Chapter 9

  The chatter of passing staff and the faint clatter of dishes being cleared away grew louder as they walked, signaling they were drawing closer to the dining area. Xander’s gaze wandered as they moved, taking in more details of the space. The high-arched ceilings and intricate carvings on the walls still managed to awe him, though he tried to play it cool. Maurice was chatting idly with Janice ahead, his voice carrying a relaxed tone that put Xander somewhat at ease.

  As they approached what was the supposed dining room, he could hear the faint voices of what sounded like he parents and others he didn't fully recognize. He still wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from breakfast. His family was probably bursting with questions—and if they weren’t, Jor’dan certainly would be.

  The doors opened to reveal a more modest dining room than Xander had imagined. After being taken through the expansive hallways and the miniature park-sized courtyard, he’d expected grandeur on a similar scale. Yet the space was relatively understated, with soft lighting coming from the floor to ceiling window—a long oak wood table adorned with white cloth fitting in the middle of the space.

  His face lit up as he spotted his parents and Jor’dan seated at the table, their familiar presence immediately grounding him. Across from them sat Lucil and Stella, both wearing expressions that Xander couldn’t immediately decipher.

  The conversation at the table faltered as he stepped inside, awkward silence settling over the group. His mom’s eyes were sharp with concern, while his father’s softened in visible relief. Jor’dan, on the other hand, wore his annoyance plain as day.

  “Hey, guys…” Xander said, lifting a hand in a half-hearted wave.

  “Here.” Jor’dan’s hand patted the empty seat between him and Mary with no room for negotiation.

  As Xander approached, he could feel Lucil and Stella’s gazes sweeping over him. Their expressions weren’t hostile, but there was something about the way they studied him that made his skin prickle. He didn’t know them well enough to guess what they were thinking, and the uncertainty only made him more self-conscious.

  His mom turned in her seat to face him fully, her concern spilling into her voice. “Are you feeling better?”

  “If not,” Dad added, leaning slightly forward from his spot beside her, “I’ve got a buddy, Marcus—an excellent doctor. I can give him a call and—”

  “Thanks,” Xander interrupted with a small, grateful smile. “But I think I’m fine. No aches or anything.”

  “Where were you?” Jor’dan huffed from his side, giving him a nudge. His tone was sharp, but the flicker of worry in his eyes softened the words.

  “You and the silver fox sure had a long talk,” Stella snorted, her gaze flicking between Xander and Maurice with an amused glint.

  “It’s only a couple gray strands. Must you point it out every chance you get?” Maurice retorted as he swept into the room, his white coat billowing slightly behind him. He shot Stella a mock glare as he took the seat across from his father.

  Green eyes caught Xander’s attention, and he turned to find Lucil staring at him. Her gaze was intense, her expression unreadable. A spike of anxiety ran through him. Is she upset I got a card? Does she not trust me?

  “That wheel is so damn cool!” Lucil suddenly exclaimed, practically leaning over the table to get a better look.

  The tension melted from Xander’s shoulders, but awkwardness lingered. “Uh… thanks?” He scratched the back of his head, feeling the gazes of everyone at the table settle on him. Turning toward Maurice, he asked, “I forgot to ask, but did any of the other Wheel holders have… this?” He gestured to the shimmering wheel that floated above him.

  “Nope,” Stella said bluntly, shrugging as she leaned back in her chair. “I know because my grandpa was the last person to see the previous Wheel holder before they disappeared or whatever. He definitely didn’t have some glowing wheel floating above his head like that. Makes me curious about you.” She narrowed her eyes, scrutinizing Xander.

  In perfect timing, a steaming plate of food was set in front of him, drawing his attention. The aroma was mouthwatering, and his gaze settled on the bread—fluffy yet flat, with butter melting down the sides, giving it a golden gleam. Hunger, sudden and overpowering, took hold as Xander grabbed his fork and dove in without hesitation.

  The pancakes were a perfect balance of sweet and savory, each bite better than the last. He barely registered the sound of someone clearing their throat, too focused on the meal. When he finally looked up, cheeks puffed with food, he froze at the sight of everyone staring at him.

  He quickly swallowed and cleared his throat. “Uh… I’m not usually this hungry…”

  The awkward silence lingered for a beat before the table erupted in laughter. Lucil was snickering, her dark brown curls bouncing as she leaned back in her chair, covering her mouth. Xander groaned, glancing toward his mom, who shook her head in amused disbelief.

