Kingdom Fall (Ethereal #1)

-Chapter 7-

The Queen's Training

Sapphire

After that particular conversation in the Queen's Chambers, Sapphire could not look at the Queen with the same light again. No matter how many times she told herself that the queen was still the same person that she had known for years, the new knowledge somehow made her think otherwise.

Also, Sapphire was rather disappointed. She always thought the queen treated her special because of her cleverness and maybe because she hoped the queen saw something in her. Sapphire never expected that it had anything to do with her being part Etherean. In fact, she cannot seem the wrap her mind around it.

Just as the Queen told, Sapphire was given a new room the next day. It was smaller than her previous room and had only one bed. There was still a small window at the corner of the room and also a wardrobe at one side. She wondered whether it had a secret passageway behind it but she did have much time to explore. That same day, she asked Sir Cedric a question she had been dying to ask.

'Did you know?'

Sir Cedric looked up from the scrolls, squinting his eyes, 'Know what?'

'That... My grandfather was an almost immortal wizardly being who was considered to be a god?'

Sir Cedric raised his eyebrows. 'I see... she told you. Of course I knew. Why do you think she asks me to keep an eye on you? Your ability is rather unstable.'

'I don't have an ability,' Sapphire argued. As long as she can remember, she never showed signs of anything. She was sure Archestrian had one. His nose and ears were sensitive like that of a wild animal. Speaking of Archestrian, he had been avoiding Sapphire ever since he got to know she was a girl. Sapphire could understand the reasoning behind his actions. She would have done the same.

'You don't remember,' muttered Sir Cedric as he went back to work. 'You once let it out, a long time ago.'

Sapphire knew she would not be able to pry anything out of Sir Cedric. For the next few days, she searched through the volumes stacked in the library on Ethereans whenever Sir Cedric sent her to pick up some books for his research.

What she found about them did not make things better. When the Ethereans first arrived in their sky-ships, they were welcomed by the ancients. At that time, the ancients had never seen anything magnificent as the Ethereans. Soon they were revered as gods. But their reign was abusive. A lot of people had to suffer since the Ethereans though highly of themselves and considered humans to be... unintelligent. Rebellions started. Blood was shed. When the ancient warriors thought that they were about to lose, someone managed to kill an Etherean.

That was the ultimate revelation.

Ethereans, who were once considered immortal due to their agelessness, were discovered to be able to die. Ethereans were sparse as it was. Once the ancients discovered how to kill them, it went on until they were finally wiped out. Civilizations fell. New ones rose.

Reading all of that, Sapphire wondered how old the Queen was. The Great Descending was last recorded five hundred years ago. So the queen was over five hundred years old? If her grandfather was a complete Etherean, that means he must have survived somehow. The same must have applied for Archestrian's great-grandfather. Sapphire found it hard to believe that only two generations could have spread out throughout five hundred years. If that's so, she wondered if the longevity of the Ethereans applied to their human mixed descendants.

Now that Sapphire thought about it, she wondered how old her father was.

Still, all the information did not help the growing bad feeling in her stomach.