Crystal Kingdoms • Book 1 Of The Crystal Trilogy | ✔️

-| 33 / welcome, i guess |-

Caroline and Phoebe had a lot to talk about.

“Phoebe, what the hell are you doing here? Are Crystal and Scott okay? Did something happen? How did you get here? I thought you'd gone past the border--”, the princess rushed.

“Okay, calm down! I can't tell you what happened unless you relax.”, Phoebe replied, sitting down on the bench closest to her.

“Right. Sorry.”, Caroline ran a hand through her hair. “We can't talk here, anyway. Let's go somewhere more private.”

“If you wanted to get me alone, you could have just asked.”, Phoebe wiggled her eyebrows. Caroline gave her a confused look.

“That's what I just did or do you want everyone to find out where the kingdom's most wanted fugitives are?”

“That's now what I meant...”, Phoebe turned red and followed Caroline.

She noticed that Caroline was pretty on edge, always glancing around suspiciously.

“You're lucky my father isn't here.”, she told Phoebe.

“He's not here? Where is he?”

“I don't know. He left this morning.”, Caroline grumbled.

“And why am I lucky? He wouldn't exactly recognise me.”

“Trust me, he has his ways.”

Caroline stopped in front of a door, opened it and entered the room. Phoebe hesitated.

“Are you coming or what?”, Caroline asked her.

“Yeah.”, Phoebe muttered and went in after her.

Caroline sat down at the edge of the bed. “So? What's going on?”

“Okay, so after we left here, my brother, your sister and I went to a cabin in the woods nearby. Scott somehow has the keys to it and he and Crystal had stayed there before. Anyway, we stayed there for a couple days and the night before we were supposed to leave some guy named Erebos came out of nowhere.”, Phoebe started explaining.

“I know.”, Caroline gulped.

“How?”

“Some witch found him half-dead in the woods and brought him here. My father executed him the next day for failing to bring in your brother and Crystal.”, Caroline frowned.

“Yeah... And I can assure you that if that witch hadn't picked him up he would have died in the woods.”, Phoebe replied, looking ashamed of herself. “That's not the point though. That guy tried to throw a knife at Scott, but missed and stabbed Crystal instead. I stayed behind to... take care of him, and my brother left with Crystal to take her to a healer. They had their fair share of troubles there.”, she sighed.

“What kind of troubles?”

“The short story is that the healer poisoned Crystal and threatened to turn them in.”

“I don't think I want to hear the long story.”

“You don't.”, Phoebe agreed. “We met a few days later past the border. I bumped into Violet before I crossed. She was with some other witch that looked a lot like Crystal and turned out to be Cheryl Cornel.”

“The fact that Violet was traveling with her doesn't surprise me, but I didn't know Crystal looked like her...”, Caroline muttered. Her mind started racing again.

Phoebe didn't seem to notice. “Then I found my brother and Crystal at a tavern. Scott seemed shaken up about something so I went outside to talk with him. It was too late when we realised that we shouldn't have left Crystal all alone.”