„So long time without seeing you in my house, grandson, that I almost forgot your face,” Coallar said it with irony when Boor entered his grandfather’s den and looked around, but he saw nobody because Coallar had the habit to hide of curious glances, making this way the atmosphere be tense because those who came here with evil thoughts, when they entered the grotto and didn’t see Coallar, started to be anxious, and this way they lost concentration and Coallar could take advantage of their inattention and fear.

Boor instead was different. He was used to his grandfather’s manner of fighting, as he knew that one of the reasons why Coallar was hiding was the fact that he was afraid of humans. Nobody knew when and why he started to feel fear for humans, but it was rumored that before death, Anaya cursed him not to find peace in this world and since she died, Coallar was so afraid of the sun: which saw his dastardly deed when he abused the girl and which since that moment, every time king Coal was seen outside of the grotto during the day, the sun was starting to heat till maximum the oven of its being, its rays where burning the skin of Coallar, making him „melt” like coal into a heated oven, because not for nothing Coallar had been named king Coal: his body, in the heat of the sun, was washed into beads of black sweat like pitch and this meant that Coallar had to run away and not only from the sun but also of the light of the night, which had the same effect.

Actually, Coallar wasn’t leaving his den even during the night because at the moment he intended to take a step out of the grotto, the cry of a young woman was heard all around and she was so fiercely cursing his name, making him shudder and hide again. In time, he even started to fear to approach the exit of the grotto and to breathe fresh air because Anaya or better to say her ghost, running out of the grotto, many years ago, was showing up in front of his eyes and her image was chasing away the sleep and this weakened Coallar in time.

After Anaya’s death it was another event that marked Coallar’s destiny, even if it hadn’t been as tragical as her leaving: the humans’attack over the grotto, because Anaya’s father, finding out about Coallar’dastardly deed, gathered people from his village and the whole group, about 100 in number, came in front of Coallar’s den, looking for revenge.

***

„Villain! King Coallar! Show your dog face and face us, the humans, those to whom you did so much evil,” yells were heard coming out the grotto, the same night when the people of the village took Anaya’s body out of the river and wept her tragical destiny, deciding not to leave alive the one who forced her to end with her life.

They gathered first in the middle of the village, with their souls burning in flames due to the loss of the most beautiful virgin of their people, and, with lighted torches in their hands, armed with stones and other weapons, they entered Tenebre’s forest.

Tenebre saw the group of people heading toward Coallar’s grotto, but she didn’t tell him about that unexpected visit because she felt betrayed by him when he had forgotten her and chose a simple girl from the village of humans. And now, when that girl wasn’t anymore on Earth, Tenebre had decided that it’s also the time for Coallar to pay for his betrayal. That’s why she headed in the opposite direction of his den, with a broad smile on her face and she entered deeper and deeper into the depth of the forest. But, even if she was heading away from the grotto, the wind brought the screams of the upset humans to her, and, eventually, Tenebre decided to stop and to wait for what was coming.

After many hours of standing in front of the grotto and screaming with anger the name of King Coal, people decided that it was time to dare to enter the grotto, but Kiran stepped in front of them and said: „even if our anger fills us with power to face this bastard, we also know that he’s stronger than us. Inside the grotto, is his territory and the source from where he’s taking his power. The forest around us bends in front of Tenebre who’s known as his wife and it is also something against us. But even so, the air and the sky are for all and while we are out of the grotto and free we have a chance to get revenge.”

For the first time, Anaya’s father agreed with the young man and approached him at a slow step, resting a hand on his shoulder. Then, without watching those present there, due to shame for being moved by greed when he sold Anaya to Coallar, he said: „Kiran is right, my brothers. Under the free sky is our home and the air from around us is also our brother. If and if someone has to die to defeat this bastard, then that person must be me because of me happened what happened today and I must be the one who stubs the dagger into his heart.”

People, who knew very well Anaya’s story and why she died, in the end, approved in silence the old man’s words and took a few steps back. Actually, the people of the village only suspected that something was weird in the girl’s behavior, who every single day, at dawn, entered the forest and was coming back to the village at dusk. But because everybody was respecting her father they never said a bad word to her and they also never gossiped about her, even if, from time to time, someone dared only to ask in a whisper if something happened with that poor girl, named Anaya and why she’s missing all the time.

Kiran heard those whispers too, but he didn’t believe them because Anaya for him was an angel and angels have no sins. But eventually, he found out that he had been wrong, the day Anaya gave birth to her baby girl and the locals started to wonder who the girl’s father might be. Kiran was so glad to hear about that new life because he thought that it was his baby with Anaya, but arriving at her house he didn’t find her and then someone told him that the baby was missing too and the young man understood that something bad happened to his beloved woman.

