For the past week, all we had done was walking. At night we stopped traveling to take a break and regroup as well as eat rations of the food we had bought in town. We took a small rest and then began walking again at the break of dawn.

There had been no more disruptions on our path and I was becoming wary of our surroundings. We’re in a different territory, of which supposedly holds my other mother who has been missing for at least 21 years. And the king who was my mom’s main suspect for my mother’s disappearance is dead, so who exactly is the mastermind behind this plan.

I have suspicions that the others no more about what’s going on than they’re letting on. Sometimes they speak in whispers or give each other strange looks. The only one who looks as out of the loop as I am is Kano. He’s stayed in his dragon form for hundreds of years so he stays out of human politics.

He says they’re annoying and stupid and mostly always end in conflict. And for the most part, I agree with him. In the earth realm, politics were the cause of most conflicts well that and men in power but I digress.

I’m not sure why they won’t tell us what’s going on though. If we want to be a team we need to have trust and if we don’t have that we have nothing. Without trust, we could be easily broken apart. And I don’t think I can stand for that. So I decided to take it up with them and confront them.

“Hey so are we going to talk about what you guys are hiding?” Kano hums his support of my question.

“I must admit that your behaviors have been very suspicious. And if you guys were really trying to hide this from us you were doing a very poor job.” Kano agrees, voicing his own suspicions.

“It wasn’t that we were trying to hide this from you. Rather, we’re not sure of our own hypothesis so we were conferring all of the hints we had to see if we were correct.” Natalia says coming to their defense.

“ Yeah well, then you still should’ve told us. If we’re going to work as a team we all need to know the information not get left in the dark. If you guys were sorting through the facts how were you to know if Kano or I knew anything or not?” I ask sarcastically, tilting my head to add to my sarcasm.

“Okay Thalia we get it, we were in the wrong and I’m sorry. From now on anything anyone knows goes through the whole group. You’re right and everyone having that information could become Vital in the future.” I hum my approval of the apology before looking at the other two to see if they agreed with the apology. It seemed both Natalia and Vivian agreed with it and Kano looked satisfied with how mom apologized.

“So what have you all agreed on so how far?” I ask them, deciding to use this moment to gather information.

“Well to be honest we haven’t gathered much but not for the reason you may think. You see, we’ve all agreed that we suspect the same person. The problem is that there isn’t much known about them. As a matter of fact, nobody even knows his name. It’s a bit pathetic if you think about it, especially when they’re so dangerous.” Vivian explained, looking annoyed with the lack of information they have.

“The man obviously had the foresight that he was going to need to keep himself hidden. He must’ve been planning this for a long time if he thought about how much people knew about him. It could mean that we’ve met this person. For all we know they could be one of the students at the school.” Kano said thoughtfully, almost impressed with how well hidden this antagonist is.

“If you guys have seen even the slightest thing that seemed out of place that could be a hint. Have any of you noticed anything?” Mom asked looking around the group.

Vivian and Kano both shook their heads muttering a nope while I stopped walking to deliberate while looking around.

“Oh!” I yelled out. “There is something strange that I’ve noticed.” I tell them. They all turn to look at me waiting for me to finish my thoughts.

“Two different times while we were running through the forest in eatithra I noticed something. There was a flash of silver, but it was so minute that I hadn’t thought anything of it. Now though, I’m regretting that I didn’t tell you guys so we could look into it.” Kano, Vivian, and mom all let out a sigh, probably feeling frustrated while Natalia walks up to me and awkwardly pats my back. If there’s one thing I’ve noticed is that she’s uncomfortable with affection especially in public.

“It’s not your fault. There’s nothing wrong with how you reacted to the situation at hand. Almost every time we went through that forest we went on horseback. You would’ve barely had any time to react to seeing something like that. Plus how were you to know it wasn’t something the school put there.” I nod in acknowledgment. I know that there was a variety of reasons it could’ve been there but still If I had reacted sooner would all of those students have died during the battle at school. Would the fight have even happened in the first place?

