Page 37 of Once Upon a Crown
“I wanted to talk to you about a discussion I had with Alastor about Norrandale.”
“I need to talk to you as well.” We walked beside each other through the hallway. We passed a servant lighting some lamps along the wall.
“I’m listening,” I encouraged her.
“So, I think we may have found the diary.”
“We?”
“Well, me and Rhen,” she explained. “We were looking for it in the library this afternoon and then we came across this small wooden box.”
“So we were right to spend all that time searching in the library.”
Elara nodded. “It wasn’t easy to find either. It was stashed in a locked cupboard that we found in a secret room hidden behind a wall panel. The only problem is that we can’t open the box.”
“You mean you can’t break it or something?”
She shook her head. “Apparently it’s protected by some kind of old magic, and we need the actual key to open it.”
My heartbeat quickened a little at the use of the wordmagic. That wasn’t a very good sign.
“And we don’t know where the key is?”
“Actually, we do.” She stepped closer and took hold of my upper arm as we walked. I wanted to pull her closer still. “It just won’t be very easy to retrieve.”
“How did you find out about all this? Did the box come with some kind of instructional scroll?”
My words caused the corner of her mouth to turn up a little.
“Of course not. Lance told me.”
I was equally confused and surprised.
“Lance?”
Elara let out a very long sigh. “Yes, apparently he knew much more about the diary than he’d let on.” This part did not shock me in any way. Of course Lance had been withholding information if it was to his benefit. The only question was how?
“But he also knew that the box couldn’t be opened unless you used the key, which unfortunately happens to be in the centre of the forest.”
“You mean . . . ?”
“In the mist? Yes.” Her voice was filled with frustration. “Lance has sent people to get it in the past, none of whom came back, as could be expected. And, of course, Lance would never go and get it himself, so...” She trailed off.
There were many days that I would have given much to forget. And the time we were in that forest was one of them. When King Aries sent his men to Everness in another failed assassination attempt, Elara and I had accidentally ended up in the midst of Everness’s fabled forest of mist. Where people wandered around trying to get out until they eventually died of hunger or thirst. And that was only if the wolves didn’t get to them first. I remembered the story told at Camp Fairfrith one night, when the man had tried to scare the children with tales of the mist. He mentioned something about it only being royals who are able to get out of the forest. I didn’t know if I believed him, but I knew Elara and I had somehow made it out of there alive and that I had no intention of going back, ever.
“Of all the places.” I threw my head back in exasperation. “And how does Lance know all this?”
Elara’s expression became unreadable. “He said it was something our mother used to believe in. Things she would tell him about when he was a child. For all we know, it’s only a story and we’re heading for another dead end.” It certainly didn’t feel like things were looking up for us yet.
“But we found that diary and that has to mean something. It has to lead somewhere or be opened somehow and it’s hard to believe in all these things, but I don’t know what else to believe anymore.”
Her sadness forced a pang in my chest, and I wished I could do something to take it away, to make all of this just go away, but I couldn’t.
“Did Lance give a reason for not sharing any of this before?”Other than being something of a prick.
“Well, you know Lance loves to drive a good bargain,” Elara started with some uncertainty.
“What do you mean?” I had a feeling that I wasn’t going to like whatever she was about to tell me.
