Page 2 of The Time Of Kings

I frowned at my best friend. Something that prompted her to hold up her hands and fling even more miniature candy canes from her fingernails my way, making me wonder if there would be any left by the end of the night.

“I have no choice, Mum, surely you can understand that?” Amelia said in what I knew would be her first argument, making me shake my head as my heart broke for her. Because we were so alike, it would have been like arguing against myself. Which was why I knew this was one of those pointless conversations you still felt like you needed to have. An argument you knew you would lose but would never forgive yourself if you didn’t say the words regardless. Which was why I told her,

“That's where you're wrong, you always have a choice.” But even after I had said it, I knew what card she would throw down next, quick to use my own past decisions against me.

“And you, Mum, did you have a choice when you stepped through that fountain all those years ago?”

Naturally, I couldn’t help but react, flinching before closing my eyes and shaking my head.

“Oh, come on, Keira, did you really expect her not to use that one?” Sophia stated, making me want to grit my teeth.

“Okay, that is so not helping… and you, young lady, it's not the same thing,” I added, turning my attention back to my daughter and switching over to my well-practiced ‘mum tone’, despite knowing that these very words made me a hypocrite of the biggest kind. But isn’t that what all parents did when trying to protect their child? Even if it was against themselves. It turned liars into us all because we all knew that at one time inour lives we had made those same mistakes. We were all guilty of trying to steer our children away from making decisions we ourselves had once made and had to learn from. The difference now was, I knew that selfishly I wanted to protect her despite knowing what the ramifications of doing so could mean for our world. But unfortunately for me, Amelia knew it too, hence why she said,

“But you're wrong. You had a duty, just like I do.”

“I was prophecy bound,” I told her, unable to let it go and making her scoff.

“And you think I’m not?” she snapped, and I couldn’t blame her, my past reasons were now her own. Although, at this point, Pip and Sophia started to look at each other awkwardly, making me frown. Because I knew these two better than I knew myself. Which meant I also knew when they were keeping something important from me.

“Maybe we should just leave you two to…” Sophia said, and I was just about to say, ‘oh hell no!’ when Amelia got in there first.

“Oh no, you two are not going anywhere and you are having my back on this.”

I was just about to ask what was going on when once again, my daughter beat me to it.

“Okay, so what am I missing here?”

Sophia sighed and scooted closer to me, which I knew wasn’t a good sign. Especially when she put a comforting hand over my own and took a deep breath. Hell, I should have known just being in this damn library wasn’t a good sign. Ever since it became connected to the Janus Temple, it felt more like some bloody Supernatural bus stop! And I wasn’t even getting started on the time my husband lost his ever-loving Demon mind and tried to kill Lucius. Yep, totally not going back there to that one, I thought with a grimace.

“Amelia is right, the prophecy isn't finished. It isn't finished for either of you,” Sophia told me, and naturally I was unable to hold back my reaction.

“What?! What are you not telling me, Sophia?” As soon as I said this, I looked to the most mischievous member of our Triad and saw Pip trying to look at anything else in the room but us. Oh, and holding her hands behind her back as she was gently whistling was fooling no one. Meaning this was left to Sophia to explain, which given Pip’s colourful language, was probably for the best.

“Pythia might have mentioned something like this might happen.”

“What?!” I screeched, and not for the first time.

“Okay, when she spoke of us being back in time… it kind of didn’t… I mean… it wasn’t so much…” Sophia said, doing a piss poor job of explaining anything and therefore making me snap,

“Spit it out, Sophia.”

To which she sighed. But before she could speak, it was Pip who thought it best to just rip off the time traveling band aid.

“We thought the Oracle made a mistake or you did, when we went through that gate and ended up in the desert, for she said it was all like fields of green and knights with big swords, etcetera, etcetera… what…? I cracked, okay…? But hey, thirty-year-old secret, so YEY me,” Pip said, waving two thumbs’ up to Sophia, who looked just like her brother did whenever he had to deal with anything exasperating, as she was now holding the bridge of her nose, muttering under her breath.

“Are you serious…? I got the date wrong?” I asked, stammering out the question as shock seeped in deep.

“I’m sure it can happen to anyone,” Pip said with a shrug, no doubt trying to make me feel better.

“Yeah, but this isn’t like forgetting your anniversary,” I pointed out the obvious. Because let’s face it, this was a bloody big thing we were talking about here!

“Aww, has he still not forgiven you? Because that was like once, and ten years ago,” Pip said, patting my back and reminding me of the one time that I did indeed forget our anniversary. Of course, when you’re a shit liar like I was, well let’s just say that trying to talk my way out of it hadn’t worked out so well. Not when Draven had found me still working in my PJ’s, instead of being ready for our date when I was supposed to have been.

“No, he has… wait, that’s not important right now… why didn’t you two tell me?” I accused, and it was Sophia who thought it best to answer this time.

“Because we won the war, we beat the bad guys, and the time we travelled back to worked. We just figured that if anything else popped up after that, we would tell you.”

I swear, I think my mouth dropped open at this, and unattractively stayed that way. Even when Pip bowed and rolled her hand under her as she pointed out the obvious.

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