Elara sat in silence, absorbing what he’d just divulged to her.
Truthfully, Argon hadn’t expected to share so much of what was burning inside him. Admitting those feelings to someone he was just getting to know was disconcerting to say the least. But it felt so easy with her. It felt natural. He looked up at her, locking his gaze with hers.
Elara nodded simply. She understood his feelings; they mirrored her own initial feelings.
Argon’s eyes found hers again. “I want to see her again. Please.”
Elara gave a small nod, her feelings softening.
“When?” Argon asked, his heart growing lighter. A small tug of desperation and excitement pulled at his stomach as he waited for her response.
“When would you like to see her next?” Elara whispered. How involved did he want to be in her life? Did Argon want to see Helia once a week? More? She bit her lip.
“Whenever you’ll let me,” Argon answered quickly. He felt his lips moving before he knew what he was saying: “Tomorrow.” He couldn’t wrap his mind around what he was saying. What he was doing. He couldn’t understand himself, or what he was feeling. Right now, he knew that he wanted more.
“We’re going to get Helia some more clothes tomorrow,” Elara informed him. She wasn’t sure how she felt about his joining them in such a public setting. It felt… intimate. Unsettling.
Argon was a natural with Helia. And she had honestly found herself naturally flowing with him.
“Okay.”
Argon’s breath caught in his throat, and stared at her with his mouth ajar. He felt stunned and relieved at the same time.
“Does the morning work for you?” she asked tentatively.
“Yes. I’ll be there.” Argon stood up.
Elara stood up as well, knowing that the evening was over. They gazed at each other, uncertain of what to say. Elara’s head was swimming. Argon’s stomach churned. Their emotions had taken a rollercoaster ride, and each of them wasn’t sure how much more they could take for one evening.
“Thank you for dinner,” Argon blurted finally. “Everything was delicious.”
“Thank you for coming.” Elara nodded, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. “Um… I guess I’ll see you…”
“I’m looking forward to it,” Argon said sincerely, his voice deep as he looked at her.
Elara nodded. Looking at him and the way he was that evening, Elara glimpsed a little bit of the man she married in the future.
That thought scared her.
The events they witnessed through the Aether Stone would not play out the same way. She was not the woman she saw in the time shadows. And he was not the man she saw.
Right?
Elara nibbled her lip, and her heart flip-flopped as Argon looked intently at her.
“Tomorrow,” he said. Try as he might, he could not fight off the smile that broke out across his face.
“Tomorrow,” Elara echoed, smiling as well.
With that, Argon turned and walked out the door.
THE ANCIENT PRINCESS
Noiro huffed, looking around the table. Elara, Miela, and Argon sat around the table in Noiro’s sitting room, while Helia sat nearby, playing with her doll. The three adults grinned sheepishly at the exasperated man. They had agreed to meet earlier in the day, but each member of the group had to reschedule.
Elara asked to meet a few hours later than originally planned, since she was running behind on getting some more clothes and toys for Helia. Miela was called away for an important meeting with her superiors, as they were working on upgrading the city’s defenses. Argon had some reason he needed to reschedule, but seemed mighty secretive to the reason why.
Noiro sighed. Argon had dropped off the package to his house, deeming it a safer option to hide the book for now. Having the sealed package from Estelle kept hidden away in one of his drawers was driving him insane with curiosity.
Whatever was in that package, if Yun Zeru was keen to get his hands on it, it must be important.
Could that book be an instrumental key to the future’s war?
Noiro desperately wanted to have a quick peek, and it took every bit of self-control he could muster to hold himself back. The package now sat innocently in the center of the table, and the four stared peculiarly at it.
“Alright, let’s get started,” Miela declared, leaning forward. Noiro nodded, and pulled the package closer to him. He slowly moved his hands, delicately unraveling the packaging. He did not want to risk damaging the contents of the parcel.
The brown packaging pulled away to reveal a small, old leather bound book. The pages looked yellow and worn-out, yet the binding and cover looked very well preserved. The title’s lettering looked slightly faded with age. Elara frowned as she examined the book.
“Fital’s Tales,” she read the title of the book aloud, curious. “What is this?”
Argon looked incredulously at the book. “It’s a children’s storybook,” he said. “My mother used to read it to us.”
“Why would Yun Zeru want a children’s storybook?” Miela frowned. “There must be thousands of copies of this book, anyhow. Why would he need it from Estelle?”
Argon shook his head. “This book was never officially published. There is only this copy.” He pulled the book closer to him, his fingers gingerly resting on the thick leather. “Fital wrote it himself, for his family. It’s been in my family for generations. Fital, the author, was my mother’s ancestor.”
“Is there something special about this book?”
Argon shrugged. “There’s nothing special about it. It’s just a book of bedtime stories.”
“It’s strange,” said Noiro. “I’ve never heard of Fital.”