He swallowed his pride, being afraid for her life, and he looked for Anaya’s father, who used to spend months inside of his mines of coal, eager to have more and more money and who had no idea about what was happening in his house. That’s why he was amazed a lot listening to what Kiran said and, at first, thinking that the young man was the one who dishonored his girl, he jumped at him with the pickaxe, hitting left and right and trying to kill him. In the end, he remembered Coallar’s interest in Anaya and he shuddered. „Was it me who sold his own child to the devil? Did I hurt her with my own hand?” the old man wondered and ran out of his mine.

Kiran followed the old man, realizing that this one was capable of everything at that moment, but Kiran was more afraid that Anaya could be hurt in the end by her father. But the poor man wanted only the find out from her the real story and later to ask the bastard who hurt her to pay for what he did.

On the way home, the two men met a woman who stopped them and asked them if Anaya was fine because she saw her leaving the house at dawn and heading toward Tenebre’s river. The woman’s words made the men’s hearts stop beating in their chest and after a few minutes of standing hardened, they ran toward the river.

But they got to the river too late: Anaya wasn’t there anymore. At first, the old man thought that the woman from the village was wrong, but Kiran knew the truth because on the river shore, in the same place from where Anaya left herself to fall in the river, there was a small bouquet of violets.

„She’s… gone,” Kiran said, crying. „Our Anaya left this world,” and this time was the old man’s turn to shudder, to burst to cry, and to kneel in front of the river. And he stood like this, kneeled, till late in the night, when the men finally could find Anaya’s body and took it out of the water. Only then, the old man left his place and approached his child, who was lying on the soft grass, next to the river.

She had closed eyes and livid lips because of the time spent in the water. But she seemed so beautiful to her father, for whom she had been always an angel fallen from the heavens. He caressed her face and sweetly kissed her forehead, slowly whispering: „everything will be alright, my baby girl. Everything will be alright.”

It was already late night when Kiran could finally take her body from next to the old man and he carried her in his arms to the village. He left her in clean bedding, prepared by the old ladies of the village and then he kissed her lifeless lips and, sticking his forehead of hers, he whispered: „we’ll be together even in death, Anaya because not even death can separate us.”

***

„I thought we had a deal, old Aman, but it seems to me that I was wrong,” Coallar hissed the words through the teeth when he finally exited his den, sick of listening to their screams and bad words addressed to him.

He also had been so amazed to see almost all the village gathered there, but he couldn’t see Anaya, even if he looked for her among those people. He wanted to see her once again, to admire her face at least for a moment because even if he had thought that his love for her vanished at the moment he had had her on that field full of violets, he was still missing her.

But there was something else strange there: the fact that Coallar was seeing Kiran’s face all over he was looking and this was already something that was bothering him. He didn’t know who that man was because when he saw Anaya in the arms of another man and he went crazy he couldn’t see Kiran’s face who he considered being a traitor. Now instead, the man was showing up in front of him, over and over again, and the hatred seen in Kiran’s eyes Coallar considered not to be deserved by him.

„Get lost of my face!” Coallar eventually growled when Kiran took a few steps toward him and the old Aman who was standing only two steps away from the king Coal.

„To get lost?” Kiran said in mockery. „The only one who has to vanish from off this planet surface is you, bastard, because not even the sun can’t bear you, not only we, humans. We are sick of your wretchedness and to see tears shed by the young women that suffered because of you. From now on, you’ll feel so well our hatred on your skin.”

Being so focused on the young man, Coallar didn’t notice when old Aman took a dagger out of under his coat and stabbed it deep into the king Coal’s heart. Hurt, Coallar stared with hatred into the old man’s eyes that were burning because of hatred for his enemy.

Coallar’s hands tightly held the old man’s hands who wasn’t releasing the dagger’s handle not even after stabbing it into Coallar’s chest, but he was trying to stab it even more as if he wanted to introduce it completely into his enemy’s body. Then, the old Aman whispered with hatred: „this is a curse of a father, King Coallar. The hatred from the heart of a father that lost his child because of his greed and his trust in the devil. From now, our pact is over, like I wish that the venom I used the grease this blade which is now into your body to torment you forever and this wound not to heal ever.”

Coallar shuddered, but not because he found out that the blade of the dagger had been grassed with venom: he wasn’t afraid of it, as he wasn’t afraid of being hurt because even if he wasn’t immortal, Coallar couldn’t be killed by humans - only by titans. But yet, the old man hurt his heart, telling him about Anaya’s death.

