The Heirs of Death

5.1 Taloan

TALOAN

The air was cold and humid. Prickles of dust glinted as our fire balls scorched in the dark tunnel, merely lightening the shadows extending in front of us. The passage was small and narrow and suffocating, but we all moved with complete silence.

Only the whispers of our breaths and the mumbles of our footsteps echoed around us. Yet, I could hear the darkness in our minds hissing, chanting cursed words that didn't ease the fear growing deep inside.

If the messenger's words were true, then I only braced myself for the worst. And those words echoed with a constant beat in my head, stabbing claws of ice in my heart. Téors had warned me about the darkness brewing strongly in Eziara, but I never had thought they would strike this soon.

But we couldn't let anyone know. Couldn't ruin that rare gaiety that cloaked Cantelot and each and every heart. It had been long, so long, since those people lived a night of purity and easiness. And thus, we worked silently, ending the ball a couple of hours earlier than originally planned, hiding behind the mask of duties and work. No one questioned, and who did never voiced it out loud, thankfully.

And as fast the castle closed its doors, all nobles retreated, some to their houses down in the high streets of Vemor, others in the rooms we provided inside the Ether palace. The ones that stayed were to change immediately before they joined Father and me into a scouting mission.

We moved fast, taking turns after turns, and Father, guiding us, never once paused to consider which way to take. And I wondered about how many times he had used those secret passageways before. How many wars and assaults he had to endure. But I didn't ask, and deep down, a part of me didn't want to know.

We turned again, twelve shadows walking steadily behind the King and I, all of us mantled in black cloaks and hoods. A camouflage. If the need to fight ever arose, the darkness of our cloths would play for us since the sky was still black as coal. Even Luthian and Hydn, now donned in the white uniform of the White Troopers, were wrapped in black fabric for protection.

We walked, and walked a bit more until I could no longer tell how long we'd been traipsing, neither how far we were from the castle.

Those turns led far behind what the eyes could see, tying the Ether palace with almost every city and country in Cantelot, creating a vast cobweb of communications and shelters when war would rise. But what was even more fascinating was the intact state of the carvings in the stones as they lasted from Leander's days.

Breathing heavily, I forced my legs to move; all the dancing and smiling and chattering started wearing off on me. I casted a quick glance at my father grim face, my eyes locking with his for the briefest of moments, and I saw that we had almost reached our destination. But what I saw more was the tremor veiling clearly his aura. If it really was an attack, and if there really were victims like reported, then war was coming close. And drastically.