son at a very young age and of course has your platinum blonde hair.” Raena took a breath before shaking her head.

“I’m sorry dear that could be almost anyone here.” I exhaled.

“I figured, but I thought maybe someone would ring a bell, that had lost a son, she would have him wrapped in a Valien flag.” Raena’s eyes widened and she set her cup down because her hand shook slightly. “What?”

“Nothing, I just, we- I haven’t seen people do the flag wrapping for over ten years.” I felt I struck a nerve, at least that was something.

“Well, thank you for talking with me, Raena.” She smiled, as I left to try and sleep for the night.