„Be cursed till the last day of your life, king Coallar and to squirm like a snake in stormy times as my child squirmed in your hands. To hear the drops of rain not like a blessing, but like tears that shed my little baby and her last words to be a curse too for you, a curse of which you should run forever. To see her face wherever you look, but it not to be something that brings you pleasure, but to see her ghost that will hunt you always, like the cat is always hunting the rat that she hates because your presence in this world had been also cursed, even by times, even if the sky, so kind, allows you to still live on this earth.”

The old Aman suddenly kneeled and spat blood because when he stubbed Coallar he had been inattentive and he also cut his palm and the venom killed him quickly. Eventually, Coallar understood that his end can be also close if he continues there while looking at the people’s faces that were mad because of anger and the blood in them was boiling like the water in a cauldron above the fire. Mad, Coallar threw Aman against the stone wall and ran inside the grotto, being chased by the furious crowd that was following him with lighted torches - a light that was also burning Coallar’s soul from inside.

From that day, Coallar closed himself inside that grotto and didn’t leave it because Anaya's and old Aman’s curses worked against him and he was always hearing voices while seeing her ghost following him wherever he went. Then, there was the wound too, made by the dagger, which didn’t heal in time, but it was still open, making him suffer a lot, and only after years of trying to heal that wound, Coallar understood that it was because of the curse of which he always ran away, but, in the end, he fell in its trap.

Suddenly, Coallar returned to reality when Boor’s hatred had been felt around, like a strong blowing of the wind, charged with drops of ice and the king had been thrown against the wall with a mad force. He squirmed in place when ice touched the wound, causing him pain. Eventually, he looked at Boor, seeing the same hatred in his eyes as Coallar had in his.

„At least tell me why you hate me so much, grandson of mine,” Coallar hissed through the teeth.

„Because of your dare and of your recklessness. You tried to hurt my girls and this is something that the heart of a father cannot accept. Especially, I can’t forgive you for having a pact with the snake Ian Gyar for hurting Sephir’s body and taking her power.”

Coallar grinned. „It’s because of this. And I thought that’s because of something else.” He supported his shaking hands on the wall and stood up, moving slowly around to stretch his body. „Let’s say I had no choice but to do this.”

„Wow, what a surprise! And … may I know why you did this?”

„Because I need that power?! I must get out of this den of darkness and to see again the sunlight and without the power of your daughters is something impossible for me. They are useless for this world, while my son, Mannar, is so valuable. I must find him and with his power, we can rule this world.”

Coallar slowly moved toward his grandson, sweetening the tone of his voice and starting to woo. „Think about this, Boor! Just a little bit! If we get the supreme power then we’ll be invincible! You won’t need anything else and then you’ll understand that your daughters came into this world just to be a passenger source of power for us. Something born to make us stronger. Boor, if you daughters die…”

A sudden punch received from Boor threw him a few meters back, but Coallar managed somehow to stop from his fly. He looked furious at Boor and saw him forming a cube of ice in his palms. „You won’t dare to do this!”

„Why do you think so? Quite the contrary: I’m here to dare, dear grandpa. For sins, one pays in this world and not after death.”

„And … do you think that closing me inside that ice cube you’ll manage to stop my plan? In a way or another, I’ll be out of it and then you’ll feel my hatred on you, Boor and you know that I have no mercy for those who betrayed me.”

„Mercy? You don’t even know what this really means, because one shows mercy first for his family and only after this for others too. You instead, trampled under feet everything you had near you, no matter if the one trampled under feet had your blood flowing into his veins.”

„And yet, we are a family.”

„Yeah, I’m forced to accept this: a family tied only by blood while our hearts are miles away from feeling this. For us, fighting is more important than love for the other. And I learned this from you.”

Boor threw the ice cube against Coallar who tried to face it with an avalanche of coal stones gathered from around and then thrown against Boor and the cube, but he had been amazed to see the cube and the coal stones floating in the air. So, he grinned unpleasantly. „Dike!”

„I see that you still have your „hunting dog nose,” king Coallar,” Dike said in mockery while approaching Boor and Coallar. On Dike’s right side was Island, who was playing with a small sphere, made from ice, formed with the same blue power that Boor used for his cube.

„Oho, I must understand that this is a family party tonight. Even our beloved son, Island, is here. Who’s missing is my beloved wife, Inlan Diar. Don’t tell me that she’ll also be at our party?!”

„Why should my mother visit you? Especially in this stinky den if she didn’t this in years? Our queen has better things to do than to visit her bastard, greedy, and traitor husband.”

„Island, Island, as charming as always!” Coallar grinned in mockery. „Did you come here being afraid of what can happen to your beloved son? Oh, I think is the only one you have!”

