Magical Arts Academy 9: Castle's Curse by Lucia Ashta

Author:Lucia Ashta [Ashta, Lucia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Awaken to Peace Press
Published: 2018-11-15T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6

“It feels too... still, doesn’t it?” Marie said when we were so close to the castle that the danger of being spotted was pressing.

“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” Brave said. “A castle this size is never this quiet.”

“It certainly shouldn’t be,” Sir Lancelot said, back on Brave’s shoulder. The owl had flown alongside us until we slowed our pace for final approach. “A castle this size requires a large staff to run it. Servants in great numbers aren’t quiet. Even if Duke Maurisse sent the majority of the staff away in anticipation of our attack, which is unlikely given that from what I hear he doesn’t have a compassionate bone in his body, he’d still need a large force to defend the castle. If his soldiers were trying to remain completely silent, they wouldn’t be able to maintain this sort of stillness for long.”

“Besides, our friends are in there. They’re sure to be attacking and fighting.”

“And that’s never done in silence.”

“No, it isn’t.”

Gertrude, who’d set the pace alongside Brave, slowed her horse now, guiding us toward a patch of shade near the rear entrance of the castle, where the rest of the academy’s horses were.

If someone was looking for us, I feared they were sure to spot us. “Aren’t we a little too exposed to stop here?”

“We’re definitely too exposed,” Nando said, scowling from his mount next to me. He’d kept his horse right alongside Trixie the entire time we’d ridden. Now, he inched his stead even closer and scanned our surroundings. His hand came to rest on the hilt of his sword, though he didn’t draw it. “I don’t like it.”

“Neither do I,” Brave grumbled, turning in his seat to take in the entirety of our surroundings much like my brother was.

“Maybe you could try to speak with the firedrake again,” Angelica suggested.

“Good idea,” I said, but didn’t close my eyes to attempt it. There was nothing in our immediate surroundings that suggested danger, and yet I felt on edge, as if something could catapult out of the shadows and charge us at any moment.

Elwin? Can you hear me? As soon as I said the words, I realized the last time I had, Elwin had corrected me and told me he wasn’t actually hearing me. I wanted him to correct me again, anything just to receive news from him.

Elwin? I tried again, but a silence as unsettling as our environment was the only response.

“Nothing,” I grimaced. “I can’t even tell if he heard me.”

“So we go in,” Gertrude said, but she didn’t sound nearly as sure as she had before we left the relative security of the cave. “If you can’t talk with Elwin, then we have no way of learning what’s going on unless we go in.”

Several heavy sighs cut the silence before Nando said, “I’m not so sure about this anymore. It doesn’t feel right.”

“How so?” I asked right away. Nando was brave and never eager to shirk what he perceived as his duty. If he hesitated, there was a reason beyond fear for his safety.

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