Raelia (The Medoran Chronicles Book 2) (19 page)

“Excuse me, Library?” she called out, ignoring the startled and frankly amused looks from her friends. “Can you please show us the way to Meya?”

“Alex, what—”

Bear didn’t get a chance to finish his question before a doorway further down the corridor clicked open, revealing a familiar-looking suit of armour.

“Sir Camden!” Alex cried, moving forward to greet the knight.

“Lady Alexandra,” he replied with a formal bow. “How doth thee?”

“I’m well, thanks,” she said. “But what are you doing here?”

“Did thou not call for an escort?” Sir Camden asked. “Perchance the fair Lady Alexandra and thy loyal retainers be embarking upon a quest for the Lost City? Sir Camden be thy guide!”

Alex stared at the knight, dumbstruck, before she managed to mutter, “This Library sure works in mysterious ways.”

“Follow me, Lady Alexandra,” the knight offered. “Sir Camden shalt lead the way to thy destination.”

The suit of armour did an about-face and began walking down the corridor, stopping to open a door and waiting for them to follow.

“That sounds like an invitation to me,” Jordan said, gleefully rubbing his hands together. “I don’t know about you guys, but I think today feels like a great day to find a missing city!”

Although D.C. and Bear were just as enthusiastic as Jordan, the three of them unanimously voted for Alex to take the lead behind the knight.
So much for their adventurous courage
, thought Alex. But they needn’t have been concerned, because the door led to another hall of doorways. The four of them followed the knight along the new hallway until he opened another door for them, once again leading to more doorways. They continued this routine for some time, until Sir Camden came to a halt in front of another door.

“This be the door thou art seeking,” he said to Alex. “If ever again thou needest to traverse this here labyrinth, call upon Sir Camden and I shalt come to thine aid. For the doorway to the Lost City doth not remain in one place, and even one such as thou shalt not find it without a guide.”

“Thank you, Sir Camden,” Alex said, grateful for his help.

“Thou art welcome, fair lady.” The knight bowed to Alex and her friends before he walked to the other side of the hallway and straight through a solid wall.

“Handy little helper, isn’t he?” Jordan

“He sure is,” Alex agreed, turning to the door in front of them. There was nothing special about it that marked it from the other doorways, but Alex still felt it was different.

“Do you think this is it?” Bear asked quietly.

“Sir Camden wouldn’t have brought us here for no reason,” D.C. pointed out.

“There’s only one way to know for sure,” Jordan said, and reached out his hand.

“Wait, Jordan, I think—” Alex began. But it was too late, he was already grasping the handle and turning it.

Nothing happened.

Jordan jiggled at the handle. “It’s locked.”

“That was anticlimactic,” Bear said.

Jordan dropped his hand and leaned away from the door, before surging forward and ramming his shoulder into it.

“Um, I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Alex warned.

“It might just need a little budge,” Jordan said, ramming it again. “It’s been closed for thousands of years, right?”

“Yeah, but remember, the Library is—”

Before Alex could finish her sentence, some kind of force field slammed into Jordan, throwing him into the air and against a wall across the corridor.

“—alive,” she finished weakly.

Jordan groaned and stood to his feet, pressing a hand to his head. “I won’t be trying that again.”

“It serves you right for being so stupid,” D.C. told him. Despite her firm tone, the concern was clear in her eyes as she walked over to inspect the back of his skull. When she was satisfied he wasn’t about to die, she placed her hands on her hips. “Do you think Aven would have kidnapped Alex and me if all he had to do was break down a door? Use your brain, Jordan! He needed her to open it for him since she’s Chosen— which means it’s probably something only
Alex
can do.”

Jordan offered a sheepish smile. “Oops?”

“‘Oops’ is right,” D.C. said. “You’re lucky you weren’t seriously hurt!”

“Just my ego, huh?” he said, his smile widening.

“That could use more injury from time to time, in my opinion,” D.C. replied, fighting her own grin.

Alex decided it was time to jump in. “Should we try this again?”

At their nods, she reached out and grasped the handle, turning it effortlessly. Instead of opening, the door dissolved,
leaving the four of them staring at an unexpected sight. It was beautiful, for sure, but that wasn’t why Alex was so enthralled.

“I’ve been here before,” she whispered, stepping across the threshold and looking around the familiar forest clearing. It was different in the light of day, but she could clearly make out the mushroom circle that surrounded the area. “This is Raelia.”

