Triplets (girlxgirl)

36- Kingdom of Howls

Jess Pov

The three of us walked into the portal and everything was different on the other side. It was hot; very hot. The air was thicker making it harder to breathe and there was a sticky smell of death lingering around. I felt heavier than usual probably due to a gravity change. Everything was darker but I could see well with my night vision. We were in a swamp where dead trees stood grimly. There were no animals in sight but I could feel eyes staring at us from the shadows.

All we knew about this kingdom was a city east from the portal. We knew this because in order for a portal to work there must be something like an item or bones at the destination point. The portal we had walked through was an old door used during the Great War centuries ago. There were bones of a fallen officer buried by a tree where we came in which had given us access to the Kingdom of Howls.

Ren grabbed my hand and we started walking east towards the city. We stayed in a straight line and made sure we walked on each other’s footsteps. We were silent the whole way but our senses where on high alert for something out of the ordinary. It took us more than an hour to arrive in the city due our slow pace and little problems we encountered along the way.

Before we entered the city, it had started to rain. We kept our cloaks tight and our hoods securely on our heads. The cloaks emitted a demonic sent to cover our real ones but to enforce our security we had masks that cover the bottom half of our faces. It was also easier to breathe because of the amount of black and demonic magic in the air and it was making my beast restless. I had more trouble controlling myself. I understood why Jamie wouldn’t survive in this realm. Jamie’s beast fed on power but the darker and rawer it was the better. This place would arouse her too much and she would either become one of the demons living here or their worst nightmare. I was secretly in awe of Siana’s bravery to stand by my sister.  

I didn’t know the name of the city but it was medieval style. There were no cars and no street lights. The roads were dirt which made our boots extremely muddy. I’m not one to whine about dirt because I loved to play in the mud when I was a kid but this was excessive. In between the roads, the houses mostly touched each other or left a small, dark alleyway separating them. They were made out of wood or timber frames.

For night time, the streets were quite busy with people and different creatures, whom which I have never seen before, walking around. Most of them had small light balls floating around them and with the amount of people walking, it gave us enough light to see where we were going. I was very happy to know that no one spared us a glance and continued their way past us.

“What now?” Ren asked.

“There is a library somewhere in the city. We should probably start there” my dad said. We all agreed to this and started walking around the city. It was not easy to find the library but we managed even though it took us longer than expected. We had eleven hours to go.

The library was stunning. It was about six stories high with books everywhere. Ladders were hooked on the walls and slid on wheels to move. There were tables on every floor we could see. The library was circular and the floors had an open view of the main room. There was only a wooden pole that ran across each floor to prevent readers from falling.

“Holy shit” Ren whispered. “Where the heck are we supposed to start?”

“This is going to take longer than we anticipated” dad groaned. He knew he had time to spare. ‘Better safe than sorry’ he told me this morning.

“We should start looking for any books mentioning him or his family” I said.

“There is only one problem” Ren whispered loudly. He was looking at a book on the closest table. “This is not English”