“You realm hop, Andrea. How?” I asked, thinking about something I read last night about other Realms. Since she was here, and not galivanting about the realm with Hakim, I might as well learn what I could about her and the beast.
She stared at me as if I were a child before answering hesitantly, “Through the Portals, Maribella. You know this. Are you sure you don’t need some air after being locked up in that dusty old room?”
I waved her off. “No, Andrea. You specifically, do you sense them? Or do you just know which one is which?”
It took her a second, but she finally caught on to my question. “Ohhhhh, I’m following now. You are talking about the energy fields the beast can sense. The ones Hakim and I have been mapping...” Her eyes grew wide at my blank stare. “The portals we have been mapping after the book got destroyed! You think there is another book!”
I yelled at her, “There is a book? And what do you mean by mapping out Portals?”
Andrea sheepishly grinned. “Yes? I mean there was one a long time ago, but it went up in flames. But I remember the author, and also I thought you knew why Hakim and I are gone all the time?”
Throwing my hands up dramatically, my crutches clattered to the ground. “You know I have been searching endlessly in the archives room for all mentions of portals. Have you been able to find any portals into the Veiled Realm? I want to speak to the witch again.”
Andrea half grimaced and shook her head. “Sorry, I haven’t had any luck. The only way I got there in the first place was a random Dragon wearing fancy armor who snapped me into the other realm to deliver the weapon. He had mentioned ‘the Mystics’.”
I groaned in frustration, reaching out to Uthal who had picked up my crutches. After situating them in place, I smoothed down the sleeve to my dress, which had flipped about when I dramatically threw my hands in the air. Oh no, the ceremony. Eyes widening in alarm, I turned to Uthal. “Just this once.”
She grinned wildly and grabbed my waist, tossing me over her shoulder in one swift motion.
“Wait! No, not like that!” I giggle-screamed, bouncing on Uthal’s shoulder as she took off in a sprint. The corridor rooms and empty hallway flew past at breakneck speed, Andrea hot on our heels. We reached the doors to the courtyard in seconds and Uthal bent down, gently placing me on the ground. Pushing back most of my hair which had escaped the fancy bun the ladies in waiting had pinned up on the top of my head at the beginning of the day, I grabbed my crutches from Andrea.
“How does my hair look?” I sarcastically posed my question to Uthal and Andrea.
Uthal snickered and looked away, staring everywhere but in my direction. Andrea chuckled before stepping forward, pulling the rest of my hair out of the bun, letting it topple down to my waist before moving around some of my loose curls. “There, that looks better in my opinion. You should never tame your wild side, certainly not for today.”
Andrea and Uthal simultaneously took a step forward when I nodded to them that I was ready and pushed open the courtyard doors, bright morning sun beating down onto my face. Taking a deep breath, I stepped out to a courtyard packed full of humans and Dragons, all staring in my direction. After today, Rafael and I would be known forth across the Old Lands as the newest King and Queen of the Mountain Dragon Stronghold.
The End
Deleted Scene
Are you interested in more Maribella and her time in the Veiled Realm? If so, continue reading for a deleted scene.
Chapter 1
Landing none too gently onto a wooden floor with an ‘oof,’ followed by another thump just behind me, I scrambled around to see the small thump in question was a small girl. She emitted a high-pitched moan before reaching up to push the hair from her face.
“Amelia?” What in the ever-loving holy quest gods was my lady-in-waiting-in-training doing here?
“My Princess?” It came out garbled and I quickly stood, grabbing Amelia by the arms, hauling her up into a standing position. She stared at me with a slightly confused look on her face before throwing her arms around my waist in a tight hug. Hugging her back, I looked around as she kept murmuring ‘my princess’ repeatedly into my chest. Frowning, I reached out to poke at the wooden wall with my finger. It looked like my cabin in the woods, yet everything seemed slightly off.
“Amelia?”
She sniffled, looking up at me and wiping at her eyes. “Yes, My Princess?”
