“Yes, I didn’t think it had worked.”
“That’s one of the reasons I was so angry when I got here. You aren’t allowed to summon me. I understand why you did it now. I don’t want you dining with the princess either,” he said, “especially if she really did do it.”
“We need to go to the town tomorrow. If she was going to hide it somewhere safe and away from here, that’s where we think it would be.”
He looked at us for a minute before nodding. “Let’s get going. I wouldn’t want the king to start without you. It’s bad manners, and he won’t be as forthcoming if you upset him right away.”
Everyone was ready to go. I saw the relief in Abby’s eyes. Dining with the king was way better than the princess, at least we hoped it would be. Hilail opened the door, and the other guard stumbled. It looked like he had been trying to listen.
“Duron, I am escorting our guests to have dinner with the king. The princess will have to reschedule for another time.”
Duron looked at Hilail and nodded, “Yes, sir. I will let her know.”
“See that you do.”
“Of course, sir,” Duron said. “Whatever you need.”
“Come to me at the end of your shift. I want to change your schedule. You have been doing a good job, and you deserve some time off for it.”
“Oh no, sir, I’m fine.”
“I’m sure you would like to have a little free time to spend with your family or maybe a couple of friends. I insist on giving you that time,” Hilail said. I turned, and the guard was still standing there watching us. He looked scared. I wondered if the princess was going to be mad at him for the change of plans.
“Why did you reward him?” I whispered to Hilail when we were further down the hall.
“If he gets time off, he isn’t guarding your door. I occasionally give time off to the guards that are doing the best, so it won’t be suspicious, and it gets him out of the way. I will put a guard on your door that I can trust. I wonder how many other guards the princess has on her side?”
“A lot from the way she was talking. She must be doing something to win them over.”
“I don’t know what. She has no real power right now. Maybe she is making them promises of power if they support her.”
“I don’t know. I was thinking something worse, like blackmail. That guard, Duron, looked scared at the end there. I’m guessing it’s because of the princess. He had no reason to be scared of you or us.”
“I really hope she isn’t using blackmail.” He looked really upset about it. “An elemental who chooses to do bad things slowly changes into a monster. The more bad things you do, the more you want to do bad things. Usually, it ends up with an elemental doing black magic, which causes their souls to be destroyed forever. They can never come back from using black magic. At that point, the darkness takes over and causes them to do horrible things. We haven’t had anyone succumb to black magic in hundreds of years.”
“How do you know if you did a bad thing?”
“We all know when we’ve done something wrong. You can feel it in your magic.”
“That must be why some of you have a darker glow around you than others.”
“What do you mean a darker glow?” he stopped in the middle of the hallway.
“Some of the elementals glow a darker color than others.”
“You see a glow around us?”
“Yes, don’t you?”
“No. What does it look like?”
“It’s just a blue glow that surrounds each elemental. I’ve been trying to figure out why certain elementals have a darker blue. At first, I thought it was strength, but when I met the princess, she had the darkest blue of everyone. She didn’t seem very strong, so I knew it couldn’t be that.” I thought about it for a minute, “It makes sense. If an elemental makes bad choices, their glow gets darker, eventually turning it into a gray or black color. Kind of like the curse around your king.”
He gripped my arms, “You can see the curse?”
“Yes, I thought all of you could. I mean, you knew every time I went to use my magic, so I figured you could see it just like me. When you use your magic, the blue glow gets stronger around your hands.”
“I know when you use your magic because I can feel it building up near you. I can’t see it. I’ve never heard of anyone being able to see it before. What does the king’s curse look like?”
I explained to him what I had seen, and he shook his head, “I don’t know what that means, but it might be useful. I will let the healer know immediately. Maybe she can use your description to heal him.”
We continued down the hall as Hilail questioned me about what else I could see. He wanted to know a lot about what the princess’s glow looked like.
“What about me?” he finally asked.
“It’s darker than everyone I’ve met but the princess. But it is still pretty light blue compared to hers, so you probably haven’t done anything too bad, right?”
“Right. I’ve only done what I’ve had to do,” he said.
I wanted to ask more, but he stopped in front of a set of doors and pushed them open.
“Your majesty, I present the humans for dinner.”
“Hilail, I wasn’t aware they would be dining with me tonight,” the king said from his chair at the table. Nothing had been placed before him yet, so I knew we weren’t late.
“I apologize, but I thought it would be important to talk to them as quickly as possible, and they had a lot of questions for you.”
The king started to say something but shook his head and smiled, “Of course. Please join me,” he said. He seemed genuine, and I wondered if this was what he was always like before the curse. If he was, it made sense why so many of the elementals in the palace liked him.
“Thank you,” I told him. We all sat down. Servants came out of a hidden door and set places in front of each of us. They poured water, and then they were gone.
“What is it I can do for you?” the king asked.
