The Seventh Son

Chapter 1

"King Jerald, today is your wedding day. Are you sure you want to do this?" a sweating Rachel inquired in between breaths.

"I'd like to get one last taste of you before I marry that annoying Clariss and spend the rest of my miserable life with her," the king replied. "Now keep quiet before the guards notice my absence," he added as he placed kisses on Rachel's cheek. His statement got her all excited as she giggled.

 The pair were so caught up in the intense heat that they had no idea they were being watched. Standing in the middle of the barn was Princess Clariss, Jerald's wife-to-be, in a wedding dress. 

She had gone to the Teras fountain, atop the Crystal Tower, to make a brief good-luck wish. She was supposed to go at midnight but opted out because she wasn't the sort to believe that a simple fountain could bring good luck to one's marriage. 

It was customary for all the young women of the Ergad kingdom to climb the crystal tower, put their hands in the Teras fountain the day before their wedding day, and make a good luck wish for the success of their marriage, but she had previously declined.

 For the past week, she'd been having the same dream over and over again. In the dream, she was standing over a crying King Jerald, who was asking for her mercy. She had initially brushed it off, but again, the same dream visited her.

She kept thinking about the dream all morning, but she eventually decided to tell her cousin Valarie about it. Who persuaded her to go to the top of the tower for a piece of fast good luck before the wedding ceremony began? Princess Clariss eventually accepted and flew to the tower in her wedding gown. But she came to a halt halfway there when she saw a figure that appeared to be her husband running playfully into the barn with a lady that appeared to be her best friend. She stammered, "Jerald!"

She landed on one of the stairwells and tried to persuade herself that it wasn't her king, but her curiosity got the better of her, and she flew to the barn. A gruesome sight of King Jerald on top of Rachel, her best friend met her. Her legs went numb; they could no longer support her weight as she looked at them. Her heart was ripped to shreds; she could hear it pounding furiously.

Rachel, her childhood best friend, noticed a shadow in the room and opened her eyes to find red-green hateful eyes staring back at her. She quickly pushed Jerald off of her and cried, "Clarris!"

Jerald looked behind and found his fiancee smiling at him with teary eyes.

"Please go on, do not mind me," Clarris said. Deep inside her head, she was recalling her dream. It was quite different from the scene she was seeing. Jerald was not begging for forgiveness but was staring at her with shame in his eyes.

Jerald wiped the sweat off his forehead and quickly put on his trousers.

"Clariss?"!! What are you doing here? You are supposed to be getting ready for the wedding," an embarrassed Jerald asked without thinking, while Rachel covered her face in shame. She couldn't look her best friend in the eyes.

"How long have you two been screwing?" Clarris asked. 

"That's not important," Jerald replied.

"How long?" Clarris screamed.

"Not sure, maybe years," Jerald replied.

When Clarris felt her heart collapse, she took two steps and held on to a box for balance.

"You and I have nothing in common, Clarris. Our relationship was forced upon us by our parents. Rachel completes me. We are compatible just based on our abilities; she is water and I am fire. "You are just a girl..." Jerald added, "That can fly."

Rachel interjected, with tears in her eyes, "Jerald, please don't say that. This isn't the case, Clarris,"

"Be quiet!" Clarris yelled out, "Jerald, please go ahead."

Jerald could only look down, embarrassed.

"I'm just... a... flying... girl?" Clarris  whispered between sobs. The room became quiet and Clarris stared at them with a smile on her face for what seemed to last forever, then turned and began walking away. Jerald called out her name, but she kept walking. She was filled with so much hate and rage that she did not hear her name being called. The sound of her heart beating overpowered anything else. She pulled herself up and flew in the direction of the forest.

Both Prince Jerald and Rachel couldn't go after her because they couldn't fly. And she had taken off at the speed of light. Gerald's ability was to whirl fire and Rachel's was to whirl water. They both ran to the castle, and Jerald ordered his dark knights to go into the forest and fetch his wife to be. 

He was distraught and was all over the place. The guests and family members noticed that the bride was nowhere to be seen, and they became impatient and began asking questions that King Jerald declined to answer. 

The sun went down and the Dark Knights returned with no Clarris. "My Lord, we have searched the entire forest but there is no sign of her," the knights reported.

"What do you mean, you fools? Go back into the forest and only return once you find her," Jerald shouted out.

"But my Lord, it's past curfew and the creatures of the forest have come out to feast. We barely escaped," Darell, the leader of the Dark Knight and whose ability was to shapeshift, cried out.

Prince Jerald whirled a fireball towards him, but stopped it a few inches from Darell's face. "Repeat what you have just said,'' he ordered.

"Prince Jerald, what's going on? Where is my daughter? " King Charles, Clarris's father, walked in.

Jerald turned off the fire and faced the king. "We are looking for her." She flew into the forest, but do not worry my king, the knights are on it. " Jerald lied. 

The king's face turned pale, and he felt like his weight was collapsing on him. "How! Why? Would she run in the forest on her wedding day?"

Jerald walked over and gave the king a seat. He lied again. "We had a simple misunderstanding, and she ran into the forest," he said.

"Misunderstanding!!! Why didn't you run after her?" The king asked, shocked.

"She flew away, but I sent the knights after her, and they have been searching for her the whole day. They will soon find her." Jerald signaled his knights to go immediately, and they all ran out with fear written all over their faces.

 The forest was not the place to be at night, no matter what kind of ability one possessed. The place crawled with bloodthirsty creatures and demons that looked for bodies and souls to quench their thirst. And if those did not get you, the Night Catcher would. He was the faceless monster that roamed the forest looking for people with abilities and stealing them away. But the knights had no option but to go in again.

"But why didn't you inform us about her disappearance all this time?" King Charles shouted.

"I thought the knights would bring her back," Jerald stated, with shame all over his face.

Deep in the dark forest, Princess Clariss finally stopped flying. She was so tired that she felt her legs cripple her and she fell to the ground. She had no idea which part of the forest she was in because she had been flying the whole day without stopping. It was like she was flying towards something rather than running away from something. She and King Jerald were betrothed since they were toddlers. And their union would strengthen the two kingdoms, Egrad and Arthora.

Her kingdom, Arthora, had the weapons and an army, while King Jerald's kingdom was rich with resources, land, and a lot of people with abilities. It was not everyone who was born with the gift of powers; only a few were chosen. And among all the seven kingdoms, Egrad was filled with people with strong abilities. 

It was an alliance that both their parents came up with to merge the two kingdoms and make them powerful. The two grew up knowing each other, and it was Princess Clarris who first fell in love and worshiped King Jerald. She had spent all her years learning to love him, accepting his flaws and vice versa.

But that dream now seems far fetched. Seeing him on top of her best friend brought out so much hate and anger. All she could think about were the wasted years; the mockery, how long they had been sleeping together, boiled her guts. She had been a fool all these years. 

She lay on the ground and cried her heart out. Tears kept flowing, and the ground she was lying on became soaked up. It was like she was crying a river of tears.