*Maddox*
How did we get to this point?
I feel like the past seven months have gone by in a blur of activity, yet this moment, this devastation, has caught us all totally off guard.
Rage burns through me as I guide my pregnant, physically and emotionally exhausted, mate through what is left of the town that surrounds the castle of Maatua. The storm has passed, but heavy rain still floods the streets. I keep an arm around Isla’s waist to steady us both as water rushes past us, soaking us nearly to the shins. Elijah is carrying Emery on his back behind us, the two of them talking in hushed whispers that are inaudible over the sound of the rain pelting the gnarled debris that continuously blocks our path.
And all of this for what? Is this really about the Goddess’s necklace that Isla had seen in a vision? A necklace tied to a story we know nothing about?
Anger toward Mystica bubbles in my gut for no reason other than the secrets left in the wake of her death. Her strange gifts had kept us questioning her motives and what was coming for months. Isla has the journal Mystica had left for her. I carry the gold-encrusted and obviously bewitched lighter in my pocket like it had always been there. The weight of it is comforting, but it’s useless. The eerie red flame doesn’t even catch paper on fire.
This is obviously what the journal meant when it told Isla to prepare.
How could we have, though?
“I’m going to fucking kill him,” I growl as I lift Isla up and over the remains of a roof that has been ripped off a house by the storm. The castle rises ahead of us, blocking the faint golden sunlight starting to break through the weighted clouds.
“He’s likely dead,” Isla says softly, weakly, sniffling as I grip her hand and we continue on.
I find it unlikely Antony, that prick, that man who I'd come to trust and think of as a friend, was dead right now. I find it more likely he’s packed up and ran, leaving his mate behind. Maybe that is the fury talking. The fury raging in my body from coming upon his kingdom to find it in shambles, and he’d given us only shreds of information about what was happening.
“I could have helped him,” I say absently, mostly to myself. I would have. I should have. I should have seen through his lies about the state of his island and come here months ago to see for myself what was really going on. He’d called this domestic in nature, but this was nothing but pure, dark magic.
All over a necklace, most likely.
Poppy cannot be here.
That’s all he’d said. Come. Come get her, take her back with you.
I figured things were bad if Antony had needed us to come and take Poppy back home with us for a while. But not this bad.
The fact that he hadn’t asking for aid should have been a huge red flag.
Warriors rush down to meet us as we reach the twisted and destroyed front gates of the castle.
“You’re supposed to be at the port!” one of them screams, but I can’t tell who. I almost shout back, asking which one of them spoke to me in such a tone but then remember I am just a man here, not a king. Not their king, at least. And right now I’m more of a wet rat than a man anyway, coated in sand and seaweed and Goddess knows what after trudging across the island for most of the day.
“What port?” I growl, shoving open the gate. “Where is your Luna?”
A young warrior steps forward, his face pale and eyes lined with deep dark circles. His eyes are bloodshot and body slack with exhaustion. Some of the fury tightening my shoulders lessens as I look from man to man, noticing the wear and tear on their bodies and behind their eyes. I see fear there. Fear, and nothing else.
“We’ve just spent the last eight hours walking across the Goddess forsaken Island,” Elijah pants behind me. He lowers Emery to the ground, the young woman’s mouth starting to twitch with anticipation as she eyes the warriors standing just beyond the gate. All I have to do is snap my fingers and Emery will go ballistic, but these warriors are not enemies.
“Is Poppy al lright?” Isla says in a strained voice. She steps forward, clasping the bars of the gate.
“She’s in labor,” one of the warriors answers solemnly.
“Take us to her, now,” I command, but no one moves. “I said–”
“Alpha King Antony gave us orders–”
“He is NOT here, is he? Our boat couldn’t make it to the port to fetch his Luna like he requested so we came on foot. When she and the twins are settled, we will find a way to return to the boat–” Thunder cracks nearby, sending a tremble through the debris. “We will find a way to return.” After we help the people of Maatua and figure out what the hell is going on, of course.
I can see the cogs turning behind Isla’s eyes as well as she gives the warriors her most pathetically sad face. Good girl.
One of the warriors steps forward and opens the gate as far as he can before it gets stuck against a pile of debris. Isla pushes through and rushes toward the castle, the rest of us hot on her heels.
I don’t look back at the town and the island behind us. Not yet. I can’t think of the devastation and what lies ahead of us now.
We need to get to Poppy. We need to make sure she’s all right. And I need to find Antony.
* * *
*Isla*
I’d planned on coming back to Maatua for the birth of Poppy’s twins. I’d been packed and ready to go already, looking forward to what I considered a vacation and time spent with family while also seeing to my best friend's needs.
Isaac was supposed to come with me. Cindy was supposed to be here, too. Ben as well.
But now I stand in the infirmary watching as Poppy delivers her first twin, her daughter. Poppy’s barely lucid, her eyelids fluttering as the healer and trio of nurses quickly tend to the baby girl being carried away to a different room. I hear the baby’s shrill cry and squeeze Poppy’s hand, tears of both joy and devastation burning my eyes.