“Well, Fital wasn’t really a storyteller,” clarified Argon. “He was a historian, like Estelle. My family comes from a long line of historians.”
“Do you think there’s a message hidden inside?” asked Elara. “Let’s take a look.”
The four adults pored over the old tome, scouring its pages for anything peculiar that caught their attention. Each page was carefully handwritten, with colorful illustrations painted next to each new title. It truly was a beautiful book.
To their disappointment, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Like Argon had said, it was just a book of stories.
“I don’t understand,” said Noiro, shaking his head. “What is so important about this book?”
“Hold on,” Elara thought for a moment, and then flipped back a few pages. She tilted her head towards Helia, who was deep in conversation with her doll.
“The princess story,” Elara murmured to herself. She turned back to her friends, the gears turning in her head.
“What is it?” Her friends looked back at her curiously.
“She wanted you to read the princess story to her last night,” she recalled, looking at Argon. Miela quirked an eyebrow. Elara ignored her, looking pointedly at Argon.
Argon reached for the book, flipping through the pages before landing on one towards the end of the book.
“This is the only princess story,” he said, showing the group the book. “The Ballad of the Ancient Princess.”
Elara studied the first page, and then shifted her eyes to the illustration. She narrowed her eyes, and then gasped. “Look!” Elara squeaked, pointing frantically at the illustration. “Do you recognize that?”
“What? What?”
“That painting! I’ve seen it before!”
“That’s impossible,” Argon raised an eyebrow. “If you’ve never seen this book before, there’s no way you could’ve ever seen this painting.”
“I’m telling you, I’ve seen it before!” Elara insisted.
“Fital painted this himself.” Argon pointed to the illustration. “This is the only copy in existence. Unless you’ve seen this book before, there’s no way you could’ve seen it.”
“The tapestry in Polaris Castle,” said Elara. “From the time shadows!”
The group
leaned in to examine the painted illustration. Sure enough, Elara was right.
An image of a young woman clad in a loose, flowing white gown was in the center of the page, with a magnificent crown shining on top of her raven hair. Her hands were clasped above her chest, grasping a precious black stone. Just like the tapestry, which hung magnificently in Polaris Castle, the elements emerging from the woman’s hands closed around the stone: a mix of leaves and vines branching out from around the stone, gusts of wind, beams of fiery light, and streams of deep blue waters.
“What is Fital’s painting doing in Polaris Castle?” Miela wondered. “Was Fital affiliated with the Royal Family?”
Argon shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. He was just an old historian.”
“Curious,” Noiro murmured. “This can’t be a coincidence.”
“But that tapestry was up there in the castle for anyone to see,” said Miela. “Perhaps Fital had copied the images from the tapestry into his book?”
“Maybe,” Argon hummed, although he looked quite uncertain.
“The answer has to be in the story,” said Elara.
“I’ll read it,” Argon offered, turning the book around. He looked up at the group, clearing his throat. He couldn’t help but feel slightly self-conscious as he began to read.
“A hundred years ago, no one quite knows why,
The waters of the Earth began to run dry.
With people turning desperate to find water to seize,
Humanity was soon brought down to its knees.
For you see, without the tides to fill our chalice,
The Earth’s elements were thrown out of balance.
Soils turned to dust, and fires burned through ashy, parched lands,
Suffocating winds blew so fierce, nary a soul could withstand.
At the Northern mouth, at the edge of death’s threshold,
Lay the Ancient Princess, her breaths numbered and cold.
Yearning for her final moments to be in peace,
She waited for the moment her hunger would cease.
As her body crawled across the jagged floor,
A stone shook loose, and fell with a thundering roar.
She watched the stone fracture in two,
Just small enough pieces for her to bite into.
Hunger roared inside her,
And her vision started to blur,
So she reached desperately for the stone,
And swallowed it whole.
The Ancient Princess closed her eyes, believing death had come,
But warmth radiated through her, and energy began to drum.
Her palms touched the floor as she pushed herself off the land,
And watched in shock as the ground cracked beneath her hand.
She dug her fingers into the cracks and pulled it apart,
And the Earth gave way to fresh water spilling out.
It was that day humanity was brought back,
With people flocking for salvation from the Earth’s crack.
Under the Ancient Princess’s watchful eyes,
Her empire prospered under peaceful skies.
As the Ancient Princess regained her strength,
She noticed some changes, which grew to be immense.
She found water would bow to her every command,
And fire could appear in the palm of her hand.
The Earth’s bowels moved at her every whim,
And winds howled with a movement of her limb.
Baffled by the Elements’ emergence within,
She called for the brightest minds to explore the origin.
Unbeknownst to the Ancient Princess, on that fateful day,
It was no ordinary stone that fell in her way.
For she had consumed the First,
The key to the Elements in which she was immersed.
Mystified by the First and its power,
She feared what might happen with hands that went sour.
Plagued with fears of her prospering empire falling once more,
She set out to secure the world as her existence’s core.
