A Trip to the Beach
I stood mesmerised by the gorgeous white wings stretching up towards the ceiling from between my best friend’s shoulders, too speechless to say anything.
Taking a few steps forward, I reached out and tentatively stroked the feathers of Ellie’s left wing with the back of my index finger. She gasped at the sensation and shivered a little.
‘S-sorry’ I stammered pulling my hand back as heat crept up my neck, and half expected her to get annoyed at me for having touched her wing without asking – but, to my surprise she smiled, her eyes twinkling in a way I’d never seen before.
‘Don’t be...it felt nice’ she mu, her cheeks flushing a little.
Her mum chuckled softly beside her, and then proceeded to say, ‘try and pull in your wings darling. You don’t want to go back to sleep with them out, do you?’
‘Picture them returning into your body’ added her father, and seconds later Ellie’s wings were gone.
‘Okay, into bed with you Oraelia. You can’t have had more than a few hours’ with all the pain you’ve been through tonight.’ Queen Pheonala ushered her daughter back to her bed, looking over at me as she did so. ‘You too dear, and don’t worry about Oraelia she’ll be fine. Go on.’
I turned to King Thäro who gave a nod of agreement, and then headed back to my room. I soon fell asleep with the look in Kenton’s eyes earlier replaced by Ellie’s flushed cheeks after I’d stroked her wing feathers.
Breakfast next morning, and everyone was eating their scrambled eggs and bacon, cereal, or beans on toast, when Ellie’s voice pulled their attention away from their plates and over to her.
‘The other day, following our fun-filled trip into the capital, I had a chat about it and the surrounding villages and workers with Dad, and after I drew up a careful plan, I spoke to him again in his study last night before bed. My idea, is to extend the magic barrier around the city, and move those who live in the villages and have to travel here to work, into the capital and after a short discussion, we’ve decided to take a visit to each village and ask the people whether they would prefer to live closer to work, or if they actually like the long-distance commute.’
King Thäro nodded when five pairs of eyes slowly turned from his daughter to him.
‘Yes, it is true – but we shall not be going to the villages today, though we did send messengers to each one with a notice announcing that they will be having a royal visit soon. No, today we’re going to spend day at the beach - and nobody is staying behind.’
***
None of us had tried to get out of going to the beach because in truth, all of us wanted to get away from the palace for a chance to cool off in the cool waters of the ocean, and so less than two hours later we were all at the beach, after Ellie’s dad had ensured that the palace was safely secured prior to our departure on a large blanket on top of the soft sand.
A selection of finger foods was spread out on one side of the blanket for lunch including cocktail sausages, crisps, sandwiches, and cookies; all of it lovingly prepared by the young cook Herian, who seemed to have taken a liking to Ellie from the different cookies we found at the bottom of the hamper (she had told him when they met that she loved several cookie flavours).
‘Father, what are those leaping in and out of the waves out there?’ Ellie asked, pointing out to sea, where many shapes were leaping in and out of view.
‘Those are the Dracoria, my dear. They’re what gives the Ocean its name,’ her mother replied with a smile.
‘And that flat island over there is their nesting ground’ her dad added as Kenton and Jaron started splashing each other and laughing as the cool water hit their skin.
‘Go on, go and join the other two and have fun’ Aiolos encouraged.
‘You’re not going to join us?’ I asked as I got up.
‘Nah, I’m fine thanks’ he replied, drawing his knees against his chest and wrapping his arms around them.
As she got up, Ellie whispered into my ear, ‘he almost died in a shipwreck out at sea. He hasn’t gone near the water since’
‘Oh – sorry Aiolos, I didn’t think’ I mumbled, hanging my head.
‘That’s all right Harry, you didn’t know’ Aiolos replied softly.
I nodded and then Ellie and I headed down the beach, and into the surf to join Jaron and Kenton in their splashing match.
