I exited the restroom feeling kind of silly about my new wardrobe. Orland was waiting at the door for me when I exited. Shall we go out and greet the others? I nodded as Orland began creeping down the hallway. During the daytime the windows let massive amounts of light into the hallway so that all of the candles weren’t needed.
Eventually we reached the same room that had caused me a humongous headache the night before. Annaleasse was standing in the center of the room next to Mark and a tall girl that had short brown hair. She was also wearing unusual clothes. Mark gazed over at me hopefully with huge hopeful puppy dog eyes. I scowled at him disgusted.
Annaleasse’s eyes sparkled when she began to speak. “Finally you’re awake. This is Celia, she shall be your trainer, where as Mark shall guide you through the nations. All of you will need to work together if you want to survive”
Celia looked up as a silver hawk appeared and landed on her shoulder. She pet its head and began feeding it. That would be her instinct, Gideon. Was he also named after elves? Orland snorted and shook his head, moving his lustrous coat of fur.
When she had finished she cleared her throat “Typically someone would have more than three months worth of training before doing any major journeys. So that means you’ll have to work extra hard!” Gideon twitched his head and Celia began to scratch his head.
Then Mark put his hand in the air uncomfortably before he added “It’s best if we avoid a lot of public places once were out of fire territory, so I suggest that we travel through caves and forests.”
I sighed and looked up at the ceiling, there were elaborate carvings that appeared to move and twist becoming distorted and confusing. Suddenly they would stop and appear to be calm then roared back to life and became more menacing.
“What are they?” I asked softly, “The thing’s on your ceiling.”
Annaleasse stiffened and bit her lower lip “The what?” I looked down at my feet suddenly nervous. “On your ceiling there are these symbols… and they’re moving.”
“Dear child no one has been able to read the ancient writing on this ceiling for hundreds of years.” Celia stopped giving attention to Gideon and stared at me with her mouth gawking in awe.
Mark simply smiled knowingly, “Eveline this too was planned.” I glared at him regaining my sense of displeasure with him. I could feel my hands heating up and looked down and saw sparks beginning to form. Stay calm, this is not the time to release your anger.
I tried to calm myself down by focusing on my breathing, I saw Celia glancing at me looking troubled. I finally felt the heat in my hands go out as I said “Well, we have limited time so we might as well start.”
Annaleasse nodded and snapped her fingers. Suddenly we were all standing in front of a massive palace. The castle stretched far up into the sky reaching for the heavens. All of the windows seemed to sparkle from holding candles.
The castle was resting on a dirt path that twisted and eventually led to a market place. Celia squinted and pointed to the road “We’ll go and get supplies first.” Mark nodded and I shrugged. Annaleasse looked at us and patted all of our heads before turning back inside the castle, before she entered she said “Eveline, you can not trust everyone, be careful. I have faith in you.”
Mark began hiking on the dirt path and Orland nudged me, ushering me to follow. As I walked I noticed that the trees here in the realms had leaves that were orange and blue. They reminded me of pumpkins and eerie blue lights.
However the way the wind blew them from side to side was the same as the way they danced everywhere else I’d ever been. “Eveline as your trainer there’s something I’m concerned about.” Celia said, disrupting my thoughts about trees.
“Alright, what is it?” Celia paused for a moment before saying “Well it appears that as of now your fire is summoned whenever you’re emotionally upset.” I thought about it for a moment and realized that she was right.
“Well that can be very bad. Dangerous even, that can cause someone to be unstable and weaken you.”
“So where do you suggest I summon my fire from?” Mark looked over at me and sighed.
“It’s supposed to come from some stable place, like your inner motivations.” I sighed not exactly completely sure of my ‘inner motivations.’ Celia hurried and said “It’s something you need to think about and change, fast.”
Soon the market place came into view, it was full of caravans and tables, dancers and all sorts of enchanting things. Delicious smells traveled through the air inviting people to come and snack on exotic foods. Orland’s mouth watered and Eveline could sense his desire to go and hunt out the source of the smell.
Celia scoped the area and then began to head over to a table that was holding food while Mark headed in an opposite direction. Orland and I trailed behind Celia as she pushed and shoved through the crowds ignoring all the complaints.