With one half of the First lying in the depths of her belly,
She hid the other amongst diamond, emerald, sapphire, and ruby.”
Argon closed the book softly, looking up at the group in front of him. Noiro crossed his arms, thinking hard.
“So, let me get this straight,” said Miela, frowning. “Yun Zeru’s going through all this trouble to get his hands on a story about someone who ate a stone?”
Noiro, however, looked excited. “I wonder,” he uttered, his eyes sparkling. He turned to Argon. “It seems that Fital might have stuck to his historian roots when writing this story.”
“How?”
“Think of the first verse of the ballad,” said Noiro. “‘The waters of the Earth began to run dry.’ I think it’s referring to the War of Waters.”
“The War of Waters?”
Noiro nodded. “There is a theory among archeologists that in every new era, the Earth experiences some catastrophic event that aids in wiping out the existing population, and a new civilization is born in its stead.
“A long time ago, the world was running out of fresh water. Wars had always been waged over land, religion, resources…but war over water was new territory.”
“I didn’t know there was a war over water,” Argon mused.
“It was one of the most catastrophic events to ever happen in human history. During that time, the Earth’s climate was shifting rapidly, unpredictably. Weather patterns began to change immensely, and it affected the world’s atmosphere in the worst ways,” explained Noiro.
“How?” asked Elara.
He glanced at her. “Well, for example, a few centuries ago, the Earth had large deserts of ice and snow at its poles.”
“What?” Miela interrupted in awe. “Deserts of ice and snow? How is that possible?”
“It was possible,” asserted Noiro. “There were massive glaciers and ice at the North and South Poles.”
“What? Land? Over there? There’s nothing there, now.” Elara frowned. “It’s just ocean.”
“We’re talking about a long time ago,” reminded Noiro. “Those glaciers were responsible for holding the majority of the world’s fresh water supply. But because of the rapidly changing climates at the time, they deteriorated, and eventually melted into the ocean. Sea levels rose, and the oceans grew more turbulent each year. Eventually, the oceans overtook most of the Earth’s landscape.”
“What do you mean?” Argon asked.
“A long time ago, there was much more land above the ocean than there is now,” sighed Noiro. “There used to be mountains, which once touched the clouds, that are now mostly submerged and are mere rocky islands. Entire cities and civilizations were swallowed beneath the depths of the sea. Rains were scarce, but when it did finally fall, it was destructive. The world’s existing fresh water turned sour with acid, and people were dropping like flies from lack of clean water and dehydration. And so, they fought over the last remaining reserves of water left in the world.
“It was a brutal war. People resorted to any possible venue for a sip of water: the ocean, polluted rivers…even blood.” Noiro shuddered. “Humanity was on the brink of extinction. You see, we can go weeks without food, but only days without water.”
“How did it end?” asked Elara.
Noiro shook his head. “The accounts are hazy. It makes sense; chaos reigned during that time, and it was impossible to keep track of what was happening. But this ballad does support one of the leading theories.” Noiro rested a finger on his chin. “A newly discovered water source supplied the new wave of civilization. Some say it was the result of a sudden flood. Another theory is that enough people died that the Earth had time to heal and regenerate its resources. But no one knows for sure…”
“According to this ballad, though,” Argon interrupted as he opened the book back to the page, “the princess tore the Eart
h open with her hands and brought forth water… Tore the Earth open? After eating a stone?”
Noiro smiled. “Not just any stone. The ballad referred to the stone as The First.” He stood up, went over to his laboratory, and came back holding Helia’s necklace. “What if it meant the first element?”
“The Aether Stone!” Elara cried, shooting up to her feet.
“Exactly!” Noiro exclaimed. “By consuming the Aether Stone, the Ancient Princess gained the ability to control the elements, making her an Elemental.”
“That’s what Yun Zeru must be after, then,” Elara gasped. “The Aether Stone.”
“He might be after more than that,” said Noiro. “He might not know the Aether Stone’s significance in all of this… And we saw what he was after in the future.”
“He kept demanding we give him the Elemental,” recalled Elara.
“Exactly,” said Noiro. “He’s after power. He wants to be an Elemental.”
“But that’s impossible,” scoffed Miela. “You said it yourself, there is no such thing as an Elemental. This is just a children’s storybook.”
“But, assuming there is truth to the ballad… The Ancient Princess consumed the Aether Stone,” said Elara. “That’s how she became an Elemental.”
“Only half of it, remember? The stone cracked in two.”
“That’s right. And she hid the other half.”
“So, then, Yun Zeru must be after the Aether Stone,” Elara repeated her earlier deduction. “He needs to consume the Aether Stone to control the elements.”
Noiro shook his head again. “I don’t think that’s what he’s after. Otherwise, he would have been asking for the stone in the future,” he reminded her. “Remember, he kept asking for the Elemental.”
The Elemental Page 21