Destiny

by Rachelle Mills et al.

  Aiden said nothing in response. He wore a blank expression. After a moment, he ran a hand through his messy hair. “Look around you, Ells. What part of this looks to be myth to you?” Elle swiveled her dark head around before quickly walking toward the sole window in her bedroom. Her room looked to be on such a tall floor she couldn’t even see anything down below her. Was she thirty floors up? Fifty? Higher? It was hard to tell.

  The buildings surrounding the one she was in seemed too beautiful to be real. They glittered of silver and diamond materials that looked remarkably clean and glamorous.

  Elle took a deep breath. “You’re saying with a straight face everything I was just told in that room is true? I’m engaged to Jack Frost? That one guy Boreas is the King of, of, of…winter?”

  She felt like a genuine crazy person just saying the strange words out loud.

  “Yes,” Aiden answered simply. “King Boreas has three children with Queen Oritya. Calais, and Zetes, their sons, and only daughter, Khione.”

  “Good for him.” Elle shrugged in an uncaring fashion. “Why the hell am I engaged to Jack Frost, and when the hell can I go home?”

  That was genuinely the only concern Elle had: going home. Everything else she could try and figure out in the comforts of her bedroom back on the farm.

  Aiden sighed. “It’s part of the story, Elle. Originally, the two sons were supposed to be one of Boreas’s heirs. On the twins’ eighteenth birthday, one was to come into power. Being able to control all things winter would prove who the heir was. Only neither brother could control any aspect of winter,” Aiden explained. “It meant that Boreas had another heir alive.”

  “Jack Frost,” Elle guessed, moving to settle across from Aiden in the chair opposite him.

  He nodded. “Unbeknownst to the brothers, Boreas knew he had another child with the mortal Katya. A son. Jack was young at the time of the twins coming of age. Boreas first visited the boy when he was only two years young. The king noticed that Jack showed extraordinary ability to control frost. Astounded that a demigod child could possess such raw magic, Boreas told no one of the boy’s existence out of wonder if maybe one day he was to be his true heir.”

  “Great for him.” Elle shrugged. “Now why the hell am I engaged?”

  Aiden grinned, shaking his head in amusement. “Patience has never been your strongest virtue, Ells.”

  “Bite me, Aiden,” Elle retorted stiffly. “Or is that even your name?”

  She remembered last night he called himself Apollo.

  Aiden frowned. “I am known as Apollo, but you can still call me Aiden. I’ve grown rather fond of hearing you say it.” He grinned.

  Elle couldn’t help but smile at his grin. Sun god or not, it didn’t matter who or what he really was. She loved her friend nonetheless. Only now, their friendship was no doubt about to be forever changed. How could it not be? Apollo revealed he’s a sun god who’s thousands of years old. Elle couldn’t believe this strangeness was happening. Taking a breath, she shook her head. “You’re…Apollo. The immortal god from mythology.”

  “Yes.”

  Elle tried to wrap her mind around using that new name. If she thought too hard on a certain topic, she felt she would go mad. “So…Boreas had Jack with mortal Katya? Where does my unfortunate fate play into that?”

  Apollo frowned. “Once Jack reached twenty-one, it was apparent it was he who possessed the qualities that would make him Boreas’ sole heir. The twins somehow discovered their secret half-brother and grew angry. One of the twins, Zetes, has a rather foul temper. He detested the idea that a demigod would take the throne when he believed it to be truly his. So he and Calais set out to kill Jack to claim their birthright. They figured once Jack was dead, automatically the birthright would go to one of them. One night, the twins attempted to drown Jack. They beat him raw and threw him through an icy lake, leaving him to drown. Jack was left out in the brutal cold, half dead in the aftermath. The brothers failed in killing him; Jack proved to be far more powerful than he was given credit for. It didn’t matter. Zetes and Calais were bent on killing him regardless of Jack’s miraculous self-perseverance.”

  Elle couldn’t help her eyes widening. “Not to state the obvious, but apparently, they failed in killing him…” It was obvious they did; otherwise Elle wouldn’t be stuck being engaged to the guy.

