Free Kastori Tribulations (The Kastori Chronicles Book 3) by Stephen Allan

name, he leaned forward to look at her. What he saw disturbed him greatly.
    She didn’t seem present. Her eyes observed a reality that he did not see or seem to be a part of. Perhaps there is no reality she’s in right now. Typhos tried to see it positively, in that she was grieving or escaping as a means of recovering, but it scared him. If she doesn’t see me…
    “Mom,” he said, his voice shaky. She blinked twice and returned mentally back to Anatolus. She turned to Typhos with a sad smile. “You OK?”
    She shook her head and mouthed the word no. It came out barely audible, more the result of the movement of her mouth than her vocal cords. She resumed looking away from her son.
    “Did you know this was going to happen?”
    Again, she shook her head no. She did not look back at her son. Typhos felt peripheral to his father, a long-held perception that seemed like a reality with her working at the council.
    The thought rekindled the anger he felt toward Adanus. Typhos looked at the outline of his father underneath the blanket. He fumed and shook his head, and looked back at his mother. She loves him more than me. She’s so clung to him. I’m just… it’s like I’m just a necessity of hers for some reason, but she truly loved him.
    “Why did this happen,” she said, her voice weak.
    Typhos hugged her, begging her to leave whatever alternate world she was in. He tried squeezing her, but she remained in an unshakeable trance as she repeated variations of the same question multiple times.
    He stood up and offered her hand.
    “Mom, let’s go outside, we need—”
    “No,” she said, her voice shockingly angry. “I’m not leaving Adanus. I’m never leaving him.”
    Frightened, Typhos felt the need to give his mother space. He leaned over and kissed her on the forehead.
    “I’ll be outside, OK? And I’m also never leaving you.”
    Finally, his mother looked back at him. Her eyes glistened with gratitude at what he had said, and she thanked him.
    “Go see Pagus,” she said. “He’ll help.”
    But Typhos had no intention of seeing anyone. He had no intentions of doing anything more than nodding to Fargus to tell him the council could go back inside. They passed by Typhos without a word, and Typhos headed for the peak of his favorite hill.
    His mother needed his attention and presence. If he said he’d never leave her, he had to mean it in every sense of the word. If she went to the council, he had to follow her to the council. If she went to a new world, he had to follow her to a new world.
    The symbiotic relationship would benefit them both, he thought. He could learn the council’s ways and have an even quicker track to becoming chief. She would recover from her grief faster. Selfish, yes.
    But Mom needs my help. And I’m the only one who can give it to her.

 
     
     
     
    11
    Typhos stood at the front of innumerable rows for his father’s funeral. The lifeless body of Adanus rested on top of one of the most magnificent pyres Typhos had ever seen. He briefly stole a glance at the crowd behind him and saw what felt like the entire population of Anatolus. A few of the elder Kastori, too old to stand and observe, watched with their sensing magic, but all eyes rested on his father in some fashion.
    His mother stood in front of the pyre, facing everyone. She cleared her throat, as she had multiple times in trying to start her speech. Typhos cringed watching her struggle to speak. He wanted to stand by her, offering his shoulder for support. She wants to do this on her own, well, I have to respect her wishes. No matter how bad this looks.
    “Adanus…” she said, and though her voice quivered, it marked the first time in nearly a full minute she had said anything. No one in the crowd dared to even cough, let alone speak. “Adanus left me too early.”
    She rushed the words out, so fast that Typhos had to repeat them in his head to make sense of them. But aside from one last gasp, the hysteric emotion