Weeks had gone by for Julia and each and every day had been filled with training with her father and trips between the libraries. Julia was happy to have a new friend in Sarafina, she it thought it was useful to have her on her side in case anything were to go awry with her plans for the future. The one thing she didn’t like was that she always felt uneasy around the imperial palace. She could feel that Laurence was watching her every move, and it bothered her.

On the bright side, the knowledge about the serpent twins was helpful. With Sarafina at her side, Julia had learned that the twins were speculated to be the children of the goddess herself and made long before the divine beasts and might have been the blueprint for their creation. Their purpose was to act as the moon and sun for the goddess’s new world, and their shape reflected the world turning around them. Much later after the first holy war, they were exiled from their positions for disobeying the goddess, and the other holy beasts were their punishers. The details of their “crime” varied from being the creators of monsters and trying to kill their mother to just outright trying to destroy the world for some untranslatable reason. No matter the cause of their exile, they were both sentenced to spend the rest of their existence on an island dubbed “The Isle of Beasts” filled with their creations, and to add extra pain, they had one of their eyes ripped out, causing them to lose almost all of their power and be reduced to nothing but a giant snake until someone is able to free them. Julia found out that finding the twins would be the hard part, as no one knew where the island was. That was the main thing Julia chose to work on, and she had Sarafina and Tobias helping her along the way, it also helped that Sarafina had been given permission to travel to the Raventós estate.

“You know I think the island could be in the south sea, there has been plenty of rumors of people going missing,” Sarafina said, placing a pin in the general area of where he thinks the island could be.

Tobias sighed, “People have been going missing because they are not taking into account of the time they are leaving, the south sea has a lot of hurricanes and rough seas in spring/summer time.”

“Huh, I didn’t know that,” Sarafina responded, feeling a little dumb.

Tobias shrugs, “Eh, it’s not your fault; I don’t think the church teaches much about ocean travel.”

Julia looked at her notes, “The text isn’t very helpful with the location, but then again the church doesn’t want the twins to be found if they exist.”

“The church doesn’t want anything to be found; the heads try to act all high and mighty while enforcing this but the divine beasts are the ones who are really in charge of everything. So I guarantee you that they had destroyed any text that revealed the location and defiantly killed anyone who came too close to finding out, or so I’ve heard,” Sarafina explained.

Tobias gulped hard, “Julia, you didn’t tell me we could be killed!” He panicked.

Sarafina tried to calm down Tobias, “I’ve only heard stories about it happening, plus nobody has tried to look for them, so I am super sure that they won’t kill us anymore! I can promise you that, Tobi.”

Julia laughed at the panic in both of them, “Would you, two try not to take things at face value? Most of this is speculation anyways, but this has hurt our brains long enough and it's getting late.”

“You’re right, and I have to go soon,” Sarafina begins to leave, “I’ll see you guys later, and I hope we can figure all of this out,” she smiled and left the room.

Julia and Tobias tidied up the small library they were using as their base and go their separate ways, Tobias went to read some books in his room, and Julia went to her father to continue their swordsmanship lessons.

Julia went into her father's office to find that he wasn’t alone and wasn’t ready yet. Instead, she saw her mother now dressed in her usual attire but instead, she was dressed in a pair of training gear and armed with a sword strapped to her side.

Ian noticed his daughter, “Ah, Julia you’re here!” He exclaimed.

Julia looked at her father, confused, “Hi, what’s going on? Why is mom armed?”

Ingrid laughed, “Ha, your father isn’t physically up to training you today,” Ingrid winked at her husband, causing him to blush. “So! I’ll be stepping in for him today,” she explained.

Put up her hands, “I don’t think I wanna know the reason behind his aliment,” she crossed her arms, “but I’m down to train with you.”

Ingrid had a mischievous glint in her eye, “good! You get ready, and I’ll meet you in the garden; unlike your dad, I won’t be holding back kiddo.”

For the first time, Julia was actually worried for her well-being. From what she had been told by her father, Ingrid was a beast in combat. Funny enough, that was one of the reasons why he fell in love with her.