  “Damn, kid,” Stella said, still chuckling. “I might have some competition on my hands.”

  Maurice, trying and failing to hide his amusement, elbowed her lightly. “Don’t worry, Xander, it’s normal during the transformation. Your body’s adjusting to the changes—you won’t always be this hungry.” He paused, giving Stella a pointed look. “Unless, of course, you’re a pig.”

  The table shook as Stella nearly leaped at Maurice, restrained only by Lucil, who was laughing too hard to take the effort seriously. “Yeah, silver, you’re lucky she’s holding me back,” Stella grumbled, crossing her arms with a huff.

  Xander’s embarrassment eased slightly, knowing it was a normal reaction, but it didn’t completely dispel his self-consciousness. He was about to take another bite when something struck him: only he and Maurice had plates. He glanced around the table, confused.

  He turned toward Jor’dan, eyebrows raised in a silent question.

  “While you were taking your sweet time, we already ate,” Jor’dan grumbled, nudging him with a shoulder. Then, leaning in slightly, he added in a quieter tone, “Also, we gotta talk.”

  Xander rolled his eyes but gave a small nod, continuing to focus on his food. The table buzzed with comfortable chatter, his parents peppering Maurice with questions about their earlier conversation. It wasn’t quite an interrogation, but the line of questioning toed the edge.

  Eventually, the probing simmered down, replaced by lighter, more casual conversation. His father and Maurice began discussing the festival and everything that happened after their departure. Meanwhile, his mom chatted with Lucil and Stella. Overlapping voices made it hard to catch details, but from the snippets he overheard, he figured it was some variation of ‘woman stuff.’

  The scene warmed him. Seeing his family, his friends, and even himself in a place as lavish as this felt surreal—and oddly satisfying. For a fleeting moment, he allowed himself to imagine this as a new normal, but the thought didn’t sit right. The card in his body, the wheel above his head—they were weights he couldn’t shake. Nothing about this felt settled, not yet.

  A stray thought flickered, unbidden. It stretched like a loose thread, tugging at memories that hadn’t made sense in the moment. The reading his parents had given him. At the time, he was too caught up in the emotions and the whirlwind of events to fully process it. But now, it loomed in his mind, more ominous than ever.

  His father’s resigned expression during the reading came back first, acceptant. Then, his mother’s voice—measured, deliberate—delivering the message. It wasn’t just strange; it was as though they already knew.

  Even now, as they sat here at the table, they didn’t seem as surprised as they should’ve been. Their reactions felt too composed, too accepting of everything that had happened.

  Jor’dan’s response was expected—confusion and frenzy hidden beneath his usual stoic demeanor. But his parents? They looked like they’d already made peace with something he hadn’t been told.

  “You knew,” He muttered, more to himself. The soft shifting sound from his mother’s seat told him she’d heard.

  “Xander, I—” she began, but he cut her off, his voice sharper this time.

  “You knew.” He found his jaw clenching unconsciously, voice rising. “How?” he asked her sharply, heating rising up the back of his neck. They knew, and they didn’t tell him?

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  The weight of his accusation hung in the air, the murmuring at the table ceasing as every pair of eyes turned toward him and his parents.

  His father leaned forward quickly, his voice calm but firm. “We didn’t know anything, son. All we had were... ideas.”

  “Ideas you didn’t think to share with me?” Xander shot back, his tone laced with frustration. “The person it’s affecting?”

  Mary held up her hands in a calming gesture, her voice soft and pleading. “Please, honey. Give us a chance to explain?”

  Xander took a deep breath, his chest rising and falling heavily, and gave a reluctant nod.

  “When you were born…” She began, her voice steady but tinged with emotion. “That very same night your father and I did a reading, something simple—just asking if you’d be in good health.” She paused, her gaze distant as she stared down at her plate. “We pulled just three cards… The Wheel of Fortune, The World, and The Fool.”

  Xander’s eyes widened, sucking in a breath. Those were the exact same cards he'd gotten for his birthday. How the hell? The initial irritation he’d had began ebbing away to interest.

  Mary pressed on. “At first, we thought it was just... an interesting coincidence. But every year, on your birthday, we did the same reading. And every single year, we pulled those same three cards.”

  Jermaine spoke next, his tone deliberate. “We’re professional readers, Xander. Decades of experience, and we’ve never seen anything like it. No matter how we shuffled, no matter what deck we used—it was always the same.”