“Raelia?” Jordan repeated. “The place where you saw Lady Mystique that night?”

“Yeah,” Alex said, spinning around. The clearing had been a mystical place with the moonlight streaming through it, but the sunlight brought a new surprise. The trees around them were not of the normal brown wood and green leaf variety; they were
silver
. Their glittery trunks burrowed deep into the grassy forest floor, and the charcoal-grey leaves shimmered against them creating a beautifully artistic effect. Sporadically dispersed around the area were bushes and vines, their vibrant green contrasting with the rest of the ethereal forest. All in all, it was a fantasy painter’s dream landscape.

When Alex turned and noticed the doorway had disappeared, she wasn’t worried. She knew she’d be able to call it back into being when the time came. Unlike when she’d been abandoned in the middle of the forest, this time it was Alex who had opened the door and could therefore reopen it for the return trip. But that didn’t help with their current predicament.

“Which way do we go?” Bear asked. “There are paths in every direction.”

“It’s ‘The Crossroads’,” Alex said. “That’s what Raelia means, remember?”

“Choose your path,” D.C. whispered, almost too low to hear.

Alex noted the strange tone of her friend’s voice. “Dix, are you all right? You’re really pale.”

D.C. looked at Alex, her eyes haunted. But then she blinked and the emotion disappeared. “I’m fine. Just nervous, I guess.”

“Don’t worry, Dix,” Jordan said. “I’ll protect you.”

He flexed his arm muscles and wiggled his eyebrows at her. D.C. smiled and tried to swat him away, but he grabbed her around the waist and threw her over his shoulder.

“This is for the caveman comment earlier,” he said.

“Jordan! Let me go!” she squealed, laughing madly. “You’re molesting the princess!”

“You say molesting, I say assisting,” Jordan corrected. “Just sit back, relax, and enjoy the scenic view.”

“Of your backside?” D.C. said dryly. “Believe me, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

There was silence in the clearing for a moment before all four of them burst out laughing. Jordan had to set D.C. back on her feet because he was laughing so hard.

“I didn’t mean…” D.C. tried to explain, but she couldn’t get the words out amid her own laughter. She inhaled deeply and tried again. “I didn’t mean for it to come out like that!”

Jordan’s eyes were sparkling. “I think we’ve underestimated you, Princess.”

When they all calmed, D.C. said, “We should probably be careful what we say out here. There’s no way to know who might be listening.”

“Dix is right,” Alex agreed. “We need to figure out where we are before we drop our guard too much.”

“Why don’t you ask the Library which way to go?” Jordan suggested.

“I can try,” Alex said. “But we’re not in the Library anymore, so I don’t know if it’ll do any good.” Hoping no one else was in hearing range, she raised her voice and called out, “Excuse me, Library, can you please show us which path to take?”

Nothing. No helpful knights, no spotlights, no moving trees, not even a rustle of the wind.

“I guess we’re on our own,” Jordan said. “I vote we pick a route and see where it—”

THWACK!

“What the—” Alex cried, ducking to avoid being hit by a second arrow that whizzed by so close to her head she felt her hair move from the air it stirred.

“DOWN!” Jordan bellowed, urging the others off their feet.

Alex heard three more whistling noises accompanied by woody
thwack
s, and realised they weren’t being targeted so much as warned. But warned about what, she wasn’t sure.

“
Terin mortalis saes fiora en Raelia?
” came an angry female voice.

Alex lowered her protective arm from her head and looked at her friends with wide eyes. When none of them responded to the voice, their attacker repeated the question, sounding even more irate, if that was possible.

“
Terin mortalis saes fiora en Raelia!”

“How do you feel about fielding this one, Alex?” Jordan whispered.

She sent him a look that told him
exactly
how she felt. But they needed to know what was going on, so she carefully—and very slowly—rose to her feet, hands raised in surrender.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t understand you,” Alex called out, feeling like she had a big red target painted on her forehead. What if she was wrong about the earlier shots being warnings?

The silver trees to her left rustled and Alex tensed. But it wasn’t an arrow that came out of the forest, it was a young woman.

Or, really, she may not have been ‘young’, since she was clearly Meyarin, and age was irrelevant for their eternal race.

“I said, what foolish mortals dare trespass upon Raelia?”