There are just so many what if’s.

We continue to walk in silence for the rest of the time, mom leading the way with the device that detects magic signatures. She told us that even though the magic signature technically should’ve ended at the portal it hadn’t probably because whoever is doing this wanted to lure us to a specific place.

I won’t lie every time I thought about this game that the sender was trying to set us on I get so perturbed. It’s so unsettling to knowingly be manipulated by someone who most likely wants to kill you. I don’t even know why we’re going along with this stupid game anyway. I am not a pawn in this person’s endless game to stop their boredom.

The strangest thing is that not one soul had flinched when they called it a game. But these people are the protectors of the realm and the queen so if anyone has had to deal with ugly situations like this it’s them. I can’t even count how many times in my mind I’ve gone, huh, maybe they’re used to this or maybe this isn’t that uncommon. But these people are young just around my age and have recently reached true adulthood. So why is it that they must suffer? That we must suffer.

And even my mother the queen who you would guess lives lavishly has actually been suffering from hardships this entire time. And for a second I can’t help but wonder what’s worse. Staying with my old family who I now presume as dead, or fighting these battles head-on in the frontline. Was my naivety better than learning of what truly lurks beneath the shadows?

Is ignorance truly bliss or would I have been worse off? I actually have the chance to live my life now. But the question is, at what cost? And thoughts like these keep flowing through my mind continuously, wearing me out mentally to the point that it was obvious to the rest of the group. Each one of them took their turn asking me if I wanted to take a break and each time I would tell them no.

Eventually, we came upon a decayed castle-like structure similar to Mom’s. Once we walked into the throne room we had realized that the throne was similar to the one mom sat on when we went to rescue her. Except this one was black with vines growing up the spine and branching out onto the armrests. I got chills just looking at it, the atmosphere in the room feeling dark and tainted.

I looked over at mom to see something brewing in her eyes like a midnight storm right before lightning strikes. Well, at least I know where my lack of impulse control came from, well besides from Adira. Speaking of which, walking into the room was the time that she decided she wanted to speak to me again. She said that there was a dark energy flowing through this room and that we should be careful.

I looked over to Kano to see if his dragon senses picked up on this as well. When I saw his dark eyes I knew that he had felt the energy too. It didn’t make me feel any better about the energy I had already felt in this room, especially when I saw Natalia’s grim expression.

We all turn to look back towards the throne when we hear loud footsteps clapping against the ground. Everyone stiffens waiting for whoever it is to step out from the door behind the throne. In retrospect, we should’ve known that a door behind a throne could only be a hoax or a setup for a grand entrance.

A man in black walked out still dressed in all black just like the last group but instead he is wearing a hood. He walks out and sits on the throne smiling at us albeit hostile before speaking.

“It took you a little longer than I expected but I’m glad that you could make it.” He says cheerfully, acting as if nothing was wrong.

Natalia looks at me noticing my angered reaction before shaking her head.

“Tsk Tsk what are you so mad at me about? And here I was going to offer you a gift for making it this far. Although I would’ve been thoroughly disappointed if you couldn’t make it past that first group. They were young and reckless but easily controlled. The perfect pawns in a game of chess don’t you think.” He smiles at us creepily and chills crept back up my arms.

“Anyways, that’s not what I’m here for. I’m just here to give her to you.” A woman wrapped in a blanket appeared in his arms and mom gasped. I can only assume that this must be my other mother. It’s just upsetting that we had to meet in such a situation. And even from this distance you can tell that she’s in bad shape. She’s extremely pale for a woman of color and her long black hair is soaked and matted.

I look away before taking a deep breath. I quickly materialize my sword and shoot it right at him piercing it through his skull before walking towards him to pick up my mother. I look down at him before kicking his head and carrying her out of the castle. The others run after me Vivian being the first to speak.

