Kaia
Illustrated by Olga Shelkunova
M.Z.BRAUN
At the center of the world there was a kingdom of power, which was ruled by the Crystal Heart and the Magic Ring, which could manipulate time. Only the chosen one had custody of the ring, which flashed shades of colors. A single seal that would not allow the Crones to enter the mortal world and take control over it. The only way was to use the beautiful and unique ring of power, given by the goddess Kaia to a human as a pact of balance and alliance between a god and a mortal. At the beginning of time, the goddess of the Earth, Kaia, feared that her children, the Crones, would take over the Earth and enslave the inhabitants of the world. After several centuries without changes in that alliance and magical protection, an event unleashed our adventure.
Our story began one day when King Demetrius rode out on his horse, as he usually did every morning around his castle. The sky began to turn a little darker because of a big storm that was approaching. His horse, Pinpin, was thirsty, so he slowly approached a stream so that it could quench its thirst.
The king dismounted from his horse and gave it a few gentle strokes on its back.
“Looks like a storm is coming!” says the king to his faithful friend, Pinpin, while he looked up at the sky. He observed that he was hooded. “You finish drinking water; we will need to go as quickly as possible if we do not want the storm to reach us.”
After a few minutes they began to feel the drops falling more and more strongly.
The king mounted his horse again and galloping quickly tried to reach his castle, dodging obstacles as he rode through the forest, among the branches of trees, bushes, and stones, trying to avoid them as much as he could. Suddenly, the ground began to get wet and swampy, which made his horse slower in its gallop, but said storm came upon them, trapping him and his horse. Pinpin stopped suddenly at seeing a flash and neighed twice.
“Whoa! Calm down, friend, calm down,” said the king, observing shades of light between blue and purple coming directly towards them from between some gigantic leafy trees, forming the silhouette of a woman.
“Oh! What do my eyes see?” He rubbed both eyes with his hands.
“King Demetrius.”
She was a goddess with long golden hair, which she let fall flat to her feet in front of both of her shoulders. Her head was bejeweled with a beautiful crystal diadem with precious stones around it, one more beautiful than the other, flashing a shocking brilliance around the forest. She wore a shimmering pearly robe that did not allow her feet to be seen. In her left hand she had a club, the tip of which revealed a luminous heart-shaped diamond.
The king was amazed that the goddess of the Earth was in front of him, so he got off his horse and began to bow before her to show some reverence.
“Get up, King Demetrius. I am the goddess Kaia, creator of the Earth, power of the Earth, bastion of nature.”
“My lady, I am your faithful servant,” replied the king, without looking up much from before her as a sign of respect.
“It is I who come before you,” the goddess Kaia replied, circling around him. “Because I know that you are a good king and in your heart there is nobility. You are to be guardian and custodian, protector of the relics. You and your firstborn descendants, bloodline of noble kings.
Keeping his gaze bent on the ground, King Demetrius replied, “I don’t understand, my lady! How can I be the guardian of something when you have power over the Earth and of those who inhabit it? I am a mortal who has only the domain of a palace, not the rest of the world.”
“My children, the Crones, since the creation of the Earth they have wanted to dominate the world, and one of their purposes is to enslave mortals and rule over the Earth. So I have come looking for a chosen one with a noble heart, and that is you, King Demetrius. I have come to make a pact of equality, between a god and a mortal, a pact of humanity.”
At that moment, the goddess Kaia detached with her right hand a pearl-shaped diamond that she had in her diadem, transforming it into a ring that flashed shades of color, and handed it to King Demetrius. Not only would the ring be his, but also the heart-shaped Crystal Diamond from
the tip of her club, which symbolized life, and through which every heartbeat flashed a different light. While with the ring, she controlled time –the past, present, and future.
The goddess Kaia addressed King Demetrius with a temperate voice, “Listen carefully. This ring is the seal that guarantees the Crones do not trespass onto Earth. The only thing you need to do is what I tell you next, be attentive to my words: Never interfere by altering the time at your convenience, neither you nor your descendants. If that happens, the portal will completely open above your kingdom, allowing the Crones to pass to Earth and the consequences will be devastating for your kingdom and those to come. Everything will be in the hands of the Crones.”
