I wandered away from the vendors into a quieter part of the city, still nibbling on my one remaining hotcake. I had to find a place where I could read this book. With talk of the Shadow spreading throughout the capital, this couldn’t wait. I needed to know what this author knew about the darkness that threatened our land.
Finding a cozy-looking barn, I went in and made myself comfortable on a bale of hay near a stall containing a ewe and her newborn lambs. On a night like tonight, no one would mind that I was using their barn. I smiled at the sleeping, fluffy darlings.
I settled down on my hay bale and opened the book.
“The Shadow is coming,” the book read. “Could this be Karaphyllon’s greatest threat?
Karaphyllon has been at peace for a thousand years. Our Treasure keeps our land safe from outside threats. Threats that would harm our way of life. These threats come in many forms. Some of them in the form of creatures of dark magic who seek only a world’s destruction. All they know is death and suffering. All they want is to make planets die. The Shadow is no different.
Though this author doesn’t know much about him, we can speculate. He’s an Elf that also takes the form of a great beast, come to conquer the world and draw all underneath its rule. The planet in name always goes to war against the Shadow and succumbs to its evil dark magic because said planet is never learned in magic and can’t fight back.
We must stop this. We must find a way to learn magic so that when the Shadow does make his appearance we have a way to defend ourselves—“
“Selena, is that you?” I heard Simone’s voice, and jerked my head up to meet my brother’s eyes. What was he doing here?
“What are you doing sitting in a barn? Are you…reading?” His voice was incredulous, as if he couldn’t believe his eyes. Beside him stood a dark-haired ellassen. She looked at me with her lips pursed, judging my every move. First impressions were often this way if someone knew they were speaking to a princess.
I quickly stood and tucked the book inside my coinpurse, glad it was small enough to fit. “It’s nothing,” I said. “I just wanted to get away from the crowds for a bit. You know how noisy it is tonight, right?” I walked out of the barn to meet my brother and his companion. “Who’s this?” I asked him.
“Selena, meet Karina,” he introduced us with a flourish of his hand. “We met tonight and well…” he blushed sheepishly and smiled shyly at Karina. “We’re having a nice evening together. I didn’t expect to bump into you when we came down this alleyway.”
I turned to Karina and lifted my chin, unsure whether I should smile at my brother’s friend or not. She was an ellassen, after all, and Simone had never brought home an ellassen before. Was I supposed to be nice to her or wait until I talked with her and decided if she was right for my brother? I chose the latter. “It’s nice to meet you. Are you from around here?”
“Yes, Princess. I’m from right here in Trescone.” Her voice was just as haughty as I’d made my own and something about her intimidated me. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. I glanced over at Simone, who seemed to have eyes only for Karina. He was head over heels. I couldn’t believe it.
“What tribe are you from?” I asked. In Karaphyllon it was customary to ask this when meeting a new Elf. Although I could almost tell from her fringed shawl. There was only one tribe who wore them in that style.
She lifted her chin and stared me down. “What does that matter to you?” Her voice still as high and mighty as if she were the princess and I were the commoner.
My mouth fell open in shock. “All Elves ask…it’s…it’s customary. A…a customary question.” I hated the way my voice sounded so small as I tried to answer her. She had no right to talk down to me. I was princess of Karaphyllon. Anger broiled in my stomach.
“So, you’re Simone’s sister.” Her voice was flat, not at all impressed by me.
I wouldn’t be impressed by me either if I’d found the only princess of Karaphyllon sitting reading in a barn on a side street. So this is how the princess spends her days, is it? I imagined her saying. The anger turned to fury. She didn’t belong with my brother.
“Yes, I am,” I said, my voice cold as ice. They had just met, and yet she deemed herself worthy of calling my brother, the crown prince of Karaphyllon, just “Simone”? “And who do you think you are?” I bit out, my anger finally boiling over. How dare she be disrespectful!
She raised her eyebrows at me, her expression still haughty. “I am the daughter of Giles, one of the most successful merchants here in Trescone, thank you very much,” she said drawing herself up. “Princess.” She added in a disdainful hiss.
“I think Karina and I were on our way to see if we could find some havaah vendors, weren’t we, Karina?” Simone finally butted in, wrapping his arm around her shoulders and trying to guide her away from me. I pictured the honey dipped cakes he mentioned, and my mouth began watering.
“Yes, of course,” Karina said, all smiles and pleasure in her voice now as she batted her eyelashes at him. “I’d almost forgotten.”
I doubted they had gone down a side street in search of havaah. They had been looking for a place to be alone. I just nodded and smiled. Anything to get them out of my hair faster.
“I hope you’re having fun during the festivities, Selena.” He shot a pained expression at me, speaking through gritted teeth. “I’ll see you later tonight at the palace. Remember, we’re supposed to be back an hour before midnight.” He gave me a parting wink, then half dragged Karina away.