“Thalia what did you do! We have no idea if there was an army waiting for his commands or any other sort of information. We went in blindly and came out even worse than before!” She yells angrily, shoving my shoulder so that I’d pay attention to her. I just keep walking deciding I would rather not have to deal with her.

“Thalia I understand why you did what you did but it was such a stupid thing to do. You let your emotions control you and that is dangerous.” Kano says calmly not even trying to make eye contact.

“Thalia you promised not to let your anger get the best of you!” Mom yelled. I stopped walking and turned around to look at her.

“What exactly did you expect of me! I’m not the perfect person who can control my emotions at every given second! And maybe you should be happy! Maybe this is a good thing! Maybe I stopped the war before it progressed and got your twin flame back!” I snapped before turning back around to continue walking again.

I knew that this would make the walk back home awkward but at this point, I didn’t care. All that I care about now is getting my mother homes safely. All of this time my only goal putting my life into danger like this was making my family happy, I got the love of my mom’s life back and she’s not even happy.

I understand that she’s been suffering for a long time but so has Faye. They’ve both had a hard life just because of the love that they held for each other. So why is it that there’s still something that’s not adding up in my mind? For example, where are my mom’s parents? She was apparently royalty even before she married the king and they had met Faye before so why is it that they didn’t stop my mom from getting married.

And even moving past that it’s been 20 years so where are they now. How could they let their daughter suffer through such a horrible marriage? I don’t know it just doesn’t make sense. And where are Faye’s parents in this equation? If we’re such a rares species then shouldn’t we all be staying together? In which case how was Faye so easily taken without their knowledge.

Thinking about all these unknown variables makes me very uneasy. Maybe I was being rash when I killed them so quickly. But even then maybe I was in the right. Maybe I really did end this secret war that’s been going on for so long.

“Can we ride back?” I suddenly ask aloud stopping to look at Natalia. “It’s going to be about a week’s walk and I’m not sure we have enough sustenance. Besides we should get her to a healer.”

“Hey, I’m a healer.” Oh yeah, I had forgotten about that. “I’m not sure how extensive her wounds are or if she has any internal bleeding so I may not be able to completely heal her but I can make sure that she at least survives until we make it to the school. I do agree that we should ride back though seeing as we’re still in technically unchartered territory.” Vivian finishes walking towards me and Faye, gently taking her out of my arms to put her on the ground.

Mom walks over as well holding out her hand and rubbing her thumb across Faye’s face. She sighs in sadness before stepping away to let Vivian do her job.

Vivian hovers her hands over Faye’s body light emitting from her hands as they hover. I hear Faye let out a sigh and my lips twitch happy that her body is stabilizing. I’m not sure how long rehabilitation may take for her especially mentally but I will most definitely be with her every step of the way.

My family’s story is almost tragic in a way. One parent was forcibly married while the other was kidnapped to keep her away. Then the product of their love was kidnapped most likely by the angry husband and forced into a life of uneasiness. None of them had it easy but now that they were all together again hopefully things would get better.

But that brings me to another thing I’m worried about. Why in the world would they suddenly decide to give Faye back. They’ve had her for 20 something years and now they don’t want her anymore. No something is definitely at play here. Or was, if I hadn’t killed the mastermind behind the plan. And sure it made everyone in the group unhappen but honestly I’m quite satisfied with the way things went. I don’t regret what I did. I only regret that I wasn’t able to do it sooner.

After Vivian heals Faye as much as she can she whistles and her horse appears. She raises her ears and flares her nostrils flicking up her tail. Natalia also calls out for Daenerys who, instead of just appearing comes prancing from the forest. Her head high, coat glowing reflecting the light of the weirdy colored sun, and her mane fluffy, not matted or coarse.

I smile when I see her as she trots over and she walks in a circle around me tilting her shining head before walking over to Natalia. Great, even a horse can tell when somethings up with me.

Before I can even get to her mom grabs Faye.

