138. A Tale of Azure: Part One
“Hold up, wait just a minute here.” Osmoses states, looking a little bit disturbed. “Your telling us there is an ancient being lying in dormant under the castle at this very moment?” He asks.
Z could only nod at him.
“Why does the Ambassador want to bring him back for? If he’s striped, wouldn’t he be useless to him?” Nami asks next.
“I should tell you the story of who Azure is. It’s a story passed down to each descendent of the Crown. We’re told of this tale because it is our sacred duty to keep him well hidden and to make sure he never awakens again.”
“How did the Ambassador know then?” I ask suddenly. “If only the royal bloodline can know about this, then how did he come by the information?”
He looks at me with a sense of frustration. “That, I don’t know. He’s the type of character that I always felt was a bit sneaky and he’s very cunning when it comes to court matters. I’m not surprised that he found out about Azure. I am surprised of what he plans to accomplish and how far he has gone to obtain it.”
Z then sighs with defeat. “The records of Azure have all been destroyed or well preserved in the Sacred Precinct. Temples that you cannot enter unless you are a Holy Priest. For Victor to enter such a place would be nearly impossible.”
“Why would that be? Maybe he bribed one of the priests or scribes there.” Antwon states with a frown.
Z shakes his head, but before he could answer him, Malory answers instead. “It’s impossible because the temples reside only in Greece. They are ancient temples of the Holy war over a thousand years ago. Most of them are nearly impossible to have access to even enter the grounds.”
“The ancient temples? But aren’t they against our kind? Why would they have the records?” A guy named Jason asks, speaking up for the first time. I realize he was the one who had been cooking and serving the young ones.
“Even if they don’t consider us as Children of God, they still have to report all entities of the mortal world. We are considered demons to them, and even demons are recorded in the Sacred Precinct.” Osmoses informs him.
“Please, let me tell you the story of Azure.” Z starts to beg, looking highly stressed now.
At that everyone become quiet and I couldn’t help to, once again, look into Shane’s direction. He was now lying on his back, his chest rising and falling in a fast rhythm.
“Moon Goddess Selene was in a war at the time. A war with just one person. One individual that threatened the existence of all life. He was cruel, evil, and destructive. So…” He swallows hard and looks back up at us. “With the help of another person they joined forces and took him down together.”
“This man that she had fought against was named Lycaon, a king from over a thousand years ago. Its to be told that he had angered one of the gods. Obsessed with his power and greed he insulted the Greek God Zeus, who then banished him into the world of beasts, wolves. But he wasn’t like how our wolfen forms are to be.”
He looks closely into the fire that burned and cracked away into the still night. I sat there listening and hanging onto his every word, as did all the others.
“Never to be in human form again, he went off and terrorized and pillaged any village he came across. He spent his years alone as he plundered, murdered, and destroyed anything in his path. As our Goddess Selene sent her wolves to take him down, he created an army of vicious rogues. He soon learned that when he bit humans, they had the ability to transform.”
“Wait, are you saying that there are people out there that were bitten and not born like us?” Benji asks with a shaky voice.
“They haven’t been seen since the war, believing they have all been killed. We still have yet to see one to this day.” Z answers carefully with a frown. “And I hope we never actually encounter one. They lose all sense of themselves and are forced to shift only on the full moon.”
Hearing that sent a shiver down my spine as the images of werewolves in olden fork lore race through my mind. “Does that mean…that the drawings passed down from centuries old are real?’ I couldn’t help but ask.
I hear a few gasps from some of the others as they swing their gazes to the prince. He stares right at me with a heavy look upon his face. “If you mean the werewolves standing up like men, have a distinct gruesome look about them…yes. That’s exactly what it means.”
Benji grabs Derek’s arm more firmly as he pulls himself closer to his mate, looking just as disturbed as all the others. Learning this was very alarming, even if the prince states they haven’t been seen…that didn’t mean they didn’t still exist.
“Back to the story.” Z says quickly, trying to defuse the sudden tension in the circle. “There was once a kingdom, five hundred years ago, in the eastern lands where there was a prince. A Crown Prince to be exact. Moon Goddess Selene learned that he was different than any other human being she had come across. While the king, his father, was ruthless and ruled with a very stern hand was always harsh to his subjects. He sent the Crown Prince away to be properly trained in the governmental affairs.”
Z looks all around the cave as he gathers his thoughts. “Everyone believed that the queen had died of childbirth, and although that is true, there was one Historian that witnessed the truth of the Queen’s death.”
He looks back down to us, then to the fire. “She had been attacked while walking through the grounds one night, the Historian had written that the queen was restless being so close to giving birth. It was told that Lycaon had attacked her, bit her, and disappeared into the night.”