Endless Enchantment: Secret Of Shadowvale

CHAPTER-13-UNLOCKING DOORS

LUCIUS'S POV~

Eldranthia is the land of both dreams and horrors they say. I have grown up here. 

Eldranthia is a place of contrasts, where beauty and darkness mingle so closely it's hard to tell them apart. Magic hums all around, vibrating in the ground, the water, even the wind itself.

The lush green forests with tall trees and birds chirping around,  the bluish purple hue in the sky during twilight is magical beyond limits, the flowers glowing in the most unusual variety of colours and a scent, so sweet, that it could woo any creature living here. The beauty, the shine, the aroma, every inch.... was an illusion. 

The trees are  impossibly high with awfully ugly creatures surrounding them, the sky is dripping blood and screaming misery, the flowers are gloomy and twisted with edges so sharp that they could cut a human tongue in half and the scent... it reminds me of a burning soul. 

The beauty here is deceiving. It makes you believe what it wants you to believe. When I was a child, I still remember   hearing the laughter of children and following it into a dark grove. The moment I stepped into the clearing, their joyful giggles twisted into screams, and they vanished, leaving shadows that seemed to close in around me. The ground split open beneath my feet, revealing a black void that tried to pull me in. I woke from that nightmare sweating, but the memory never really left.

Eldranthia is full of such tricks. The water may look clear, but shapes move just below the surface. The trees seem alive, watching you with eyes you can't see. It's a place where even the sweetest things can twist into darkness, where magic knows your deepest fears. It's beautiful, yes, but it's a beauty that can easily turn on you.

This place was the air I breathed, yet it stole away the one person I was living for.

"Lucius!" a jovial voice calls me from afar and I exactly know who it is. 

"Mother" I am more than overwhelmed to see her after so many days. She rushes towards me and embraces me right in her arms. A mother's hug does feel different afterall. She goes ahead to squeeze my cheeks like I am a child or something. 

She still looks like an angel, her smile as gentle as the first light of dawn. Her chestnut hair falls in soft waves, and her eyes...like the calm blue of the sea—radiate a quiet strength that's anything but powerless.

"I missed you my lucy" I don't answer her back.  Did I miss her? Did I not miss her? I don't really know.  I remember her asking me visit her for a very long time but I refused her invitation every time. I am a bad son but am I the only one to be blamed? 

 "Mother" I gently put her hands down from my cheeks. "I need to talk to father right now. Zaphyra is.."

"I know" the voice. the insensetive and egoistic tone.  "Father" i say to myself. 

I step into the hall and it feels like walking into a tomb. The darkness clings to the walls, and the cold air settles in my bones. He's there, of course—my father—seated on the iron throne, the picture of authority he never earned, tapping his fingers like he's already bored with whatever I'm about to say. And Jasper... Jasper stands a little off to the side, his tension palpable, as if he's bracing himself for yet another battle in a war that never seems to end.



I don't wait for the pleasantries. "Zaphyra was attacked," I say, cutting through the silence. My voice echoes in the empty hall, but it's met with nothing but that same damn indifference.

Father just looks at me, a faint smirk curling his lips. "And?" he asks, like he's waiting for me to say something worthwhile.

I grit my teeth. "And it wasn't just any attack. It was an immortal creature, something that's slipped between realms undetected for who knows how long."