It took around 4 hours of walking before we found our first water stream.

While on the way to it, we talked about his kingdom, and he told a few stories about growing up there. I did feel a pang of jealousy when he spoke about spending weekends with his family.

He then explained to me how they celebrated their birthdays which I had only recently learned didn't just happen in book. He then told me that religions are not that prevalent, which is very different to what most books stated.

Jacob had been saying that you could talk to anyone on this planet, and each person will give a different account of what they believe in. Most of the books I had been given talked about Christmas, Easter, and Honaker. When I asked about them, he said they didn't celebrate religious holidays like that. Instead, they had new ones, with each kingdom celebrating different ones. His kingdom would celebrate the start of harvest with a huge celebration where they would exchange crops and animals around.

I was the most surprised when he said he got gifts, cakes, and a party to celebrate the day he was born every year. I know they were called birthdays, but I never knew that everyone celebrated theirs or that everyone knew there's. I didn't know the date I was born, but it had never really stood out to me until hearing Jacob talk about his.

I knew that pigeon lady on Earth had said I would be turning twenty-one in a few weeks when I was let out, but that probably wasn't my birth date. I don't know my actual birthday; I could be any age, for all I know.

Jacob gave me a lot to digest. He also gave me a purpose in hearing how people can have happy lives. I had only ever really witnessed terrible events. It was nice to hear that people celebrate good events.

As we filled up our water bottles, we could hear the water stream. It was loud yet so peaceful. It reminded me how much I had been dreaming of experiencing these wonderful things in nature. I guess with everything going on, I had got so caught up that I hadn't even appreciated being out and free.

If anything, this natural beauty makes me wonder why everyone on Earth is so determined to be powerful. Not only have they destroyed Earth they now want to destroy this planet. No one needs this much power. People shouldn't have this much power. It's unnatural.

Look at the people on Elbnar. They don't try to progress their abilities to the extreme. They just use the ones they were born with and don't try to gain more. No wonder Earth is almost dead, and Elbnar isn't.

"Daisy, you there? You seem to have drifted off?" Jacob was now waving his hands in front of my eyes. I must have been very deep in my thoughts.

"Yeah, I am, sorry this planet is just so beautiful. I've spent so long locked up and kept indoors that I feel I should be embracing this freedom more than I have been. I may not know what's going to happen, but at least I'm in charge of what I do right now." I bent down and filled my bottle with water.

"I've heard about your kingdom and the one I'm from, but what's with these other kingdoms?" Unfortunately, I didn't see that he had just thrown a mouthful of berries into his mouth. He swallowed them quickly, coughing a bit as he did.

"Honestly, we don't know much about them as they are very secretive. I think all kingdoms would be, but as mine and yours did a lot to help Earth, we ended up having to contact one another occasionally. But before Earth contacted us, we rarely saw any other kingdoms; we very much relied on providing for ourselves. That being said, my kingdom does occasionally swap goods with the others, but we have a meeting point far from any of the kingdoms. We give them food, and one of them gives us electrical goods; the others give us odds and bodds, but I can't remember exactly. It's more my brother's job. I'm one of many children and the youngest at that, so I barely know anything about the in's and out's. It's pretty rare to have a royal family with only one child. Your family seems to be the outlier."

"Really, how do you know the other kingdoms' royals have lots of children? I thought you said you didn't know much about them?"

"Oh, sorry, I keep forgetting how little you really know. You see, this whole planet has magic running through it. As I told you some months ago, that's how we hid ourselves for so long. Well, that magic has enacted a wall of ancestors in every kingdom's castle. You know that map I mentioned when you moved into the cell next to me. They are huge and can go down for miles for all we know. It's the one thing nobody can touch with anything. It has a barrier surrounding it, but on the wall is a family tree of every royal family. Like I said before, there are only a few full-bloods, and that wall tells us that. Unfortunately, no half-bloods come up. Only when they go back to being full-blood, do they pop up? It doesn't consider adopted children, as your sister is not on there. I don't fully understand it because you're not on it, but maybe you are now, as when I was last home, you weren't on this planet."

I could now imagine a vast marble wall. I know he didn't say that, but my imagination took over. On the wall, I could imagine loads of names sparkling in gold. Maybe they even have symbols to show other stuff.

"Does the wall tell you if they are living or dead, as well as who are the current rulers?" He smiled to himself as I was obviously getting rather excited about it.

"Yes, a name is strike-through if they are dead, though you can still see the name. They are bigger if they are rulers. It is the reason we know there are no mixed royal and half-blood bloodlines yet, but since there are only five left, I wouldn't be surprised if that changes soon. After all, when my mum's bloodline merged with my dad's, she was now part of my dad's bloodline and as her siblings were all women who never married, her bloodline finished with her. This planet focuses on the men more because all my sisters' names are smaller than my brothers and mine. I just roughly know the other kingdoms have lots of kids from it. Personally, I think it's stupid and can be ignored. It just reminds me of how focused we are on our own kingdoms instead of just becoming one planet working in harmony. But this generation will be different as we are running out of royals. We would have lasted a lot longer if we had mixed earlier, and there would now be so many royal families."

