Chapter 3: Immortal King

"Where did the horses go?" Lena looked around the spot in the forest where we'd left our horses. They were no longer there.

I saw a small pouch on the ground and picked it up. It was a bag of silver coins. "This looks oddly familiar. This embroidery on the pouch... I've seen it."

"The bandits!" Lena suddenly exclaimed, taking the pouch from my hands and examining it further. "They had the same embroidery on their headbands. I'm sure of it."

"They must have taken the horses before attacking," I said. "To make sure we couldn't escape on them."

"Bastards," Lena cursed, kicking the grass. "Why was that potato merchant after the Helm anyway? Is he tired of selling potatoes? He was very good at roasting them from what I remember."

I frowned, pondering her first question. Why was he after the Helm? "He seemed --"

Thief's stomach grumbled loudly, startling me. "They took our food along with the horses," he complained. "Let's use that bag of coins to buy ourselves something to eat in Typhon."

I sighed when I felt my own empty stomach begging to be fed. "There's no need to buy food." I started walking toward the small stream that stretched all the way to the castle of Kingdom Typhon. All we had to do was follow the flow of that stream to get there. "We'll have to pay uncle Cerius a visit."

~~~

When we reached the castle, Thief widened his eyes. "So this is where the Immortal King lives. Fascinating."

Lena laughed. "Immortal King? I suppose you could call him that."

Guards stopped us at the entrance. "State your business," one of them said.

I wasn't surprised that they didn't recognize who I was. I may have been the daughter of their king's niece, but no one in the castle has seen me since I was a child. "We're here to see King Cerius," I said.

They raised their brows, but didn't move to let us through.

Lena took a step forward and pointed at me. "Crown Princess of Soleil." Then she pointed at herself. "Crown Princess of Poseidon." Thief's jaw dropped in disbelief.

Widening their eyes, the two guards bowed their heads. "We apologize, Your Highnesses. Welcome to Typhon."

Lena and I walked in first, with Thief running after us. "You didn't tell me you were princesses," he said.

"You never asked," I responded.

"Fascinating," he whispered with one hand on his chin.

I asked a servant to lead us to the king and we soon found ourselves in the throne room of the castle, where uncle Cerius sat on a big throne, reading a book with his brows furrowed in concentration. When he heard us walk in, he looked up and his face split into a wide smile.

"Do my eyes deceive me or have my niece and little Lena come to visit this old man?" he said, putting his book away and coming down from the throne to greet us.

He looked anything but old. Killed during the Twin Volcanoes eruptions, his soul had wondered Asterin until he was captured by a magic device made by cyclopes. As a side effect of that device, he could be seen by all eyes and heard by all ears. Even his body had become physical. Not impalpable like other ghosts.

He wasn't quite alive, but he wasn't quite dead either.

Smiling just as widely in return, Lena and I walked into his spread arms before pulling away from the tight embrace.

"Seems like it was only yesterday when you two ran around my castle as soon as you'd learned how to walk." His eyes twinkled with fond memories. "I still have the table cloth you'd soaked in wine after knocking over an entire jug." He chuckled. Then his gaze fell on Thief as if noticing him in the room for the first time. "And who might this be?"

"This is Thief," I introduced him. "Thief, this is --"

"The Immortal King," Thief interrupted, walking up to uncle Cerius and poking him in the arm, then circling around him, until he came back to face him. He slowly raised his pointer finger and moved it close to uncle's forehead before poking him there. "Fascinating."

Lena snorted at the sight in front of her and quickly covered her mouth to hide her amused smile.

Uncle Cerius looked at me with concern. "An odd fellow with an odd name. Where did you find him?" he whispered. Thief was too preoccupied with his examination to hear a word he said.

"The Soleil Market. He was stealing potatoes," I whispered back.

"And you brought him with you because...?"

"Gregory wanted to get rid of him."

"I can see why..."

Thief's eyes were full of wonder as he stared at uncle Cerius. "I've never seen anything quite like this! Do you feel any physical pain? Do you eat? Do you sleep? Do you even need to eat and sleep? Do you breathe? I thought Hecate had lied when she said --"

"Uh...Thief?" uncle interrupted. "One question at a time please."

Thief's stomach suddenly growled, followed by my stomach, then Lena's. We were instantly reminded that they were all still empty.

Uncle Cerius chuckled. "Seems like we might need to discuss this over dinner."

~~~

During dinner, Thief had asked my uncle all kinds of questions about his immortality while stuffing his face with everything he could get on his fork at the table. His appetite for food was as big as his hunger for knowledge.

