18 Chapter Eighteen

I walked or more like dragged myself to the couch in the castle's lobby and buried myself in the cushion before making an effort to sit right. We had just finished our training session with Ciara and we had been heavily humiliated by this monster of a woman. This wasn't fair. Kendall lay on the three-seat couch looking like he was about to pass out while Jacob and Isaac sat on the opposite couch looking equally tired and resting their heads on the armrests. Ciara came walking in with a glass of juice looking like she was just from a refreshing jog. She sat next to me and smirked at all the males in the room that she had tossed around in the battle room.

What had made the training all the scarier was what she said before finishing wrapping up her first fight with Kendall. 'I have been trained since I was five.' This revelation had caught us off-guard that by the time we started trying to put up a fight we were all beaten up. "You guys are wimps," Ciara said beside me.

"Wimps no," Kendall yelled, "you had like a twelve-year head-start." This seemed to take Ciara by surprise.

"You guys weren't trained by your parents," she asked as if it was something we were supposed to have done.

"Nope. Learnt about magic and artras all in the same day," Jacob replied.

"The training was quite efficient Alpha Ciara," Jeremy chimed in.

"Don't encourage her, Jeremy," Isaac yelled causing me to laugh. it was only then that I noticed I wasn't as tired as they were anymore. I knew I was supposed to be tired which made me curious.

"Hey, Ciara. You said you started training when you were five?" I asked.

"Yeah, I did. What about it?" she asked.

"Well have you always known you were an artra or if you were an alpha artra?" I asked.

"Uh. I was around nine when the powers of the alpha artra started manifesting," she replied. "Surely you should have felt something too when you were around that age," she said.

The truth was, I had never felt anything until the day we saw that old man by the football stadium. But someone else around that age had felt special. My cousin had felt special around that age. He grew more wild and spontaneous too. It was like he had the energy of a hundred kids. "No. I felt nothing I told her causing the whole room to go silent. The boys were silent as well. I immediately picked up on the message they were silently concealing. "So you guys felt it too?" I asked.

"Yes, we did. And so did your...." Kendall didn't have to finish his sentence as I stood up and started walking. "Kevin…."

"I'm taking a walk," I said back coldly.

My friends knew me well. I solved my issues in solitude. I wouldn't be swayed by such petty things, but I still needed the time. The Artarak had a huge expanse of fields behind it that had an amazing view of the sunset which was soon closing in. I hadn't told my friends yet what finding out about magic had meant to me. I hadn't figured it out myself. It was only after meeting Texan that I started suspecting. It had bugged me for some time now and I had thought about it over and over. and each I came to accept it the more I realized this was all a mistake.

I had never seen anyone with ripped muscles that looked as abnormal as him. The one who took my cousin from me. That was until I saw Texan in his sleeveless black hood. The body build he had was as bulky as the man we saw that day. My brother had been murdered by someone of a similar build to that of Texan. 'Charles, why? Why did it have to be you,' I thought as tears started to flow down my face. It was clear to me now. My brother was supposed to be the Siege, and he had been killed for it. Charles had been a beacon of hope for me and had been taken away from me. I couldn't help avoiding putting part of the blame on the artras that made a weak barrier between the worlds.

If they hadn't fought among themselves Charles would be here sited of me. I sat down on the cool grass pulling my knees against my chest looked towards the sunset and let the tears flow down my face. 'I won't let them win. The Dark mages will pay for what they did.' I thought while anger and sorrow racked my body with shivers. "Kevin," I heard a voice beside me. I looked away to keep them from seeing my tears. "Were you….."

"What do you want?" I whispered cutting her off.

"I needed to talk to you," she said, "the rest fell asleep. Aren't you tired?" she asked.

"No, my energy was replenished as we sat in the lobby. I don't even know how it's possible." I replied.

"It's the power of a Siege. Alphas have something similar. That's why you asked. I'm sorry if I upset you," she said sincerely.

"Don't worry about it. There is nothing you did wrong. Really," I said before wiping my face and masking my depression. I know I will have to address my suspicions to them later, but right now she didn't need that. "You were saying?" I asked flashing her a reassuring smile to prove I was really fine.

