Fated

Chapter 13

“ G ardonia has always been a land divided by two races, the humans and the divine. The divine were a people gifted with magic, their abilities woven into the very fabric of their existence. In the time before the rise of the four kingdoms, most of the divine had power limited in scope.

“Their gifts were varied—earth magic, charms, wards, and other elemental abilities. The divine also possessed stronger and faster bodies than their human counterparts. They healed at an accelerated rate and were nearly immortal. Humans, on the other hand, although lacking magic, were no less formidable. They were brilliant, cunning, and resourceful.

“To them, the divine weren’t just rivals; they were a threat to their very existence. War between the two races became inevitable, a constant cycle of conflict and destruction. Forced to rely solely on their intellect and ingenuity, humans crafted powerful weapons.

“The machines of war were not simply tools—they were marvels of innovation, designed to counter the divines’ supernatural gifts. Their weapons were so devastating that the very existence of our world was at risk. A great and terrible war broke out, that of humans and their monstrous machines against the divine, who were led by the four most powerful magic wielders of that time. Before it was over, the humans had nearly wiped out our entire race.

“Just before the brink of total destruction, the divine, desperate for salvation, prayed to the gods for help. They stepped in to give our planet a second chance, scattering the humans around the globe, and destroying their technology to ensure they wouldn’t have the means to rebuild.

“The time before the gods was a very dark period in our world, and the gods stepped in and gave our world a second chance. The gods—four brothers—then established the four kingdoms of Gardonia. Each brother chose and appointed one of those four strong magic wielders as a king, bestowing upon them both land and the responsibility to protect the world.

“The kings were tasked with maintaining balance and ensuring both humans and the divine coexisted peacefully. Each god blessed their chosen king with a portion of their own power, creating a lineage of leaders who could wield magic unlike any before them.

“The god Elliot, known for his cunning and fluid nature, gave his chosen king—the King of Ellington—the power of transformative magic. This king had the extraordinary ability to shift into any living creature, whether human or animal, and could even transform other people or objects into anything he desired. Today, we call Ellington the Dark or Forgotten Kingdom, but we will return to that part of history later.

“Now, the god Titus, master of the natural world, granted his chosen king—the King of Titan—the power of the elements. This king could command the very forces of nature at his whim: water; fire; earth; and air. He could summon mighty storms, make the earth tremble beneath his enemies, and forge weapons from the raw elements themselves.

“The god Ambrose, the god of wisdom and thought, gave his chosen king—the King of Ambrosia—the power of the mind.

“This power, although intangible, was vast, allowing the king to control armies with a mere thought, and to pry into the deepest corners of people’s minds and expose their darkest secrets. In the past, kings have used this power for great good and unimaginable evil.

“Finally, the god Aster, the most compassionate of the brothers, gave his chosen king—the King of Astern—the gift of energy, a power now known through its descendants as healers. This king could manipulate raw energy in its purist form, bringing life to inanimate objects, channeling energy from one source to another, and harnessing energy into power to heal the wounded. However, this power also came with a darker facet: the ability to return objects, even living beings, to the void from which all energy originates, effectively erasing them.

“While the current king of every kingdom wielded undiluted power, their descendants could wield a fraction of that power. A prince of Ambrosia, for example, may possess the ability to compel another person’s actions using the power of the mind.”

“Like Ash?” I interrupted.

Madam Pearl nodded. “Yes, like Sebastian. And a princess of Astern, for instance, would have the ability to heal the sick,” she added, her gaze shifting directly to mine.

My heart stuttered, and Ash’s eyes were on me. The room seemed to blur for a moment as her words sank in. “You think I’m a princess?” I asked, my voice laced with doubt.

“I don’t think so, dear, I know it.” Madam Pearl spoke with conviction. “You carry the healing power that only a princess of Astern could possess.”

A wave of dizziness washed over me as the weight of her words settled. My mind raced with questions, but I forced myself to remain focused, clinging to her story.

“When a king died,” Madam Pearl continued, “his power—what we call the ‘heir power’—would pass to one of his male heirs, unless of course, he didn’t have any sons, in which case it would pass to one of his daughters. Every time the heir power has been passed down, it has grown stronger. With great power, there always exists the potential for great good or great evil. Many devastating wars have been waged because of the heir power over the centuries.”

“What about Cresinthia? Is it not a kingdom?” I asked.

She smiled. “We are water dwellers, gifted by the gods the ability to live both under the water or walk on the land. The gods gifted us sanctuary beneath Gardonia, a refuge to protect us during times of war, and to guard our most precious treasure—knowledge.