  Apollo nodded. “They did, in killing Jack. They murdered his entire family. The twins succeeded in killing his mother Katya, his stepfather, and his little sister Natalia. Jack attempted to take revenge on the twins, only Boreas put his foot down. He deemed them all family, and therefore he didn’t allow Jack to gain his revenge by killing his brothers,” Apollo said, rolling his eyes.

  Elle frowned. She didn’t like feeling sudden sympathy for Jack Frost, but she couldn’t exactly help the feeling from taking over.

  She lost her father due to illness. Elle couldn’t imagine losing an entire family so brutally. “So he has to go around acting like his half-brothers didn’t do anything wrong? That hardly seems fair,” Elle scoffed. Naturally, Elle wasn’t a violent type, but with the exception of self-perseverance, she held the firm belief over the eye-for-an-eye philosophy when it came to protecting the people you loved.

  “Life isn’t always fair,” Apollo replied softly. “But there was no proof Zetes committed the crime. He held an alibi for the night of the massacre.”

  Elle frowned. “But aren’t you telling a story of gods? Based on what I saw last night, they can appear and disappear in the blink of an eye.”

  “Good catch.” Apollo grinned. “But no dice. Zetes was with Boreas himself, so the king declared that he could not have been responsible for the deaths. Calais, meanwhile, is not a leader. He would not have taken charge in murdering a family without his older twin’s orders. To this day, no one can really prove Zetes did it, but he was the one who originally came up with the plan to kill Jack; therefore he is silently suspected of murdering his father’s lover and her family.”

  Elle pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. Was it really just yesterday she was sitting in class wondering what she was going to do about her essay project? She sighed. “Can we please get to the part of why I’m engaged and when I can go home?”

  Apollo watched Elle, unblinking. There was a sad look to him. “Jack had to learn to accept his newfound royal lineage. It was either continue living in the small town he grew up in, mortal with no family, or take on his destiny as heir of Boreas and take a dose of immortality—”

  “Obviously, he moved to the North Pole and became an immortal so now he has magic powers to pop in and out of people’s houses,” Elle interrupted, rubbing her eyes wearily. “Now can you please get to the part of why I’m engaged to the guy?”

  Elle would normally love a good story. Only now that the tale Apollo had revolved exclusively around her rather sudden engagement, she’d rather him cut to the chase.

  “I’m getting to the loophole part,” Apollo said. “Jack couldn’t become next in line for the throne because Boreas’s sons were filled with rage a demigod would be taking the throne over two gods.”

  “Case of sour grapes.” Elle sniffed. “Now, where do I come into play?”

  Apollo grinned, leaning forward to ruffle her hair. Elle gently swatted his hand away, resisting the urge to laugh at the god immaturely sticking his tongue out.

  “Queen Oritya did not like that her husband’s bastard son would be taking the throne from her own sons,” Apollo continued. “So she conceived a compromise. Jack could only be made king if he were to visit the oracle of Delphi to glimpse the winter kingdom’s future. If it wasn’t a powerful kingdom as strong as her husband’s, he couldn’t be king. Put off by his wife’s constant nagging, Boreas agreed.”

  Apollo said nothing more, as if silently urging her to conclude the rest. Elle knew the story of the city of Delphi. When the Greek god Zeus wanted to find the center of the Earth, he sent out two eagles in flight. They came acro
ss Delphi, a small town in Greece. Since it was also the same place Apollo killed the Greek monster Python, Delphi became a place to worship Apollo. It was also the place the oracle Pythia lived when she became an oracle.

  It was only as Elle thought that all through that she looked back to her friend with surprise. “They came to Apollo, you, for a prophecy?”

  A satisfied grin crossed Apollo’s features before he nodded. “Oritya wanted to know if Jack was to have as strong of a kingdom as her husband. To everyone’s surprise, Pythia determined Jack was to have the strongest kingdom in all of history. Pythia also determined further in the future of winter’s kingdom. According to her, there would one day be two descendants that caused both fire and ice to come together in order to save mankind. This was big news, for both kingdoms were at war for many years. For obvious reasons, fire and ice don’t mix.” Apollo grinned.

