Emerald and the Elf King by Becky Biggs

Author:Becky Biggs [Biggs, Becky]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781949372007
Publisher: Rebecca A. Beloin
Published: 2018-10-07T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

A HAPPY REUNION

“Are we there yet?” whined Maple, petulantly kicking a stick in her path. She, Emerald, and Porter had been walking for hours, following the guiding stone. The bread the trolls had given them ran out after lunch and now it was getting close to dinner time.

“Do you see a cottage?” Emerald replied testily. She was just as tired and hungry as Maple, but she was also doubting her ability to lead. Mavis said her godmother’s cabin was no more than a day’s walk from the cave, but the sun would be setting soon and they still hadn’t seen sign of any kind of habitation. She was starting to worry they’d taken a wrong turn.

“Are you using that thing right?” Maple jumped up to try to see the stone in Emerald’s hand.

“How should I know?” Emerald snapped, unable to hide her exasperation. “It’s not like it came with instructions. Do you want to give it a try?” She held the guiding stone out in an open hand to Maple. Maple eyed it but shook her head.

“Ladies!” exclaimed Porter, throwing his hands into the air.

“Arguing with each other isn’t going to help.”

“I’m just so hungry,” Maple cried as she dramatically flopped down on the ground next to the path and flung a little arm over her head.

“You’re always hungry,” grumbled Emerald, but she and Porter also stopped. She felt bad about her outburst. She wasn’t really mad at Maple. She was actually angry at herself. What was she thinking running off without any experience or the backup of Medina’s knights? Maybe she should have tried harder to convince her parents to let her help Maple and to push back her engagement.

“It looks like we’re going north,” Porter said thoughtfully, looking around at the trees and sky.

“How can you tell?”

“Well, the sun for one thing.” Porter pointed at the fading golden light visible through the canopy of leaves above them.

“It’s setting off to our left—the west—so we’re walking north. Most of the moss is also on that side of the tree,” he said, pointing in front of them. “Moss mostly grows on the north sides of trees.”

“Oh.” Emerald was grateful he knew about things like what direction they were moving just by seeing where the moss was growing. She also felt ashamed she didn’t know more of that stuff herself. Sure, she’d spent the last seven years seriously training how to wield a bow or shoot an arrow, but what good did that do if she couldn’t even find her way to the enemy in the first place? Maybe her parents were right after all. Maybe there were some things a princess or queen just shouldn’t do—like run off to fight an evil king without any sort of real plan or knowledge of how to survive outside a castle. She was starting to doubt she was really up for the adventure she’d set out upon. She sighed deeply and kicked a stone.

“I think we have about an hour of sunlight left,” Porter observed.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.