Hope

Chapter 19

Cindy's POV

Aniavin wanted to have another meeting with us. This time Alice had gone and retrieved Qin and Pyrus to be here for the meeting, leaving the Island under Rohan and Shyrah's supervision. I was so happy for the two of them and I prayed to the Goddess they could make each other happy. When the queen of Aniavin came on the screen, she looked pale. "You don't look well," Alice pointed out to her. She nodded, "I haven't been sleeping. We discovered that our island does in fact have that stone. When we looked into how we could get rid of it, we discovered a plaque of some kind in a language none of us can read." 

She then showed an image of a silver plaque. I couldn't read it either. "It's in the demonic tongue," Qin said. "I usually can read it, but I'm going to guess this is an older dialect. The girls could possibly translate it." "I'll see if Mania or Karla are available," Alice said before disappearing. A few minutes later she returned with Karla. "Can you translate this," Alice asked while pointing to the screen. Karla's gold eyes ran over it, what appeared to be a couple of times. She then smirked, "It's a curse. One given to the Aniavins by the first ever Demon King. You people had your magic stripped from you because your people were summoning demons from the demon realm and using them as sacrifices for the sick and twisted Gods you used to once worship. As punishment, he cursed your people to prevent you from being able to summon another demon. If anyone tries to release your people of the curse, then the curse will kill them. That stone, is the curse's tether. You mess with that, you could earn the curse's wrath. Unfortunately for you, the curse has no expiration or cleanse. And if you move, it'll just follow." 

"How would it follow," Pyrus asked her. "It can sense when the blood of the Aniavin are on the island. If they all leave, then it will track them down like a blood hound," Karla explained to them. "That's why if only a couple go to another land, they can use magic, but if their people as a whole were to leave the island, then the curse would follow them." 

"So what you're saying is that there is no hope for my people," the queen asked her. Karla nodded, "Your only hope is to try and convince the current King to lift the curse. They're the only one who can because it was someone in their blood line who put the curse on your people in the first place. Getting a hold of him is almost impossible though. He is rarely ever in the castle. You can probably find him with a couple of hookers snorting cocaine in one of this world's great cities." 

The queen nodded, "So you're basically saying the King could be anywhere." Karla nodded, "Yeah. He is always giving his advisors and Lords the slip." "How do you know," Nathaniel asked her. "We go to the Demon Realm every now and then and catch up on the latest gossip," Karla explained. "It's fun sneaking about, causing the authority there hell when they try to catch us and fail." Shelton pointed a finger at her, "We will be talking after this meeting." He then turned to the Queen. "Now what do you plan to do?" "Find this king and get him to lift this curse. Thank you for your help and showing us the real reason behind why we can't use magic," she answered before hanging up. 

Shelton then turned to Karla. "You three need to stop going to the demon realm," he told her. "That's not happening," she told us. "If you guys haven't realized, Mania is wicked talented when it comes to her magic abilities. She's also very powerful too. She has been going to see a special teacher, because she has the chance at becoming a Lady." "A Lady," Nathaniel questioned. "A Lady of Power," Qin answered. "It's a rank right under the royal family. They're the most powerful magic users in the demon realm. If she can gain the title of Lady, then her and her sisters will be allowed to come and go from the realm without fear of being arrested." 

"But why go through all of that if this realm is your home," I asked her, just wanting to understand, why they're going through something so risky. "Mania wants to give Shyrah her wings back," Karla answered, her voice soft. "We blame ourselves for her wings being cut off when we were little. I don't have the magic capabilities to regenerate body parts, but Mania does." 

"Regenerating body parts is illegal if the part was taken as punishment," Qin said, eyes on the table. "And that is why Mania wants to become a Lady, so that there would be no punishments for giving Shyrah back her wings." Karla nodded, "Exactly." "Shyrah doesn't blame you for what happened," Qin told her. "We know, but we want to do this for her," Karla answered. "She doesn't know though. So you can't tell her." "Why won't you tell her," I asked her. "Because Shyrah would try and stop us. Everything she's done, since we were kids, is protect us. We wanted to repay her by getting back something she lost because of us," she explained. "With her busy with Rohan and on the island, Mania and I figured it was a good time to do this. Because once she finds out, she will try to stop us."

We were all torn on what to do. They're clearly being careful and since Karla said its Mania doing the training, I'm guessing Karla is going to ensure nothing happens to Mania. "If you are even under the impression that they're on to you, you don't go back," Shelton decided and we all agreed. "And we won't tell Shyrah. That can be for you to deal with," Qin told her. "And when she wants to kick your ass for endangering yourselves for her sake, we're going to let her."

Karla nodded, "Understood." Her smile was bright as she left in a puff of navy smoke. I sighed softly and looked at the rest of my mates. With this new piece of information, where does that leave us with our relationship with Aniavin? We want peace, and it's clearly not our fault they were cursed, and as much as we want them to have their magic back, it would be suicide to try and get the current Demon king to lift their curse.

I sighed, it's always something. Why can't anything ever be easy? For once, I want a simple boring day, with no human government jumping down our throats with their protests, no Aniavin conflict, no human vs supernatural issues, no pushing back the rest of our coronations even further, no nothing. I know it's a lot to ask for but for just once, I would like to not have so much on our plates. Is that a bad thing to want?