  Mary hesitated for a moment, her voice quieter when she continued. “That first reading, I heard something—a whisper. It was faint, almost like it wasn’t meant for me. I only caught a few words. Something about a wheel... and a journey…”

  Across the table, the other Majors were watching with rapt attention, their stares heavy with curiosity. Xander couldn’t find it in him to care. If anything, their presence might help shed light on the mystery.

  Mary reached out, her gaze softening as she locked eyes with her son. “Honey, we were at our wits’ end trying to figure out what it all meant. We’ve been at this for a long time. If we couldn’t understand it, how could we possibly explain it to you?”

  Xander’s frown deepened, his thoughts spinning. He couldn’t deny his mother’s point—if even she and his father, with all their expertise, couldn’t decipher what was going on, how could he have done better? Still, knowing they’d kept something so monumental from him stung.

  “I had a vision on your thirteenth birthday, on one of the first nights we slept in the new house.” She sighed and brushed her hair back. “It was blurry, but what I apparently needed to see was crystal clear. The same wheel behind your head, turning as you faced a vast ocean. You were heading towards something… a huge landmass in the distance.”

  “Wait,” Stella piped in, suddenly leaning forwards. “You can’t be talking about the lone continent—”

  Maurice quickly shushed her, nodding his head in apology at her interruption.

  “I don’t know what It was,” she continued, undeterred. “I couldn’t make out the destination or the purpose, but there were others with you on that ship. Their faces were blurry, like shadows, but I could tell they were important somehow.”

  Jermaine sighed, the weight of years of unanswered questions evident in his tone. “We did everything we could to figure it out. Consulted other readers, searched historical records, even reached out to your mother’s grandmother.”

  Xander winced. “Grandma Grandy?”

  Mary nodded, her lips quirking with a hint of dry humor. “You can imagine how desperate we were.”

  His initial frustration ebbed further, replaced by a creeping curiosity and a faint unease. Just because she’d seen it didn’t mean it would happen... right? He remembered something he’d said to a customer once, about the weaves of fate and how they were ever changing. Still, the image lingered in his mind.

  Mary leaned back in her seat, her shoulders slumping slightly as Jermaine’s hand moved gently over her arm. “Over the years, you kept asking us for a reading,” she said softly. “We had to make excuses—telling you to wait until your eighteenth birthday. But as the day got closer, you grew more restless, and... you were right to be. I knew I couldn’t keep putting it off.”

  Her expression turned more somber as she admitted, “The night before your birthday, I didn’t actually meet with the other shop owners. Your father and I…” She hesitated, then let out a small, almost bitter laugh. “We went drinking. I was on edge. We both were.”

  Jermaine picked up where she left off, his voice steady but heavy. “If it felt like we knew what was going to happen during your reading, it’s because, in some ways, we did. For years, the same message came up, time and time again.” His jaw tightened briefly before he sighed. “But something changed after your birthday. While you were out with Jor’dan, we decided to do another reading.”

  Mary nodded. “We thought maybe… just maybe, something might shift now that you were officially eighteen. And it did. The cards were clear this time—they told us to submit your painting to the competition.

  Jermaine’s gaze met Xander’s, earnest and almost apologetic. “We had no idea why. We didn’t even know what submitting it would lead to, and the cards refused to give us anything more. All they did was repeat the same sequence again and again after that.”

  Mary placed a gentle hand on Xander’s shoulder, her eyes filled with sincerity. “I swear to you, honey, if we could have figured it out—if we could’ve made sense of it—I would have told you. I promise.”

  Xander sighed and nodded. “I just wished we could’ve tried to figure it out as a family. Even if you didn’t understand what it meant, it was still about my life—I think I deserved to know.”

  Jermaine leaned forward, his expression equal parts apologetic and understanding. “You’re right,” he said firmly. “And we’re sorry we didn’t include you—but please don’t mistake it as a lack of trust. We didn’t want to weigh you down with something we couldn’t explain ourselves.” He offered a small chuckle, hoping to ease the heaviness. “If given the opportunity you’d overthink yourself into the next century.”

  Xander managed a small, reluctant smile at that.

  Before he could respond, Maurice broke the moment, his brows furrowed in thought. “Seline needs to see the boy,” he muttered, almost to himself. “If this is what I think it is…”

  Stella let out a sharp scoff. “Are you serious? That woman’s got a stick so far up her ass she probably wouldn’t even notice he was standing in the same room.”