“She’s fine,” I whisper into Poppy’s ear. I wonder if she can hear me. I wonder how she’s even able to deliver these babies while being barely able to keep her eyes open. Aunt Mary hovers on the other side of the bed, wringing her hands and praying.
Poppy arches her back and cries out, mumbling incoherently. I close my eyes and press my forehead to the bed as another cry rips through the room.
“The prince,” the healer says, her voice low and calm. The baby boy is rushed away just like his sister and the room bursts into activity. Poppy is bleeding heavily. Thank the Goddess I have an overabundance of tears to heal her wounds.
I cannot heal the pain in her heart, though, and it’s killing me.
“Antony,” she whispers, tears rolling down her cheeks. “Antony?”
“It’s just me,” I whisper, the words cracking with emotion as I let a few of my tears fall into her open mouth, just in case she needs them. She swallows thickly, her entire body trembling as she chokes on her sobs. “You did so well, Poppy.”
“He should be h-here–”
“I know. I know–”
“Sweet girl,” Aunt Mary whispers, her hand resting on Poppy’s forehead. Tears are streaming down her face as I look up into Mary’s eyes.
“I need to speak to you,” I whisper. Aunt Mary nods, her eyes alight with understanding.
I’m not sure how long we stand beside the bed. Poppy drifts into a heavy, dreamless sleep as the nurses and the healer pack up and leave her to rest. I gently squeeze her hand as I brush a kiss over her forehead and say a silent prayer for her comfort.
I follow Aunt Mary into a small room inside the infirmary. I’m itching to go check on the twins, but I hug myself instead, my arms pressing into my chest as I imagine Isaac’s comforting weight there. I miss him. More than anything. I need to find a way to fix this situation and get back to him.
“Why is this happening?” I say to Aunt Mary after a moment of heavy silence. Mary sits down in one of the chairs along the wall. The room is sparsely decorated, nothing but tile floors and white, sterile walls. It’s more suffocating at the moment than a cluttered, dust filled room would be.
Mary is from KiloKilo. She will know… I hope.
“Alatar is… not vengeful,” she begins, taking a shallow breath. Her eyes are rimmed with red as she wipes her hand over her tear stained face. “I don’t know much about him or his powers. All I know is he is said to be descended from the Goddess, long ago, and the Diamond…” Mary trails off, her expression pained. “I should have told you this.”
“Told me what?”
“How the Diamond came to Maatua,” she whispers.
“You knew?”
“I know what is said. What stories are passed down. Isla–” She closes her eyes. “It’s far-fetched.”
“Try me,” I whisper, sitting down next to her and clasping her hand. I should be upset that after all this time she has never said anything. That she’s known and kept it from us. I don’t have the energy to dwell on it, not when the lights are flickering and another storm is beginning to rage over our heads.
“The Goddess had a mortal mate. He has no name in our lore, but he was a wizard as well as a shifter. Everyone had magic in those early days and lived for centuries sometimes. The veil between the realm of the heavens and the living was thin, at best. Together, they had a daughter, who some refer to as the Goddess of the Stars, of the constellations that guides those early wolves home after a long hunt.” She pauses, clearing her throat. “There came a time when everyone stopped crossing the veil. None of us know why. It was so, so long ago… But the Moon Goddess and her daughter crossed over the veil, never to be seen again. The Goddess of the Stars gave her father a parting gift, the Diamond of Faith, which was said to have been a star plucked right out the sky. A star living on land, capable of filling the earth with warmth, and love, and peace– the same things she wished for her father.”
I listen intently with my eyes cast on the cold tile floor.
“The Moon Goddess’s mate was a very powerful shifter, an Alpha, of the earliest of our kind. He built a temple in their honor and placed the Diamond in the crown he carved in his mate’s likeness. His daughter’s likeness he carved into the ceiling, which was full of stars… But he had a son some years later, whose mother was not the Goddess, and he… messed everything up.”
“What happened?”
“The son, Aredius, challenged his father for the title of Alpha. He lost and was banished from their lands, what you now know as Moorn. Aredius had the powers of the elements on his side, however. He created a river so violent no one could cross to split his father’s lands in two and separate him from the temple he so loved. Aredius then fled across the sea, coming here. He’d stolen the diamond and hid it on Maatua, cursing his father’s lands to a slow, inevitable decline.”
All of that is very different than the stories I’d read in the library back at the castle. How long had Maddox’s people been able to keep the peace despite the loss of the Diamond? For that matter, how old was Aredius, and when had the split happened? I wasn’t sure, but I wondered if it had been more recent than Aunt Mary’s story made it sound.
Another thought occurs to me. “But the necklace–”
Mary looks up at me, narrowing her eyes. “What necklace?”
“The… there was something else. My vision–” I explain it to her in detail, everything I had seen.
When I am finished, she shakes her head. “You have it all wrong, Isla,” she whispers, gripping my hand. “Come, there’s something I need you to see.”