Coallar’s words made Island laugh. „To protect my son? Of whom? Of you? I think you are wrong here, king, because I know well my son and what he’s capable of. If he’s here it must be for a strong reason and I don’t intend to impede him to get revenge on you if he wants this because attacking my granddaughters, you pissed him off and for his upset, he has all the right to confront you.”

„Payment… reward, you keep saying this, all the time, as if you are a chatterbox. I don’t get why are you so upset. I didn't do anything else than to defend my family.”

„Yours, maybe! Or, better to say, to protect the only son you love, while hurting others. In case you forgot it: Sephir, Bestla, and Zeal are also family: your granddaughters. But even so, you tried to take the power from them by hurting them.”

„Well, they didn’t want to give up to that power, willingly. And I asked them. Yes, I asked for that power from them, kindly. I needed it, but none of them wanted to give it to me. They must pay for this.”

„And … how should you pay for your sins, king?” Dike asked.

„To pay? For what? For looking for justice?”

„No. For always trying to get what others have.”

„Aaa. You probably mean the daggers. Well, being something, I absolutely needed… how it was: the ends justify the means. In the end, your daughter is safe and sound.”

„But thanks to you she saw a world that she shouldn't have known: not that soon. That’s why I’ll ask you to pay for this,” and Dike threw Ionas against Coallar, but the king managed to vanish in a blink of an eye and to show up behind Dike, but he managed only to kick his leg and to make the titan slightly stagger to his feet. Ionas, feeling that its master is in danger, rose from the ground and suddenly showed up in Dike’s hand, who held tightly its handle and hit Coallar. Ionas’hit wasn’t meant to hurt Coallar’s body, but to surround him with that multi-colored bubble Ionas was so famous for and which kept Coallar captive as if he was in a trance.

„Throw that cube to me, Boor!” Island ordered his son and Boor did it. When the sphere and the cube became one, the cube completely swallowed the sphere, which was seen floating inside it, a kind of red-blue rays illuminated the room and the cube started to float in the air. Then, it started to drag the black air from the multi-colored bubble inside it, and on that current that entered the ice cube could be seen Coallar’s memories.

„Do you think that this will help us to find out what we are looking for?” Boor asked in a low voice.

„At least we'll buy time till Bestla and Sephir will be back in the camp of Siar People. We need Bestla’s power to read Coallar’s memories and thus to find out what he and Tenebre are planning,” Island said.

„Even so, Island, I agree with Boor that it might be useless. But still, one never knows what he can do till he tries it. Not knowing something can kneel one.”

„But, father, I won’t go without punishing him for what he did. Sephir deserves to get revenge on her behalf.”

„Getting revenge isn’t something that brings happiness, son. Even if you make him suffer, for the moment, because of physical pain, it won’t help because we can’t kill him. My father can be killed only by Mannar who has part of his power, but Mannar is gone now and we don’t know where he is.”

„But titans… from what I know titans can destroy king Coallar.”

Dike denied it by nodding. „Coallar can’t be killed. At least not while Mannar is alive because when Tenebre gave birth to Mannar, Coallar hid in his son’s soul part of his. That’s why the two are tied and while king Coallar’s soul is divided, titans can’t hurt him.”

„Shrewd move,” Boor growled.

„I better call it a wise move. Thus, Coallar watched his own back. Even so, I agree with Boor: we must limit his power. And for this, he’ll be a captive in Ionas’bubble for a while. For how long, I don’t know. But at least we’ll buy some time for our plans.”

„Tenebre can release him,” Island said.

„No. Ionas is out of Tenebre’s power and if she tries to damage the bubble then Ionas will take power from her. She won’t risk it because she knows very well about the consequences. Rather, she’ll wait for the bubble to vanish. Meanwhile, we’ll have time to find out about their plan and maybe we’ll manage to impede it.”

„Then, let’s hurry out of this den because the stink of this grotto and especially the piercing glance of that soul that’s next to Coallar’s throne makes me lose my head,” Island said in a whisper, staring toward Coallar’s throne.

Next to Coallar’s throne was Anaya’s ghost, who was kept captive there while her curse was still working on Coallar and she wasn’t also able to leave that grotto while her body was separated into two: the young Anaya, the captive in Coallar’s den, and the old Anaya, that was wandering through the world, but none of them knew that they’ll reach Aeon only when the two faces will join in one and thus her soul will be forgiven of sins.

After Boor, Island, and Dike left the grotto, leaving Coallar floating inside the bubble, right into the middle of the room, the young Anaya approached the bubble and touched its transparent wall: from her palm, her memories came out, memories about the pain she felt while Coallar hurt her and this way she forced Coallar to feel the same she felt when she had been raped, while he was in the bubble and for the first time Coallar found out that he has one more child: a girl.