"Can we walk?" she invited.

We walked through the fields which were pretty plain It was like a park really with a few benches scattered through the field. To be honest they were quite vast. Something that would make you wonder why the artras were given so much land. Were they really respected that much? They walked on in silence until they came upon a statue almost smack in the middle of the part of the fields that looked more like a modern leisure park. The other part looked more like a forest. The statue was of two artras in each other's arms looking t each other lovingly.

It towered a little over ten feet high and was very detailed that it left nothing to the imagination as though it were still alive itself. And at its foot the words were engraved, 'To Jekyll and Daphne, who's love shone brightly even in the darkest of hours and guided us back to .....'

'Hmm. That's weird. The words are smudged," I said as I approached the engraving to try to wipe it clean.

"Kevin, leave them be," Ciara said a little bit hopelessly. I couldn't help but notice the desperation in her voice. Something was bothering her and she was on the brink of telling me, "that's their grave." That caught me by surprise. I decided to leave the smudge even though my guts kept telling the message that I had left unfinished was important.

We walked on for a few minutes before she gathered the strength to tell me. "How was it?" she asked. A question isn't what I was going for, but I noticed how she kept a straight face and held back the tears.

"How was what?"

"Experiencing your memories," Ciara had never talked about it before and right now that she was on the brink of tears, Kevin guessed that it wasn't something she found easy to talk about

"They were really sad and painful even though I didn't feel any pain at all. Zaraias did a great job of keeping the pain away. I think the process that was meant to kill or weaken me was the moment when the memories returned. I want to thank you again, Ciara, for erasing my memories that day. I was truly a goner," I told her trying to lift her spirits.

She looked at me directly and her eyes were seriously tearing up. 'Okay, is there something I'm missing here,' I thought. "When I was erasing your memories, I saw the flashback of the day Ellimir died. The council had tried to conceal the severity of what happened that day by summarising what the Alpha did. But I saw it, and it was horrible," she said now sobbing.

Kevin did what his instincts told him and pulled her into a hug. "It had nothing to do with us you know," I said. The wrong move, I was still oblivious.

"Dave….," she paused her eyes closed and face against my chest, "is my dad."

Silence is what followed, much as I knew I had to say something to relieve her of her pain. I was still looking for the next words that would help comfort her. This whole time she had been holding in something of this magnitude. In a way, I was impressed. None of us had even noticed that she was this troubled. "Are you going to confront him on the issue?" I asked quietly.

"I don't even know what to think?" she replied. I held her slightly tighter and started rubbing circles in her back hoping it would help soothe the pain

"I'm sorry. I had no idea," I said.

"It's not your fault you didn't know. It's just…. I've never seen my dad like that. He has always been so sweet. Could it have to do with the fact that the Siege and Alpha don't get along," she started guessing.

"Don't go there, Ciara. Stay strong. Stay with me. Do you feel any enmity towards me?" I asked her.

"No, quite on the contrary," she said before she could stop herself, "although there is the thing of you calling me a principal." She said causing me to giggle. She had stopped crying and was now breathing steadily and still leaning against my chest. Kevin slid his hands down to her lower back urging her to look at him.

She put her hands around his neck and looked up at him, "Don't worry about us. We won't fight like the past generations," I said comfortingly

"How are you so sure?" She asked

"Because I would never raise my hand against you," I said. I wished I could feel like taking back my statement because of how red her face turned, but I knew what I was saying. I had not a shred of malice in my heart towards Ciara and there wasn't a fibre in my being that would dare hurt her.

When she finally composed herself she spoke, "And neither would I."

She leaned her head back on his chest and looked to the horizon, a beautiful spectacle that I hadn't noticed, "That's quite a sunset, don't you think?" she asked causing me to look at it. I was never one for sunsets, but this was something else. Unlike the one on earth, the light was filled with all colours of the rainbow that shimmered and danced across the sky in an amazing brilliance that put our sunsets to shame.

"Yes, it is."