A Gentle Kiss
Having arrived back at the palace a couple of hours later with the others, I was making my way towards the library to read up on horse breeds, since I’d forgotten most of the names over the years and wanted to impress Ellie at my next horse riding lesson, when I spotted her and Kenton stood talking quietly together in front of one of the three wide windows lining the corridor.
Unable to bring myself to carry on walking and ignore their private conversation, I hid behind a nearby pillar and decided to watch them silently from there – but, it turned out to be easier said than done: Kenton touched Ellie’s arm more times than I personally thought necessary, and everything that he was doing threatened to make my blood boil and, to top it all off, he took a step closer to Ellie and tucked a finger under her chin. Tilting it up a little, he inclined his head.
Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. Backing away from the pillar, I turned around and headed towards the palace gardens to cool off.
***
I hadn’t been outside long, sat on a white bench dotted with painted little pink roses placed under a tall maple tree, ten meters or so from the doors of the palace with my elbows on my knees and my head in my hands, when I heard light feet moving through the grass towards me and looked up just as Ellie stopped in front of the bench with her hands on her hips, lips stretched into the signature smile that always manages to set my heart aflutter.
‘So, this is where you went off to when we got back from the beach’ she said, sitting down beside me.
Unfortunately, I was in no mood to talk to anyone right now since I was still cooling off and got up to leave.
‘Where are you going?’ Ellie asked.
‘Why do you care?’ I retorted, turning on her as hot anger flared in my veins. ‘Shouldn’t you be with your new boyfriend Kenton?’
‘What are you talking about? Kenton’s not my boyfriend. I don’t see him that way’ she answered, sounding surprised.
‘Don’t make me laugh. I saw him lean down to kiss you back there’ I replied bitterly, the anger inside me intensifying. Turning away from her, I headed back to the palace with the intention of going straight to my bedroom without paying a visit to the library.
I heard her call my name behind me, but I ignored her and kept going until she shouted, almost screaming for her voice to reach me.
‘He never got the chance. I pushed him away!’
I stopped and turned around as she caught up with me.
‘You and Kenton...didn’t kiss?’
She shook her head vigorously. ‘Of course not! I’ve only known him a short while.’
I nodded and turned away.
‘I do know he has a crush on me. He found me walking alone along that corridor and pulled me aside to tell me how he felt – but I was honest with him, and said that I’d already had feelings for someone else for a long time. That I was in love with them in fact. He accepted that, even after I told him who it was.’
I slowly returned my gaze on her, ‘who-who is it?’ I stammered, trying to get my racing heart to calm down.
She smiled ‘I doubt you’ll guess. You’ve never been good at guessing things.’
I grinned at her, raising an eyebrow ‘try me.’
Giggling at the posh accent I had put on Ellie replied, ‘okay - but you only get one clue.’
‘Come on then, what’s the clue’ I replied.
She pursed her lips in thought and then ‘I’ve known him a long time, but you’ve known him your whole life.’
I furrowed my brow in thought of who her crush – I mean, the guy she was in love with – might be
, but Ellie is right about my inability to guess at things even when I’m given clues, because I drew a blank within seconds.
‘I knew you’d never guess, even when the clue makes it so obvious’ she sighed.
I frowned ‘I don’t quite follow you.’
Ellie gave a deep sigh.
‘Well, I guess there’s only one thing I can do, if a clue isn’t going to help.’
Before I could register what was going on she closed the distance between us and wrapped a hand around the back of my neck and gently pulled my head down as she tilted her chin, closing her mouth gently over mine.
The Thraxin Thief
Ellie’s soft kiss caught me momentarily off-guard, but after the initial shock of it I relaxed and wrapped my arms loosely around her waist, pulling her closer and kissing her back as she looped hers around my neck.
A few moments later, we slowly parted.
‘I remember not too long ago, we actually professed our love for each other.’
I titled my head to the side, easily relaxing my face into a convincing perplexed expression.
