Page 6 of The Time Of Kings

Now if I could just stay away from any other past Draven’s that there were for me to fall in love with, then that would be just peachy. A quiet sigh barely left my lips as I walked from our idyllic slice of Heaven with a bundle of clothes in my arms.

Then once I had closed the door and thanked the Gods that I hadn’t tripped on the way out, I did what the others were no doubt doing…getting dressed in a hallway.And like them, I was just thankful it was empty.

After this, I hurried to the library, although I didn’t know why we hadn’t renamed it ‘the place where secret shit happened’. Naturally, I was eager to find my partners in crime, knowing they would be there already waiting for me. However, when I found Amelia on the way, it took just one single look at her face to know that it mirrored my own…

Guilt.

Which was why I gave her the encouragement I knew she needed right in that moment. Without being obvious about it, I told her that we were doing the right thing.

“I am starting to think this really is Fated as your father never sleeps this deeply,” I said, and she gave me a warm smile in return. Then she patted my hand in comfort, as that was my daughter. No matter the worry she held in her own heart, she would always try and help others with their own.

“Let’s go,” she said, opening the door to what would soon become our Fates intwined and to what I was soon to discover would also include…an extra family member.

One we had never anticipated joining us.

I never thoughtwhen doing this, that a haunting sound would mark the start of our time traveling quest. But that’s exactly what happened.

“NOOOOO!” This was the last thing I heard being echoed from my daughter’s voice as I too screamed at what I could see happening before it did.

Ella.

My beautiful niece.

She had followed us into the Janus Gate.

Only the second we made it through to the other side, Fate had obviously had a very different plan for her, as she hadn’t followed us into whatever time we now found ourselves in. An unknown I had faced once before.

But as for Ella, I foolishly dedicated all my focus on what my daughter and I had to do. Not stopping long enough to question what could have brought Ella to the Janus Gate. Because I had been acting under the belief that for Ella, we would be back just as quickly as we had left. Meaning I could then be there for her once we had completed whatever Fate had in store for us.

But with the desperate look on my niece’s face when she found us, I knew that same Fate was clearly enveloping us all. Yet despite this, the second I saw the devastation on Amelia’s face, I knew our worst fears had transpired, and happened before this journey had even really begun. Now forcing me to ask a painful question as I just needed to be sure I hadn’t imagined it all.

“What happened?!” I shouted as Amelia’s desperate eyes continued to scan the area, with nothing but hope and fear mixed in those deep blue depths.

“Amelia, what happened, what did you see?” I asked again, this time taking her arm and trying to force her focus back to me. The look of her tear-filled eyes nearly broke my heart as I knew she would feel responsible for this.

“Ella… she… I couldn't stop her.I couldn't stop her, Mum.”The quiet vulnerability in my daughter’s voice caused another crack to rupture my heart, and tears made their sad journey down her cheeks. Tears that as a mother, I was quick to wipe away, just like I had done a million times before. But this, well it was a lot more than a scraped knee or waking from a nightmare.

No…this was living the nightmare.

Because we just lost one of our own.

I quickly pulled her into my arms and cradled her head to my neck, while stroking back her hair, feeling her tears soak my skin. Then I told her what I could only pray was the truth at this point,

“It will be okay, Fae… it will be okay…it has to be.”

A shuddered sob later and I was adding to my claim, forcing more strength into my words.

“She's a Chosen One, which means whether the gate would have allowed her access or not, as the God of Fate, he would not have harmed a prophesized one.”

“How can you be so sure?” she asked, and again the vulnerability in her small voice transported me back to when she was a child and asking me this same question when I told her the nightmares weren’t real. I felt like a fraud back then, just as I did now. Especially knowing the type of world we had brought her into. Knowing all I had endured as a child when dealing with my own nightmares and knowing that they were as real as I was.

But then what kind of mother would I have been to tell her any different? What type of mother would I have been if I couldn’t protect her and comfort her with hope, just like I did now? Because sometimes hope was all we had, and it became the biggest weapon we carried. And right now, we needed an arsenal full of it!

So, I told her,

“Because everything happens for a reason for us, which means everything happens for a reason for her.”

I felt her nod slightly, just as Sophia approached. Someone who had been watching this with pain and worry written on her flawless features.

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