It might be that I've known my uncle for a very long time and have gotten used to his condition, but I didn't understand Thief's fascination. And yet, I didn't dare interrupt their conversation as it prevented my uncle from asking Lena and I why we came to Typhon.

In that moment, I was glad that we brought Thief along.

"Thank you," I said to Thief as we walked through the castle toward the chambers uncle Cerius had assigned for him to use for the night. Lena and I were to show him the way.

"What for?" he asked.

"For talking uncle Cerius's ears off," Lena responded. "He looked exhausted by the end of dinner." She snickered.

Thief's ears turned pink in embarrassment. "I didn't mean to tire him with my questions. I was simply --"

"Fascinated?" I said.

He nodded slowly.

"Here they are." Lena gestured to Thief's chambers. Then she pointed to the door across from his. "Cassia and I will be there if you need anything. Sweet dreams!"

He hesitated at the door, and after a moment of silence his honey eyes met mine. "I've been meaning to ask about the Helm of Darkness... Is there a reason why you're searching for it?"

I hummed in thought, contemplating whether I should tell him or not. He did help find the location of the second piece, and he did distract uncle Cerius tonight, though unknowingly. But was that reason enough to trust him?

"I'll have to do it mother's way," I whispered underneath my breath. Then I said, "Stand still, Thief."

Thief looked confused, but did what I told him to.

"Ah, the soul reading." Lena nodded, understanding what I was about to do. It was a trick my mother had taught me when I was very young. Something that only we could do, including my grandfather, Helios. Our eyes could look into the souls of the living to see if they were pure with a golden glow or rotten with black smoke. Some souls were a mix of both, the rotting spreading slowly through them like a disease.

I concentrated on Thief and willed his soul to show itself. I frowned when I couldn't see anything at first, but then a faint golden grow started to pour out of him, until he was radiating it. It was blinding to look at, and I had to shield my eyes before I blinked the vision away.

A sudden memory of looking into my grandfather's soul flashed through my mind. He had the same blinding glow.

Before I could say anything, Thief cleared his throat. "Is it over now? Can I start moving? There's a spider hanging on its web right in front of my eyes and I would like to get away from it. It looks poisonous."

Lena laughed and approached the small spider, taking it into her hands and placing it down onto the ground. It crawled away as soon as its legs touched the dark stone floor. "It's not poisonous, don't worry. I didn't know you had a fear of spiders."

Thief pulled at the collar of his tunic, looking away. "It's poison I'm afraid of."

His voice shook slightly when he said it. I caught the pain in his eyes before he looked away and couldn't help but wonder what had caused it.

"I'll see you in the morning. Have a good night," he said quietly before walking into his chambers and closing the door behind him.

Lena blinked at the closed door. "Was it something I said?" She frowned in confusion. "Should I ask him?"

I shook my head and tipped it to the door of our chambers. "I think he needs some time alone. Let's get some sleep."

"I hope he's all right," she said, following me to our rooms.