‘You don’t remember? In my room, back in Ipswich before we left. We both said “I love you” - only at the time we told each other it was platonically.’
‘We did,’ I replied, smiling and leaning down to kiss her tenderly ‘but now we both know that wasn’t true.’
Ellie blushed and stood up on the tips of her toes to give me another kiss and then, slid her hand into mine. ‘Come on lover boy, let’s go back inside. I want to attempt teaching you how to play piano again. No arguments.’
I chuckled, resigned to the fact I wasn’t going to win against her, and let her drag me back towards the palace.
Five minutes later we were heading upstairs to the room behind the ageing door she’d found the other day, when we noticed a figure wearing a dark blue hooded cloak with the hood pulled up, emerge from a short curved door set into the stone wall opposite the wide staircase. Locking it with a large gold key which he (or she, as the case may be) slipping into the inside of the cloak, whoever it was looked around as if making sure no one else was in sight before slinking off in the opposite direction.
‘We need to follow whoever that was Harry; that door leads into the caves from which the Thraxin used in the bricks of the palace is mined. It’s worth a lot in Galodins - that’s the currency they use, all over Elandrea - and raw Thraxin is worth fifteen Galodin.’
‘And…how much is one Galodin worth in British money?’ I asked as we descended the steps again and made after the mysterious cloaked man/woman.
‘If I had to guess, at least a hundred pounds’ she replied, as we silently carried out our pursuit.
I exhaled deeply. ‘Then we’d better find out who it is we’re following, and what they were doing in the Thraxin Caves of Ledoran’ as we rounded a corner and saw the cloaked figure slip through a door at the end of a long corridor.
‘Only the royal family and the king’s adviser are supposed to know about the location of the Caves’ she gasped, lowering her voice to barely a whisper as we stopped in front of the door. Through the slightly open door, Ellie and I watched as the cloaked figure produced a medium sized sack tied with a knot at the top from within the confines of his cloak and place it on a square table to the left of him and untied it.
Thrusting his hand inside the sack, he produced a large jagged piece of Thraxin, which glinted as he held it up to the light of an overhead lantern and pulled back his hood: a wicked grin appearing on his scarred face.
Ellie and I both suppressed gasps of shock and looked at each other.
Kaldar.
Ellie’s father was being betrayed. By his most trusted adviser.
Gone
After we’d retraced our steps back to the staircase and were out of earshot of Kaldar, Ellie spoke with anger and determination.
‘We have to tell my dad about this. Stealing from The Thraxin Caves of Ledoran, and therefore the king, is punishable by life imprisonment - or death.’
‘First we need to figure out why Kaldar is stealing the Thraxin in the first place’ I replied as we stopped barely half way up the stairs and moved to stand against the wall so that we could talk.
‘It must be payment for something. Safe passage to Kier Inias Uaea Beiht’Kiana maybe?’
I chewed the inside of my mouth as I contemplated her theory. ‘If that’s the case, wouldn’t he need to exchange the Thraxin for Galodins once it’s been polished?’
‘That would be correct, but any Thraxin to Galodins exchanger would be suspicious of someone who came to them with a sack full of Thraxin pieces – especially if they’re wearing a hooded cloak that completely conceals their identity. From what I’ve read on Elandrean law Thraxin is only given to employers on the first of each month by the palace ,and then they get it exchanged into Galodins…no, Kaldar isn’t going to exchange the Thraxin. Wait a minute, what if the Thraxin is the payment? And if it is, what is he…I’ve got it!’ she explained, not finishing her sentence as she suddenly began hurrying back downstairs in the direction of the library, me hot on her heels wondering what idea was driving her in its direction.
Several seconds later, I had barely taken three steps into the library when Ellie appeared in front of me with a thick red book in hand, Poisons and Healing Elixirs printed on the front cover in thick black text.
‘Kaldar is looking to buy poison?’
‘Not just any poison,’ she replied flipping through the book as we sat on a soft red sofa just by the library doors.
