The Cruel Prince's Wrath

Chapter 4

Tolanda decided to go and see the elders now that she was more in her right mind as opposed to when she had tried to see them after Ievos departure with his mother. They had refused to speak with her. Now they might since she had calmed down. She knocked politely on their door and when it opened, she prostrated as she knew was required of her. It was the blue dragon she addressed.

“Please accept my apologies for my outburst a couple of months back, I have had the time to gather my thoughts but I have questions for you. Please may I just have a moment of your time to ask them?” she asked.

“Come in,” the blue dragon said, and she pulled herself back to her feet and followed him inside. He offered a cup of tea and there seemed to be a table and two chairs set up almost as though he had been expecting her. She accepted the tea and sat at this table and he sat opposite her. “Begin your questions and I will do my best to provide you answers,” he said.

“Could you have helped me to see the golden streams sooner?” she asked but then rephrased it before he answered her “Was there no way to have somehow sped up the process of me seeing those golden streams? No way to have prevented this hurt?”

“No, your bond to Ievos was... a true bond but it was also strange, he had almost trapped you, did you ever feel pulled to him or even obligated to be with him as though there was an invisible tie?”

“I loved him,” Tolanda muttered. “I loved being with him, he... we shared experiences and he was beginning to learn warmth, like he was... changing for the better,”

“Did you feel trapped?” he repeated.

“No, I didn’t but I could sense something wasn’t quite right,”

“There, we should have intervened when Iefyr told you to go to his brother, there was nothing we could have done to the bonds, it proved dangerous when Iefyr came to try and have us sever the bond, perhaps that is what triggered the golden streams coming from you, that could very well have set a course for the change. We had to stop, and I believe Iefyr wanted us to stop. He still, wanted to fight for you.”

“Can you tell if Ievos is alright? I know you can travel across plains, is there any way that you can help me travel to him so that I might speak with him?”

“You have been learning of our ways,” the blue dragon said.

“I have,” she said.

“Iefyr has continued his training, right?” he asked, and she nodded, “and he has regained the meditative state he lost when he allowed his brother to be with you, when he gave up fighting for you.”

“Are you saying that Iefyr might be able to reach Ievos, wherever he is?”

“It might be possible but considering the reasons for Ievos departing, I do not think he would welcome seeing either of you or possibly least of all his brother,”

“So once again, you will do nothing,” Tolanda found herself saying.

“Now is not the time.” The gold dragon now appeared. “There is something you do not understand, many futures lie ahead, many are possible paths and right now you are all set on certain directions, and there are still many paths that branch off and that you can take, even Ievos has choices, of course he has already made a very big decision when he returned to Cauladra and even in that choice he has various others to make and different directions,”

“If you have… if you know these futures? Could you not offer guidance as to what the right paths are?” Tolanda asked.

“It is far more complex than that, young human, we cannot influence your decisions that is left to fate,” she said and Tolanda sighed.

“Did I make the right decision to follow the golden streams to Iefyr?”

“Iefyr is your fate, he is your bond. You are joined with his soul and those golden streams… it takes a lot of strength not to follow them,” Tolanda decided she was not going to get much help from these elders, so she stood and left seeking Iefyr. She found him sitting with Velkin in one of the smaller halls of the palace sharing in a drink and she sat with them.

“The elders did not tell me much,” she said to Iefyr.

“For people held in such high regards and held so sacred that we must prostrate ourselves before them, I do not see their worth. They hardly helped us with our bond when Ievos was here. They managed to save his life but proved utterly useless when it came to helping us with our situation of the three-way bond, perhaps had they been more useful it would have spared this amount of pain for us all.” Iefyr spat and Velkin laughed.

“Most would certainly walk away from you for saying such about our elders,” Velkin said.

“It is all true though,” Iefyr insisted and Tolanda just sat closely beside him.

                                                                                       ~~

Ievos had requested the elven runners buy some tea next time they went to a town and they had done so but he was unimpressed with human tea. It was nowhere near as calming as the tea Tolanda had him try in the dragon kingdom. In frustration he threw the cup aside.

“Did the tea offend you?” he heard a female voice speak to him as she had been walking by him at the time. His eyes were dark as he glared over to her. She was a beautiful dark haired elven woman who now stood leaning against a wall arms folded.

“What do you want?” he spat.

“Nothing really,” she replied.

“Then why are you bothering me?” he snapped at her.

“I’ll leave you alone,” she said and turned to do so.

“Wait!” he called, she turned, “no, never mind,” he added, and she continued away but was soon replaced by his sister, Tyria.

“Ievos, mother wishes to see you,”

“Why? What does she want to bother me with now?” he growled.

“I… I don’t really know but I do not think it is good,” she stammered.

“It never is with her,” he replied and followed her to Cauladra. His mother was found in the crumbling halls of this abandoned castle sitting upon a stone makeshift throne. He stood before her with a defiant expression.

“My son, thank you for coming,” she said.

“What is it?” he asked impatiently.

“You came back to me claiming that we now share enemies but… you have not given me any information as to their weaknesses or what our next movement should be,” she said.

“I am working on a plan, I just need time,”

“It has been months,” she said.

“I know, I am considering our options,”

“You have been brooding more like, mourning your lost love. That witch broke your heart, humans cannot be trusted, son. I will certainly kill her for what she reduced my son to,”

“I am not reduced to anything! I am stronger and more focussed without her!”

“And yet… you have given me nothing,” she said.

“I will when I have decided what our best course of action would be,” he replied.

“You have until tomorrow,”

“And then what? What if it takes longer?” he asked.

“Then I call on Setka’Sier, I am sure she will gladly bind you once more,” she said, and his eyes darkened.

“Try it, mother, I am not a child any longer and I know how to use my powers, dragon and sorcerer,” he said, his voice a low snarling threat.

“Perhaps I cannot manipulate you the way I used to be able to, you have become your own man. I suppose I should be proud of your strength.”

“I have some ideas of our next move,” he said ignoring her words, “but I need to make a definitive decision,”

“Why not bounce those ideas off of me?” she asked.

“No, it is for me to decide,”

“Are you sure you are not stalling?” she questioned. “Perhaps you still love that girl and perhaps you still hold love for your brother and are reluctant to take action against them?” she continued.

“I assure you mother, they cut me deep, they betrayed me and hurt me far worse than ever before. It is not something you could ever understand so I will end it there. Perhaps you will understand this, revenge. I will hurt them both as deeply as they hurt me and I know that will be to kill one of them in front of the other I just haven’t decided which,” he said, and she was grinning proudly at her son and his rage.