Chapter 86: Child of the King and Queen
They moved together along the garden path. The silence between them wasn’t cold. It simply lingered, unspoken and waiting, because neither of them knew how to start.
They walked until they came across a small bench, barely visible. It was between two flowering hedges. It looked old, weathered by years of rain and the weird-colored sun, the kind of wood that groaned when it remembered how to hold weight.
When they sat down, it surprisingly held. It was small, able to hold around two people.
In front of them, was a pond. It wasn’t too big, but a decent size. The water held still and quiet under the open sky. It caught the reddish light from above and held it like a mirror, calm and undisturbed, mimicking the space between them.
In the pond, dozens of fish moved freely. Their shapes seemed familiar at first, almost comforting... until you looked a little closer.
They looked like goldfish or koi, but something was off. Their colors were too dark. Their movements were too sharp. And when one swam toward him, he caught a glimpse of it. They were nothing like the fish he’d seen on the surface. They had disfigured mouths, small jagged teeth in places they shouldn’t be. They looked like small predators.
He didn’t move. He just sat there, his eyes locked on the pond, like he was waiting for it to speak first even though he knew it wouldn’t.
The water didn’t talk. Instead, it obeyed him. It swayed where his eyes moved. That gave him an idea. He wanted to try something. So he flicked his finger.
The entire pond began to rise—not like a wave, but like rain pulled in reverse. Water lifted from the surface, rising all at once until it formed a perfect sphere.
It hovered in the air, flawless and trembling, wiggling slightly as it floated, like a second moon hanging just above the garden.
Inside, the fish moved without fear. Their motions were smooth, almost lazy, like gravity had forgotten they existed.
It felt like the world had tilted without warning, and they didn’t resist. They just accepted it, like it had always been that way.