‘This is the Zeridora flower,’ she showed me the illustration of a vibrant, turquoise flower half way through the book. ‘It grows all over Elandrea, has a pleasant smell and its petals are dried to make harmless sweet smelling pouches to freshen houses and shops. However, if you extract the sour juices from its stem and mix it with the crushed berries of Deadly Nightshade you create Moredix. It’s a poison that is fatal to anyone who ingests it, has no known antidote, and can only be found on Kier Inias Uaea Beiht’Kiana…Harry, this is what Kaldar wants. If he gets a hold of the Moredix poison, my father will die and because Aiolos isn’t old enough to inherit the throne yet, the running of the kingdom would fall to Kaldar and if that happens…we must tell my father, even if he doesn’t believe us.’
I nodded, and took her hand ‘let’s go and reveal a traitor.’
***
‘And you two are sure about this?’ asked King Thäro after looking at the book of Poisons and Healing Elixirs, open on the page about Moredix.
Me and Ellie, sat in the two chairs in front of his desk, glanced simultaneously at each other and then looked back at him and nodded.
‘We’re positive. Kaldar wouldn’t need to steal a bag of Thraxin unless he intended to buy something like Moredix - and we know it was him because of the scar running down the left side of his face; revealed in the light of the overhead lamp’ Ellie replied, as though trying to further prove Kaldar’s act of treason.
Her father nodded, contemplating everything we had told him thus far, and then seemed to come to a final decision on the matter as he leant forwards on his desk. ‘I believe everything you two have recounted to me, and I am proud of both of you for being brave enough to follow Kaldar to his uh...secret office but no one - save the Ledoran Guard, and our knights - is to know of his betrayal. We wait for him to leave the palace, which will either be at the dead of night or in the early hours of the morning, with guards and knights stationed behind the bushes on the path leading both into town and in the other direction towards the forest; apprehend him on-sight as he tries to leave and charge him with high treason before locking him away in the palace dungeons to await his trial. Are we all in agreement?’
We nodded again.
‘Good, that’s settled then. I’ll see the two of you at dinner.’
As I followed Ellie out of the study, her father called me back.
‘Yes, Your Majesty?’
The king was silent for moment and
then stood, walking around his desk to stand in front of me.
‘I’d like to let you know that I approve of you and Oraelia starting a romantic relationship. I am an Empath, which means that I can sense people’s emotions, and I can sense that she is happy around you and loves you, as much as you do her. However, I must stress - and I’m sure you don’t need telling twice, that if you ever hurt my daughter I will have no choice but to send you back to the human world, which I do have the authority to do. Do I make myself clear?’
I swallowed, the look in his eyes telling me that he would be true his word if I ever broke his little girl’s heart or did anything else that would bring her harm and nodded to show that I understood.
He smiled then and clapped me on the shoulder, ‘good man.’
‘See you at dinner, King Thäro’ I replied with a bow, and then left his study to change.
Later that evening, only a few hours after dinner, I was just drifting off to sleep when a startled and terrified scream ripped through the silence.
I was up and running down to Ellie’s room in an instant- but stopped short as I reached the door.
It was ajar.
Heart hammering painfully with worry against my chest, I reached out my hand and pushed on the already open door. Stepping into her bedroom, I felt my breath catch in my throat as my eyes took in the smashed lamp beside her bed, and the pillows and duvet scattered across the floor – but, I barely saw them because there was only thing my mind and eyes registered.
Oraelia, as I know I should call her now, was gone.
Part Three: Ellie
Ascevos’ Prison
The dungeons beneath Ascevos’ “castle” were cold and dark, damp and smelly thanks to the stench of blood and stale sweat that drifted off the prison guards patrolling each corridor. As I sat curled up in one of the corners of my cell, I wondered when a guard would come to collect me for my execution – or what they think, will be my execution.
Descendants of Erodis Page 9