“We need more information so we can find your staff,” Richard got right to the point.
“Who do you think did it? Who had access to it?”
“I don’t know who did it and as to who had access, no one. I was the only one who knew where it was.”
“Are you sure about that?” I asked.
A dark look crossed his eyes. “Of course I am, this is my house, I know who has access to everything,” he growled.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you,” I tried to calm him.
“You humans know nothing,” he said. “You don’t belong in this place, or at my table.”
Hilail walked over and tried to talk to the king. I closed my eyes and looked at the king. The dark strand had gotten longer and was winding around the king’s body. A small tendril floated directly next to the king’s head, and I reached out with my magic to try and move it. I had a feeling it was influencing the king’s behavior. The rest of his glow was still a bright blue, so he had to be a good elemental.
“What are you doing?” Hilail turned to stop me.
“There’s a dark part of the curse trying to wrap around his head. I’m going to try to move it so the king acts more like himself.”
The king was shaking his head and grimacing, “Do it quickly before it retakes control.”
I gathered my magic and tried to use air to make the dark thread move, but I couldn’t get the air to even touch the blue or black around the king. I walked up to the king and put my hand near his head where the dark thread was. I tried grabbing it, but it was so fine my hand went right through.
The king shuddered, “Try again, I could feel you do something.”
I gathered more magic and willed the air to flow around the black strand and leave the blue alone. My magic surrounded the black strand. I tried to take it away from the king, but he cried out.
“Stop. It hurts. Whatever you are doing, stop.”
I stopped immediately and waited for him to stop
moving. I took the strand and tried to push it down away from the king’s head. Slowly it moved further and further away from his head. When I finally got it to his knees, I stopped. I was panting and out of breath. I started to fall, but Richard grabbed me to keep me upright.
“I need to sit,” I whispered weakly to him. He helped me to my chair, and I flopped into it.
“Young lady, I don’t know what you did, but you stopped the curse,” the king said happily.
I barely had the strength to look at him, “I didn’t stop it. I moved it away from your head so the curse couldn’t influence your decisions. I can’t get rid of it. I was trying to when you said it hurt. I may have bought you some time, but we still need to find your staff right away.”
His face instantly changed. He was no longer smiling and looked deeply saddened, “How much time do you think I have?”
“I may have bought you a day or two. We need to hurry, but no one is very helpful,” the king looked at Hilail sharply, “except Hilail, of course.”
“What is it you need?” he asked.
“We need people to talk to us. They look at us like we are either monsters or beneath them.”
“Many elementals are going to treat you that way. They think they know what it was like when we lived among you. They think they were all worshipped as gods and goddesses and they never had to work for anything. It’s not true though they won’t listen to what I say.”
“It’s not true? That’s what I thought too,”
“We were worshipped, but elementals were also teachers to the group of humans we chose to share our gifts with. We worked beside them, teaching them how to use their powers for good, not for darkness. There were always a couple of elementals and humans who used dark magic and tried to use humans for their own gain, but they were easy to stop,” he took a deep breath and looked away from us.
“The shadow king didn’t really bother us until elementals from each group came together and started teaching humans how to use very dark magic for their own gain. When these dark magic users started destroying hundreds of lives, the shadow king finally had enough. He didn’t think humans were capable of controlling magic, and he blamed us for teaching them, so we were banished. Now, a new darkness spreads across the land, trying to destroy us.”
“Will you help us?” I asked, thinking about the dream I had about the darkness.
“Yes, though many will not agree with it. If you find my staff, I will help you when it is time to banish the darkness.”
“Thank you. I think we will need all the help we can get. First, we must find your staff. I know you don’t want to hear it, but it is looking more likely that Adam is telling the truth.”
“The one from my dungeons,” the king looked at Adam. “How can this be?”
“I overheard your daughter, she is not satisfied with her life here and wants to rule among the humans. She thinks you keep the elementals here over a vow with a shadow king that is not even here anymore.”
“He’s here. She doesn’t want to believe it. Even as a little girl she wanted to live among humans. I don’t know why or who would have made her believe it is her right to do so, but I thought I had talked her out of such things.”
“No, she has hidden her thoughts from you. I’m sorry, your majesty, but I don’t think you can trust her. We think she has done some darker magic than she should have.”
“Do you have proof?” he asked his voice gruff.
“Not really, at least not that you can see.” I explained to him my theory on the darker glow coming from her. He listened and nodded quietly until I was finished.
“I’ve never heard of a human that could do that. Once long ago, in my grandfather’s time, there was an elemental who could see our magical signatures. He said it was the most important part of us, and I think that’s what you are seeing. You are describing it in the same exact way. If you think that’s the case, there is a good chance it is,” he looked at me, “and what about my color? Is mine dark now?”