She gave me one last glare, then sauntered off with my brother.
Oh, for the Mighty One’s sake, I hoped that ellassen didn’t last a week with my brother. If anyone deserved to stay a commoner and not marry the crown prince, it was her. I just hoped she hadn’t thrown herself at my brother’s feet, like so many ellassen did these days, because she knew he was marriageable age. It was almost worse thinking that my brother would handpick an ellassen like that.
I turned back to my book. It didn’t look as interesting as it had a moment ago. I sighed, and got up to go rejoin the festivities. If anything, I needed a diversion from that awful interlude with my brother.
Popping the last bit of hotcake in my mouth, I headed back to the square. Shasta was supposed to be here. Where was he? I moved on. There were still plenty of vendors to visit and street gossip to overhear. Maybe I’d hear more about the Shadow.
I thought about what I’d read in the book I carried in my coinpurse as I scanned the various vendors, looking for something unique and interesting for sale. The Shadow was a creature of dark magic. What did that entail? The only kind of magic we Elves knew was magic for creating things. The ancient fighting magic had been lost long ago. Was the dark magic the Shadow brought the ancient fighting magic?
I was nearly to the end of the line of vendors by now, talking to an older white-haired ellassen selling perfumes.
“There you are,” a low voice, smooth as silk, whispered in my ear.
I jumped, and whirled around to face a grinning Shasta. His blonde hair was short, high off his ears and spiky on top, the way ellases of the Carantania Tribe wore it. Brown eyes stood out from his pale face, and his grin melted my heart a little.
“Don’t scare me like that,” I said, swatting at him.
He stepped out of my reach, laughing.
I gave an apologetic look to the perfume seller, who had paused with her hand in midair on her way to grab a blue-tinted bottle of scent. She stood there with her mouth agape, staring at us.
“You ready to enjoy the festivities?” he asked, straightening the red cape he wore. His hand inched its way to wrap itself around my waist, then stopped. He remembered the rules about touching between the genders, and pressed his lips together, his expression pained.
“I already am,” I answered flatly. “Where have you been? Hold that thought, Shasta. I’m not quite done here,” I said, and turned back to the perfume seller. “I’ll take that one.” I pointed to a pretty pink-tinted bottle. Verbena, its label read. It would do nicely in my collection. Perhaps I would even wear it occasionally. I mostly liked to collect scents and seldom wore them, but this one looked promising. Perhaps it would be different.
The white-haired ellassen nodded, wrapping the bottle in white tissue paper and carefully folded it into a brown paper bag. She gave me a polite smile as the money was exchanged, glancing nervously over at Shasta. He shot her a heart-melting grin, the kind that made everyone feel more comfortable and instantly like him. Her lips turned up in the faintest of smiles, then she turned to her next customer.
Finished with my purchase, I nodded my head toward my friend and we sauntered off into the crowd. Oh, how I wished I could reach out and touch him. To walk holding onto that muscular bicep was one of my chief fancies, but touching between unwed couples wasn’t allowed in Karaphyllon. My fantasies would have to wait for another day, the day that Shasta spoke up and declared that he had feelings for me too.
“How have the festivities been so far?” he asked as we wound our way through the crowd. He guided me toward a meat vendor’s stand. “Been enjoying it without me?” he gave me a teasing smile that made my heart flutter a bit harder in my chest. Of course him finally deciding to join me made this even more fun. We always had the best time together. But recently, every time I looked him in the eye my heart turned to butter and all I wanted to do was fling myself into his arms. And the way he looked back at me made me wonder how he felt about me.
“Not at all,” I said, my voice dripping with sarcasm. Act casual around him. That was the key. Then my emotions wouldn’t get the better of me. And if it turned out he didn’t like me back, my heart wouldn’t be crushed.
“Two sausages in a bun, please,” he addressed the vendor, as he rummaged in his coinpurse.
“As you wish,” the vendor said, plating the greasy, scrumptious looking food and handing it to him. Shasta exchanged the money and handed me a sausage as we walked off into the crowd.
“What did you do so far? And where is your brother?” he asked, searching the crowd for a glimpse of Simone, who was, of course, nowhere to be seen. “Doesn’t he always stick to us like glue?”
“He always has in years’ past. I don’t know what’s gotten into him. He lost me as soon as we left the palace. Showed up a few minutes later with the rudest ellassen hanging off his arm.” I made a face, and he laughed.
“Leave it to Simone to pick a loser. Was she pretty?”
I nodded. “She wasn’t a total loser. She couldn’t have been prettier if she tried.” I took another bite of my piping hot sausage, the peppery flavor bursting in my mouth.
“But not the one he should choose in the end, huh?” He was looking at me seriously now, concern in his eyes. It was common knowledge that the crown prince would be married off soon. Father kept mentioning it to Simone.
