Chapter 4: The awkward revelation
Ceremus stood there, aghast—completely and utterly dumbfounded. His eyes locked on his mother, and it became painfully clear she wasn't joking. She wasn't playing some trick on him. No, she was serious. And when a goddess spoke of your fate, there was little room for doubt. Her words carried weight, and that weight would shape his future whether he accepted it or not.
Still, the thought was unbearable. His destined companion, his chosen one, was supposed to be a man? The very notion rattled him to the core. How could it be? Ceremus, the proud king of Trojas, was expected to fall in love with someone he couldn't even imagine, someone he had never met. It seemed absurd, impossible. He couldn't picture it—couldn't fathom how a relationship like that could form, how it could be yet, this stranger was destined to become his closest companion, his equal, his ally, his lover.
The thought repulsed him, yet he couldn't ignore the gnawing reality that his mother's words would come true, whether he liked it or not.
And Ceremus didn't like it.
This was not the life he had imagined for himself. He had long ago believed that whatever he wanted, he could have—and whatever he didn't want, he could destroy. That was the world he had created after his father's death, a world where his will was law, and nothing could challenge it. The idea of having his life, his very heart, shaped by someone else was foreign to him.
He picked up people and cast them aside like objects when he no longer had any use for them. How could a man such as himself be tied down to a single person? How dare the fates decide his future for him? Ceremus was enraged.
Yet his mother had spoken, and her prophecy hung in the air like an inescapable truth.
Ceremus scoffed at his mother's words, brushing them off as if they were beneath him. "There's no way I'm letting that happen," he snapped, his voice sharp with defiance.
Aria's gaze softened, her voice steady and calm.
"There's no 'letting things happen' in this situation, son. What has been foretold will come to pass. There's no avoiding it."
His face twisted in anger, the frustration too much to contain. He pushed himself up, no longer interested in sitting on the cloud, the serene environment now a source of irritation. "Then the fates can go flog themselves for all I care!" he spat, his words dripping with contempt.