Chapter 7

           It was day three at Foreviel’s Kingdom, and Triesa was getting antsy.

          “We haven’t had any hint at all of where the others are,” Triesa said the next morning as she, Amara, Erkar and Margo sat around the table. Since hearing what Margo said last night, Amara felt uneasy looking at Triesa, but she tried to recall the young mage’s words. She doesn’t kill anymore, Amara told herself as Triesa continued. “We need to get moving. Gods know there’s probably more than just us who want the Powered Ones, so I suggest we hurry.”

          Margo gave a frown of confusion. “Why would anyone else want them? And who?”

          “Power, Margo. Why else? And it could be anyone,” Triesa responded, arms crossed. “So we need to get to them first.”

          “In my opinion, we can take our time,” said Erkar. “But Triesa is right. We are going slower than the rate we could be doing this at. And Foreviel is too big for us to be just looking around.”

          “Then how’d you guys find me?” Amara asked.

          “Agraud is smaller than Foreviel. And pretty much just by sheer luck, Tallius saw you talking to the plants and we figured it out from there,” explained Erkar.

          “That’s right. There’s too many people in Foreviel, and too little of those Powered Ones,” Triesa muttered.

          Amara frowned. “But you’re mages, aren’t you? Can’t you use your powers to find them?”

          Triesa scoffed. “If we had that option, don’t you think we’d have used it?”

          “We have limited power,” said Margo, looking at Amara. “We can’t control everything.”

          “Then can you like…combine your powers or something?” suggested Amara.

          “How stupid can you be?” Amara heard Triesa hiss under her breath, taking Amara slightly aback.

          “Mages don’t combine their powers,” said Erkar. “What do they teach you about us?”

          Amara began to feel slightly warm with embarrassment, feeling the others judging her for her remarks. “Mainly that you’re all evil and ruthless.”

          “Oh yes, that’s right, we eat children and kick puppies for the fun of it,” said Erkar sarcastically, earning a giggle from Margo and a smirk of amusement from Triesa. “But as I was going to say, I have a new man on the job to help us out. He knows the Kingdom well—”

          “What?” Triesa said angrily. “You asked for help from an outsider?”

          “It seemed fitting,” Erkar retorted in a calm yet stern tone. “We can trust him.”

          “You idiot, how much have you told him?” Triesa demanded.

          “All he knows is we’re looking for the fire and water Powered Ones,” Erkar said. “Besides that, I’m the leader on this mission. What I say goes.”

          Triesa gave a snort of annoyance. “Ever since Tybalt said ‘Erkar, you lead’, you’ve used it to justify everything you’ve done so far in this.”

          Amara opened her mouth to ask who Tybalt was, but Erkar continued. “Anyways, while we wait back to hear from my friend, we need to do better. Last night I designed a plan, dividing us up into Foreviel’s different districts. Triesa – go down to the docks to investigate. The people down there are tough, some dangerous, so it’s definitely something you can handle.”

          Amara glanced at Triesa. Her face seemed softer, as though she was flattered. Erkar kept talking. “Margo, you’ll spend your time in the marketplace. Is that good?” When Margo gave a nod of approval, Erkar spoke again. “I’ll be in the royals’ district. And Amara, she’ll stay here at the inn. She has good people skills, and this is where all the travelers and townsfolk come through. There’s lots of gossip to eavesdrop on.”

          “But can we trust her? She tried to run away,” said Triesa with a glare at Amara.

          “Tallius and Arla are done selling things outside the Kingdom. They’re coming in today, and Arla will help Amara. Tallius is going to look around the resident district,” Erkar nodded.

          Amara gave a sigh of relief. Knowing that Arla would be watching her instead of Triesa relieved her of tension she didn’t even know was in her.

          “I think this plan could really work out for us,” said Erkar with a smile. “Now let’s go. Oh, and Amara, tell Tallius I said hi when he comes through.”

          Sure enough, an hour or so later Tallius and Arla came in through the door. Amara glanced over and she could hear them talking. “I-Is this the place Erkar said?” Tallius asked.