“You see, in that terrible last battle between humans and the divine, nearly all of our planet’s history and knowledge was destroyed. The very first leader of Cresinthia had been a librarian from Gardonia’s largest historical archive. After the library was decimated, she begged the gods to restore the knowledge. Instead, they gave her the gift of the water dweller and provided this land to guard and protect all new knowledge. As recorders of history, our people were stationed throughout the four kingdoms, trained to live in the world above, to be appointed emissaries to the king’s courts, and to pass information through our underground channels.

“In return, the kings and whoever they allow have access to our vast collection of knowledge.

Our very waters are enchanted. Anyone approaching with ill intentions will lose their purpose and forget why they came here long before ever reaching the water. Those with pure hearts, however, can summon us.”

Ash cleared his throat. “So, Agidius warned us to stay away from the lake and ordered us to kill you on sight because he didn’t want us gaining access to Cresinthia and learning the truth.”

Madam Pearl nodded, her expression solemn. “Agidius has kept much hidden from you … Do you remember when I mentioned the dark kingdom, the Kingdom of Ellington?”

We both nodded.

“In the earliest days of Ellington, the first king was fated to a powerful divine who dabbled in dark magic. Some would call her a witch.”

“Fated?” I asked.

“To be fated to someone is a rare and precious gift,” she explained. “It means fate has destined two individuals to be together, a perfect match in every sense. When two fated souls find and choose one another, a magical bond is formed, linking them forever as one. This gift is powerful and although it may lie dormant for many years, it often awakens during times of great need, drawing together individuals destined to shape history. Now, back to the King of Ellington and his own fated witch. The witch queen’s name was Cynthia, and somehow, she managed to murder the king—her own fated one. Being Fated to the King, and with no other heir to succeed him, the heir power transferred to Cynthia. No one understands how she was able to endure it as the death of a fated one is the most excruciating pain imaginable, like losing a piece of your very soul.

“Cynthia may have become the legitimate Queen of Ellington, but her people despised her for what she had done. She was a tyrant, consumed by her hunger for power. Rebellion grew quickly, and her reign was marked by cruelty and chaos. One of our Cresinthian emissaries, stationed in her court, discovered that Cynthia had imprisoned a rare and powerful being, a world walker—someone who could open portals to other worlds. The only one of his kind.

“She forced the world walker to open portals in hidden places all over Gardonia, leading to worlds where only humans lived. To quell the rebellion in her kingdom, Cynthia devised a dark curse—a curse that would later be the blueprint to the curse plaguing you.” Madam Pearl pointed to Ash. “Cynthia bound the curse to herself, becoming the sire to a new race she called the rippers. As she was their sire, the rippers were compelled to obey her every command.

“The curse bound her people’s magic, muting it. It altered their very DNA, forcing them to rely on human blood to survive. But blood wasn’t just a need—it was an insatiable craving, as addictive as a drug. Blood became a currency in Cynthia’s kingdom, and the human worlds to which she had opened portals were her blood farms.”

Ash stopped her. “You just mentioned a sire bond. Has anyone ever broken that bond?”

Madam Pearl nodded slowly, a knowing look in her eyes. “Yes, the curse had a weakness. Though Cynthia managed to turn her people into monsters, they never forgot who they were—or who they loved. Through the strength of love, some found the willpower to resist her control.”

Ash only nodded and Madam Pearl continued.

“Our emissary from Ellington brought us news of the curse just days before Cynthia released it. Through her test subjects, Cynthia discovered a healer could cure the curse. Our goal was to use that information to find a way to mass produce a cure, but before we had a chance to act, she released the curse. It was like a virus—airborne, infecting anyone it touched.

“We alerted the other kingdoms, and the three ruling kings of that time came together and created an extraordinarily powerful ward. This magical wall surrounded the entirety of Ellington, sealing the people and the curse inside. Only the combined blood of the three kings could break the ward. The King of Titan forged thick forests and grew treacherous mountains around Ellington, and eventually, most forgot about the cursed kingdom.

“The passageway from Cresinthia was shut down permanently, and for nearly three thousand years, no one has known what became of the cursed people, and if they still survive.”

I shuddered at the idea of the cursed kingdom left to fester in isolation for centuries, but something else was weighing heavily on me. It was the idea that human worlds, like my own, were nothing more than blood banks for some evil queen to control her people.

“Do all divine view humans so poorly? I have been around humans my entire life. The mother who raised me, and my friends, they were all human, and they were good. They certainly didn’t deserve to be treated as nothing more than walking blood bags.”

