Memories of Midnight

Part 25 *Vixen*

I was sitting in the garden when my heart started aching. I pressed my lips against the tip of my fingers. They were freezing cold to the touch. Logan looked at me worriedly and placed his hand on the small of my back.

"Midnight?! Midnight?! Hey, are you okay? You look sick."

I nodded my heard wearily as I leaned against his shoulder. Every inch of my body was clouded with sadness and pain. Suddenly my mind was bombarded with an image of Novae and Miracle kissing in my bedroom back in Physical Realm. My heart broke as I whimpered to myself softly. I placed my head in between my thighs as I began to cry uncontrollably. Logan held on to me as I sobbed.

After an hour of nonstop crying, Nate walked out and saw me staining Logan's sleeves with my tears.

"What's wrong?"

"I don't know, she just started sobbing."

"I'll take it from here."

Logan let go of me as Nate picked me up princess style. I wrapped my arms around his neck and continued to cry. I couldn't get the image of Novae and Miracle out of my head. Slowly Nate carried me back to my room and laid me on the bed. He called in Celeste and asked if she could dress me in a black silk nightgown to make me feel better. As Celeste undressed me Nate left the room.

Five minutes later he came back with two cooks pushing carts of desserts behind me. He gave me a small smile and walked to the side of the bed.

"I'm not sure what's wrong, but I do know that every time your mother cried she wanted sweets to make the saltiness of life to go away. So I had the cooks bring you some."

I looked at the carts that were covered in cakes, ice creams, candies, pretty much any sweet you could think of. I smiled softly as I picked out a cherry cheese cake, fudge chocolate, and pumpkin pie. I dismissed the cooks and Celeste, thanking them for taking time out of their day to make me feel better. One by one they left. Nate was about to follow in pursuit before I called out to him.

"Nate!"

"Yes Midnight?"

"Can you please stay here with me?"

"Only if you tell me what's causing my queen to cry."

"I had an image earlier of Novae kissing Miracle in my bedroom back in Physical Realm."

He looked at me sadly and sat at the end of my bed.

"My queen, I'm so sorry you had to see that."

I closed my eyes and fell back against my pillows. I thought Novae had loved me, but this was crossing the line. I sat back up and looked over at Nate. He was staring at the portrait of him and my mother. Then a thought came to my head.

~I only thought of him as a soldier. I had no idea that my best friend had loved me.~

I stared at Nate sadly, he was going to tell her, but he had been too late. He told her when a group of their guards had brought her dead body back.

"Nate, can you tell me about my mom and the Grave Angels? Like the whole story on why she decided to take the path of recruiting part animal beings and why she created it and all that stuff?"

"She wasn't recruiting them. Millennia's ago a woman born of a human and wolf was given life. Back then women were desperate to have children, but many of them were unsuccessful. All but one. She was born under a full moon. She looked human enough, but her eyes said otherwise.

They were a dark red that scared the local people. Two years of living a priest had banished her to a realm all of her own, to keep her from causing chaos in their village. She called it Spirit Realm. More and more people began to move between the worlds. They were all mainly people who had started practicing witchcraft. She was Queen here and everyone who met her had fallen in love.

She continued to let people in, hoping to find people with animal traits like her. After years of searching she never found one. She was hoping to find someone to have a child with, but she ended up resorting to what her mother did. Nine months later she gave birth to a baby girl that she named Midnight Hyperion. For years they were happy together, especially Ophelia since she got to watch her baby grow up to be a strong being without the repercussions of being exiled.

Then one day one of her loyal followers attacked her manor. It was Miracle. She believed that Ophelia wasn't fit to be queen of Spirit Realm. Whether it was created just for her or not. Miracle was a strong and powerful witch that knew many spells and powers. During the battle on Hyperion Manor, Miracle killed Ophelia's precious Midnight, trying to steal her powers.

After running off Ophelia found this valley. It took a while for her to meet me, but once she did it was just the two of us. She knew what I was, but my powers were very weak. We needed an army to take back all of Spirit Realm, but the sorcerers and everyone residing in Spirit Realm were siding with Miracle. She had come up with a lie saying that Ophelia had turned her back on her own people and that she would make all of their lives miserable. So everyone had believed Miracle's lie except for a hand full of people who were still devoted to Ophelia.

After small fights against Miracle we learned that she could drain the magic easily out of our warriors. One day Ophelia had snuck off with one of the sorcerers to a room in the castle that no one could find. When they returned the man was no longer a sorcerer, but part lion. Ophelia had discovered that it took way more time and power to steal someone's power if they had animal genes transmuted into their DNA. Little by little our army grew. Just before we sent out a group of scouts, Ophelia took me into a room hidden in your storage chamber. I can take you to it if you want."

He stood up and walked toward the bookcase leading down to my storage chamber. I climbed out of my bed, a force pulling me to follow him. Suddenly my dream from last night came to thought. My mother had led me to a secret room. Maybe the room Nate was mentioning was the same room I needed to look in. We walked down the stairs and stopped before my portrait and glass case.

Nate bent down and pressed a button underneath the case. The floor below clicked and slid back to reveal a ladder. Slowly I stepped down and saw a light at the end of the tunnel. Nate climbed down after me and we continued forward until the light briefly blinded us. It felt like we had passed through a veil. The light disappeared and we entered a candle lit room. The walls were painting black with weird symbols and the floor had a large pentagram in the center. Just like my dream I looked toward the center of the pentagram and there sat a key.