Chapter 15: Elena.

“What’s this?” Dorian asked as he grabbed the chain from Penirith’s hand. It was lighter than he was expecting and almost seemed like it wasn’t made out of metal despite the metallic shine from the material used to make it.

“What does it look like? It’s a pendant. I thought it would come in handy since it has the power to locate whoever is wearing it. All you need to do is follow the instructions within this scroll and you will always know where the wearer is.

I thought that it would come in handy if the boy ever learns the truth about his mother. He would most likely betray us on the spot so it would be for the best if we knew where he was if we ever needed to silence him.

You have to remember that he also knows our secrets. He could just as easily tell the humans about them.” Penrith spoke with the bones of his jaw smacking his skull.

“Is that so? But I do have to commend you for coming up with a backup plan so quickly. When I heard that Michaela was killed by the men that I sent I was originally furious beyond belief because I thought that the plan would have been ruined.

I didn’t expect you to have prepared for this and honestly, I think that this situation is for the better. When the time comes when he decides to come home to tell us everything that he has learned we can dispose of him and cover up the fact that we sent a spy there in the first place.” Dorian said with a smile.

He was worried that the plan Penrith had given to them would be ruined because of the small mishap of Kalon’s mother being killed. But it was lucky for them that Kalon didn’t see his mother die or else they wouldn’t be able to readjust their scheme so that they could still tempt him into doing their bidding.

Dorian and Penrith spoke to each other within the study as Luna led Kalon around the palace grounds.

“And where does this one lead to?!” Kalon shouted out as he approached a large wooden door on the side of the palace wall.

“Erm… That’s just a storeroom.” Luna said with a sigh. She had been leading Kalon around the palace for only a few minutes since being dismissed by their father but he was excited by everything that he came across. It was mentally exhausting for her to watch someone with so much pent up energy run around and ask so many questions.

On top of her mental exhaustion from Kalon’s energetic outburst, she had a bad feeling about what her father had spoken about. She was excited when he had invited Kalon back to the palace because she thought that he would ask her younger brother to come back home and live with them.

But he didn’t so much as mention anything about his son’s future living arrangements. It felt like he was directing the conversation in a very specific way to meet his needs of getting Kalon to do a job for him. And that didn’t sit right with her. She knew that her father wasn’t the most caring person in the world.

But even so, he should have been at least a little bit interested in what his son was going to do from now on. Instead, he just wanted to speak about the past to try to appeal to Kalon before asking him if he was interested in doing a job that the imperial court needed doing.

Luna didn’t know much about the imperial court but what she did know was that the leaders of every major race within the Sylton empire were all members as well as the emperor’s most trusted friends. If they wanted someone to do something for them then it wouldn’t be something simple or else they would have gotten someone more capable to do it.

Kalon was physically weak and had far less agility than even the weakest of the monster races but that wasn’t his fault since he was born a human. But despite that fact they still wanted him to do whatever they had in mind.

It didn’t make sense to her but then again neither did most things. Luna was not very smart but her strength was unparalleled for someone her age and she could even rival Octavian even though he was a vampire. But that came at the cost of not being able to spot the reasons behind someone’s actions and she was incredibly gullible. So like usual, she decided to ignore what she was feeling and focus on showing Kalon around and making sure to answer all of the questions that he had.

It had been so long since they had gotten to spend the whole day together and she didn’t want to ruin his return to the palace. It must have felt like a lifetime since he had last stepped foot within the palace grounds and he was inevitably excited and intrigued by everything that he saw.

Then suddenly as they were running around Kalon stopped in his tracks in front of the water fountain that was in the centre of the gardens.

The fountain was a large stone circle with a wall that was about four feet tall. In the middle of it, there was a statue of a young woman with long hair that flowed perfectly straight down to her knees. There was an opening at the top of her head where water would drip down and gave the illusion that her skin shined from the sunlight despite being made completely out of stone.

Luna caught up to Kalon to see that he was just staring at the statue and hadn’t asked a single question about it. She was expecting him to do so but it seemed as though he was too interested to even talk. He silently studied the statue with his eyes before Luna took a few steps forward and spoke.

“That’s Elena Tavos she is the oldest known ancestor in our family and is our great, great, great, great, great, great grandmother… Or at least I think that was it. I just know that she lived a long time ago and was the founder of the Sylton Empire.” Luna said with a smile. She knew a lot about the palace since she had spent her whole life there and it felt good to share that information with somebody else.

Kalon looked back up at the statue for a moment.

“Elena…” He said to himself as he stared at the statue without blinking. For some reason, he felt a sense of familiarity as he looked at it and he couldn’t shake the feeling that he had seen her before.

“You know your mother used to bring you here all the time when you were younger. She would let you play in the water and would splash you when you weren’t looking.” Luna said with a smile.

“She did?” Kalon turned his head quickly after hearing what she had just told him. He didn’t have any memories of that ever happening so he was amazed to find out that his mother didn’t always hate him. It was beginning to seem like she started being colder towards him when they were forced out of the palace.

“You don’t remember? Ephram and I used to play in the water with you all the time. It was fun for a time but then Octavian caught onto what was happening and as always he wanted to be the centre of attention so we had to stop playing with you as much.” Luna explained to Kalon before sighing and then putting her arms around him from behind.

“I have missed those days a lot. I hate the fact that you were punished for Octavian being a spoiled brat. And I hate how father played into it and gave him everything that he wanted.” Luna sighed again as they both stood there at the edge of the fountain.

“You’re not the only one who hates that brat. Look what he did to my blanket just because I ate the last chicken leg at lunch.” A deep voice suddenly called out from behind, startling them as they didn’t immediately recognise the voice...