𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐇𝐄𝐈𝐑 𝐓𝐎 𝐈𝐕𝐎𝐑𝐘

Chapter-12

He swirled the ruby wine in his goblet all the while his eyes traced the women with sapphire hair running through the maze of blends and leaves.

She was trembling. Words of strangers pelted the walls of her warm and gracious heart. Cracks of despair and loss of her family and land would do that to anyone. After all, she saw her fiancee gurgling in the blood that wasn't his. But the woman would never know. She was a mere plaything in the verse of the universe.

They all are.

Yet the woman somehow reached into the darkness to find the light. A broken torch with shattered glass. She made it work nonetheless but not for long. It surged his blood with pride, even her failure was meant to be awarded.

"Courageous, isn't she?" A blend of deep and light voices reached his ears, and Grace leaned his long forearms on the gold-plated railings.

"Graceful, she is." He agreed, inhaling the rich and pleasant aroma of the liquid in his hand.

"You don't agree?" Grace knew nothing went unnoticed by ze. His blood ran thick in Ció's veins too, and unlike him, ze was constantly calculating and weaving in his chambers through dusks and dawns and he will until the end of the world.

"You know it, Ció," Grace reminded gently.

The woman was now tearing the lower ends of her gown while her lips wobbled, the fabric had long meddled with her steps all this way. The torch had been repaired and this time it ignited the dark stones caricatured on her way.

But courageous was not a word Grace might use for her. It was absurd. The whole notion was.

"I don't, brother."

A valid taunt, apparently.

Another set of forearms leaned beside him. From Grace's peripheral, he could see the twisted silver snake, adorned with red and blue rubies running from Ció's ring finger twirled in ringlets until the right bicep. Ze's skin was a mix of white and black. Somewhat of a smoky grey with platinum white shoulder-length hair and fringes lining ze's blue eyes. It was as silky as they shone. With a tall stature, but a leaner build, ze's aristocratic nose opposed ze's large breasts covered in white strands of silk and velvet.

No wonder many slaughtered for ze's love.

Grace no doubt would've bedded ze if they weren't the authors of fates, and intervening with each other, bed or no, had repercussions they weren't ready to face.

"You look lost," Ció's flirty voice zipped him out of his stupor. Grace was a dominant masculine, yet ze had a tendency to make him submit in a single glace.

"Why? Will you be directing me to the ends of my fate?" Grace countered solemnly. Ze could never know how his thoughts raced in ze's proximity.

A deep, rich giggle had thrown all of Grace's plans to reign himself in.

"That is what I exist for. Unless you want me to direct you towards my chambers, I'll oblige." Ze's blue eyes revealed mischief, and Grace backtracked to their earlier conversation. Safer territories. Nothing good ever came out of ze's innuendoes.

The woman held the torch tight with one hand and a blade honed with fire titled in the other as she swerved through narrower passages of the cave. Her alertness was appreciated but in vain. The cave was empty. No foe set a foot inside, no friend surpassed its gates. Nothing breathed alongside her. Not even a shred of nature. Except for the cave itself.

"She opted for the Cave of Eranathos. I would not call it courageous of any sort." Grace finally surmised.

"But she still breathes."

"Yes. Only because the cave graced her. Rushing inside the cave the Possessor of Ice oversaw once is no bravery and you know it, Direcció." Grace grumbled gulping his wine whole. Speaking of the cave led him to reminisce the last time the same had chewed a whole clan of thirty soldiers bare and left nothing in its wake. No flesh, no blood, no trace. It was horribly wrong which is why he came to see which mortal fool breached the cave again.

"Maybe none warned her about what she was entering. Maybe they believed she would be safe." Direcció countered snatching Grace's goblet. Ze twirled his fingers and a pool of white sparkling wine fill its brim. Both the writers attended to the woman who kept walking forward without a pause. She was nearing the gates of the exit as they spoke.

Grace didn't bother answering ze's assumptions. Whoever thought to send that woman into the cave was either nonsensical, or desired for her death, or...knew the God of Water or the Possessor of Ice himself nearly. But the last was unthinkable. Eranathos had subsided three hundred years ago. Though his powers were very much humming, the God himself was nowhere to be found. Just like another acquaintance of theirs.

Direcció turned towards Grace as if ze knew where his thoughts had taken him, and a slight frown etched between ze's eyebrows. As much as Grace wished to remove any trace of apprehension from ze's face, he cannot. Both of them lost someone close, and none could take away the ache. He looked away unable to wipe the hurt in his heart and focused back on the woman only to be shocked out of his damn mind.

"What is happening?" Grace mumbled.

Direccio snapped out of the swirls of haunting thoughts and inhaled a sharp breath.

"The cave.."

Ze's lips parted after those two words. Not once had Grace seen ze stunned into silence, after all his expertise and tenure were much more prominent, and yet-

"But only Earanathos could control it." Grace watched as boulders and pebbles fell from the roof. The ground quivered and the woman started running to the safest route possible in panic.

"Do you feel him?" Ció was anxious, ze's feet tapped constantly. This too was a first for Grace but he couldn't comment. Not when there was a possibility of his best friend being back but-

But-

"No," Grace breathed out, "No, I cannot feel him."

His vision started to get blurry but he gritted his teeth to keep his tears at bay. He couldn't lose his composure. Not now. Not in front of Direcció.

"But how-"

"Surely I'll know if it was him!" Grace snapped. Fear gripped the clouds below that were now huddled together in a trembling mass when his powers gathered.

As soon as he raised his voice, he regretted it. It was not common for him to yell at Ció. Hell, the last time he snapped was two hundred years ago. Ze on the other hand looked unaffected. Like ze didn't care or that ze's mind was far far away from Grace's reach.

"I apologize," Yet Grace cleared his throat, "I shall know if it were him. I'll sense him anywhere. You know how it works."

The weight of his last sentence stood heavy between their tense silence but the matter at hand was as astonishing as urgent.

"This is not Earan's doing," Grace gulped the feelings lodged in his throat while both scrutinized the cave falling apart stone by stone leaving dust and smoke in its wake. The breathing fort was paving an unfamiliar way, and right now it was changing the gates of its departure leading the woman with sapphire locks away from her original destination.

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a/n

How are we liking it guys?

Ps: what are you thoughts on Grace and Direcció?

And yes, Grace is a male. Direcció is a trans. I'll introduce another character in next chapter.

It's been good to finally write, I was in such a slump. That and I was feeling very low since weeks. Sorry for the late update, but at least we're here now right?

I love you all. Please vote, comment or share my story. It's free, and it'll make me really really happy. Thank you!