"Don't worry," Sajen continued before Aris could even answer his question. "Just remember to keep your head high, shoulders erect, and most certainly, never, ever, under any circumstances, speak... unless spoken to. Understood?"
"I'm meeting your dad?" she squeaked. Raven and Sajen were bad enough; what was their dad like?
"Most certainly. The great King Saj. He's not as forgiving of humans' customs as I am. Be careful."
As Aris nodded, Nettle whispered in her ear, "I've heard he eats woodland pixies for breakfast."
The human jerked her shoulder, hissing, "Not helping."
Before Sajen started walking towards the throne, he turned back to Aris for one last instruction.
"And when he comes in, bow low."
"Okay," she said with a small nod.
When the shadow prince began walking forwards, Aris hurried to catch up with him, the guards following with Raven in front of them. The banished prince made walked silently, eerily quiet. Sajen motioned for Aris to walk a few steps straight while he went to the other side of the room. As she did so, her boot rammed into a hard, vertical surface, and she gasped, falling forward on a set of stairs.
"Geez Louise!"
Raven, despite himself, huffed a little in laughter, then cleared his throat.
"I can't see!" Aris hissed in annoyance, hot in the face. Nettle clutched tightly to her hair.
"You must forgive the darkness of the palace," Sajen said. "Shadow elves-"
"Don't like the light," Aris said, straightening again. "Trust me, I found that out the hard way."
The six of them—the two guards, Raven, Sajen, Nettle, and Aris—waited. Aris tapped her fingers nervously against her legs, trying to calm her beating heart. Mutterings and questions ran through her mind, seeming to collide with each other painfully. It gave a headache. What was the king going to be like? Would Aris even know if he entered the room? She could hardly see anything. Curse the shadow elves and their darkness obsession!
Why did she ever listen to Nikki?
Note to self: never say yes when a half-vampiric ghost asks you on a date.
Aris took a deep breath, trying to calm down, but the darkness made it near impossible. She needed light. She felt like she was slowly suffocating.
A side door suddenly opened, revealing two guards similarly dressed like the ones holding Raven: with tunics and silver and black breastplates. The guards stationed themselves on either side of the side door resolutely, and another elf came through. Aris could see his outline, and his ghostly pale face, but not much else. He looked older than both Raven and Sajen. His hair was pitch black and fell smoothly down below his waist in a straight line. The man's cheekbones were prominent beneath his skin, lips thin. His eyes, of course, were brown, but they changed shades like every other shadow elves' eyes Aris had seen. His ears protruded out of the line of black hair with sharp tips.
He wore a breastplate similar to his guards: black with silver etchings. Atop his head, the shadow king adorned a crown made of thin lines of pure silver woven together to fit perfectly around his head; in the center, there was a light blue gem that sparkled.
The king moved around his throne and looked down at the people before him. Seeing Sajen begin to bow, Aris did the same, feeling her curiosity of the man grow.
"Ravlynn, Ravlynn, Ravlynn," the king sighed. He gazed at his chained son with a bored-like countenance and sat down on his throne. "Out of all the good people in shadow history, I had to be stuck with you as a son. Typical."
ŞİMDİ OKUDUĞUN
Finding the Rift (The Traveling Rifts Trilogy: Book One)
Fantastik"If you were looking for... answers to something, and this random stranger approached you, saying he knew where to find them... would you follow him?" ~~~ Aris lost her memory as a sixteen-year-old. Aris's parents lost all their memories of her at...