  “I’m getting such a headache,” Elle complained, continuing to watch him.

  “It gets worse,” he warned. “Jack and the descendant of fire were not the individual that Pythia was referring to.”

  “One of the twins?”

  Apollo shook his head. “Pythia predicted the god or goddess that would bring together the two clans would be the product of ice and fire. The child of the prince of frost and the princess of fire,” he said quietly, casting Elle a sad look. “That’s you.”

  Elle rubbed her eyes once more, feeling overwhelmed. He couldn’t be right. She shook her head. “I’m not a princess! I…I…I don’t even work to style my hair,” she pointed out, standing to pace. “I sit and wait after every last Marvel movie to watch the credits!” she complained, shaking her hands to try and help Aiden grasp her point. Elle was not princess material.

  It didn’t matter that she was fairly good looking with her long, dark brown hair and heart-shaped face. She didn’t highlight her pretty features or coffee-brown eyes with makeup or flattering clothes. Elle dressed for comfort alone. It was a rare occasion to find her not dressed in a hoodie with either jeans or shorts depending on the weather. She was not entirely plain, but she also was not a girl who caused heads to swivel wherever she went. Elle was always honest, even to herself. She knew she gravitated more toward the lonely and ordinary side of the popularity spectrum. She only had two real friends, after all, and one of them had now turned out to be a Greek god.

  Elle shook her head to clear her jumbled thoughts. “I’m not a princess, okay? I’m not anything like that. I was just a normal person until I woke up in some strange place that’s apparently the North Pole.”

  “You are a princess, Elle,” Apollo chastised. “You are descended from the fire God Alaz himself. His daughter Pele was propositioned by Boreas to marry Jack. The King of Winter offered Alaz a heavy dowry, and the fire king agreed. Besides that, Alaz was delighted by the prospect of his decedents being a part of a prophecy to the Greeks.”

  “So what went wrong? Why didn’t this Pele marry Jack?”

  “She simply did not wish to,” Apollo revealed simply. “Pele did not want to marry Jack, so she ran off to visit the oracle of Delphi to gain more information on the situation. She discovered the two royal decedents would both be demigods. Pele herself was not a demigod but a full goddess. She soon deduced that the fire demigod would be her own child with a mortal since her father was incapable of having any more children.” Apollo sighed. “The prophecy was not about her and Jack, but her daughter and Jack.”

  Elle leaned forward with wide eyes, silently urging him to continue. “So Pele developed an alternative situation to get herself out of marrying Jack Frost,” said Apollo. “She compromised, saying she herself would give birth to the demigod child and that she would hand it over the second it was born. Jack did not wish to marry out of royal obligation, so he agreed to wait around for Pele to one day have her child. Pele promised to give away her firstborn mortal daughter to the Goddess Hera. The infant was to be raised on Olympus so that she may be raised as a dutiful virgin queen. That way, when the girl eventually came of age, it would be two demigods that would come together to create the child born of fire and ice. Boreas and Alaz were delighted with this compromise, and Oritya thought it was fair. All in all, everyone agreed with allowing Boreas to remain king as they waited for Pele to have the child.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “After that, Jack would marry the girl in her twenty-first year of life. This was all placed into production more than two hundred years ago.”

  “So this Pele promised to give away her baby as soon as it was born?” Elle asked with disgust. That sounded atrocious. Who could carry a baby and then turn around to give it away? The harsh realization soon dawned on Elle. If this was all true, then that would only conclude to a harsh reality. “I’m the baby,” she said, her lips parting in surprise. She listened to the story, but Elle didn’t really piece together she was the baby until just that moment.

  Apollo provided a glum nod. Elle’s eyes widened as she gently shook her head. “You can’t seriously be saying my…my…mother is actually some fire goddess!” The nearby immortal merely shrugged, diverting his bright eyes to the ground. Elle blinked a few times. “You’re trying to say…the demigod child Pele promised to the winter people is me? So what went wrong? Why am I only learning of this now?”

