Family Bonds

lyra stood in front of a castle that looked almost the same like zephyrus's family castle, she had seen this countless time so she was not moved by the majestic she tapped her family's crest as she pushed the castle doors open.

As soon she stepped her foot through her castle doors her countenance seemed to change completely, if Renjiro was here at the moment, he would be convinced that she was a completely different person or that she had multiple personalities. The castle was a bit more medieval than that of zephyrus's family and there were a lot of weaponry everywhere and had less flowers with less flowery motifs, it looked more like a military forte than a castle for a family of florists.

"Mom! Mom!" lyra shouted as she skipped through the castle corridors like a giddy school girl

A small blue head peeked out of one of the numerous rooms and she smiled at the girl skipping towards him, lyra squatted so she could be at eye level with the little girl and ruffled her hair.

"Where is momma?" lyra asked

"I don't know, but she should be in the training room" the little girl said in a small voice

"What were you doing inside?" lyra asked as she lifted the little girl in her arms while tickling her, sounds of giggles soon filled the corridor.

Lyra took little Isolde towards the training room where their mother was, as they got closer to the training room they began to hear loud grunts coming from the training room.

Lyra stepped into the room and saw her mother practicing in the room with a dummy and there were a lot of vines in the room, the dummy itself seemed impaled with a lot of little plants that looked like bullets, she didn't want to disturb her mother training session so she just stood by and watched her mother execute beautiful movements, thrusting and stabbing simultaneously with her blade and knife while also manipulating plants.

Every time lyra watched her mother she seemed to learn something new, her mother was the best fighter she had seen in the whole continent, her mother thought her everything she knew about fighting and energy manipulation as a florist, naturally compared to the rest of the world most florists were pacifists but that didn't seem to be the case with the members of the shadowdusk family.

It was difficult for someone to marry another from a different continent and culture, such relationships were even close to nonexistent for nobles as they tried to strengthen and preserve their bloodline, but lyra's mother had gotten married to another noble from the kingdom of cosima, their relationship was shunned by their respective communities since there was a question of who would leave their family and join the other but since lyra's father was the second son of his family he decided to secede from his family and join hers.

He also took her family name as his, they had lyra after a few years, and Isolde about fifteen years after they had lyra, she inherited her mother's abilities and was also known as a prodigy when she was younger, even now she was still the best student in the whole school, but little Isolde was very different, when she was one, she started manifesting the powers of her father's side of the family, which was unusual for a child of that age since their energy pathway didn't open till they got to ten years of age, that was what made it very unusual.

A few weeks after she manifested her powers, she also unlocked her florist abilities, it left everybody puzzled because even though they were people who had up to two energy pathways but they were just a handful, about six in all the continents but none had ever manifested their abilities at this age.

The family kept this knowledge under wraps since any other person knowing about it might cause her to be targeted, lyra rubbed on her sister's cheeks as she thought about this, she had only met her father a few times and she hadn't seen him in about two years now, she always wondered how her father managed to cope without her father's presence.

Her mother finished her routine and walked to them with a big smile on her face, she hugged lyra and took little Isolde into her arms, little Isolde scrunched up her nose to show that she wasn't pleased about being carried by her sweaty mother, Elysia let out a hearty laughter and tickled little Isolde.

"How has school been these past few days" she asked lyra

"Nothing spectacular has happened yet, except that zephyrus got into trouble with professor Ophelia and she called him into her office" lyra replied

"ahh! Zephyrus! It has been a while since I saw him, I see he is still as troublesome as ever. And it seems to me like you still have a crush on him" elysia joked

"it's not like that mother, I need to watch out for him incase he ends up hurting others or himself with his antics" lyra said shyly with a blush on her face

"I heard someone from your school almost got assassinated, has he gotten better?" she asked

"we haven't seen him or heard from his family yet so no one knows for now" lyra replied she knew her mother already had information on all that was happening in the continent but was just trying to have a conversation with her since they hardly had time to talk.

"let me clean up and get dressed for dinner" elysia said and handed little Isolde back to lyra

Lyra held little Isolde and they watched their mother head towards her room, lyra admired her mother a lot and always wondered how she would fare without her mother, she took little Isolde to her room so they could prepare for dinner.

In a poorly lit street two cloaked figures passed and exchanged notes, and went their separate ways, in a large room about ten cloaked figures including both figures that exchanges notes stood in front of a holographic projector and bowed down in reverence as soon as a man came into view.

"rise! Let us begin with today's meeting" he commanded