Chapter 52 A Tale of Two Sisters, Part I
Chapter 52 A Tale of Two Sisters, Part I
The settlement's dungeon sat at the edges of the territory. Ever since Kieran came into the territory and began helping around, it had sat empty.
Not until he recently stopped a notorious Lycan trafficking ring.
The heavy metal door leading inside clattered and cried as he opened it. Kieran shone his torchlight inside, revealing a damp, poorly lit hallway with about two metal doors each side. The hallway had been muddy due to the rain last night.
“This way,” he said as he laid his hand for me to take. I stepped down the stone steps, feeling the mud underneath my boots.
My breath hitched as he led me to the first door on the left side of the hallway. I could see through the small window of the door a quiet, old woman sitting in one corner of the room.
The side of her face was riddled with blue-violet bruises. Kieran told me that she looked that way when she approached him.
But to me, she felt… oddly familiar. Yet, I don't remember seeing her in the Locke Manor, nor had I met her during my time as Luna Hunt.
As soon as she noticed us peering through the window, the old woman stood up and walked towards the door, the heavy silver chains wrapped around her feet clattering at every step.
She knelt in front of us, deeply bowing her head. “Your Majesty…”
“Rise,” I softly said. “My Vassal told me you have something for me.”
The chains clattered once more as she stepped forward. “I prefer talking without these chains wrapped around me, Your Majesty.”
She obediently sat on the edge of her bed as we entered the room. Kieran removed the chains temporarily, but I could feel his twin axes glowing hot on my back.
I had someone deliver breakfast for the old woman, along with a medicine kit. We quietly watched as she downed the breakfast as if she had been starved for months.
I stopped Kieran as he impatiently tapped his foot on the stone floor, his gaze growing heavy on the old woman.
As soon as she finished eating, the old woman took a napkin and graciously wiped her mouth. She didn't say anything about her upbringing to Kieran, but her movements seemed to be too refined for a born-slave.
“I didn't think I would see you again, Lady Hestia,” she said as she placed the napkin on the table. “It's been years, and I only held you as a baby, after all.”
My eyebrow arched. My childhood has always been a blur to me. I had no memories of anything related to my childhood until the age of seven winters, and most Lycans usually remember theirs even as young as one winter.
“You've seen me as a baby?”
She nodded as she sipped from her cup. “Of course. I was your wet nurse after Luna Mera gave birth to you.”
Mera? But my mother's name was Cassandra… That was why both Medea and I carried her name—
“You must've mistaken me for someone else—”
“No, I'm certain.”
I stood up. The woman must be having memory problems. “I'm sorry, but my mother's name was Cassandra, not Mera. You're free to stay in the settlement for now but we might have—”
“You have a butterfly-shaped birthmark on your neck, but you also have a huge burn scar on the side of your left hip,” the old woman said that stopped me from my tracks.
“How did you—”
“I already told you, Lady Hestia. I was your wet nurse, from Luna Mera until Luna Cassandra. Alpha Heron fired me when you reached two winters. He broke my leg and sold me as a slave…”
Her words prompted me to sit back down. “Are you telling me that I… was born from a different mother?”
She didn't answer my question directly. “Are the Lockes known for producing princesses strong enough to be Queen candidates?”
Now that I think about it, us Lockes had never been… known to have strong female Lycans. Our ancestors often got their power and influence through marrying off their daughters, or through war.
My mother, Luna Cassandra, was even a distant relative to my father. By Mother's law, such a union would've formed a deformed Lycan…
And yet, she had twin daughters, both strong enough to compete for the Queen’s throne.
Thinking about it now, it was truly… odd. Mother always told me that by the law of our nature, only one of the twins could only carry divine powers, unless those twins came from one of Mother's direct descendants, or if they stole somebody's fate.
She said it was to avoid headaches.
That was why I was having thoughts on Medea's powers.
But how could she have fooled the Temple's tests? The trials? And what about the powers she often bragged about during training?
Nothing made sense to me…
“The Lockes treated the two of you as miracles. Your relatives, that is. But doesn't it make you wonder why your father was hostile to you, Lady Hestia?”
I scoffed. “I'm sorry, but as much as I didn't want to get associated with them, the Temple's paternity tests were saying otherwise. I am a Locke, and there's no denying it.”
“Oh, you're a Locke, that's for sure. But not just through blood.”
“What?”
Her eyes showed a soft glint of sadness. It was brief, but I caught it. Kieran impatiently leaned forward. “Why don't you just get into the point, old lady? We don't have all day.”
She chuckled. “If I spilled all of my beans, there's no telling if you're going to let me live tomorrow.”
“You—!”
Kieran's fist curled. I stopped him before he could even lunge at the old woman.
“Fine. But if I ever learn that you're lying to me, just know that I could make you suffer a fate worse than death.”
She smiled. “I wouldn't dare.”
I stood up, about to leave the suffocating room. But before I could step out, the old lady called me. “If possible, you can look through the Crown's official list of aristocratic families. On the Locke family's history, to be exact. There's a small town up north of this settlement that housed Lycan archives. You'll see some of the answers you're looking for there.”