          “I believe there is only one Black Sheep Inn, dear,” said Arla with a smile.

          “Sorry, I uh…you know I’ve screwed up before.”

          “You’re fine, dear.”

          Tallius then caught Amara’s eye. “Oh, hi Prin—er…Amara,” he said quickly. He came over to her. “Sorry, if I say you’re a princess I think that’d…compromise things.”

          Amara gave a slight smile back. “Um…Erkar said you were going…”

          “To the resident district, yes, I’m dropping Arla off,” nodded Tallius. “We made quite a bit of gold pieces.”

          He was being pretty friendly, Amara told herself. It was like he had forgotten Amara was supposed to be upset at him and the others. It made Amara feel taken aback. “Uh…well, at any rate, Erkar says hello.”

          Tallius’s face lit up. “He does?”

          Amara nodded and Tallius smiled. “Well, I’m off. See you this evening.”

          Later Amara realized how boring keeping watch at the inn was. She sat by Arla for a while, listening to her tell a tale about a King from Ethothiel’s Kingdom that slayed a bear, but Amara was getting antsy, wanting to find one of the Powered Ones. Maybe it’d shut up the “worthless princess” remarks from Triesa.

          And if she did find the Powered One first…maybe she could warn them, stop them from getting taken like she was. Or she could team up with them and they could both get away from the Silent Ones. She had to admit, these Silent Ones were kind of growing on her – Arla was harmless, Margo was no monster, Erkar wasn’t all that bad, Tallius was actually quite a kind soul, and even Triesa wasn’t terrible. But that didn’t change what they did, or the fact that Amara had to go back to Agraud.

          At any rate, Amara had decided to walk around the inn and look for any clues. She told Arla what she was going to do, and Arla bade her good luck as Amara left the table.

          All Amara really ended up doing was walking laps upstairs in a bit of a daze. She had forgotten how bored she had been the other day, when stuck at the Black Sheep Inn with Triesa.

          During this time she ended up going back into her room and tidying things up, neatening the books, smoothing the bed sheets and cleaning off some of the dust in boredom. When that was done Amara wandered back out of the room and ended up going back downstairs. Seeing as how the upstairs was empty, there certainly wasn’t going to be any Powered Ones waiting for her up there.

          So she came back downstairs and saw Ellius standing behind the bar. “Hello Amara,” he greeted her. Amara gave a smile and nodded before sitting back down by Arla, who now had soup and biscuits in front of her.

          “That’s a handsome boy there. Who is he?” asked Arla.

          “His name’s Ellius. He helps the innkeeper run the place,” explained Amara.

          “A good child then. By the looks of how busy things get in here, the innkeeper definitely needs it,” chuckled Arla. “There were no clues of Powered Ones upstairs, I take it?”

          Amara shook her head. “No. Do you think they’ll ever be found?”

          “Of course they will. Fate demands it,” said Arla. “Everything that’s ever been prophesized has come true. And the Powered Ones do have their own prophecy.”

          Amara nodded. “I read it. It’s…quite intense.”

          Arla looked down at her soup before looking back up. “Indeed. But trust in Alanzar. If you are to complete the prophecy, he will see that you will make it through alive.”

          It was a line Amara had heard before: “heroes of prophecies will be guided by Alanzar’s hand. He will see that they will come out of their destiny alive”. But all the stories Amara had read, they told of heroes who did in fact make it out alive, but what some of them had to go through…

          The one Amara had heard most was the tale of King Agraud, who had her Kingdom named after him. King Agraud was the founder of the Kingdom, and was prophesized to rid the Kingdom of the beasts that threatened its citizens. It was a short prophecy: “the King of Agraud, who becomes a legacy, will make the monsters of the forest his enemy”. The monsters were the trolls that lived outside of Agraud’s Kingdom; King Agraud himself went in and slayed them all. The survivors fled in deeper into the forest, far away enough that they could never harm any Agraudian again.