  Elle couldn’t help but watch Apollo in stunned silence. He began to speak, rambling off a reason of how her father didn’t want her to have this type of life, but Elle was barely listening. Her whole world was crashing and burning all around her, and she couldn’t do anything to stop it. This was too wrong. As far as she knew, her mother died giving birth to her. Matthew Darrow never spoke of her, let alone told Elle the woman’s name. Since Elle didn’t know her mother, she never cared to ask questions. By the time she was finally old enough to question her mother’s absence in her life, her father was aloof on the matter. He never wanted to talk about her, so Elle stopped asking, thinking it made him too sad. By the time adulthood was reached and her father was long gone, Elle truly held no care for knowing the history of her biological mother. The rational conclusion Elle had always told herself about her mother was simple: you couldn’t miss what you had never had.

  Elle soon realized Apollo was waiting for her to say something. She stared. “How did that work? This…Pele woman…what? Met my dad in a bar, got knocked up, and then wanted to hand me over to strangers for wife training?”

  “That is an odd way of phrasing it, but Matthew and Pele had a deeper connection than that,” Aiden said, frowning. “They fell in love and married. It was only after Pele got pregnant with you that she revealed your true destiny. It broke Matthew’s heart that she wanted to send you away the moment you were born. How he looked at it was that she sold you off. So he tricked Pele. He allowed her to believe that he supported her decision. The day you were born, Matthew took you and ran. He spent years moving to different cities. He never stayed in the same place twice, for he was constantly looking over his shoulder while hiding. Pele told him all about the different gods, goddesses, and deities that still roamed the Earth even after the All-Father made a law that they were no longer allowed to communicate with mere mortals any longer.”

  “So what did my dad do?”

  “Matthew made friends during his marriage. He knew who to watch out for and who were his true friends,” said Apollo, raising an eyebrow at her so she understood the point he was making.

  “You were his friend,” said Elle with wide eyes.

  He nodded. “Hermes, the god of travel, and Triton, the sea-messenger god, were also good friends with him. The three of us made sure the two of you were well-hidden when winter soldiers searched for you,” he finished, settling himself back on the fluffy white couch.

  In a very strange way, Elle was suddenly believing this story. It wasn’t even seeing and speaking to all the gods and the one goddess. What had her believing was Apollo telling her how Matthew spent years running. That’s truly what her father did when he was alive. He
ran. He spent years moving from place to place, never settling in one area for very long. The most Elle and Matthew ever really spent in a certain place was two months. After that, they moved again.

  Elle had always assumed it had to do with work, given that was her father’s excuse, but now, she truly wasn’t certain. Was her father constantly moving to protect her from this engagement?

  “Apollo,” said Elle, trying to keep her tone level as she used his true name. “When am I going to be able to go home?”

  It was now that Apollo looked away, a strange guilt crossing his handsome features. A heavy silence took over before he finally returned her gaze. “You will never be able to return to your life on earth. This is your new home.”

  Chapter Ten

  Escape.

  That was the only word that kept going through Elle’s mind. She needed to find a way to do so and by herself. No one else in this magical place was going to assist her. How could anyone expect her to handle these revelations with ease? She possessed a secret goddess mother and had a prophesied future that married her off to a monster? That was insanity. Apollo couldn’t expect Elle to nod her head obediently and marry the horrible man known as Jack Frost. Marry him and make a baby with him? Forget it. Elle would much rather gouge her own eyes out with a spoon than do such a thing. It did not matter to her that Jack suffered the loss of his family. Elle could relate by losing her father, and yet, she didn’t feel random homicidal urges toward Jack. Elle couldn’t fathom the reason why Jack Frost hated her so much. He, at least, saw this sham of a marriage coming two hundred years in advance; Elle didn’t. She had barely a few conscious hours to cope with this madness!

  Aiden—Apollo—had instructed Elle to stay put until her handmaidens arrived to prepare her for the ball. Elle had other ideas. One was to find a makeshift weapon to defend herself with if she came across Jack Frost once more. The other was trying to figure out how to find an exit to the palace. Maybe there was an elevator or, at the very least, a long flight of stairs.