Shortly after crossing the forgotten bridge and a whole lot of strange looks from the royal knights, Tigra finally unlinked her arms with us. A part of me guessed she wanted everyone to know she was close friends with Brendan and I, but most knew that anyway, considering we grew up together, always causing trouble for her Guardians.

The sadness and distressed look she had earlier was completely gone, filled with a new expression of determination, what was it that she wanted to show us so badly?

“How long are we going to be?” asked Brendan.

“A few days,” answered Tigra.

“But in this direction is the forgotten forest,” mentioned Brendan, his voice going quiet.

“They don’t call it that do they?” I glanced between the both of them.

“I heard Animalia go in but never come back,” gulped Brendan.

“What a bunch of rubbish,” snorted Tigra.

“I think he’s right, no one comes this way anymore,” I added.

Tigra let out a long sigh. “Mother told me the forgotten forest was ones a pathway for pilgrims travelling around the ruins of Cathopia, only over the last few decades has this strange rumour of disappearing Animalia come about.”

“I find that hard to believe, dad never took me this way when we went camping and when I asked he never answered,” I responded.

“Perhaps he had a good reason for doing so,” smirked Tigra.

“What do you know?” I glared at her.

“Do we really have to go?” whimpered Brendan.

“You scared?” I commented.

“No.” Brendan shook his head.

“Come on, you just took a swipe at Dumah a second ago,” mentioned Tigra.

“You’re right,” nodded Brendan.

“You may have come a long way Brendan, but at times you are still an absolute wimp,” I said. Brendan looked away as he knew I was right. “Anyway, on the subject of Dumah, where did you hide the betrothal sword?”

“In the one place only queens can go,” answered Tigra.

“Good idea,” I nodded, but had no idea what she was talking about, obviously it would be somewhere within the castle, but couldn’t King Alton go everywhere in the castle too?

“It’s a secret,” she placed her finger to her lip before I could even ask.

“Whatever, I don’t care,” I shrugged my shoulders as long as Dumah never got his paws of it I didn’t really care.

-

The first day we covered quite a bit of land, Cathopia was surrounded in dense forest, no matter which direction you went in. As I did more missions that i.kt took me outside of the city, I found that I preferred it. Sure, the city had a lot of trees, but nothing like this, it was different from the sounds, smell and how it felt overall.

Tigra didn’t mentioned much else about where we were going, just saying it was a surprise, it would be worth my attention once we got there, from what she had said earlier about the ruins, perhaps a tour of Panthera’s history, if so how boring.

As the sun began to disappear over the skyline, we set up camp. We didn’t have any tents, so it was just a fire with three blankets around it. I was the one who ended up cooking our dinner, well after Brendan had disappeared for an hour and came back with a small deer.

I should hire you in the kitchens,” drooled Tigra as she took in the smells.

“You couldn’t afford me,” I joked.

“I’d pay you more than a knight-in-training,” responded Tigra.

“Never go hungry when you cook,” added Brendan.

After eating we went on to telling stories. I was first talking about my favourite stories, really they were all I read.

“Then the legendary Fang took down the dreaded beast with a swipe of his twin swords,” I cheered.

“Really, that story again,” sighed Brendan.

“You know it is his favourite,” giggled Tigra. “Plus, it’s just a story.”

“I don’t think it is,” I said quickly flicking through the pages, stopping at a full picture of my hero. “He holds two things that I do.” I pointed at his arm then mine, then at the choker around his neck and mine. “According to this book, he could use more than one talisman, just like some of those in my family, dad for instance and myself.”

“It’s an old story Alex,” said Tigra.

“My family is the Fang clan, which are descendants of Fang,” I added.

“I think he’s tired,” commented Brendan. “Get some sleep.”

“Yeah, still have a long way to go.” Tigra was on the same page as he was, what made this all sound like just a story, but from the change in stories I had been told in the academy, perhaps the change in history had happened earlier than my birth, even under the nose of the king who had fought alongside my dad.

“Fine, don’t believe me.” I grabbed tightly to my book, laid down and rolled over to face away from them.

“Alex.” They both said my name, but I ignored them. If they did not want to listen to my theories than I wouldn’t bother telling them anything, to be honest I had not thought about the so called awakening that was said to happen to all members of my family for a while now.

I had hoped to receive this awakening to understand more but had yet to receive it and could not ask dad, a part of me was starting to think I would never have it.

I had asked mum once about our clan, wondering why there wasn’t more of us, as I only knew of Kiba’s family. I was told being descendants of Fang, there were those that feared the return of such a legend, so all, but a few of our clan remained scattered across the world, but that was all she told me, I felt there was a lot of the story missing, even from those in our history books.

Larana came to sit in front of me smiling. “The stories as you know are all true, master.” She sighed. “After all I was there and so was Mila.”

I shuffled a little closer to her. “There’s pieces missing.” She nodded. “Can you tell me?”

“I wish I could, but I can’t,” she shook her head. “Most of it you will discover in time, and I can tell you it will blow your mind.”

“Seriously,” I huffed.

Larana giggled. “Get some rest master, you have a big day ahead of you.”

“Fine.” I didn’t really want to let it go but when Larana did not want to tell me something, then there was no point in continuing to ask her as I knew she would never tell. I couldn’t complain as she always told me most of this stuff when I needed to know it.

I went to sleep thinking of the tales of Fang, if only I could prove they were all real.