"Air Hero?" Josephine gasped, approaching her as well. Curt was hiding behind her, as if afraid he would be attacked. "Of course! Why didn"t I see it before?""If she was the Air Hero, then what is she now?" asked Curt.
"I"m Aella, the Air and Fire Hero," she said, sitting up and looking around.
"Why did you hide your status?" asked Alfred, his eyes narrowing in suspicion.
"I didn"t want to get dragged into your church politics. I am a half demon, born in the demon lands, not a human to be controlled by your church."
"Yet you are controlled by the Demon King," said Alfred.
"What?" cried Josephine stepping forward.
"If you believe so," Aella said, standing up.
"What does that mean?" he asked.
"I am here, to give aid in helping Josephine find her daughter so that the child is not tortured by the church, and then I would like to travel to the north mountains with you, to find out the true history of the heroes. I refuse to believe killing the Demon King is our only purpose."
Alfred looked at her for a few minutes, before finally nodding. "She"s telling the truth."
"So, what does that mean? Are we to trust someone who has lied to us, and led us to lose a member of our party?" asked Josephine, her eyes wide and terrified.
"That member of our party was supposed to kill us all after we killed the Demon King," said Alfred.
"How do you know that?" asked Josephine.
"I overheard him talking to Father Steven before we left the church," said Alfred walking over to look at Robert"s body. "He was specifically to wait until after the king was dead, then to kill all of us."
Josephine looked at the body for a moment before shaking her head. "She still lied to us."
"I kept my ident.i.ty as a hero quiet, because I found it"s safer not to brag about who I am. More people tend to try and kill you when you show off."
"Well, that"s true," muttered Josephine.
"So, what other lies do you have?" asked Curt, looking her up and down.
"Probably more than you," Aella said with a smile.
Looking uncomfortable, Curt turned away from her.
"So, where could your daughter be?" asked Alfred, turning away from the body and looking at them.
"They took her to the tower in the north east corner of the kingdom, the last time they needed to "keep her safe". They may have taken her there again, but I don"t know. Father Steven was the one who took her this time. He would know."
"Then I guess we need to head to the training fields of the upcoming heroes," said Alfred jumping down from the rocks gently.
"That"s suicide!" cried Josephine, shocked and panicked.
"The church is going to find out sooner or later that we haven"t killed the king. And the fact that Robert"s son hasn"t gotten his powers, will only buy us so much time. The faster we can get there, the more time we will have to save your daughter."
Josephine looked down, thinking hard. It was obvious she was conflicted on what to do, but Aella didn"t want to stand around waiting for the woman to overcome her inner turmoil.
"I can jump back to the town we just left and get us some horses," she said, looking at Alfred before leaving.
He looked at Josephine for only the briefest of moments before nodding. Stepping forward, Aella appeared in the alley next to the inn. She could see some of the people talking in the streets about how surprising and unusual it was for the heroes of the humans to save a demon town. The king was mentioned and they wondered why the king would be involved in the heroes when they had always been enemies before. Stepping out of the shadows, she approached them with a small smile.
"Your king needs four horses."
The demons jumped in surprise and twisted around to face her. "Our king?"
"Joking about such a thing can get you killed," said one of them, with a growl.
"Then it"s a good thing I"m not joking." She lowered her cloak hood and allowed her crown to reveal itself.
All of the demons standing in the street gasped in surprise and fell to their knees.
"I require 4 horses, now," she said, repeating herself as she looked around at them.
The demon that had growled at her nodded quickly and climbing to his feet, hurried away. He returned in only minutes, hauling 4 horses, all saddled already, behind him. Amusingly, several demons from the military were running after him, hollering about him being a thief. They skidded to a halt as he handed her the halters to the horses.
"Why are you here?" she asked the military demons as she swung up into the saddle of one of the horses.
"Your Majesty?" choked one of them, and they all fell to their knees. "We were ordered to investigate reports of the Heroes staying here overnight."
She crossed her hands and rested them on the horn, looking over their low-level uniforms. "The were here, but they"ve left. Report that they are heading with due hast towards the castle. Also, if you report you saw me, I"ll kill you, or send my Royal a.s.sa.s.sin after you."
"But, Your Majesty, what are we to say about losing our horses?" asked one of them, glancing up at her in panic.
She tossed them 4 silver coins. "Go buy some new ones."
Without waiting for them to say another word, she turned and coaxed the horses into a gallop, making her crown disappear again. Luckily, they obeyed and she was able to get out of the town quickly, before it became too obvious, she didn"t have a clue what she was doing. The horses figured it out pretty quickly, when she tried to turn towards where she had left the others. Alfred found her cursing at them, and wondering what horse would taste like.
Alfred helped her calm them down, and then, swinging up into the saddle of his own horse, looked at her amused. "Ever ride a horse before?"
"No, but I didn"t think it would be this difficult," she grumbled.
Over the next 30 minutes, Alfred gave her a quick lesson on how to ride a horse. She was able to pretend she knew what she was doing well enough after that, for them to turn the horses towards where he had left the others.
"Drinking a hero"s blood, can anyone do that?"
"Only other heroes can survive it," she said, looking at him as he nodded.
"I figured it couldn"t be just anyone, the church would have figured it out by now, and taken advantage of it. But did Bridgette really tell you to do that?"
"Of course, do you think I would drink someone"s blood just on a whim?" she glanced at him, trying not to give away that she actually had.
"I thought so, but it"s hard to believe that she"s actually in a library somewhere."
Aella was quiet for a while, thinking as they rode in silence. "I can take you to see her tonight, while I tend to other things I must do. But you must promise to stay in the library. The place the library is in, is very dangerous."
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He looked at her, studying her. "No, I trust you. Tell me about these buildings in the north you want us to go to."
"They were built by the first king of the demons. He hoped to preserve the true heritage of the heroes, and their purpose. But so much time has pa.s.sed, all other information about them has been lost, so I need to find them to find the truth. I refuse to believe that the heroes" only purpose is to kill the Demon King. It doesn"t make sense."
"The church only sends the heroes they can"t control completely. If the heroes follow blindly, and do everything the corrupted leaders want, they will keep them to train the next generation of heroes."
"Is that where the Earth Hero is?"
"The entire family that carried the Earth Hero traits disappeared when I was a young boy. It was a huge scandal. My father was sent to try and bring them back, but he died, awakening my powers. I was all that was left to protect my sister…"
His voice trailed off and he shook his head. "Your mother was the one who trained me. I knew you were the Air Hero from the moment we first met. You had her smell about you, the smell of fresh air, crisp and clean, the smell of freedom."
"You knew my mother?" Aella asked, turning to him so fast, the horse snorted at her.
"I guess, being a half-demon, you didn"t get to know her?" he asked softly, not making eye contact.
"No, my father raised me, until I was taken by the demon"s and thrown into the pits."
"The same pits they use to determine the next king?" he asked, stopping his horse and looking at her in shock.
She stopped her horse and looked over at the two forms of Josephine and Curt, waiting for them.
"Are you going to kill me, Hero of Light?" she asked, not looking at him.
Giving a low whistle, he shook his head and started the horse moving again. "The world just gets more and more interesting."
"And complicated," she agreed, kicking her horse forward again as well.