  Lucil leaned forward with a teasing grin. “Oh, come on, Stella. You’re just mad she didn’t acknowledge you the last time you met her.”

  “Cause it’s rude!”

  They continued going back and forth. Xander, however, barely registered their exchange. His head was starting to pound, the sheer weight of everything he’d learned pressing down on him. The vision, the cards, the unanswered questions, the fucking wheel floating above his head—it was all too much. He rubbed at his temples, wishing, just for a moment, that he could hit pause and sort through the chaos.

  A warm hand rested on Xander’s shoulder, steady and grounding, like an anchor keeping a ship from drifting too far into a storm. He leaned into Jor’dan’s side, his eyes closing as he muttered softly, emotions swirling within him like a tangled knot. “I don’t know what to do anymore…”

  Jor’dan’s voice was low, a comforting rumble meant only for Xander. “No matter what, I’m with you.”

  The words wrapped around him like a weighted blanket, chasing away the cold that had started to grip him. For a moment, Xander let himself bask in the reassurance. Maurice was right—he truly was blessed to have such a strong support system. His parents had kept secrets, but their intentions had been pure, and he was sure they wouldn’t make the same mistake again. Jor’dan had been his best friend for years, unwavering and steady, and Xander knew that wouldn’t change. He had people he could trust, people he could lean on when the weight became too much.

  That would be his anchor—his grounding force—no matter where this strange, unpredictable wheel decided to take him.

  The voices around him blurred, fading into the background as he focused on his breathing. In and out, slow and steady, a rhythm to match the calming beat of his heart. He used those precious seconds to clear his mind, bracing himself for the next wave of revelations.

  When he opened his eyes, the tension in his chest had eased just enough. He exhaled deeply and turned his attention back to the conversation.

  “It’s the only way we can know for sure,” Maurice said with a heavy sigh, his gaze landing on Xander as he reopened his eyes. “I was just sharing my thoughts with your parents.” He offered Xander a gentle smile. “Of course, this is something you’ll have to decide for yourself. The High Priestess, Seline, lives in Ascension’s Hallow. You’ve heard of it, yes?”

  Xander gave a faint nod, the name stirring faint memories from his schooling. Ascension’s Hallow—known as a sanctuary of knowledge—was described as a scholar’s dream. Nestled high in the northern mountains, it was a hub of research and study dedicated to the arcana, divine mysteries, and the shifts within their world. It was a place he’d only ever imagined—read in textbooks.

  Maurice continued, “Seline has… a gift—she can see both the past and future of anyone with just a glance. She’s also one of the very few who can receive direct messages from the divine. Her insights have been pivotal to much of the knowledge we’ve gathered about the arcana. I trust her judgment.” His gaze flickered toward Stella with a pointed look, as if preemptively addressing her skepticism.

  Stella rolled her eyes but said nothing, and Maurice pressed on. “There’s been growing chatter about the lone continent—enough to make me believe people are getting restless, eager to uncover whatever lies there. It’s your mother’s vision that concerns me. Why were you on a ship heading toward it? What’s so significant about that place that you’d risk your life to step foot on it?”

  Xander frowned, his brow knitting as he tried to piece it together. “Is it just… hard to get to?” he asked cautiously.

  Maurice hesitated, his expression thoughtful before he answered. “I can’t say for certain. But—” he raised a hand to silence Lucil, who opened her mouth to interject, “—there are rumors. Whispers of beasts on the continent—creatures that make even the worst predators on Terradin seem harmless by comparison. But again, it’s just that: a rumor.”

  Xander rubbed his temples, a headache building as the weight of the day yet again pressed on him.

  “Just think about it, okay?” Maurice adjusted his coat, brushing nonexistent dust from the fabric before standing. “Head home, clear your mind.”

  Xander gestured toward the wheel behind him. “What about this?”

  “People’ll just stare,” Stella said with a grunt. “Nothing to worry about.”

  Lucil nodded in agreement, her tone reassuring. “Yeah, pretty much. You’ll be fine.”

  Maurice, now at the entrance of the dining room, turned back one last time. His tone softened, tinged with an understanding that made Xander’s chest tighten. “I’m sorry, Xander. I know you didn’t ask for this. None of us did. But if you ever need anything, the palace is always open to you.”

  With that, Maurice disappeared, his coat flaring behind him as he exited the room.

  “Fuck,” Xander muttered, slumping back into his seat.