Before closing the door behind me, I glanced across the hallway, to the door of Thief's chambers. "I hope so too."

~~~

The next morning, uncle Cerius sent servants to summon the three of us to the east gardens, the largest ones in the castle.

"Will breakfast be served here?" Lena asked, covering her yawn with the palm of her hand. She looked around at the rose bushes and the plush, green carpets of grass. "I don't see a table."

Uncle Cerius scratched the back of his neck in slight guilt. "I'm afraid you won't be having breakfast at my castle... I... received a letter from your mother telling me that you'd ran away. She was very worried about you..." He met my eyes before looking away at the grass.

I froze. "You didn't tell her that I was here, did you?"

My answer came in the shape of a giant shadow in the sky above, the silhouette of which I was very much familiar with. It engulfed the entire garden in darkness until a white dragon with golden eyes landed in front of us.

"You did," I said, closing my eyes for a moment.

When I opened them, Nephos was looking at me sternly. He let out a puff of hot air through his nostrils and shook his head in disapproval, his way of telling me that he was disappointed with my actions.

I sighed, approaching the large creature. "You're here to take Lena and I home, aren't you?"

He nodded, sitting down on his back legs, the stern expression not leaving his eyes.

While Nephos wasn't part of the plan, it would be much easier to reach Kingdom Gora on a dragon. Lena and I had planned to travel there on horses, which was a rather long journey. If only there was a way to persuade him to take us there instead of back to Soleil....

A smile grew on my face as I suddenly got an idea. Nephos looked at my smile in apprehension, shifting uneasily on his paws.

"You know," I started, slowly walking to the rose bush to my left, then back to the bush to my right, pacing back and forth. I could feel his eyes following my movements. "It's been a long time since you've had chocolate bread from Kingdom Gora. Remember the baker that made a whale sized loaf just for you? It smelled divine."

I peeked at Nephos as I spoke and saw his eyes dilate at the memory. It was working. Smiling to myself, I continued, "Freshly baked. Warm. Sweet. Crisp on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside." He licked away the drool that escaped his mouth. "Don't you want to taste it again?"

He nodded excitedly, chirping once.

"Don't you want to go right this moment to Kingdom Gora and have it freshly made for you?"

He nodded again, crushing rose bushes with his tail as he swung it side to side.

I laughed. "Then it's decided! Let's go to Kingdom Gora. Soleil can wait."

As soon as I said the last sentence, Nephos came back to his senses. He stopped moving his tail, and his eyes were filled with a stern look once again.

"Argh! You almost had him," Lena said, disheartened. I felt the same way, until something very odd happened.

Thief walked up to the humongous dragon and craned his neck to look up at the creature. When Nephos finally noticed, he tilted his head to the side before recognition flashed through his eyes and he licked Thief's face, leaving a trace of slime behind.

Thief laughed, wiping it off with the sleeve of his shirt. "It is you!" He patted his neck. "You've certainly grown a lot. Look at you!"

Nephos straightened his spine, giving a proud chirp in response.

Lena and I exchanged a look of utter confusion. How did Thief know Nephos? How did Nephos know Thief? Have they met before? When? Where?

"Can you still do the roll? Or are you too old for it now?" Thief teased.

Nephos suddenly tucked in his legs, tail and head until he formed a giant ball with his body. And then he started to roll around the garden.

"My rose bushes!" Uncle Cerius cried in horror, watching as they were crushed flat to the ground under the weight of the dragon.

"Did you know he could do that?" Lena asked, watching Nephos destroy uncle Cerius's garden in amusement. "He looks like an incredibly humongous white cannon ball," she laughed.

"I didn't," I said, trying to cover my own laugh.

Thief was smiling widely, a look of pure joy in his eyes. It was a vast contrast to the pain I saw in them last night. "You're still the little Nephos I knew," he said when the dragon came back after destroying every rose bush.

"Little?" Lena and I repeated at the same time. There was nothing little about him.

"You'll take us to Kingdom Gora, won't you?" Thief asked.

Nephos chirped, nodding twice.

Lena ran and climbed onto the dragon. "Hop on you two, before he changes his mind."

When the three of us were seated on the base of Nephos's neck and he spread his wings to take us up into the skies, uncle Cerius waved his arms and called out, "Let your parents know that you're safe! Stay out of trouble!"

"We will!" I shouted back and waved him goodbye as Nephos flew up. I tightened my grip on Lena's waist when we were all the way up in the sky, flying over the castle. Behind me, Thief did the same, tightening his hold around my waist.

Soon we were past the border of Kingdom Typhon. I gazed through the clouds at Kingdom Soleil below us, golden gates of the palace gleaming in the distance as we passed it.

Mesmerized by the landscapes below me and the gentle wind in my hair, I didn't notice when Nephos had started to descend.

"We're here," Lena said as Nephos landed on a narrow road between two mountains, tucking in his large wings and lowering himself to the ground to help us climb off him.

"Thank you," I said and rubbed the dragon's neck affectionately. "I promise I'll come back to Soleil when I find what I'm looking for."

Nephos sighed, then nodded, licking the side of my face. I laughed and wiped my cheek.

After giving goodbye licks to Thief and Lena as well, he spread his wings and flew away with a chirp, creating a loud gust of wind and a big puff of dust as he did so.

Coughing, I turned to face the road ahead of us. "Should we have some breakfast before we go looking for the second piece?" When I heard no response, I turned back around.

Lena and Thief were no longer there.

I frowned. "Lena? Thief? Where did you go? We can play hide and seek another ti--"

A foul smelling cloth suddenly covered my mouth and nose. I moved to grab the hand that held it, but the damage had already been done. The sleeping herbs had already entered my lungs and my limbs went slack before I fell onto the person behind me, unconscious.

~~~

When I opened my eyes, I was lying on the floor of a small cell. I sat up with a groan, a headache forming by my temples. It felt as if an invisible force was pressing in on me from each side of the cell made up of metal bars.

Looking at the door, I realized that it was locked by one small lock. It seemed too fragile to hold the door closed all by itself. As the fog in my mind cleared some more, I also realized that the metal bars of the cell were much too thin to do their job. Whoever caged me in here must have severely underestimated me.