“What do you see?”
She slowly turned her head and looked around. “It’s a cabin, my Princess—but...” She stopped, shaking her head before burying her face back into my stomach.
“That’s what I thought.” I murmured as I stroked her hair. “Something is off. I don’t think we are in our realm anymore.”
Pausing, I looked down at Amelia whose whole body was shaking. Right. I should probably take care of this first and figure out why she was with me. The Knight mentioned a sacrifice was to be made, and I had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. Shimmying down and out of Amelia’s tight grasp, I knelt on my knees.
Grasping Amelia’s shoulders, I tilted her head up so she could look me in the eyes. “Tell me the last thing you remember.”
Amelia sniffled and glanced around once more before answering me. “I was told my Princess needed me and I was handed a bag. Then a great, white light engulfed me.”
I leaned to the side to see the bag behind her, contents starting to spill out onto the floor. “Well, that’s where we should start, don’t you think?”
Amelia’s face grew pale, and I panicked for a second, hoping she wasn’t about to faint. Shaking her head, as to throw off whatever had just come over her, she stepped back and retrieved the bag, handing it to me. I discreetly looked her over to make sure of no visible signs of injury, but she seemed fine, so I chalked up her reaction to the shock of being unceremoniously tossed into another realm so suddenly.
WE WERE BOTH SITTING on the floor of the cabin, taking in everything we were able to gather up around us. As it turned out, the bag only contained two cloaks, walking slippers, and a small capsule filled with a weird blue liquid which moved around of its own accord. It was attached to a chain like a necklace, but I was skeptical and didn’t want the unknown substance against my skin. While walking the strange one-roomed cabin we found ourselves in, we were able to gather up a few more things I felt we might need. This included rope, a lantern with a firestone, and a dull knife. I hadn’t seen any type of rations or water, but I would have been erring on the side of caution, even if I had. I knew the stories, and in all of them, eating or drinking in realms you didn’t know always ended poorly.
The cabin felt like it was occupied by a small child, and for some reason it unnerved me, making me glance at Amelia far more than I needed to. It was as if my mind was trying to tell me something, but I couldn’t figure out what. The furniture was small, akin to Amelia’s size, and miscellaneous items I would think a child around Amelia’s age, lay strewn about. Flipping through a stack of thin books entitled fairy tales, I frowned. They were stories I had never heard of, but from a glance, they looked like cautionary tales told to children so they would behave. Shaking my head, I padded back over to Amelia and slipped off my jewelry, placing it into the canvas bag along with the weird blue substance and tossed on a cloak. I handed the smaller cloak to Amelia and slipped the walking slippers onto my bare feet. Amelia had taken the cloak in silence and continued to stare through the only window in the cabin. I looked around once more at what we had and rubbed my face. It wasn’t much, which made me think this was going to be a quest of wits more than a quest of survival. Plus, there was still a hound that was supposed to deliver a weapon. I let out a sigh and adjusted the bodice of my gown.
Yes, that was correct. I was still in my wedding dress.
Silently, I thanked the Gods my gown was tearproof. I had a hunch I was about to learn fully what this fabric was capable of withstanding. Sliding the dull knife up the sleeve of my dress to hide it from sight, I tur
ned, grabbing the lantern and struck the firestone. Two tries later and the lantern lit. Slipping the stone into my pocket, I drew the hood of the cloak over my head and stepped towards the window Amelia was seemingly transfixed with. An eerie fog encased the thick forest outside. It gave me chills knowing we would have to go out into it.
Amelia looked up at me, defeat written across her face. It was as if she read my thoughts. “Do we have to go out there?”
She sounded so sad, and my heart ached for her.
I hugged her from behind. “Well, we are on a quest after all. Don’t most quests end up outside?”
