Chapter 21: Complicated Connections and Men
The crisp autumn air enveloped Lyra as she made her way to the training grounds the next morning. She had finished her breakfast in record time, wanting to avoid Thyrius before he woke up. It wasn't that she was angry or anything with him, it was just getting to be too much for her. The constant butterflies, and tingles shooting up her spine had her mind in a whirlwind. She wanted to be as focused as possible if she were ever going to figure out her whole super power situation, and she needed to before she met with the nearby coven.
She finally caught sight of Gus at the platform, and smiled over at him. "Lyra, good morning, are you ready to start defensive training?" He asked with a little more enthusiasm than she thought possible. With a small nod, Lyra made her way over to the mats that were strewn across the grass directly in front of the platform. "Awesome, let's warm up first, shall we?" He asked jumping off the platform and onto the mats. She could tell that he would have no mercy on her today, and she was grateful for that. She had a lot of pent up emotion that she needed to let out, and it seemed that training was helpful in that aspect.
Lyra's back hit the mat with such force that the wind had been completely knocked out of her lungs, and she gasped, eyes widening with shock. "You need to be more observant of your surroundings Lyra! Focus, watch for the signs of movement in your opponent." Gus was using his coach's voice, pointing out Lyra's flaws in her defensive combat. The lack of air in her lungs made it difficult to reply with words, so she slowly got up off the mat, and planted her feet in a defensive stance once again. Gus' mouth formed an appreciative smile, and he took his place back in front of her.
She knew that she would eventually encounter Thyrius at some point, what she didn't know was that he was stomping up behind her, and the reason she discovered that was Gus' relaxed, and focused face immediately turning into one of fear and surprise. "Alpha, What are you-? I told you what we'd be doing today, you need to steer clear of here until we finish training." Gus was backing away slightly when Lyra turned around to see a furious Thyrius just inches from her position. "Thyrius, what? What's going on?" Lyra spoke softly, confused as to why he would be so upset. Thyrius glanced down at her small frame, and his features softened slightly, before noticing the small bruise forming on her right cheek. His face contorted in anger and immediately growled at Gus. Lyra flinched at the sound, and when she looked back at Gus, he was stoic again. "Lyra, dear, why don't you go find Eleni in the Library, good work today." She was confused as to why he would stop training in the middle of the session, but something in Gus' voice made Lyra think that arguing would probably not be beneficial to the situation. So she slowly backed away from Thyrius, and made her way to the library. She wasn't going to question it then, but she would definitely bring this up to Thyrius when they were alone later.
Eleni was in the back section of the library, with a stack of books piled higher than her small frame, and in front of her lay a large leatherbound book. When Lyra made her way to the table she sat at, Eleni instantly lifted her head and greeted her with a bright smile.
"Hey Lyra, I got up super early this morning to get ahead on some of the research. Look what I found! It was in the archive section on one of the highest shelves. This book contains some of the history of Hekate's coven. There is only a small section, but it says here that Hekate's appointed oracle was said to have been working closely with the fates themselves. That the oracle had received their prophecies from them directly. So, not only is this beneficial, it proves that this is something that was received through fate itself. So now we really need to know how you got access to this book. You mentioned a letter when you received the deed to the cottage, right? Who signed the letter?" The excitement in Eleni's voice was hard to miss, and Lyra hated to dampen her mood.
"Eleni, it was signed by the man in the moon. I have no clue who that is, or why they even left me the cottage in the first place. I searched for clues for years, but the only thing was a letter in the book saying that I would find my true path and walk it or something like that." She saw Eleni's eyes flash with something unidentifiable before she closed the book in front of her.
"Man in the moon? Just signed the man in the moon?" Eleni spoke cryptically, placing a hand on her chin in thought. "That has to be intentional. It has to be."
Eleni got up from her seat leaving the pile of books on the table, and made her way through a different section of the library, before landing on a medium sized, green hardcover book. She read the cover before she opened it and read its contents. She scanned through a few of the pages with a speed Lyra did not think was possible. "Here!" She shouted when she landed on one of the pages that interested her. "Here read this page, and see if you can see what I see."
Eleni shoved the book in Lyra's direction and she took it and scanned the page in question.
"The goddess Leto would sometimes use Selene's henchmen to do her bidding. The two goddesses were friends, and would often lend favors to one another." Lyra read over the lines a few more times before something clicked in her mind, and she tried to connect the dots before voicing her revelation.
"Leto, and Selene were good friends. Selene is the goddess of the moon. Werewolves have a tight connection to the moon. Selene had henchmen. Man in the moon, that has to be a reference to Selene's henchmen. Right?" She wasn't too sure if it was far-fetched or not. Everything in Lyra's life was seemingly more and more far-fetched to her.
"That's exactly what I'm thinking. Selene's henchmen were able to enter Earth's realm and the god's on whim, and that benefited Leto tremendously. Gods and goddesses can't just enter a realm without reason. If there isn't a job to do on earth, they have to stay in their realm in order to avoid war amongst themselves. Henchmen however in this case, don't have that restriction. Lyra, there's a reason you were the one that found the book, I think you're the connection to the fallen constellation, Atlas' daughter." Eleni's voice was getting louder and louder with each sentence, and hearing that Lyra could be connected to Atlas' daughter only made her head spin.
There was no way she could be connected to a god's daughter, she was an orphan from a small town. There couldn't be a connection, could there?