The Heirs of Elysium

Chapter 7 - The past that haunts

Aurora's PoV

A familiar manor house comes into sight. Smoke puffs from ornate barley sugar chimneys and its honeyed stone walls are covered in a spider web of vines. In the summer they are smothered in verdant green leaves and the autumn flaming oranges, but in the winter, the branches are bare.

We are here to collect Hope. Her family home is a convenient stopping place and her father, Lord Fintan is an important figure in Elemental circles. However, it is also Aidan's home. I have not seen him since I broke off our courtship and the thought of a reunion causes me to tremble

"Are you sure that you want to stop here?" A furrow forms on Cyrus's brow. "If we press on, we can reach Essentia by midnight."

Emotionally, it would be far easier to keep on flying, yet it would be the cowardly thing to do. Furthermore, Roth dives down in front of us, bearing my mother and Zane, so flight is not really an option.

We descend in a lazy spiral, which is at complete odds with my rigid frame and the leaden lump in my stomach. Dymphie squeezes my hand, letting me know that she is there if I need her.

Hope and Aidan await us on the lawn, while their parents Fintan and Fleur stand by the entrance to their home, conversing with my mother.

Hope is their miracle, well maybe more accurately a miracle of my mother's making. Complications with Aidan's birth left Fleur unable to carry another child to full term until mother healed her.

I have known the family all my life. Hope is only six moons older than me and I although not as close as Dymphie, we have been good friends for solars. Aidan was a friend too, that is until we crossed that line several summers ago.

As we touch down upon the grass, I am brought face to face with my first love; his soulful brown eyes and hair shining like polished dark copper in the sunlight.

"Aurora." My name is almost a prayer upon his lips.

As I float down to the ground using the power of air, he moves towards me, until Cyrus steps into his path and the Dragonite's bulk obscures him from view.

"Please, Aurora, may we converse in private?" Aidan pleads whilst trying to circumnavigate my self-proclaimed protector.

I would really rather not, but I respond in the affirmative. "Let us take a stroll."

Cyrus starts to follow. That, I cannot have, so I stop and pirouette on the spot. He may tower over a head above me, but he does not intimidate me. "I do not require a chaperone."

There is brooding silence before Cyrus gives the slightest incline of his head. Then he levels a steely warning glare at Aidan. Seriously, men! 

"I will keep him company." Hope loops an arm around one of Cyrus's muscular bicep, a wicked smile curling on her face. She has been bemoaning the lack of young men at Essentia for an age.

With Cyrus in good hands, I gesture to the path leading through formal garden and then clasp my hands together so that I neither offer nor fall to temptation. Aidan falls into step beside me and we walk at a funereal pace.

Finally, he breaks the silence, "How was your trip to Avalon?"

"It was very good, thank you." I hate this stiff formality after the closeness we once shared.

He stops at our bench, the one where we oft sat and kissed. Not a place I would choose to linger given the situation. With reluctance, I sit and twist my body so that it puts a little distance between us. He mirrors my position, so that our knees touch.