Amelia hung her head submissively before moving out of my hug and gathered up the rope, stuffing it into the bag. It was as if the strange energy within this realm was starting to infest her mind. I could feel it sitting heavy in the air surrounding us, and I shivered once more trying to shake the uneasy feeling building around me. Glancing out of the window one last time, I wondered how time worked in this place. For all I knew, this was the Fairy Realm where one day equaled a year in the Dragons Realm.
I prayed it wasn’t. I couldn’t imagine Rafael would do well without me for a whole year.
Shaking off that unpleasant thought, I watched Amelia move sluggishly toward the cabin door. It almost looked like something didn’t want her to leave. A shiver slid down my spine as I reached over her shoulder to grasp the door handle. It clicked open, and I sucked in a deep breath to steady myself before following Amelia into the fog.
AMELIA STAYED CLOSE as we walked along a dirt path. The fog had not let up in the slightest and it was most definitely magical in nature. Fog, last time I checked, was water and in being so, should have made us little wet by now. We weren’t and neither was the ground. The air smelt bitter and dry, leaving behind a foul taste in one’s mouth. Then there were the houses we had passed by; all different styles. And the people, if they were people at all, never once acknowledged our presence. I gave up trying to speak to them after the third one. It was as if they were sleep walking, doing the same things over and over again. It was unnerving to say the least. Amelia was still silent and had yet to let up her gaze into the woods. The daze she was in was beginning to worry me. We had yet to run into a hound like the one the Knight mentioned. I hoped we weren’t meant to wait at the cabin for it. Suddenly, I stopped and Amelia bumped into me. She made a strangled noise and I turned, brushing a stray hair away from her forehead. Damn it, her skin was ice cold.
Gently taking the bag from her grasp and taking off my cloak, I bundled her up. It was big enough to wrap around her tiny body two times over. I threw the bag over my shoulder before lifting Amelia into my arms. I looked down at the lantern. Then up at the path in front of me.
I turned, Shit.
I had no idea which way to go. The fog was just there, surrounding us, and all I could see along the sides of the path was thick, overgrown forest. I looked back down at the lantern. Why had I stopped again?
I shook my head, feeling as if a wet blanket had been pulled over my senses.
Wait...yes—the path. Why had we decided to follow it?
I shivered, turning right as the first noise I had heard in hours echoed deep within the forest. Tentatively, I took a step off the path onto soft undergrowth and fallen leaves. Seconds later the fog lifted, clearing out quickly as an old-fashioned cottage with a thatched roof appeared in front of me. I stopped, silently holding my breath as a woman who looked around my age hummed while sweeping leaves off the front porch. Her thick, black hair was plaited into a simple braid reaching to her lower back, and she was wearing what looked like an oversized sack with a painting on it and skintight breaches. Taking a hesitant step forward, my foot landed on a branch, letting out an audible crack beneath me. The woman turned towards the sound and threw her hands up, fingers outstretched and readied to make a shape in the air before stopping abruptly. I stared at the broom, which was standing straight up on its bristled end.
“You stepped off the path.”
“You can see us?”
We both spoke at the same time.
The woman, who I was betting was a witch, grabbed the broom as it started to move away of its own accord and leaned it against the wall.
This was not good. Last time I checked, witches, nine times out of ten, were bad news.
“Yes, I can see you traveler. Why don’t you join me inside? Whomever you are carrying seems to have succumbed to the fog, and we should see to them right away.”
My foot glided forward of its own accord, and I forced myself to stop. The witch turned, opened the front door of the cottage, and then looked back, noticing that I was not following.
Throwing her hands up in dismay, she growled, “I swear upon Hecate herself I intend no harm, but it is best not to linger. The Gatekeeper is a mad, old fool that I would prefer not to entertain.”
Shaking her head before stepping inside, the witch didn’t wait around to see if I would follow. Amelia shivered, and I flinched as the fog started to close in around us.
Decision made, I ran up the steps into the witch’s cottage and prayed to the Gods I didn’t just condemn us to a horrible fate. The door slammed behind me with a rattle, making me jump.