I couldn’t help the anger seeping into my words.

Madam Pearl’s expression softened. “Yes, dear, you will find today that most divine treat humans with equality and respect, but change came slowly for the humans of Gardonia. After the establishment of the four kingdoms, the divine harbored resentment toward humans for nearly destroying our world. In retaliation, the divine rose to power, and humans were treated as little more than slaves for centuries. But change did come. Only three hundred years ago, the King of Ambrosia came to me—”

“Ash’s kingdom?” I interrupted.

She nodded. “Yes, the King of Ambrosia came to me with a bold plan. He was going to make a stand against the other kingdoms. He vowed to offer safe refuge to any human seeking asylum in Ambrosia. He asked for my support, understanding how essential Cresinthia was to the other kingdoms, not only for trade, but also for the wealth of knowledge we possessed.

“With the full support of Cresinthia behind him, the King of Ambrosia threatened the other kingdoms with war and the permanent loss of access to Cresinthia.

“Reluctantly, they agreed to end human slavery and soon after, most humans migrated to Ambrosia, where they were granted full and equal citizenship. If you would believe it, the intellect of all those humans gathered in one place combined with divine magic led to Ambrosia becoming the most powerful of all the kingdoms.”

A sense of relief washed over me at her words.

It was comforting to know that not everyone in Gardonia shared the same disregard for human life as Ash did, and as Calyx and the Queen of Ellington had.

Although Ash … He was from Ambrosia, the kingdom that had ended slavery. Surely Ash—the Ash before the curse—must have cared at least a little about humans too.

Ash’s voice pulled me back to the conversation at hand. “How did Astern get cursed, and if Ambrosia is my home, how did I end up in Astern?”

Madam Pearl continued. “The King of Astern, Edwin, was a good man, a just ruler. He had five children with his wife Ansel—four sons and one daughter. The king loved them dearly, but a few months after their youngest daughter was born, Ansel disappeared. Edwin searched relentlessly for her for years until one day, her remains were found in a hidden passageway beneath the castle; she had been murdered. But Edwin’s horror didn’t end there.

“Sixteen years ago, Edwin’s grown children began dying in a span of days. Each one—a potential heir—had been murdered. A castle servant came forward. She had been quietly going about her duties, stocking a linen closet when she witnessed something she couldn’t quite explain. Edwin’s eldest sons, Prince Arthur, and his brother Prince Cam, entered the room without noticing the servant. She heard something heavy fall, and when she looked, she saw Cam standing over Arthur’s unconscious body with a stone figurine in his hand.

“But what shocked her most was what happened next. Cam’s body shifted, transforming into a black-haired woman. The woman casually pulled a tiny mouse out of her pocket, using magic to turn the creature into a dark-haired man. The black-haired woman laughed before turning to the man, addressing him as Agidius. She told him that once he killed his last brother, all that would stand between him and the heir power was his father, Edwin. Edwin knew nothing of a son named Agidius, but he did know that only one person in Gardonia could shape-shift.”

“Cynthia, the witch turned Queen of Ellington,” I whispered.

Madam Pearl nodded gravely. “Yes, Cynthia had murdered Edwin’s wife years ago and taken her form, becoming pregnant with the king’s sixth child, Agidius. She then disappeared to raise him in secret. Once Agidius was old enough, Cynthia returned with him to help him murder his brothers and father, all in an effort to gain the heir power of Astern.

“How did Cynthia break through the ward around Ellington?” I asked.

Madam Pearl sighed as she shook her head. “We don’t know.”

I nodded, signaling for her to continue.

“After losing nearly all his children, King Edwin called upon the King of Ambrosia for help. Ambrosia’s king would be able to use his power and search the minds of the people close to Edwin, identifying the imposter among them. So, the King of Ambrosia, along with a few of his most trusted, all possessing useful abilities, headed to Astern to aid King Edwin.”

“That’s how Ash ended up in Ambrosia—he possessed mind control abilities,” I said.

Madam Pearl nodded and continued again.

“The King of Ambrosia’s arrival in Astern was one of the last things we heard from the world above. Shortly after, the ripper curse was unleashed once again, but this time, it was far more insidious. The curse had been altered; it didn’t just turn its victims into rippers.

“It also wiped their memories, erasing who they once had been. And Ambrosia’s king, being the most powerful, resisted the curse the longest, being able to contact me before the curse claimed him completely. He told me what he had learned—how he had found and captured Cynthia, how she’d admitted everything: the murder of Ansel, the birth of Agidius, and her ultimate goal—Agidius seizing the heir power from all four kingdoms.”

