The Moon Goddess' Chosen

430 Other Side of the Queen

The trip to the Great Arena was even longer by car. The mountains were completely avoided and the highway was built to go around them. Their steep and rocky nature proved to make building the road more difficult.

A history of rockslides and sudden quakes in the structure of the rocky Sirius mountains was more than enough to warn engineers from building a road through the mountains.

Fortunately, cars were much faster and the journey was so smooth that the concept of time saved by a direct route was warped and the debate was considered trivial.

The Sirius Royal convoy made a few stops in the towns along the way to have lunch, refuel and restock on supplies before making it to the Great Arena within the span of two days.

The king had come with more than one kind of board game and the group had played almost all of them whenever they got too bored. At times, the king chose to narrate stories of the Trials when he was still a prince of the Empire as well.

Honour found King Davin’s jovial mood comforting. His personality didn’t inspire fear but still garnered the respect commanded by his title. He fit into the role of a king perfectly while still retaining his own personal flair.

‘Could it be why Lina wasn’t frightened by the thought of being Queen if she’d ever been given the chance?’ Honour had asked herself during a moment of pondering. This was the longest time she’d ever got to spend with the Royal family.

Madeline was lazily sleeping on Honour’s lap when the car stopped moving. The young goddess hadn’t bothered to move her. Instead, she had placed a cushion on her lap for the Seeker to rest partly so the girl would be comfortable... but mostly to protect herself from Madeline’s drooling.

Drooling aside, Madeline was both cute and obnoxious when she was sleeping. To the young goddess, the girl was cute when she slept, retaining the charm of a young child regardless of her age.

.....

Among all the people Honour had met, with exception of Katie and... eventually Lina, Madeline was true to herself to a fault and the young goddess respected her for that.

Additionally, the girl was almost incapable of deceit. It was only when it cost her life that she was able to perfectly obscure the truth from her enemies. The two girls were also alike in many ways.

In the aspect of strength, both found themselves severely lacking even for amber-eyed werewolves.

Seated opposite Honour, on the other side of a board game-littered table, was a couple resting in each other’s arms. The king had his hands wrapped around his queen, covering her with a thick scarf, with his eyes closed as well.

Honour had just opened her eyes to take in the scene when the king opened his as well but with a sudden jerk. He instinctively rubbed circles through the queen’s back waking her up gently.

‘Huh! Queen Martha is a light sleeper. Nothing like her daughter, I’m afraid!’ Honour figured he’d been woken up by a message through the mind link.

“We’ve...” the king paused, taking in the sight of the limousine’s cabin. Bree was fast asleep on the other side of Madeline. Not as unceremoniously, but out of it nonetheless.

Honour gave him a weak smile as he finished his sentence, “...arrived. They should probably wake up. Get Madeline to wear this hoodie while you take her to the hair salon.”

“Okay,” Honour replied, catching the large hoodie the king threw at her from a small duffel. She started gently nudging the heavy sleeper resting on the pillow on her lap. ‘Do you have to sleep with your mouth open? Crysta will never stop popping peppers in there unless you learn to stop,’ the girl thought, allowing the thought to leak through the mind link.

That did the trick...

A few minutes later, the three girls exited the car. Honour found herself glued on the spot, her eyes struggling to take in the gigantic wall that stood before her running in both directions.

Curving only slightly at both sides, a large stone wall rose high into the air towering over them higher than the girl could have guessed. The wall dwarfed the settlements surrounding it and for a moment after stepping out of the car, it seemed as though it was the only thing that existed.

Numerous diverse establishments stood on either side of the road that led to the grand entrance. The young goddess tried to imagine this wall was supposed to be circular in nature but that came along with accepting that it was built by human and werewolf hands. A feat that seemed impractical when she thought about it.

It was simply too big to have been built by human hands... wasn’t it?

“Lina had the same expression the first time she saw it too. The hunters check everyone that enters along with the cars before letting them in. That includes the royals. In the meantime, go with Martha and Madeline to one of the saloons outside for a makeover, then come back here and meet us when you’re ready,” the king said to her.

