Mortal Magic: Broken (Book 1)

25. The Stargazer

The late king's funeral was arranged for the very next day and they barely managed to convince me to attend myself. They literally had to drag me out of the room until I gave up and got ready willingly. It was customary here to burn the deceased king's body and let the hair to the throne scatter his ashes in the sea behind the castle. Since I wasn't the next in line anymore this wasn't my duty, but Victor insisted I do it anyway. He said that it would make him happy.

By then I had seen that even though I was the one who took his death the hardest, others were not unaffected. I may have lost my actual father and possibly a part of myself when I snapped, but Yuto had lost his closest friend, and from what I learned Victor had lost the man he grew looking up to when he was younger. My emotional fits were long gone before the funeral but I was sure that everyone could tell that it would take time to get over this. Time I didn't have right now. When I scattered his ashes in the waters from the beach I felt more exhausted than I had ever been in my whole life.

After the funeral Victor asked to talk to us and so myself Maia and Yuto followed him to a small room that he claimed no one would hear us converse. And there he told us that the man in the responsible for the murder was hired by Lars. In that moment I almost used my master arte again and barely I held myself from summoning that different realm to overlap reality. When I opened my eyes from the concentration it took me to not act on my anger I took a deep breath and then spoke with a cold and distant voice more to myself than the others. "There is no place to hide where I won't find him, and when I do I'm going to enjoy killing him".

I could sense the tension and worry around me in the air as everyone had their eyes on me ready to reason with me in case I lost it. Somehow they knew that I was unstable and with just the slightest of provocations I could turn into a madman. I assured them that I could keep myself sane until this was done, and I would do so. And then, if I was still alive and remotely myself I would work on getting better. What I never told them though was that if I couldn't save Ashe I was going to take Lars to the grave with me after I killed him with the most painful and excruciating way I could fathom at the moment.

Victor cleared his throat after my threat and spoke again with his previous fear evident in his voice along with his worry that never faded. "From what Yuto told me you need to cross the sea and go to the eastern continent. The journey is three days by ship if the winds are in your favor but with a wind elemental magus that won't be a problem. Then after you arrive to Whitespire the capital city of the continent you need to pass through the wilderness and a forest that looks like a labyrinth since the only way to pass through is through the numerous caves. Cutting through the trees is not an option because they are more of a labyrinth than the caves themselves. After that you will reach the ancient ruins of the first civilization to that continent and the only one to be abandoned, Blackspire. That is your destination".

The whole time he was talking I was taking heed of his words and already counting the days it would take us to get to Blackspire. Maia seemed to have a keen interest on the two towns, especially the ancient one. "I've heard of the two cities. Blackspire was once the first settlement of the continent and decades after it was formed it was a city build from black marble and took its final name from the castle at the center, castle Blackspire. After for some mysterious reason the city was abandoned, and the few remaining people that lived there before moved to the coast where they made an exact replica of Blackspire from white marble and named it Whitespire".

She seemed to be fascinated by the history of the two twin castles and that made my heart lighten a bit. Her smile was always something I cherished, especially now. "Yes the history of the two cities is extraordinary but there is another matter that I must bring to your attention. There are no ships sailing for three days due to the late king's death". That was a big problem. Without a ship we were doomed to fail from the very start. I had to find a way to cross the sea today, tomorrow at best. If I stayed here longer than that then there won't be enough time to go to Blackspire.