“No, you have the brightest blue I have seen, even though there is a strand of black running through it from the curse. It hasn’t changed who you are. You are good. The curse can’t change that, even if the curse takes you over completely, it looks like your magical signature won’t be changed. It’s the curse that is bad, not you.” He looked relieved.
“Tell me why you came here in the first place. I still don’t really know.”
I told him everything about the note and how I thought I needed to come.
“The water sprites are here in this realm. They came with us when we left our homes to come to this planet. They do not like to be bothered though, and we rarely see them. I am surprised that they have been in the human realm. I didn’t even know that was possible. I thought I sealed the entrances.”
“There’s more than one?”
“Of course, but they are tough to find. You came through the main entrance, but we used to have many ways to your realm,” I filed this information away to think about later. “I will send word to the sprites to come for a meeting with you. Then we can see what they called you down here for. They know that humans aren’t supposed to know of us.”
“Thank you.”
Chapter twenty
“I want to give you something that will help you find the staff,” the king said after staring at me for a minute.
“If you have something that will help, why haven’t your men been able to find it yet?” I asked suspiciously.
“Because I didn’t give it to them.”
“Why not?”
“By the time I realized the staff was missing, I was already being changed by the curse. It didn’t want me finding the staff, but you have given me a second chance. I know I need your help.”
“Why don’t you give whatever it is to Hilail?”
“Once the curse fully takes me over, it will start to affect everyone around me. Those closest to me will feel it first. Hilail is my nephew, so it will come to him quickly. Our healers were able to learn that much. This curse will eventually turn all the water elementals if it takes me since they are all connected to me. I can’t trust that the staff will be found before Hilail starts to be affected too.”
“I understand. What do you need to give me?” I asked him.
“I will show you once we finish our meal. We will need to go to a more private place. If my daughter really is behind this, she will have spies everywhere.” he changed the subject, “I’m surprised you have magic. The shadow king must have spared some of you, but for what purpose, I’m not sure. No one knows why the shadow king does the things he does. He hasn’t been seen in ages, but he is still around.”
“How do you know?”
“I can feel him,” he said. “All the elemental kings and queens are linked with the shadow king. When we swear our oath to him, we become bonded. If he died, I would know.”
“Wow,” was all I could think to say. To be bonded to the shadow king seemed like a pretty big deal.
“The shadow king is not bad. He did not banish us without good reason. Some of our own people made terrible choices, and we should have stopped them before they caused so much trouble. It’s why we are careful to not ever use dark magic.”
“Is there a reason why your daughter would have turned to dark magic?”
“No, she has been protected from having to do anything that would cause her to use dark magic. I don’t understand what would have made her do this,” he hung his head.
“I’m sorry,” I told him.
“It’s fine,” he said.
“Can you tell me anything about the elementals?” I asked.
“Earth, air, fire, and water are the four types of elementals. We all came from the stars very far away after catastrophes affected our homes. Void is not really an elemental. There really isn’t a name for it, which is why they were called elementals. No one really knows much about them. When they first arrived, it wasn’t in a burst of wind or even a ring of fire or ice. The
y just appeared one day, as if they had been here the whole time and were choosing to reveal themselves to us.”
I leaned in closer. I really wanted to know more about the void elementals or whatever they really were. “What else do you know about them?”
“Sadly, not much. They were incredibly secretive, and they didn’t take humans as followers like we did. I think they may have given power to a few humans at the most. We haven’t seen one since the banishing, and even then, we only saw them once every couple of years. They never caused anyone any trouble, and they were never involved in any of the fights between elementals, though I heard that they had power over life and death. That’s all I know about them,” the king told us.
We finished our meal, and he stood up, “Come with me.”
We followed him out of the dining hall and through a door that led into an outdoor garden. I looked up and saw a beautiful sun shining down and plants and flowers everywhere. “How is this all possible?” I asked. We were still under the lake as far as I could tell, but it didn’t look like it.
“Magic,” he said. “Look up again, but out of the corner of your eye.” I did what he said, “There, do you see it, a slight rippling or shimmering in the air?”
“Yes, what is it?”
“It’s a protective dome. Technically we are not in your realm, but this one does push up against it. We keep protections up in case our realm and yours were to collide. Then the water from the lake would be able to get in and destroy our home. The protections are always being reinforced,” he said when he looked at me. I must have looked worried thinking about all that water flooding into here.
“You all have to stay in this realm?”
“We don’t have to. We are not allowed to interact with humans, but as long as we stay near the oceans or rivers, we are allowed to go wherever we want. Anyone leaving has to have my permission. No one has been out of our realm for hundreds of years, except to collect the belongings of Adam after he snuck in. I thought it would be best to keep everyone away from humans. There is too much danger in someone revealing themselves to a human and the shadow king hearing of it,” he said. “Come here so I can share this with you.”
Lost Tides: Elemental Seekers Series Page 23