Movements in the shadows

Meanwhile, Igor and Gheremial spent the whole afternoon looking for the merchant who had disappeared into thin air without leaving any trace of his passage. In return, they had found the thieves, captured them and dragged them in front of Artus. The two short brown-haired kids wore simple brown suits.

"Why were you so interested in that necklace you stole? They are not allowed and I do not tolerate certain behaviours in my kingdom." The king said in an authoritative tone.

He received no response from them."I can enter your mind and read it, don't force me to use this power on you, so I don't care if you talk or not, what I'm looking for I will take it by force, the choice is yours." His tone was very convincing to the boys who spilt the beans.

"A tall gentleman with long straight black hair in a silver tiara, wrapped in his black cloak, had stopped us on the streets of Aeltheeldi the night before, asking us to do a well-paid job for him." One of them said trembling like a leaf with fear.

Their description was perfectly traceable to the race of dark elves.

"How come a dark elf wanders the streets of the white elf realm? They don't like our customs at all." The king thought to himself.

"We were in this town just to see your party, which was to be held this morning that is today. We took the job because he threatened to kill us. He wanted at all costs to destroy that necklace, but we lied to him because we couldn't recover it. " The other said.

"Can't you tell me more? His name? Or how did he know what he was looking for was here?" The king continued undaunted.

"No, we only know that he received the news from certain sources of an ancient series, but we do not know from whom he heard all this." Said the first.

"Sorry, it won't happen again." They said in chorus, kneeling.

"Okay, you are free to go. Never again do such a thing." The king let them go as he had known all he needed and they left in a hurry.

"My king, must we find the dark elf roaming the city?" Igor asked after the boys were out.

"Yes, Igor, always go with Gheremial. Please be careful the dark elves are very dangerous, they have no problem using the forbidden magic. I'll try to find some other information about it."

"We will be careful." Gheremial said and they both bow and walked towards the exit.

The king, left alone with his wife and the other two guards, at one point felt a powerful shock wave and looked at each other worriedly.

"I don't like this business at all," the king said thoughtfully.

While the elven king was talking to those boys, I was lost in reading the first book that Samir had assigned me. Slowly the daylight disappeared giving way to the clear light of the moon, so I turned on the lamp and continued my reading. By now it was already nine in the evening, my eyes were starting to burn and I stretched stretching out my arms, in all I had read about twenty pages yes and no, which spoke of the history of the world. I rubbed my eyes and looked out the window.

"Hello prince what can I do for you?" Samir said without taking his eyes off his book.

"I came to get Aisaka, to go to dinner." He answered him.

That dialogue caught my attention and I didn't think it was so late. I hadn't noticed Amdir's presence, but above all how did Samir hear him without even seeing him? I was amazed and in fact, the librarian noticed it immediately and smiled at me.

"It's already late, you can go." For the second time, I saw Samir look up, interrupting his reading and closing the book with a thud, which caused a cloud of dust to escape.

I got up closing the book and went to Amdir, dinner was waiting for us.

"Aisaka will be waiting for you tomorrow morning at dawn. Anyway, later on, those books you left on the table take them to your room." Samir stopped me before I could cross the threshold of the corridor, he was always sitting in his chair and his eyes looked at me sternly.

I nodded and we left the library.

"We were waiting for you, but you never came. Your sister asked me to pick you up." Amdir was walking next to me along the corridor.

"Sorry I didn't know it was so late and then you saw it too how severe the half-moon four-eyed is." I imitated Samir and he chuckled.

"You never change Aisaka." Amdir smiled happily, he was really tender with that expression.

After walking down the corridor we had reached the entrance to the dining room and entered. Azzurra was already sitting at the table waiting for me smiling. I went to sit in my place, the prince had also done the same and we waited for his parents. His mother came in shortly after us. Another good half hour passed and the king made no sign of seeing each other.

"Artus has some important things to attend to, he should be here shortly, it was almost over when I left him to come here." Said the king's wife hearing my belly growl.

In fact, so it was, after five minutes he arrived and sat at the head of the table, on his right was Eleside, on the left Amdir, my sister and I were close to the prince. We started eating. The table was full of food, I got a leg of chicken and the salad which was really delicious.

"Father, is something troubling you?" Amdir asked at one point, being amazed by that question because the king seemed the same as always.

"It is nothing serious my son, tomorrow morning Alakeia and Fervus will leave and go outside our lands. They will be away for some time, I can't tell you how long." He answered seriously.

"How come? Do you rarely send your most trusted guards out to scout?" I asked scared, I didn't like it at all. My daily routine was to tease Fervus and the news worried me.