"Well, maybe when we get to your kingdom and help them, we could breach the subject and try to open all the kingdoms up to one another." He gave me a shrug, obviously; bringing up the fact we were on this journey for his family wasn't fun for him, but I also got the sense he didn't think they would want to open the kingdoms up.

We had gone quiet again, but it wasn't for long because we had walked so far while talking that we were now on the edge of the forest.

Once we got here, we were halted in our tracks. But it wasn't the view of the castle that made us stop. It was the revolting smell of decay that did. I would have guessed it was some dead animals in the nearby forest, but from the look on Jacob's face, it definitely wasn't. In response to the smell, we held our noses.

While I did, I searched around to see if anyone was around us, but Jacob pointed out that if they were going to attack us, they would have done so already as it's a very easy shot from the castle in the distance. I couldn't see it properly but could make out the long stone walls.

"But to be on the safe side, I think we should try sticking to the back of the castle as much as possible." He choked as he spoke. The smell really was terrible.

As we walked, the smell got stronger and stronger. Whatever was emitting, that smell was getting closer, or we were getting closer to it.

It took us over an hour to only get halfway back to the castle. It seemed the distance between the end of the forest and the castle was further than it looked. What made it worse was the fact that the bad smell was getting worse, and it was making us start to retch.

Unfortunately It didn't take long for us to find the source of the bad smell.

We had stumbled on a mass grave.

Once we had arrived at the source, it was hard to miss it. I didn't want to really look, but I was just stuck to the spot.

It was a frenzy killing. Whatever did this can't have been human. There's no way an army could have done this. It's brutal. From the looks of it, they had wiped out the entire kingdom, and from the smell and state of them, I would guess they had been murdered awhile ago. Long before they sent the letter to Jacob.

Stepping back took me out of the grim trance, and I threw up. Jacob was still fixated on the sight in front of us, so I composed myself and turned him around so his back was to the massacre. The minute his eyes were pulled away, he started to hyperventilate. I held him and felt his body shaking as he began to cry.

I wanted to help, so I shut my eyes, ensuring I couldn't see behind him. I let him cry for a while and only let go once I felt him pull away. When he did leave my embrace, I made sure he didn't turn around.

"I need to find them!"

I had expected him to be croaky, but he had spoken calmly and clearly. I knew who he meant, but I still asked.

"Your family?"

He nodded. I think this one sentence was all he could muster. I had a feeling no matter what I did, he would still want to go look. Unfortunately, the state of decay would make any kind of identification very hard.

"I don't know how easy it will be. But I will help you in any way I can." He turned back to the bodies, took a big breath, and then turned back to me.

"I think it's best I find them myself. Could you please wait here for me?"

He gave me a sad half-smile. It broke my heart. I didn't know these people, yet seeing them all like this upset me, but I couldn't even imagine what it was like for Jacob. After all, he was on a first-name basis with most of them.

I grabbed his hand and gave it a small squeeze. He returned it and then started to walk to the mass grave, and I could see him getting close to try to see better.

I watched him for a bit of time, but it was so hard because every few seconds, he would start crying again, and it broke my heart to see him in so much pain, so I sat down on a rock that was angled enough that if I fully rotated on it, I would be able to see Jacob.

I had been sitting on the rock for a couple of hours, biding the time, but Jacob never came. When he still hadn't returned at the two-hour mark, I started to search for him. After I'd passed the first mass grave, I saw two more. I wasn't sure how big Jacobs family's kingdom was, but I had a feeling that it was about as big as my sisters, which, from what I saw, wasn't huge. But I didn't see much of it, so I am unsure. I tried not to look too much, just enough so I could look out for Jacob.

I tried using the feeling I usually got from Jacob, but it was very dull, which told me he couldn't have been close.

As I walked around more, the feeling disappeared completely. There was one thing I could take from that, which was that Jacob wasn't here anymore. Unfortunately, that didn't really help me in working out where he was.

Maybe he had gone back to his castle alone.

I really hoped this wasn't the case, but he had just found out that his whole family had been murdered. So I wouldn't blame him for going to get his revenge. But I think one against, I don't know how many may not turn out the best. At this thought, I started running towards the castle.

I was so determined that I just pushed through it when I started getting stitches. I hadn't even been running that long, but I wasn't a very fit person. But my unhealthy state didn't mean much because I hadn't gotten too far when I felt a sting on the back of my head, and everything went black.