The Gryphon Chronicles- Book 1: The Corrupt King

Ch. 18: Aeon's Tale

Click.

Anya squealed as another layer of her small wooden toy fell off. She tugged on Aeon's sleeve.

"Aeon, look! I got another layer off!" She explained excitedly. Aeon smiled and gingerly took the cube from Anya's small fingers, and tilted it around to examine it. The stallkeeper that they had bought it from had told them there were three layers, and now they were on the final one. The wood had gotten lighter as they went deeper. After examining it further, Aeon found the way to unlock it, but decided to leave it to Anya. Handing it back, the young girl attacked the puzzle with renewed vigor.

I don't know what I'm gonna do when she's finished with that, Aeon thought. It was the only thing that had kept Anya entertained for more than two minutes. Hopefully it's another toy on the inside. Aeon kept to her thoughts, until Anya tugged on her sleeve. Oh no.

Thankfully, it wasn't because Anya had solved the puzzle. In fact, she had put the toy into a small hidden pouch on her tunic.

"Where did you grow up?" Anya asked

Aeon blew air out of her mouth, and thought for a moment.

"I don't know if you're ready for that story yet just yet."

"Pleeeeeeeeease?" She asked.

Sighing defeatedly, Aeon began to talk.

"Well, I never really had parents, but I did have... a sister..." she trailed off. She shook her head, returning back to the present.

"Ah, right. Story. I didn't really have parents because they didn't want me. When I was born, the Fae Council had decided that leaving the gryphon fae to the humans wasn't that smart, and made it so that a few families would be selected to take a gryphon fae. And, well, the families were not pleased. They all abandoned the babies, and by the time the council learned of it, the babies were either dead from neglect, or had run away. I was one of the ones who ran. I ran till I found a human home that was near the border of the Fae and Human territories. I wasn't the only one who found the place. Another gryphon fae had found it, and we didn't know it at the time, but she was a Phoenix Gryphon. She was pretty much my sister...."

"Your sister?" Anya asked

"Yeah, sort of. Her name was Caeli. We weren't related by blood, but she was as close as I would get to a family member. The human house had recently been abandoned, and by recently i mean that the king's men had come through and....taken.... the people for being too close to the border. So there was still food there, as well as other supplies. There we grew close, and trained each other. We got good at pickpocketing and stealing, and then defense when other gangs in the nearby town tried to leech off of us. We lived there till we were both sixteen, just the two of us.

"Some angry baker's wife tipped the guards at the town off about what we were doing, because next thing we knew, there were five officers at our door, with the angry woman in tow. I had figured out I had to use magic, but Caeli, my sister had always struggled controlling it. When they showed up, we were in the middle of practicing, and when they knocked, Caeli lost her concentration and nearly blew the house apart. The five guards flooded the house and seized us. Dragging us to town, they sent a message to the king that they had... problematic fae. The king had made a small group for dealing with fae."

"Once they arrived, they took one look at us and immediately flew us back to the capital on their Rocs. When we arrived, they led us to the king, and he was very pleased when they explained that they believed that we were not only gryphon fae, but we were Phoenix Gryphons. And I was a siphoner, so they could keep Caeli under control. They started to use us as weapons, Caeli more so than me, as she was more powerful. We hadn't known it at the time, but while we were growing up, there had been an opposing human kingdom that was warring with the current human kingdom. They intended to use Caeli to wipe out the opposing kingdom. And they....