“We’ll camp here tonight,” said Vaeludar who flopped to the ground. “I might as well put out this fire, and we all sleep up top. We’re too exposed down here: one door and many open windows. Too risky. We stay on the second floor.”
Everyone and Flarefur made their way to the second floor. Vaeludar put out the fire and set another one in the second level. During a short time, everyone was sitting close to Vaeludar’s fire.
Vaeludar himself sat away from the group, against a wall. Then he turned his head away and laid his head on the hard wall as he heard Marina singing the same song he had heard the other day:
Oh, try to come to find us in these mountains
For we are high in the sky;
And there are no nearby fountains
For we are safe from any that can walk or fly
After hearing Marina’s little siren song, Vaeludar couldn’t bring himself to sleep because of Marina’s soft voice. He could just listen to her sing all night long and not take a single wink. She sounded so much like an angel he could fly up to the gods, taking her with him and asking them to bless him with the greatest purity they could give.
Vaeludar shook the thought away, knowing the gods can’t be reached in his mortal body. He knows only the Sprits of the Dead could see the gods. He knows each body had its own Spirit (or ghost) that was the spiritual aura and was only released from the body when it dies. After the body dies, the Spirit then goes to the Three Gods themselves.
Vaeludar had always debated if he ever had one: Geraldus told him humans had one and Dragons also had their own. But Vaeludar wondered if he had one and he always thought about that one hero he thought himself as: Valverno. His name was nearly the same as the hero said to be a Demigod, a half mortal half god creature.
He always could compare himself to the legendary Demigod: they both were half of two separate things and had two different parents. Vaeludar was thinking maybe he was maybe the Valverno, but how could he be? If Valverno did ever live, it would have been tens of thousands of years before Vaeludar ever lived because Vaeludar was seventeen. There was no way he could be a legendary hero from ancient stories every child on Shimabellia had heard of.
“Thinking of something?” asked Marina. The Siren came walking to Vaeludar seating near the wall.
Vaeludar was so much in his deep thought he didn’t pay attention to Marina he thought was creeping up behind him. He saw her standing over him and he proceeded to sit up. “Marina, weren’t you singing?” he asked, avoiding Marina’s question.
“I finished about five minutes ago.” Marina then sat down next to Vaeludar. And you haven’t answered my question: are you thinking of something?”
“I guess there’s no hiding my thoughts from you,” said Vaeludar. “Remember of the stories you may have heard of the one Demigod?”
“Valverno? Yes, I know those stories when I being raised by my mother before she died and I heard more stories when I was being raised by the king.”
“For a long time, I’ve been comparing myself to the Demigod. I just see a few similarities: he’s half one thing and half of another like me, he had two different parents, he was thought to be powerful, and he was thought to be an outsider in his childhood years. I’m wondering if Ralenskrit and Belverda goy that idea: a god and a mortal coming together in a strange union and bearing a child.”
“I think that is a great idea,” said Marina.
“What? Having two different species coming together and making a hybrid? I couldn’t see myself coming in whatever king of union with you in any way. That alone is making me think of what our children would look like. I can’t bear the feeling of having so many cross-specimen children as my young.”
“Are you suggesting we get married now?” asked Marina, smiling.
Vaeludar gave a glooming look. “Getting married in unknown lands and inside mountain range and inside a hut where we were almost drawn into a fight?” Vaeludar looked at the mountain ranges that stretches off as far as his eyes can see. “Getting married in a glooming place won’t be a great memory to keep in my memory or a story telling place the kids wouldn’t want to wear?”
“So you are suggesting us getting married?”
“Not yet,” said Vaeludar. “I’m not going to propose to you right now, Marina. Right now I have an obligation to fulfil and I want to be at our journey’s end as soon as possible. As soon as we reach our destination, we’re going to head back south.”
“Why do men always ruin a romantic moment when they talk about doing their duties and not sparing some time talking about their romantic life? Spare me duties, obligations, and protecting innocent lives from dangerous threats. They don’t matter to me as you are more important than doing your duty.”
“If we don’t protect Shimabellia from any potential, lurking threats from the future, then any children we have now will be in danger in the future. Tell me this: if you had a song and Lusìvar kidnapped him, would you be able to save?”
“Yes, by any means, I would save my child from him.”
“Even if Lusìvar would make a trade: give you your son in return you kill a child? Would you be able to do that? Kill another child taken from his or her mother’s arms? Would you?”
Marina remained silent.
“See? If we don’t silence this Shadow King once and for all, then any child born into the future are going to have a terrible future. If we have children of our own, then they will also be in danger, and Lusìvar will do anything to achieve his power. Even if it means turning family against