          At the end of King Agraud’s quest, one of the gods decided to grant Agraud a long life in reward for killing the trolls. He accepted the gift, but not long after he did his family members began to die. His wife fell ill, his daughter was impaled by a stag, and his son – reportedly acting as though someone was controlling him – jumped off the Kingdom wall. In the end, Agraud lived a long life alone – and foolishly, he had trusted the wrong god. It wasn’t Alanzar, like he had thought, but Dazthar, god of the monsters – who deeply cared for the trolls.

          Most of the women in the Kingdom told this as a bedtime story, Amara’s own mother being one of them. They usually left out the ending though, and used the legend as a story to tell the children they had nothing to fear from the Dark Forest. Amara didn’t learn the full story until she turned 13.

          Since then Amara questioned why Alanzar hadn’t stopped Dazthar, or warned Agraud. He kept his promise of getting Agraud out alive, but did it simply stop there?

          Just then, there was a smashing sound and a yelp. Amara looked up to see a candle had fallen over, a lady with thick black hair standing by it with her hands on her mouth. “I am so sorry!” she exclaimed. “I—”

          “It’s all fine, Gretta,” said Ellius, coming over. Amara watched the fire slowly started to spread on the carpet under the table. But as Ellius began to reach down to collect the candle, the fire snuffed out, despite there still being more carpet left to burn. “Well, that’s that taken care of,” he said, picking the candle up off the floor.

          “A stroke of luck I suppose,” commented Arla, a curious look on her face.

          Amara nodded at Arla in agreement.

          Later that evening the rest of the Silent Ones had returned and apparently had no luck.

          “Lot of weird people at the stands, but no signs of Powered Ones,” said Margo with a sigh.

          “Neither for me,” said Erkar. “Tomorrow we’ll go meet with my friend, see what he has to say. Perhaps he’s figured something out.”

          “I still wouldn’t trust outsiders,” Triesa countered.

          “It’s the only option we have,” Erkar pointed out. “But we did our best today, and tonight we’ll all relax.”

          So later that night, Amara sat with Margo and Arla, eating stag meat for dinner. A group was playing music in the background – Amara recognized the lute and a piccolo in it. They were quite good.

Tallius had left the inn to go check on Greuder along with Erkar, and Triesa had left the inn to get some fresh air, so it was just Amara and the two other Silent Ones.

          “Good dinner?” asked Arla with a smile.

          Amara nodded back and just then she heard a shout, recognizing the voice to belong to Tygris. “Ellius, hurry up with that order! Customers are waiting!”

          Amara looked over to see Ellius quickly scamper out of the back room, carrying a bowl of soup. “Sorry Tygris,” he said apologetically before walking out to a table nearby and setting soup down in front of a man in hunting gear before heading back over to the counter, Amara’s eyes following him as he went.

          Ellius stood by the counter as Tygris washed the top of it. “What took you so long anyway?” she asked.

          “Got distracted,” he replied.

          “By what?” Tygris said, not looking up as she kept cleaning the counter.

          “Nothing really. Started daydreaming,” Ellius shrugged. In a somewhat absentminded manner, he found his eyes scanning the crowd before landing on Amara, who was sitting at a table talking to the old woman who had come in earlier – Arla was her name – and the blonde girl Margo.

          His gaze must’ve lingered on Amara a bit too long because then Tygris spoke up about it. “Oh, I see you over there making moony-eyes over that red haired girl.”

          His stomach jumping in alarm, Ellius whipped around to face Tygris. “Wh-What?”

          Tygris didn’t say anything but instead glanced over at the band. The lead of the group – John Church, as Ellius recalled – looked back at her and Tygris spun her finger in the air, and as Church murmured something to his companions the music changed – one meant for dancing. When Ellius realized what Tygris was getting at, his heart began to pound. Oh, gods…

          “Go ask her to dance,” said Tygris encouragingly.

          “I don’t wanna do that!” Ellius protested, noticing other couples getting up out of the corner of his eye.

          “If not I’ll call her over here,” Tygris threatened. “Remember the last time I called over a pretty girl?”