I reached out with my hand to push it through the space between the bars to pull at the lock, but I couldn't. Instead of going through the gap, my hand hit an invisible wall.

"You won't be able to get out of there," a voice said when I tried to reach through the gap again. "Those bars create a magical shield between them. It's impenetrable."

I recognized his voice before the potato merchant from the Soleil Market even stepped out of the shadows, sipping on a cup of water.

Ignoring him, I lit fire in my hand and threw it at the bars. They simply absorbed the fire, making it disappear as soon as it hit them. I looked at the water in the merchant's hand and willed it to enter the lock, but as soon as it came in contact with the metal, it too disappeared.

"I told you. Impenetrable," the merchant said. A large man came up to stand beside him, holding a small key. The merchant pointed to it. "This is your only way out. The lock can only be opened by him and only by his own will to do so. He'll be willing when you tell us where you hid the Helm piece. It's as simple as that. Where did you hide it?"

They must have searched me while I was unconscious and found nothing. I hid it in uncle Cerius's castle before I went to bed last night. Travelling with it while searching for the second piece seemed dangerous, especially since I knew there were others after it.

"How did you find us, merchant?" I asked instead of answering his question. "Where are Lena and Thief?"

"I'd lost my map during our run in in the Dark Forest. It only seemed logical that you'd head to Gora if you found it. And I was right," he said. "As for your friends...they're safe." Then he approached the cell. "Name's Rib by the way. What may yours be? I know by the powers you hold that you aren't a mere commoner like you pretended to be at the market. Who are you? A noblewoman? Or perhaps..." he tilted his head to one side, "a princess?"

When I pursed my lips, Rib smiled with a decisive nod. "A princess then. I should have known. I do apologize for going through such measures, Your Highness, but I'm afraid I cannot let you go without getting what I need."

"I don't know why you are after it, but I won't tell you where it is," I said. "Keeping me in this cell won't help you one bit. I don't break easily. Release me."

Rib shook his head with a sigh. "I was afraid you'd say so. I guess we'll have to wait for you to change your mind." He turned on his heel toward the door of this brick walled room. "Hector, stay here."

Hector, the large man with the key nodded and pulled up a chair to sit in front of the cell. He was so close that if I was able to reach though these bars, I could have snatched the key away. But I couldn't. I growled in frustration.

"Listen, Hector," I said, gaining his attention. "There must be something else you want. Anything other than the Helm. Tell me and I can get it for you."

He shook his head, his eyes lacking any kind of emotion. "The Helm is what we need," he said in an incredibly deep voice that boomed throughout the room and bounced off the metal bars of my cell.

I kicked the bars with my foot and started throwing fire at them, one fire ball after another.

"You're only wasting your energy," Hector grumbled.

Hours passed and I tried everything I could think of to get out of this cell. I even put my pride aside and tried to seduce him into releasing me, but his expressionless face remained...expressionless.

I gave up for a moment and sat down on the cold floor beneath me to think. I had to find a way to get out of this cell. Gods know what they did to Lena and Thief. Were they also in the same cells somewhere? Were they all right?

The door to the room opened and closed. I sighed, expecting to see Rib come out of the shadows, but widened my eyes when I saw Thief instead.

Hector stood from his chair. "If you're here to free her, you're wasting your time. Only I can open the cell, and only when I decide to."

Thief studied the bars of the cell for a moment. He eyed the lock, then the key in Hector's hand. "How did they get their hands on these cages of Hephaestus?" he pondered out loud with a crease of his brows. Then he looked at Hector. "You will want to open that lock," he said with certainty.

I got up from the floor when Thief reached for the bow and arrow hanging on his back and aimed it at Hector. "No!" I protested. "If he dies, I'll never get out of here!"

Thief let the arrow fly straight into Hector's heart, and the large man dropped to the ground with a heavy thud.

"Are you crazed?" I screamed. "Why did you kill him? He was--"

My mouth went dry when I saw the arrow move deeper into Hector's heart until it disappeared completely inside his chest. Then something unthinkable happened. He opened his eyes and sat up, looking at me with eyes full of emotion. "My love," he said softly.

"She's locked inside that cage. Only you can set her free, if you're willing," Thief told him.

Hector looked down at the small key beside him and immediately rushed over to my door to unlock it. "I'm sorry I kept you in there for so long. Please forgive me, my love." He held my hand gently in his large ones and led me out of the cell.

I was at a loss for words, shuffling my feet as I walked out with him.

"That was my last arrow," Thief complained quietly to himself, putting his bow away behind his back.

I met his honey eyes and whispered, "Who are you?"

"I'm Eros," he said. "The God of Love."