“You’re riding with Natalia and Daenerys probably can’t carry you both. Plus if she rides with me we can separate and get to the school sooner.” I stop and let the thought sink in. I nod to her watching as Magnus who I must remind myself is the phoenix swoops down for mom and Faye to climb on. It didn’t really matter much if I decided not to let her take Faye anyway seeing as Adira was adamant about letting her go.

I honestly don’t feel comfortable separating from them so soon after meeting them but I sort of have to in order to keep one of them alive. Besides, even I know that mom and Faye deserve some alone time together even if one of them is unconscious. That’s not what’s important it’s the vehemence that counts.

Natalia rides over to me and grabs my hand to help pull me up onto Daenerys’ back. Kano had transformed and flew away with Mom to give them extra protection so that had just left Vivian.

We weren’t close at all and I know almost nothing about her personality. All I know about her is the fact that she’s a valuable asset but I can’t just look at the people I meet as to how useful they are to me. Or rather, I can but then I won’t be able to make any personal connections.

I want to be able to connect to people and make friends, truly I do, but it’s hard when I’ve been cooped up for so long. When everyone you meet is monitored meeting and communicating with new people can be hard. And through all of this, I can’t even blame this on my parents. They weren’t at fault here and the people that I want to blame are dead.

I groan in despair receiving a strange look from Vivian. I shake my head indicating for her to just ignore me. She turns back to face the front and both Natalia and Vivian give the horses a little kick for them to go.

The horses run and the scenery of the weirdly colored trees and the light green grass pass us by. All of this was definitely an experience. A mediocre experience at best but an experience nonetheless. I don’t think I will ever forget the things that have happened while we were in this realm. Mostly because I found my second mother who was also badly beaten but again I digress. I’ve done that a lot lately.

Try to make excuses for and about the bad things that I’ve learned about my life recently. It’s just so crazy that at the beginning of this month I was being set up for an arranged marriage and now I’m here helping to rescue my true parents who may have suffered just as much as me.

Not to mention the fact that I’ve finally begun connecting with my twin flame. Technically since it’s only been a month our relationship has definitely steadily inclined but frankly, it actually hasn’t been that much.

I think our first true act of connection was when she let me entwine our pinkies. At the moment it was to show her comfort but thinking back on it I think it helped both of us. We both helped each other realize that we’re not so alone anymore. And it helped me realize just how lucky I truly am. Surely I have the right to be mad, upset, and sad but I also have a reason to be thankful and joyous.

My heart doesn’t beat for her no and she surely didn’t help heal or complete me. But she has supported me and she is helping me complete myself and that’s all I truly need. Not someone who thinks they can complete me or someone who will try and become my better half but someone who will help me complete myself.

I tighten my arms around her waist finding comfort in her embrace even if it was a one-sided one. She reaches one hand down to squeeze my arm and turns around to flash a quick smile before turning back to pay attention again. And thus our journey back home began.

It wasn’t a perilous journey or one that would give you nightmares and ruin your mentality no. Simply put, it was kind of relaxing. Not to the point where we slept peacefully no, there were definitely still restless nights but it’s not like any of us felt like we were in immediate danger. As a matter of fact, even the horses stayed around to sleep with us.

I think that although this place certainly has some darker characteristics to it, it certainly isn’t just a resting place for evil. No, just like the light must hold darkness for it to take effect the darkness must hold some light for it to be known.

I know that I have an affinity towards the light. It’s easier to see the shadows and the hatred in the light. Because eventually, secrets must come to light and so must everything else. And even in the darkness, some things cannot stay hidden forever.

I treat the light as my happiness and finally, it has the chance to return it in kind. Before when I was with the false parents I believed that I would forever stay in such an emotionally desolate position with no love or happiness so to speak. But now I hold no regard to that sentiment because I know first hand that there are some people who care for me.

I lay my head on Natalia’s back and I hear her let out a short breath. I let out a giggle before relaxing onto her back. Yeah, I could get used to this.