Saving Elementals

Chapter 16

"Wow," Acid says staring at the portal in front of us. It swirls with purple in the black and white dots are scattered throughout it. I walk towards it and look at the stone around it which is covered in moss. The whole portal is in a cave which is probably one of the reasons that none of the other kingdoms could ever find it. 
"We can take our horses through there, right?" I ask, turning to Ebony. He nods, still staring at the portal in front of us. I get back on my horse and take one last look around us. There aren't any people around us and even the animals seem to stay away from the portal.
"Ready?" I ask turning to the others. They nod and I don't my horse forward. I ride through the portal and wait as the others ride through. People are walking around the dark streets, no torches around to light them up. Ebony rides through the portal and it's in front of us.
"It's daytime!" Waves exclaims drawing the attention of a couple people on the streets. One look from Ebony quiets her and we follow him as he rides off into a dark alley. He stops his horse and jumps off, walking to the others side of his horse and rummaging through his bag.
"Throw these on," he says, taking some clothes out of his bag and throwing them at us. I walk behind my horse and quickly change into the dark clothes. I strap my sword around my waist and the sheath blends into my clothing.
I walk out from behind my horse and wait for the others to get dressed. They walk out from behind their horses and we stand there,waiting for Ebony to tell us where we're going. He pulls his map out of his bag and turns to me.
"Carbon. Where do we need to go?" He asks me. He sits down and unfolds the map on the ground. We sit down around the map while I think of what the person we met at the Poison Kingdom said.
"We need to go to the resources center. We can look there," I reply. He nods and looks down at the map, showing us that it's on the other side of the kingdom. We talk for a while about how to get there and he tells us how people in the Night Kingdom act.
We get up and hop onto our horses. Ebony puts his map back into his bag and grabs some fruit. He hands is each a piece and we eat it before riding back to the end of the alley. He stops at the end of the alley way, turning to us with a serious expression on his face.
"Also, don't look anyone in the eyes," he says. We nod and follow him out of the alley way. We ride past the people and I notice that most of them are in tagged clothing and none of the other people on the street have a horse or other way to get around besides walking.
The building are all really dark and tower over the streets, making it even darker than it would already be. We don't talk as we ride, not wanting to draw anymore attention than we are already getting and people aren't really supposed to talk on the streets in this kingdom.
At one point We ride by some people who are arguing and they start fighting each other. People walk around them, not wanting to get caught in the middle of a fight.
One kid walks up to the fighting people and a mother runs up, quickly grabbing the kid by their hand. She apologizes to the people and bolts away, dragging her kid behind her. The people fighting take no notice of her or her kid as they continue to fight each other in the middle of the street.
One of the people gets knocked out by a punch to the nose and falls back onto the dirt road, hitting their head on a rock. I wince and turn away, seeing that Acid and Waves had a similar reaction to mine seeing the fight. Ebony and Kindle don't look too shaken up.
We go onto a bigger street and there's a huge library. Ebony sees me looking at it and shakes his head, pointing at a sign on the front door that says only royalty is allowed in, unless you pay a few of a ridiculous amount of money.
I shake my head and we keep riding, seeing some stores where there are people fighting. One person stops us and we look away from their eyes as he yells at us. He comes over to my horse and tries to take my stuff. I try to keep him away with my foot but he bites my leg and I quickly move it back in shock.
Without thinking, I jump down from my horse and pull out my sword, and he runs away. I hop back on my horse and we quickly ride away from the markets, not really too keen on being robbed of our stuff. I look down at my leg and decide that it will be fine, but I will definitely have a bruise there for the next week or so.
We ride past a residential area where people glare at us from their front porches. Acid shrinks back and pulls their hood over their head. Kindle has her hand over the knife in her pocket, looking around at everyone, but not glaring at them, only because she promised Ebony that she wouldn't.
There are no kids playing outside the houses, most of them standing by their mothers watching us pass by or are inside of the house. All the years are unkempt and the houses look as if they are going to fall apart any second, and I wouldn't be surprised if one did.
A couple people walk by us, staying away from people's houses. We finally make it out of the neighborhood and I can hear Tornado sigh in relief. I check my watch and see that it's already almost four in the afternoon. Ebony looks over and sees me looking at my watch.
He quickly reaches over and grabs my sleeve, pulling it up so my watch doesn't show. He glares at me and then keeps on riding. I forgot that he told us not to show any jewelry and I make a mental note to apologize to him later.
We make it to another street and stop abruptly.