The Meyarin was as entrancingly beautiful as any of her kind, with long golden hair, skin the colour of honey and eyes
as green as emeralds Those eyes pierced Alex with a burning anger. But she was more concerned about the drawn arrow pointed straight at her heart.

“Uh…” Alex shifted nervously. “Just us. My friends and I. We, um, we come in peace?”

If Alex wasn’t so worried about not making any sudden moves, she would have slapped her forehead for such a ridiculous statement.

“You trespass upon sacred grounds,” the Meyarin said, her expression livid. “The penalty of which is death.”

“Whoa, whoa, wait just a second,” Jordan said, jumping to his feet, with Bear and D.C. following. “We didn’t come here deliberately. Or, well, not
here
, here, at least. We’re looking for Meya. We just got dropped off at Raelia. So not our fault.”

“Yeah,” agreed Bear, indicating to Alex. “And we wouldn’t have known where we were if Alex hadn’t been here before.”

The Meyarin looked at each of them as they spoke, but her arrow remained fixed on Alex, and now her gaze returned to her as well. “What does your companion speak of?”

“We didn’t deliberately come here,” Alex repeated. “It wasn’t intentional—”

“No,” the Meyarin interrupted. “He said you’ve been here before?”

Alex frowned at Bear, wondering if he’d landed her in even more trouble. But since their being in Raelia was already punishable by death, it wasn’t as though she could be executed twice. “I was here about a month ago,” she admitted. “At night.”

“Impossible.” The Meyarin gave a firm shake of her head. “Before today, no mortal has ever set foot in Raelia. You must be mistaken.”

“Believe what you want, but I’m telling the truth.”

The Meyarin appeared torn by the honesty in Alex’s expression, and after a few tense moments, she hesitantly
lowered her weapon. “Come with me,” she ordered. “We’ll see if you speak the truth.”

With those words, the Meyarin turned away and headed back into the forest. When Alex stepped over the mushrooms to follow her, nothing changed, and she realised she was actually in Raelia, as opposed to the last time when she’d been transported there from the middle of the Ezera Forest.

“Make haste, mortals,” the Meyarin ordered, “or I’ll be forced to motivate you.”

Alex shuddered at the Finn-inspired thought of the Meyarin running along behind them shooting her arrows. She exchanged anxious glances with her friends, and they all picked up their pace.

After a good ten minutes of silence, Alex couldn’t keep quiet any more. “Why are the trees silver?”

The Meyarin’s steps faltered, but then she continued striding forward without pausing to turn around.

Alex guessed being human meant she wasn’t worthy of an answer, so she was surprised when the Meyarin spoke.

“You’re in the Silverwood. That is their nature.”

“The Silverwood?” Jordan repeated. “That’s so cool! I thought it was only a myth.”

“Clearly, that’s not the case,” came the Meyarin’s dry reply. “But it’s unlikely you’ll ever leave this place to tell anyone otherwise.”

That managed to dampen Jordan’s excitement.

They continued walking in silence for another five minutes before the silver trees began to change colour. Slowly but surely the bark transformed into a radiant gold, and the leaves turned into a shade of dark honey.

“Are we in the ‘Goldenwood’ now?” Alex whispered to Jordan, thinking it a valid guess.

Forgetting how good Meyarin hearing was, she was reminded when their guide snorted in response. It was the first
non-aggressive sign the Meyarin had exhibited and Alex hoped it was a positive noise, but she couldn’t be certain.

“Are all mortals as uninformed as you?” their escort asked.

Alex kept her mouth closed, not sure what to say.

“I think that’s a ‘no’ to the Goldenwood theory,” Jordan whispered back.

She looked at him with exasperation. “Yeah, I got that, thanks.”

“There’s no such thing as a ‘Goldenwood’,” the Meyarin informed them. “These trees are golden because they form the boundary around the city of Meya.”

Alex felt her heart skip with anticipation. She glanced at her friends and saw the starry-eyed looks on their faces. They had grown up hearing bedtime stories of the Lost City. For them, what they were about to experience was comparable to walking into a make-believe world.

With every step through the now golden forest, Alex felt her nervousness increase. Despite the excitement of seeing the Lost City, she couldn’t forget they were about to be in a whole heap of trouble for trespassing upon a sacred site. She had no idea how that would play out. Not to mention, there was also the potentially devastating news regarding Aven that she was supposed to deliver.