“Won’t you miss me, dear?” the Queen suddenly asked, her voice sweeter than Honour was normally used to.

The king noticed it as well and searched his wife’s pleading eyes. It was like watching the ruler of an empire be defeated by something so harmless as a look. The man sighed heavily and pulled his wife into an embrace, “If you take too long, I’ll come looking for you. Greet them for me, okay.”

“In that case, come get us when you’re ready. You can greet them yourself. And don’t make me wait too long,” the queen responded giddily before placing a kiss on the king’s lips.

With that, she left the two men to themselves, dragging Bree, Honour and Madeline with her. A feeling of worry rose from the pit of Madeline’s stomach. She felt like something dreadful was about to happen to her.

The queen knew her way through the city outside of the Great Arena. The streets were loud and chaotic, filled with all kinds of businesses. Some of the paths the queen used were too small to hold two cars.

A myriad of scents came from the different establishments, sometimes being the sweet aromas of foods the girls weren’t used to and other times acrid odours that could make a skunk flee in terror.

The queen rushed them through the convoluted maze of settlements until she brought them to a luxurious saloon filled with everything a girl could ever dream of in a beauty salon. The difference between the quality of shops, markets and the different structures in the city was impossible to calculate.

There didn’t seem to be a system or any laws that governed the appearance of the buildings or stalls set up. Then again, perhaps different places held different standards and customers were never the same.

These thoughts were all wiped from Honour’s memory when she noticed something odd about the saloon they’d just entered.

The women that worked inside were both human and werewolves with their eyes ranging in colour from amber to red and yet it seemed none of them acknowledged the difference in rank.

When Honour noticed a yellow-eyed hair stylist send for a hair dryer only to be handed one by an alpha as though it was nothing and several other similar occurrences, she took a step back to assess the situation. ‘Something not right here...’

“Now this is the one place I’m sure will do exactly what we need,” the queen nearly squealed, coughing to conceal her delight.

She wasn’t fooling anyone.

“Oh dear, is that her majesty the Queen of Sirius, Luna of the Sirius pack and Mother of the Moon Goddess’s Chosen, Queen Martha?” the woman at the counter squealed, rolling the titles off her tongue in no particular order. Her tone also suggested no respect, whatsoever. The queen turned red at the announcement. All the attention in the room suddenly switched to her.

The dark-haired woman who was having her hair washed strained to try and get a look at the new arrival, as did everyone else in the saloon, “Oh my, she’s come again. I told y’all she wouldn’t miss paying us a visit.”

“Your majesty, do you know these people?” Honour asked the queen.

“None of that here... For as long as you’re here, your social standing doesn’t matter. This is where all ladies are equal and strive to make each other just as loved and beautiful as the other. Just relax and enjoy the fun,” the queen smiled, suddenly shedding her Royal facade.

“But the king made it sound like we’d come to do something very important and time-sensitive,” Madeline whined.

Queen Martha’s excited expression switched from delight to something between a devilish grin and a witch’s smile. It was one that the three girls had never seen before, “Delila, would you help these ladies relax? You know where to send the bill.”

Three women appeared behind the three girls holding their shoulders firmly, “We’ll take good care of them, your Greatness,” a white-haired female holding on to Honour’s shoulder yelled back in a mocking tone when she used a title.

The trio of women dragged away the three girls whose faces couldn’t have looked any less priceless.

The queen herself seemed to be headed in an entirely different direction. Honour guessed she was headed to another gathering of women to gossip, but her knowledge of the queen did not allow her to believe she was one to do such a thing... right?

Then again, she had just handed them over to complete strangers and left them without a second thought. There was so much they didn’t know about the queen, to begin with.

The girls were dragged through to the side of the hair saloon going through two large double doors and into a corridor. None of them had noticed how large the saloon was until they were deeper inside. The entrance looked simple enough to have made it appear to be a single-room establishment, but now they knew they were heavily mistaken.

The next door they were led through turned out to lead them straight to...

A bathhouse.