Listening closer, I heard that they were shouting for the king and queen. I walked over and I felt more powerful, more awesome. The doors of the library opened for me with a wave of a hand andI stepped out, followed by Zoe. The people who were searching for us turned and stopped. Then, in unison, they bowed down to us.

“Thank you, we are the King and Queen, Zoe and Joe.”

“All hail Zoe and Joe!” The people shouted.

“We must retire now.”

The second we were out of earshot, Zoe stopped and stared at me.

“Your magic, that was the most powerful thing that has happened in millenia. Like being able to see through somebody else's illusion, that’s never happened before. But now I must know, how did you become an angel?”

I told her the story, and when I was done, she had tears in her eyes.

“You- you did that for me? But- so that’s why.”

“What's why?”

“Why you are so powerful. It’s because your heart turned golden when you went to heaven. Usually an angel's heart is silver because they did good deeds, but only the ones that saved somebody else has a heart of pure gold.”

“So, that made me stronger?”

“Yup.”

“But we’re those people that we beat, they were the old king and queen, right?”

“People that we beat? Who are you talking about?”

“You didn’t see? When we were in the library, there were people screaming when I walked towards the golden ball on the floor and I saw you with a magenta swirl coming out of your eyes and 2 other people, a boy and a girl dressed in royalty clothes with green and yellow tendrils coming from them. And then I joined you with a blue tent rip and we defeated them? Do you not remember?”

“That- no one has ever seen that before. All I saw was you walking into the golden ball on the floor and then we walked out to the crowd and they saw the real us as king and queen.”

Suddenly she got up and vaulted towards the library. I got up and followed her.

“Oh my!” Zoe gasped.

I looked at the golden spirals on the ground. They were enlaced with magenta and blue this time, instead of green and yellow. Zoe turned around and asked

“What color were the tendrils?”

“Umm, theirs were green and yellow. Ours were magenta and blue.”

“One color of the ground has always been green. The king's tendril was always green, which stands for unity. The queens tendril color changed every time. But you have a blue power which only one queen has ever had and she was the most powerful of all.”

“But we aren’t married, we’re brother and sister.”

“You don’t have to be as long as you're willing to die for each other, you can be king and queen.”

“So, well, I already died for you but you're willing to die for me?”

“Apparently.” She shrugged.

Wow! We definitely have a great relationship.

“Let’s go test this out.”

We walked to a huge empty arena and she simply said

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“Defend yourself.”

Zoe threw a spear at me except it wasn’t real, I could tell that it was an illusion because I could see through it. As I was telling her it was fake, a flash of lightning came out of nowhere and hit me in the back. I froze, a tingling sensation was building its way down to my toes and up to my head. When it got too hot, too ready, I let it out, and I could see it like a shock wave, leaving my body and flying towards everything else. I could also see a small barrier around Zoe, but it got smaller and smaller as the shock wave got closer to her. When the shock wave reached the arena walls with shields hanging on them, the shields cracked and crumbled, leaving the wall bare. Zoe looked at me in shock,

“How did you absorb and release the shock? Everybody has a personal shield but yours let the shock go into you then your body magnified it’s power and pushed it back out. And I have never had to concentrate that hard to protect myself. You really are the most powerful King I have ever known. It must be your golden heart.”

“I don’t know how I did that, I think it was-”

I got cut off by a banging sound but it was very quiet and got fainter and fainter.

“What?” Zoe asked.

“You didn’t hear that? There is a quiet banging sound outside.”

I ran out, searching for where the banging sound was coming from. I searched and searched until I came across a mother crying on the streets.

“Madam, are you okay?”

She looked up and gasped,

“Oh your majesty! My problems are not for you to worry about, they are nothing.”

“No, no, tell me, maybe I can help.”

“My daughter went missing a few hours ago. This has happened a lot over the past few days. They think that they are underground.”

“I will get her back, I promise.”

So that’s what the banging must have been. I heightened my senses unconsciously and listened for the banging noise. Underground, Underground. I looked around, searching for an opening to the underground. Then it hit me, an abandoned subway station on the corner of magic and dot street. Behind me, Zoe caught up to me, out of breath and panting.

“Over there!” I pointed to the subway station.

I ran ahead and realized that I was running much faster than I thought. No wonder Zoe had trouble keeping up with me. That must be another perk of having a golden heart. I jumped a fence, and fell on s!ord. It c!t my leg but put my hand on it and the wound healed itself. Oh wow! Being a golden heart had much more advantages than I thought. I wonder what else I can do. I looked behind me at Zoe climbing over the fence. I jumped that though. As I looked a black figure jumped on top of me and put me into a choke hold. I gasped and struggled against it but I couldn’t get him to let go. I tried to get Zoe to help free me but she just stood over me and laughed.

“We really got him! Even I didn’t expect him to be this dumb!”

My vision went dark and I fell into darkness.

I woke up in the throne room that I had dreamed about. I was sitting on a cushioned chair. Across the room, Zoe was sitting on a matching chair. The little girl on the throne was talking and laughing with Zenit as if nothing had ever happened.

“Papa! I even did my homework before it was due!”

“Yes, Berry, dad is super proud!” Zenit smiled and saw me out of the corner of his eye. He froze and his smile melted off his face.

“You- this ohhhh” he smiled again

“Your back from training already? That’s a new record I think. Where is your trainee?”

“Here.” Zoe answered him and followed with a sucker punch to the face. Zenit fell to the ground and the little girl got off the throne and bent over him. I couldn’t stand it anymore.

“STOP!” My voice carried around the room and everyone froze.

“What is going on!?”

Everyone tried to answer at the same time but the little girl's voice stood out to me most.

“Daddy used to be the king but he wanted to help you so he quit and made me queen and then at the walls he got captured by me because I missed my daddy.” She gasped for air and stared at me.

Her face, her stare, why was that so familiar? I racked my brain and then it hit me.

I was a little boy around 9 years old and I was watching my sister, no sisters, we were sitting on the stairs drinking hot chocolate and my younger sister turned and stared at me. That was the first time she did that, but it started happening more and more often.

“NO!”

Zoe’s voice brought me back to the present.

“That’s not true! Zenit didn’t cross the wall because he couldn’t. He got ‘captured’ on purpose.”

“I- who’s lying? But don’t you guys recognize? You're my 2 sisters.”

“What!” They shouted simultaneously. Their shocked faces matched so perfectly that they had to be related. Just then it hit me, if Zenit was The girls dad, the girl he had called Berry then he was also my dad, and Zoe’s dad.

“Zenit?” I asked

“Yes? You're my dad, aren’t you?”

“Im- I’m your step father.” He admitted.

“But you're a guardian?”

“I- I’m-I’m not a guardian. I did that so you would believe me and get away from danger. Dave here was a great help.”

Dave appeared out of nowhere.

“Yes I-”

I cut him off

“WHO KILLED ME?!”

"It was-"