The Hidden Mages

Loyal at Heart

(picture above is Celosia)

During the night, I went upstairs to the room where Lucas was sleeping in. When I entered the room, I saw Lucas sitting upright with his two feet hanging at the side of the bed.

"Hey, how are you?" I asked after taking a seat beside him.

"I'm fine," he replied with a small smile. I looked at Lucas closely and realized that he had tears in his eyes. I gently put my hand on his shoulder and asked if he was really okay but just like before he replied that he was alright. After a few seconds of silence, he looked at me and asked me a question which made my heart sink.

"Zoe, do you think that we can really find our siblings and the others?" he asked sadly.

"I know we can. I've got hope." I replied with an encouraging smile.

"How are you so sure? We couldn't even kill a giant, how are we gonna get through the other dangers ahead," he asked once again but this time he was looking down at his feet.

"Don't beat yourself up about it," said Dylan who had just entered the room.

"That was Clytius. He was reborn to kill a goddess, so I'm not surprised if guys didn't manage to defeat him," he continued after entering the room.

"And we did manage to defeat a Winter Griffin, remember? We also managed to find one of our cousins which is a really good thing." I added.

"Wait. What did you say?" Lucas asked while looking at me weirdly.

"I said we managed to find one of your cousins," I repeated myself. I then realized that Lucas wasn't with me when I found out that Dylan was my cousin. So I took a deep breath before telling Lucas what had happened after he got knocked out. I made sure to tell him everything, from A to Z. When I did miss details, Dylan would help fill them in and after a few minutes of storytelling, Lucas was in complete shock which wasn't really surprising since the whole story was a lot to take in.

"So you're my cousin?" asked Lucas to Dylan after listening to everything that had happened.

"Yup," Dylan replied bluntly.

"That's so cool!" Lucas exclaimed while jumping up and down while grinning like an idiot.

We all decided to get some sleep since we were all exhausted from the events that had happened earlier. Opal and I shared a room which was in the middle of Lucas's and Dylan's room. My room was simple but nice and it also had a certain flowery scent which made me remember my mom's garden at the back of our house. My room had a small bed, a cupboard in one of the corner and a small dressing table which was placed on the left side of my bed. I hopped onto the bed and stared at the ceiling while thinking about my life. I mean, don't we all do that once in a while. Anyways, I was in my own cloud while Opal quietly climbed onto the bed beside me. She then quietly lay down and looked at me, with her electric blue eyes before falling asleep. I stared at Opal while gently brushing her white fur with my fingers.

'How in the world am I going to protect them, when I'm not strong enough myself,' I thought in my head while watching Opal sleep soundly.

I let out a loud and heavy sigh before tossing and turning on my bed while overthinking about the situation that I was in. I kept thinking of things that could happen if I wasn't able to save my family and I'll admit some of those situations that I had thought in my head were able to bring me to the verge of tears. I turned to my side with my back facing Opal and placed my hands over my mouth to prevent Opal from hearing me cry because right now all I needed was to cry my heart out. After what felt like hours of crying, I finally fell asleep with my eyes still watery from all the tears.