Looking around at what seemed to be the entrance hall to the cottage, I took in the whitewashed walls and clean lemon scent tickling my nose. I couldn’t place the architecture of the cottage; it was entirely foreign to me. To my left, was a large square room with a long couch facing a blank wall. A short table next to the couch had a weird, square thing on it and had a thick string connecting to the wall. There was a pile of smaller, thin round things with holes in the middle piled up next to the square. I shook my head and headed deeper into the cottage. A clanging noise was coming from down the hall along with the telltale whistle of a water kettle being heated. I turned right, stepping into a huge open-concept cooking area. Or at least, I assumed it was a cooking area. The whistling was coming out of a weird looking kettle perched on what looked like a stove. I couldn’t tell how it was getting its heat though, because it was small and thin with no place to put any wood or heating stones. This was truly a type of magic foreign to me. I’d never seen anything like it back in my realm. I was curious to which realm this house and witch came from, or if she was native here. From what I gleamed walking along the path, the cottage matched this realm, in its mismatch of architecture. The witch turned and grabbed the kettle off the tiny stove. She gave me a brief smile before pouring steaming water into a teapot, which was the only thing in the cooking area that looked remotely normal in my mind. She wiped off her hands with a cloth next to the stove and pointed to a closed door to the left of me. “You can put your companion down in the bedroom.”
I turned and looked at the door, then back at the witch. Did she expect me to magically open the door?
She blinked and let out a light chuckle. “Right, let me open it for you first.”
Brushing past to the open door, I peeked in to see a bed, along with a small side table, a chair, and two other doors on the wall. I briefly wondered where those doors led. Probably a bathing room, and from the lack of a wardrobe or trunk in the room, I was betting clothing storage space was behind one of the doors also.
At least this room looked normal enough.
Stepping inside, I gently laid Amelia on the bed, tucking her in under the blanket. I knelt, laying my hand on her cheek. She had stopped shivering soon after we entered the house, but she was still quite cold to the touch. The witch had retreated back to the cooking area and was bustling back and forth, taking down a few mugs and glasses from a shelf along with a plate. She put what looked like round, frosted cookies onto the plate before opening the big rectangle thing that was standing flush against the cottage wall. She pulled out a container of thick, white liquid and poured it into a glass before putting the container back into the rectangle. Checking the tea and deeming it fully seeped, the witch poured a cup. Coming into the room, she put it onto the bedside table and reached over
to touch Amelia’s forehead. I didn’t know what came over me, but I stood, grabbing her wrist before she could make contact. I didn’t want her touching Amelia before we had a chance to talk.
Staring her down, she shrugged and gently peeled my fingers from her wrist before backing away with her hands up. “That’s fine. Leave the tea and come sit with me in the kitchen. I am sure you have questions.”
My brows furrowed as the witch turned, leaving me alone with Amelia, and stepped back into the cooking area. By the Gods above, yes, I did have questions, but first off, I wanted to know what in all the realms was a kitchen?
Chapter 2
I was sitting on what the witch referred to as a barstool and every time I would look over my shoulder to check on Amelia’s sleeping form, the chair seat would spin with me. It was mildly disconcerting, and it was making me nauseous. After I left the room, Amelia had moaned and rolled over, snuggling deeper into the blanket. The witch smiled at me while dunking a cookie into the white liquid, I was guessing it was milk of some sort. She had offered me one, but I shook my head no. Leaning back into her chair, she sized me up while munching on a milk drenched cookie.
I took the time to do the same.
The witch in question was pale, with shapely dark eyebrows and thick, blue-black hair hanging heavily in a simple braid. Her dark green eyes were deep and watchful, which brought a wave of calmness to my uncertainty. Glancing away, my gaze dropped, snagging on her neck and the faint scar running fully from her bottom right ear all the way down to the top of her left collarbone. It was clean with no hesitation marks. She caught me looking and smiled. “It’s a tragic love story, but it is what brought me to this realm.”
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