Chapter 53: The Mysterious Letter
"You see, time doesn’t work in the same linear way across timelines. When we asked him, we found out that your father spent nearly five months in the future before he came back, but to us, barely a second passed –"
"I don’t care about all that. Get back to the story."
Rita cut Ethan off before he could start explaining the mechanics of time travel, and Ethan deflated again and nodded before he returned to what he had been saying.
Although Rita’s father was wounded and tired, he had come back victorious, and he had maps and tactics that would allow them to counter the Ashton in the future. A great meeting was called for the next day so that the leader could pass on the knowledge he had acquired, and many generals prepared for it. But before the meeting could take place, the leader was found dead in his room that very night.
"It was one of the worst deaths I had ever seen. His face was pale and sickly, like he had the life sucked out of him. He had this terrified expression as if he had seen something terrifying from beyond this realm. Something that shouldn’t exist. I don’t even want to remember it."
Rita frowned slightly as she imagined what Ethan was talking about, and for a moment, Rita felt a strange pain in her heart as she realized that her father was also dead, but Rita didn’t allow that to affect her for long! Rita’s father had abandoned her to die to the Horox when she needed him, so she had no reason to mourn his death! Rita gestured for Ethan to continue again, and Ethan swallowed as he did just that.
The Pastoni generals and soldiers were all saddened by the leader’s death, and they were confused by the mystery behind it. But they were even more confused when they discovered that all the tactic papers and maps that the leader had come back with were gone. The maps and tactics had been put inside the war room in preparation for the meeting, but they had somehow vanished from the safe where they were stored.
"Time Wraiths."
Rita suddenly muttered in a quiet voice, and Ethan looked up in shock when he heard that!
"What? What did you say?"
Rita frowned and looked away for a moment to consider her words before she turned to Ethan and spoke.
"There is a reason why time isn’t meant to be messed with. Especially by those who aren’t worthy of wielding True Magic. The Time Wraiths are responsible for maintaining the Sands of Time and keeping it linear. They are probably the ones that killed my father, and they took the documents since they weren’t meant to be in that time."
Ethan was stunned! This wasn’t the first time he had heard the term ’Time Wraith ’, so he knew that Rita was telling the truth, but he couldn’t believe that they were actually real! Ethan reached up to touch the pendant around his neck, and he spoke in a faraway voice.
"I’ve heard about the Time Wraiths before. I thought that letter was just a lie."
Rita frowned.
"What letter?"
"There was a letter I received. It’s actually the reason why I came here. But before that, I should tell you what happened after your father’s death."
Rita was obviously more interested in hearing about what the hell was in that letter, but Rita decided to be patient for now, and she nodded to tell Ethan to continue, and Ethan did.
After the mysterious death of the leader and the loss of all the strategies that they had been planning to use against Ashton, the Pastoni had gone into a state of crisis. There was a need for them to select a new leader as quickly as possible, and they needed to return to the future and bring more information back to the past! But although they all knew how important this mission was, there was a sudden division amongst the generals as they began to support three different candidates to serve as the new leader of the Pastoni!
At this point, Rita scoffed in amusement and muttered ’typical’! It wasn’t a surprise at all that the vampires in the family would have another internal war for the right to succession! They were all so power-hungry, and there was no way any one of them would agree to be ruled by the other!
Ethan didn’t comment on Rita’s action, and he joined his hands in front of him as he continued.
The war got so bad that the Pastoni almost forgot about the war that they had been fighting with the Ashtons! The contenders for the position of new leader all refused to back down, and as a way to settle things temporarily, one of the elders suggested that all three of them should go to the future together and bring back news about the Ashtons. Whoever comes back with the best information will be the new leader!
This was something they all agreed to, and they put on the pendant and walked forward in time. And a second later, two of the three contenders returned from the future with bloody swords and tired looks on their faces. The third contender had died, but the two contenders managed to bring back a lot of information, and they were prepared to present it to a council to see who was more worthy to be the leader!
But just like Rita’s father, these two had also died in the same gruesome manner overnight, and the information that they brought from the future had vanished! The death was so shocking to the Pastoni that it didn’t take long for them to begin calling the Chronos Medallion a cursed artefact, and the entire army became an ungovernable anarchy with no leader to keep them in check! And it was in the midst of this madness that the Ashton launched an ambush on them!
What happened next couldn’t even be called a battle. It was a massacre unlike anything the world of Varina had ever seen! The Ashton warriors killed more than ninety percent of all the Pastoni soldiers, and it was in the middle of that bloody, godless battle that Ethan appeared with Rita’s sister, Raya.
At this point, Rita put her hand forward with a frown to stop Ethan, and she asked.
"What do you mean you appeared with Raya? Weren’t you two in the battle as well?"
Ethan shook his head.
"No, we weren’t. I shouldn’t have been in the battle at all. It was foolish of me not to trust the letter I got. I just had to see the future for myself before making this choice."
For a few long seconds, Rita was confused about what in the world Ethan was talking about. But all of a sudden, everything seemed to click in her head, and her eyes widened in shock!
"You’re not from that future, are you? You and Raya are from a time before the final battle. You used the pendant to visit the final battle in the future before you then came to the past."
Ethan squeezed his hands together and nodded. Ethan was actually the soldier who had discovered the pendant in the first place. He saw the death of the leader, and the last thing he remembered from his own time was how the two remaining candidates for leader died in their sleep after returning from the future. That was when Ethan had received a letter.
"I don’t know who sent the letter to me or why, but the letter gave me detailed instructions about what I was supposed to do next. According to the letter, the Pastoni were going to be wiped out by the Ashtons, and that would be the end of our race. The only way to save our people was to find the second part of this pendant. The letter said it was The Key that unlocks the full power of the Chronos Medallion. If we do that, then we will be able to rewrite the future."