Descendants of the Kings (Book 2)

Mister Wolf and the little warrior 1

Callan took in the imponent marble palace in front of him. Snow fell around him, seeping straight through the wispy clouds cuchioning his feet, as if they were light as feathers, yet strong enough to uphold the colossal weight of the structure around him.

It had been snowing that day as well. Twenty years prior, when he'd come up to see Seren, in a much too painfully similar situation.

He could recall every single detail of that day, despite having tried to shut it out of his memory in the subsequent years. The unseasonable snow falling around him despite being almost spring. The blurry haze of the palace of Caelum, as he made his way across the estate.

Just like all those years ago, he found Seren in her solarium, a perch on the highest point of the marble castle, surrounded by warmth and clouds. Callan still didn't know how she'd managed to spend her childhood and subsequent years in the gloomy, cliffside Gerrathea, when she belonged to the sun and the skies.

He didn't bother with formalities upon entering her solarium. After a day of waiting for permission to come, he was past pleasantries. All he wanted was to see Elowen, anything else was irrelevant.

Seren looked up from her spot and set down her teacup all too quickly. She plastered on a too-wide smile, as she began to fumble with another cup and a pot. "Callan! You made it so quickly! How are you? Why don't you sit, I brought coffee, given you're not fond of tea--"

"Seren."

She was stalling. He could always tell by the nervous fluttering of her wings and her jittery movements.

Her hands stilled. Slowly, she looked up with her big, watery blue eyes. The eyes of his mother. The remorse swimming on the surface made him stop cold in his tracks.

"What have you done? Where is my daughter?" He almost choked on the word.

"Callan..." she whispered.

"Where is Elowen?" he repeated more frantically. It was too eerily similar. The way she'd left, the words she'd said. His stomach roiled with dread. It was happening all over again.

Seren made her way over to him slowly, as if she were aproaching a wounded feral animal.
"She begged me, she wanted to leave. She promised to come back, Cal. She isn't leaving--"

"How could you?" He pressed his hands to his temples, unable to look at her. "How could you do this again? After everything that took place the first time, you betray me again? Wasn't it enough to help Minna run away knowing she was carrying our child?"

Seren took a fumbling step back, as if he'd reached across and pushed her. Her mouth curved harshy and wobbled. "That's not fair," she whispered. "That's not fair and you know it. You don't understand how difficult my position was. Minna was so terrified, it broke my heart to do what I had to do."

"Of course I don't know, because I wasn't told," he hissed, his composure cracking like the useless organ in his chest. "I was left to wonder just what I'd done, what could have possibly led her to run away. Everything was fine and one day, she never came back. I was left to pick up the pieces with only a hasty letter telling me she was leaving me. Have you any idea of how that destroyed me? I nearly lost my mind."

Tears were falling freely from her eyes now, like a broken faucet. "I don't know?" Seren retorted.  "I watched as you shut yourself off, I watched as you fell apart. Don't you think I would have done anything to stop everything from turning out the way it did? I made a choice because it was the only thing I could do at that moment."

"Why?" He urged, tugging his hair roughly. "Why would you do this? What could have possibly led you to believe that the best choice was to help rip away my family?"