At that moment the goddess Kaia delivered the beautiful ring, which she would adapt to the chosen one´s finger. And from her club, the heart-shaped Crystal Diamond was delivered into the hands of King Demetrius.
“When you are at your last breath of life, you will transfer the ring to your successor. You must do this before your last breath, if not, the Crystal Heart will also die and thus everything that is around it will begin to be consumed by death.
The alliance was consummated, the pact between god and mortal, a shield of strength and protection, a promise of peace, a magical force that destiny would bring for the future.
From that moment, only the firstborn kings, heirs of incorruptible pure royal blood, descendants of King Demetrius, had the job of protecting the magic ring of time and the Crystal Heart. For centuries, each king inherited that beautiful relic until the present day, when it was with King Felix VIII, who at his mature age had only managed to have a single son, called William I, and thus the pact between a goddess and a mortal was kept.
Over time everything in the Crystal Kingdom had become prosperous and it was at peace, abundance everywhere and protected from reckless and audacious times. Everything in the kingdom was under control, but rumors of the coming of a great war had begun to spread. The inhabitants began to get ready with food, water and provisions and panic grew as the news spread.
King Felix’s messenger went to town to warn them, shouting through the town, “A war is coming, we must get ready!”
The women ran terrified and shouting, “Run! Run!” They took their children by the hand in the
direction of their shelters, while the men began to enlist with spears to defend their own.
The reason for the invasion was the fact that another kingdom, called Acromia, had experienced a severe summer, its rivers were drying up, its crops withering, while the Crystal Kingdom, called Shephyria, remained leafy in its entirety – something that the king did not understand. Hans of Acromia was a compassionate king to his people, but he felt a lot of rivalry with King Felix because he was the custodian of the relics.
King Felix enlisted his troops, the best warriors being in the front line of combat. What he did not know was that his only son, William, wanted to be a part of the battle. This was something that the king opposed, since he was the only heir able to maintain the pact that centuries ago had been made with the goddess Kaia.
“William!”
“Yes, father! I am ready to go to war.”
“You will not participate in the battle. That is an order from your king, such as I am.”
“You are my king, and my duty is to protect you and my people. Neither you nor anyone else will stop me from going into battle.”
“You will not disobey my decisions. I will have the guards of the kingdom arrest you and take you to a dungeon until the war is over. Guards, come!”
The king spoke in a resounding voice that was heard throughout the palace. Prince William, astonished by the king’s decision, was paralyzed when he saw that in a second the guards approached to stop him and take him to the dungeon.
“Hold the prince and keep him in a dungeon until the battle is over. That’s an order!”
“Father! You will not stop me from going to war, I will find a way out. And you know it!” He challenged him with commitment.
The king only had to double the dungeon guard. The monarch was outraged to see that his only son would disobey him, knowing that he was the sole heir of the two relics. How could he put his own life and the fate of his kingdom at stake?
The next morning, the alarm was raised to indicate the presence of unknown inhabitants. It was done using the bull’s horn that one of the kingdom´s custodians had, and whose only job was to watch the surroundings of the palace from one of the towers facing the horizon and to detect any intruder who wanted to enter illegally.
Kaia feared that the Crones would take over Earth. Only a magic seal: “The Ring of Time” was able to stop them from entering the mortal world. And the existence of life would be through the Crystal Diamond. In a pact between the Goddess and a King, she makes him the custodian of the two relics, and those of her successors of the first-born bloodline. His only son, the prince, dies. Soon the King would leave the world. And with it he would weaken the portal through which the Crones could enter and rule. And without knowing about the existence of his granddaughter, the fruit of his son’s love for a sorceress from another town. The time was right for Princess Mia to be crowned Queen of the Crystal Kingdom. But she couldn’t interfere with the designs of time, something she didn’t know. Her power as a sorceress, plus the strength of the ring, would ensure that the Crones did not rule.