I shook my head. “I hope he’s not foolish enough to succumb to her advances.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” he said with a nod.
Leave it to Shasta to believe me and shrug it off. His ability to move on and not stress over what I considered important things was one of his traits that I liked best. He always made me feel more comfortable with life.
“Would your father like her?” he asked as we made our way through the rest of the vendors lining the streets and into the city square.
“I don’t know,” I answered slowly. I hoped that Father would side with me and not like her. She’d been rude to me on purpose. Would she be rude to her king as well?
An outdoor circus was performing in the center of the square, the onlookers crowded around “ohhhing” and “ahhing” at the acrobats’ feats, the strong man lifting an ox above his head, and the jugglers throwing flaming pins while walking on stilts. The vibrant colors the circus performers wore grabbed my attention. The pretty blues of the ellassens doing cartwheels, their skirts looking like pinwheels as their legs flew up in the air. The rainbow colored pants of the stiltwalkers. And the trapeze artists in the ropes in their red and green striped leotards.
I clapped along with Shasta and the rest of the crowd when the ellas trapeze artists flew off their swinging ropes in a triple back flip and landed soundly on their feet, raising their hands in the air triumphantly.
“Bravo!” a chubby little fanwas shouted. He stood beside me, holding his mother’s skirts and laughing at the spectacle.
“Doesn’t get any better than this, does it?” Shasta leaned toward me and whispered in my ear, still clapping.
I looked over at him. His eyes were dancing merrily. I didn’t know why, but my heart skipped a beat as our eyes met, and I found it hard to breath under his gaze. He had always been my best friend, but now I was beginning to see him as something else. Was that just comradery I saw in his eyes? Or did he feel more for me as well?
“This is the best. Spring Equinox always is. At least, the years Simone and I can sneak out of the—”
Suddenly, there was a bright flash of light in the center of the circus troupe that wasn’t part of the show, followed by a resounding bang. The two stiltwalkers fell down with a crash into the trapeze scaffolding. Circus performers fell to the ground. Blood pooled from one ellas’s head. Screams erupted throughout the square. Another flash of light exploded before my eyes followed by a banging crash, the sound of it leaving my ears ringing. All was chaos.
Shasta grabbed me by the waist and pulled me to the ground as more Elves were hit by the explosion, falling bloodied and injured. We lay there, watching the chaos, his arm draped protectively over my shoulder, holding me down. It had to be safer on the ground. It had to be. As I looked at the destruction around me, I felt like I was going to sick up. My mind was numb, unable to process what was happening.
The young fanwas’s mother lay on her side, a gash in her head, her open eyes already glassy with death. The fanwas knelt shaking her.
“Mama! Mama! Come back!” he screamed as tears streamed down his little cheeks.
I huddled beside Shasta, biting back a scream. I held on to him for dear life, throwing all protocol to the wind. We were in a life and death situation. Rules didn’t matter. I wasn’t supposed to be here. I was supposed to be in the palace where it was safe.
“What’s happening?” I shouted. I could barely hear myself in the confusion all around us.
He lifted his head from where he lay on his belly, looking wildly about, trying to make sense of the chaos.
“I don’t know!” he shouted back at me.
Then, from amidst the shouts and screams of the confused, terrified Elves, I heard a voice that made my blood run cold.
“Oh, you fools,” the voice said, chuckling.
I looked up and saw a white mist in the center of the square. Inside the mist hovered a disembodied head. The monster’s flesh was purple. It’s nose and mouth conjoined to form a sharp beak. Horns protruded from the sides of its head. And its eyes were like two infernos burning inside of the monster.
I screamed at the apparition, heard others around me screaming too.
The apparition laughed, a deep hungry laugh. “You fools. Beware. I have found the door to your world. I am coming to take your souls.”
With a resounding bang and a blinding flash of light, the apparition disappeared, leaving the square in darkness.
I sprang to my feet, dragging Shasta up with me. Stumbling through the terrorized crowd, I made my way back to the palace, toward safety. I never should have left in the first place. I was dizzy and my ears were still ringing, but I made my way forward anyway, clutching my friend for dear life. I had to make it home.
“What was that?” Shasta asked when we were in a less crowded part of the city and a little closer to the palace.
I shook my head, not wanting to relive what we had just experienced, but the images of the dead Elves lying motionless around the square flashed through my head anyway.
“I don’t know,” I said, my voice shaking. “But I have to get word to my father. He’ll know what to do. Come on, let’s go.” I grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the palace.
Steely determination settled in my chest. Someone not of this world had just attacked us. He would be coming here in the flesh next. My book said the Shadow brought dark magic with him, but it hadn’t said it would bring destruction like this. He had just attacked and killed innocent Elves. We couldn’t let him take over our world. We had to do something to stop him.