The Trio Odyssey

Part I: Soul to Soul

Chapter 2: To Her Highness, from Her Majesty

The knife becomes visible only between the Queen and the Sovereign’s General as it flies till it reaches in front of him.

The Sovereign’s General puts both of his hands together, reaching the knife as it drops from the Queen’s levitation.

Then, the Sovereign’s General takes a piece of thick cloth out of the horse’s saddle bag, wraps it whole and keeps it back into the bag. 

After that, the Queen thanks the Sovereign’s General.

“You have my gratitude.”

The Sovereign’s General responds to the Queen, repeating his manners.

“It’s my honor, Ma’am.”

Raeké’s oblivious, and slowly turns her head toward the knife, since she feels some sort of connection with it; it has disappeared without a trace.

She’s panicking in a way heavier guilt and chickening out, mumbling her thoughts aloud. 

‘Oh— no, they found out!’

She stares to the ground and fidgets her fingers repetitively.

While she’s feeling nervous and confused, she names the weights of her actions that she alone can’t decipher. 

The more she thinks, the more anxious she gets; with stacking anxiety, she starts biting her nails with a vibrating shiver around her body.

In despair, she whispers.

‘I’m done for… I’m done for…’

Raesha scolds her daughter as soon as she looks down and notices that her daughter’s biting her own nails.

“Raeké, don’t bite your nails, you’ll ruin your teeth and nails!”

Raesha takes her daughter’s hands upward to briefly check it.

“Look, your nails are cracked and your fingers are bleeding!”

Raesha’s expression is worried and a bit angry toward her daughter.

Then, she takes a light sigh, and talks to her daughter in the most warm voice.

“Mom wants you to see Physician Dohret later, okay?”

Raeké’s in a state of humiliation, sealing off her mouth and eyes, and lifting her shoulders close to her ears. 

She responds to her mother with hardened jaws and her eyes shunning away.

“O—kay…”

The silence itself already tells how tense their situation feels, but the atmosphere of the coast is what cools things down.

The sky is bathed in the color of dark magenta rather than dark blue during the dawn.

The ocean’s shape doesn’t stretch across the horizon flatly from end to end.

But instead, the middle of the ocean has a visible, broad, shallow tidal bulge, like there’s a gravitational force pulling the ocean upward.

Raeké sets her head aloft, noticing a faint kind of moonlight.

It’s coming from gray, dusty, multiple, vertical lines.

While it’s not consisting of simple lines, there are tiny, uneven polygons scattered around.

And it’s standing in the middle of the horizon too, right above the bulging water.

Not just that, she sees the rising sun, with its light spread across the horizon with crimson-red light instead of orange light.

Despite that, the sun is obscured behind those dusty, vertical lines as it ascends.

And the sun’s crimson-red light casts a huge shadow on the vertical line, veiling almost all of the coast to darkness.

While both of the sides of the coast are hit by the sunlight, visible to everyone’s eyes. 

The tense falls off gradually with glows in Raesha’s face after the picturesque view, showing the middle of the event.

“Raeké, look at the sky! It’s Gantae Equatorial Syzygy!”

“It happens like clockwork, what a magnificent sight!”

Raeké’s anxiety doesn’t fade, it increases.

She grips her hand with the bitten fingers to hold on for the pain, murmuring.

‘What is this place?’

‘Is this also a part of what Mom learns?’

‘Again? With this double thinking?’

The Queen turns her head towards the Sovereign’s General to make a request.

“Sovereign’s General, could you please address some of the armies to take some pictures of this scenery?”

“I’d definitely love to see more of them. Well, I can’t though—since I had to attend the event.”

The Sovereign’s General’s stunned briefly, and answers the Queen’s request.

“Uh—, it’s my pleasure, Ma’am.”

The Sovereign’s General walks to the armies that are watching over the forests while handling his horse to transfer the role to a few men. 

The lights that come from the flames held by the army get dimmer little by little, relying on the sunlight. 

After a few minutes, the Sovereign’s General comes again while riding his horse to inform the Royals.

“The transportation is all set, Ma’am. I await your command for departure.”

While Raesha stares a little more at the phenomenal ambience, she shakes her head and looks away.

Raesha holds her daughter’s hand dearly, taking her for returning.

“Alright, let’s go back home for preparations, Raeké.”

While that, her daughter doesn’t respond, making Raesha look downward more seriously.

“Raeké?”

Raeké’s extremely frightened.

Extraordinary than just the seascape, she sees things. 

As they unfold in her eyes, one by one, she lifts up her hand and points out to them, moving across all of them, from the right to the left. 

There are seven, different, looming figures scattered across the sea; they are far and vague from her sight, floating, but look massive enough. 

Certain numbers of the figures are split by the vertical line; three on the right hand side and four on the left hand side. 

On the right, there are three separate objects: an ancient looking building covered in tree roots and debris; a city with its buildings collapsing in the spin of a fire tornado; a massive tree with a glowy, nacreous colored dome.