          Ellius took a deep breath and looked at Amara, who was watching the people dance. “F-Fine,” he said, knowing Tygris would just keep pestering and bothering him unless he did. He began to walk over to her.

          Amara watched the people go out to dance. It quite reminded her of the palace, how whenever a ball was held she’d be dancing with nobles and other people of royal families all night. How Kara would always try to make excuses not to dance, but always ended up doing so in the end. How Amara’s feet would feel so sore afterwards. Seeing it made her think of home even more, and she almost expected to see a noble come over and ask her to dance. But she had to remind herself that here, in Foreviel, she was nothing more than a commoner.

          “This must remind you of your dances back home,” commented Arla, as if reading her thoughts. “How were they?”

          “I always liked them,” said Amara, talking to the old woman but keeping her eyes on the people. “It was so fun to meet other people, hear stories from other Kingdoms…”

          Her voice trailed off. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Arla open her mouth to speak again, but just then Ellius was standing in front of Amara. “Uh…hey, Amara?” he said.

          Amara looked up at him. “Oh, hello Ellius,” she greeted him.

          He looked a bit nervous. “I was wondering if you’d…um, like to dance.”

          Amara was taken a bit by surprise, but she then smiled at him. “Sure.” It really did feel like she was back at Agraud.

          She stood up and followed him over to the dance floor, and they stopped once they got to an open spot. Ellius turned to face her, looking uncertain, but Amara started off as she had with the hundreds of dances she’d done before, curtseying. She vaguely heard Ellius murmur “oh”, before bowing back in a somewhat awkward manner.

          “Never done this before?” she asked, taking his hand and he looked around, as if trying to see how everyone else was dancing.

          Ellius shook his head. “Have you?”

          Amara nodded as she spun around, Ellius’s hand enlaced with hers over her head, a nervous expression on his face. “Yes, at the castle,” she said with a smile on her face.

          Ellius grew wide-eyed. “Are you…a princess?”

          Amara stiffened slightly but kept going. She wasn’t supposed to say she was a princess – it’d get the Silent Ones in trouble. And they may have kidnapped her, but she wouldn’t wish the punishment on them. Despite their actions they were good people. “…No,” she said. “I was an attendant for a princess.”

          Ellius nodded. “Oh.”

          The word “attendant”, brought the thought of Tyra to her mind. Amara found words coming out of her mouth. “I was assigned to her when she was born, to look out for and tend to her.” She looked at Ellius, who nodded before she continued. “She was so nervous before her first dance, but I talked her through it. Eventually she felt better about it, and did great. Her father was very impressed.”

          “So…I take it you’re not from around here,” Ellius commented. “Then again, if you were, I don’t think you’d be staying here.”

          “I’m from Agraud,” she replied. “It’s a very pretty Kingdom.”

          Ellius smiled, spinning her again. “I’m actually not from here, either.” Amara looked at him in surprise as he continued. “I come from Mercenath’s Kingdom. I wanted to explore Acirewiel. Ended up here, and stayed at this inn. But…this is a big country. It took a while to get here, and I decided I wouldn’t be able to see all of Acirewiel at that rate. And when I saw how busy things were for Tygris, I stayed here and helped out. Of course, I send letters to my birthparents, let them know how I’m doing. They’re fine with it.”

          “What all did you see?” Amara asked.

          “A lot,” he replied.

          But by then the music had ended and the dance was over. Ellius gave a bow. “I’ll uh, tell you more about it later.” Amara curtseyed back, and Ellius quickly walked away and back to the counter, where, Amara noticed, Tygris had a sly smirk on her face.

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Author's Note: Yeah I'm not dead...sorry for the [extremely] late post. Our internet is crap. Also I'm sick today, on a weekend...life hates me istg. Anyway, hope you liked the chapter. I'd love to take a nap but I can't fall asleep bc it's late in the day, yay. If I'm lucky maybe I'll feel worse tomorrow and get to miss school. 
Also yeah, the paragraphs are tabbed over because that's how I write it in word. Sorry for the sudden change I've just become too lazy to make them all sorted to the very left anymore.