Chapter 13: Food for Thought

(Kullervo)

I was infuriated with my family. My daughters acted in ways contrary to my teachings and my wife was afraid of her own shadow. She had more to fear from her younger daughter than the elder simply because she hadn’t been versed in grit and hadn’t been taught how to shut her mouth on certain topics. 

After Taiga left and I had tended to Eris, I was left alone with myself in that tiny room, thinking morbidly over the knowledge that a piece of this Clan’s Core crystal had been heinously stolen. Both the culprits and reason remained unknown, however, it was heavily suspected to have been by the very Void rogues that had attacked myself and my daughter. Taiga had also heard rumours that other Clans had shards missing from their own powerful crystalline treasures. This knowledge was quite concerning to me, giving me ever more reason to seek out the other Clans and gather intel on how they were fairing postbellum and whether they knew of this shard-thief.

Eris had fallen back asleep, Fantasia and her mother were out looking through the various shops in the immediate vicinity, and Helios slept soundly again in his wrappings.

 “This will pass too.” I said to myself as I stood from the small dinner table. “I have survived wars and battles unlike any others for centuries, surely fathering my children and being gracious to my wife can’t be too much harder.” I paced to and fro around the small kitchen area, every once in a while shifting the logs in the oven to get as much heat out of them as possible.

 “I wonder what the future has in store for us.” I asked openly at the empty room as I looked from my eldest to my youngest. My heart sank like broken shards of glass in water. The age difference and the disparity between experiences was almost devastating. 

My daughter was almost two centuries old with thirty years having been spent in the grave already and two wars having been waged in her lifetime. 

My son was only a few months old, he would never know what war was, he would never be laid, still awake, within a crypt of gold and silver. 

My daughter was still young and full of life, the same as my son, but it was evident that she was a beast of war and combat. She was a pure conduit of violence and merciless slaughter, her weapon attested to this, having been called the ‘Dark Child’s Trident’, the Argusselx’r. 

She took after me, the shadows cloaked her every step and her mind was closer to a constant, impenetrable labyrinth that spiralled and spiralled, further and further until it would become obvious that it could not be breached easily, even for myself; this was the perfect killing machine. 

However, that was the very reason I taught her the ways of medicine because she wasn’t just any killing machine, she was my daughter. My flesh, my blood, my heart’s work, and so much more. I walked around faster and faster as I remembered my wife’s thoughts, the baseness of which caused the ball of energy in my chest to arc and spike fiercely as I grew angrier. How could she think so unkindly of the very thing she bore?! How uncouth of my mate to believe such harsh things about my daughter! I dared not touch any surface as my blood literally boiled in my veins.

 “Dad, stop.” My eldest daughter said from where she lay as she looked toward me. “Don’t be like this. Mom doesn’t understand, she’s scared and tired because she just had a baby.” I was preparing to scold her for listening in on my thoughts but rather she put a hand up. “You always pace whenever mom does something stupid. You know that I can’t read your mind.” She had a point as I sat with her. “You worry too much.” She said quietly as she sat upright, her dark-violet clothes matching her now violet and brown eyes. There was a moment of silence before she looked me in the eyes. 

“You can’t rule everyone, dad.” Her mental voice said as her eyes flashed with every word, sounding like light bending through thick foliage. 

“I should at least be able to rule my own family. A kingdom is nothing without a ruler, and a family is nothing without a head.” I replied in kind, reaching the words like tendrils into her mind. I rose and went into the kitchen to make us dinner. Fantasia and her mother could eat at a shop somewhere in the city.

 Eris followed me but I held her shoulders and looked her in the eyes. 

“You need to rest.” I said as I started walking her back to her bed but she walked through me like smoke as she began to get things together using telekinesis.

“I have rested long enough, my king!” She telepathically spoke, her voice like arcing thunder as her eyes shifted to a harsh red and dark blue. I saw the fire and ice that held her together, equal parts fierce and brutal. I didn’t argue as I let her work alone for a time before helping her. We worked in silence for several hours before I finally spoke,

“This’ll be the best damned dinner your mother has ever had.”