On the left, she sees three unrelated things: massive twin-towers with clocks around them, chained to the mountains’ plateau; an hourglass-shaped, floating building with white dots around it; a massive, military pageant in a megalopolis.

And finally, on the very end of the left side too, there’s a bleeding flesh of a colossal skeleton.

Raeké’s finger pointing ends at that.

They look frozened and silent.

But their appearances alone are giving Raeké a lot of goosebumps and harboring tremendous fear in her eyes.

And Raeké speaks in all but fearful to her mother while holding her fingers from falling.

“Mom… do you see them? They’re so big…”

She calls out her daughter again.

“Raeké? Are you okay?”

Raeké’s fear enshrouds her sight, causing her to have a vision tunnel.

She falls on her knees afterward, while locking her eyes at the figures, especially the one at the end of the left side; her eyes keep moving across them.

Raesha doubts her daughter’s strange action with her caring words. 

“Honey… are you alright…? Stand up…”

The Sovereign’s General looks straight into the Queen’s eyes.

Thereupon, he asks for the Queen’s permission. 

“May I Sky-Transport now, to the Balcony of Heto Palace, Ma’am?”

“Yes, safely, please.”

Raeké’s still staring at the figures, looking around all of them with no blink.

Until, she sees a bright, white, augmenting light covering her entire sight of the coast.

She blinks, and at one blink, it shifts her view from the coast to a grand, tall exterior of an open space part of a building.

The morning is nigh, so the lights coming out from the rooms through the glass from the interior of the building dim, bit by bit, to let the sunlight gradually take over the lighting. 

She glances around swiftly, noticing that only she, her mother, the Sovereign’s General, and his horse arrived at the place, while the rest of the men are gone from her sight.

Raeké’s jaw drops, muttering her thoughts in confusion as she glances to multiple directions all over the place.

‘Huh—, huh—?! I’m back home…’

The Sovereign’s General notices that the Princess’s expressions are written all over her face; shock, worry, and fear.

He walks near her, kneeling and clarifies for her.

“Ma’am, let me elucidate for you:”

“I’m the manifester of the Occult Ability from the Elemental Faction, and I piloted Yothra for Sky-Transport to travel at light-speed just now.”

The Princess zones out in front of the Sovereign’s General with her eyes opened wide, digesting the information and recounting upon the figures she saw back at the coast. 

The Princess flinches quickly and shakes her head violently, whirling her hair. 

Right after that, the Princess’s expressions change rapidly to a cheerful one, but it feels so much based on her facade.

“Oh—, that explains it. Yothra’s a very reliable Chimeric after all!”

The Sovereign’s General quietly sighs, relieving toward the Princess’s reaction. 

“I’m glad you understood, Ma’am. ”

The Queen intervenes in their conversation, giving off a better impression for her daughter. 

“Honey, you could ask Professor Tacha for that, you know? She’s able to explain things to you way better.”

“Okay, Mom.”

The Sovereign’s General rides his horse called Yothra and bids his farewell to the Royals.

“I may take my leave now.”

The Sovereign’s General reaches out the knife that has been covered in the folds of the cloth, handing it to a group of men in coats, while the Princess is unaware of all of that.

And the Sovereign’s General leaves the area he once was in the blink of an eye. 

Raeké covers her mouth and mumbles. 

‘Wait, that smile…, did I just fake it?’

Raeké places her fingers beneath her chin, contemplating while recalling her experiences.

‘Plus, travelling at light speed, how could that ever be real?’

She presses her fingers to her chin a bit much, accidentally feeling the tenderness of her wounded fingers and wincing in a slight pain for a second.

“Ah—that hurts!”

Her mother immediately comes in, admonishing her daughter.

“Oh, honey, don’t do that!”

Raesha mumbles, suspecting that something bad is going on.

She is well aware of her daughter’s actions, so she gives her observations a proper emphasis.

‘My child’s acting strange today…’

‘Raeké’s behavior… the knife… the Gantae Equatorial Syzygy… occurring on the very same day. It’s quite… strange.’

She slightly shakes her head.

‘I must’ve been overthinking things.’

Later, a dignified man in a fine suit comes to greet the Royals.

“Your Majesty, Your Highness, the time has come to prepare for the Royalty Gatherings of the Ivada Federation.”

“And, Her Highness’s attendance at the event is compulsory, due to many States’ eagerness to see her.”

The Queen looks at the man in slight surprise.

“Oh—, It’s you, Lord Chamberlain, Juvon. You see, the Princess has a minor injury, and she needs a little treatment.”

“Noted, Ma’am. I’ll assign Physician Hite for Her Highness’s treatment.”

“Understood. What happened to Physician Dohret?”

“Unfortunately, he was caught in a tragedy lately: one of his family members has passed away. It’s hard to say, he’s stuck in his sorrow as of now.”

“I see. Please, send my condolences to the Physician.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

Lord Chamberlain reminds the Royals to prepare for the event they must attend.

“The event will commence around 10 Sol-Togue. The dressers are ready for dressing and grooming.”

One distinct idea comes straight into Raeké’s head.

‘Is that… 10 ante meridiem? 10 a.m.?’