Ash and I exchanged confused glances.

“Remember how I told you the King of Astern could act as a conduit, transferring energy between objects?”

“Yes,” we both replied.

“With that ability, the King of Astern technically has the power to steal the heir power of other kingdoms. A king had tried a similar thing about a thousand years ago but failed since trying to forcibly take another divine’s power killed the subject. However, more recently, another king of Astern discovered he could choose his own heir, by transferring his power.

“Other kings have been known to call upon the King of Astern to transfer their power, choosing exactly which of their heirs would receive it. The transfer worked as long as the giver and receiver were both willing. Something else Cynthia confessed was that she was the very servant who had come forward to reveal her own presence in Astern.

“Yes, it was she who had planted the idea in Edwin’s mind to bring in the King of Ambrosia.

Wherever Agidius had been hiding while his mother was interrogated, he released the ripper curse and bound it to himself. This version of the curse—spread rapidly through a mist and by wiping the memories of its victims—eliminated the possibility of love creating a new resistance.

“Right before the King of Ambrosia succumbed to the curse, with his memory fading, he ordered me to inform his kingdom and the Kingdom of Titan to raise their blood wards. These would act as a protection similar to the original ward around Ellington. Once activated, they would keep anyone or anything from entering or exiting the kingdom and could only be disabled by the blood of the king himself. Since that day, we have lived down here with no word from the world above. When the wards went up in Titan and Ambrosia, Cresinthia was also cut off from them. Every day, we send scouts like Mira to the Astern tunnel, and others to the tunnels leading to Ambrosia and Titan, hoping for news. But it has been silent. Until, that is, you two arrived.

“We could only fear the worst, that Agidius, having claimed the heir power of Astern, had been given his mother’s heir power of Ellington and that the King of Ambrosia had also given up his power to Agidius—willingly under the curse. If this were true, Agidius would be the greatest threat not only to our world, but also to every other, especially with the knowledge that his mother possesses a world walker.”

Her words hung in the air, and the three of us sat in silence for a few long minutes.

Ash finally broke the silence. “Is the King of Ambrosia my father?”

Madam Pearl hesitated, clearly considering her words carefully.

“Your relationship with your father is … Well, let us say it is complicated. I think it’s best you discover the truth yourself by retaining your memories.”

I shifted in my seat. “You said the world was counting on Ash and me?”

Madam Pearl nodded. “Yes, the fact you are a healer gives us hope, Areya. If you were willing, we could study your blood and try to find a cure, then mass distribute the cure to as many as possible, using Cresinthia for safe passage. And if Sebastian were cured and returned to full power, he may be the only one capable of delivering the cure unnoticed.

“With his memories restored, I suspect he may know how to break through Ambrosia’s wards, and we could use the great minds of Ambrosia’s scientists, working on the cure.”

I took a deep breath. “Of course, I would be willing to give you my blood, but what I don’t understand is how am I a healer, exactly? If Agidius killed every healer, where did I come from and how did I end up in a human world?”

Madam Pearl considered me. “Do you have any idea what your birth mother’s name was?”

“Everleigh; her name was Everleigh.”

Madam Pearl looked at me with a deep sadness in her eyes. “Everleigh was the name of the King’s beloved daughter.”

My breath caught in my throat, and the room seemed to spin.

“So, Agidius murdered my mother?”

My voice wavered, barely above a whisper. The realization of it all came crashing over me like a tidal wave. I had known my birth mother was dead, but knowing Agidius—my own uncle—had been the one to kill her opened a fresh wound in my heart.

I fought to keep the tears at bay, biting down hard on the emotion threatening to spill over. Agidius, the man I already despised for what he had done to Ash, was now more than an enemy.

He was the monster responsible for tearing apart my family, for destroying my entire life before I’d ever had a chance to know it. I had been born a princess of Astern, with a loving mother, a caring grandfather, and uncles. But Agidius and Cynthia had destroyed that world, leaving me with nothing but fragmented pieces of a past I’d never had the chance to live.

Blinking away the tears, one slipped and made its way down my cheek. I quickly wiped it away but not before realizing Ash was watching me.

“You settle in two days,” Ash said quietly.

I looked up at him.

“I want you to cure me.”

The words took me by surprise. Ash, the man who had pushed back so fiercely against the idea of being healed …?

“I’ll try,” I whispered.

Madam Pearl’s eyes softened as a smile tugged on the corner of her lips.

“There’s hope yet,” she said.