In order to aid Jerron during the war in three months, Ralph is now sitting with Rain tucked away around his waist on a carriage on its way to Garavia. Prince Paulie is immensely satisfied with Jerron's answer and offered to help Ralph with getting stronger.
Paulie's face was outlined in the dim sunlight cast in through the curtains. Paulie Velinzhag is the son of Emperor Velinzhag, and he possessed the Stone of Frost at the age of seven. Ralph had never seen Paulie taken off his scarf once, not even when their carriage is currently burning like a pot of boiling water from the furnace beneath their couches.
Ralph carefully pulled the curtain back a bit, seeing the endless ranges of mountains topped with layers of snow that represented the Garavian lands. Where he would be spending the next three months. At the end of this time, he would finally be able to reach his goal. To fight the Scars, and to avenge not only everyone that had died, but also himself. He knows clearly that he would be fighting himself. He will have the chance to cut his past out from his life, to wash away his sins with his own blood.
He pulls the curtain back together, then slowly fell into a slumber. For the first time in months, Forrest's death did not go on replay again and again when his vision sank into darkness. His past didn't torture him as he fell into his dreams. For the first time, he actually slept.
His eyelid flattered open as the carriage drove into a dark tunnel. Soon, it came to a stop. And when he looked around, Paulie was gone.
His mind immediately went on alert. His hand reached for his sword, preparing to unsheathe it at the first sign of danger. He tilted his head as an arrow flew past. It struck firmly onto the floor and stayed there quivering.
His sword unsheathed, and he slashed it towards the direction where the arrow came from. The carriage's roof was neatly sliced apart, exposing him to the cold, dark tunnel outside. The roof fell and cracked noisily upon the brick flooring, and the horses that pull the carriage neighed in fright, nostrils flaring and hooves digging in the air. Within the dark, Ralph vaguely caught sight of a person slipping away into the shadows.
He quickly caught up with the shadow, then suddenly a girl in silvery hair appeared in front of him. Quicker than he was able to react, she whipped her leg into his face, knocking him onto the ground. Ralph rolled away to avoid her feet which stomped down for his head, sweeping his feet across the floor, then back-flipped into his standing position as the girl jumped up to avoid his attack. But she immediately followed up. Three arrows were sent flying at him all at once, barely managing to slash and block them all with his sword, the girl's legs were on either side of his neck. With a twist of her body, he was on the floor, locked between her ankles.
"I see we've really still got a lot to go," Paulie's voice emitted out of nowhere. Ralph struggles to move his neck, catching a glimpse of Paulie walking toward him. "You can let go now, Cecilia."
The legs beside his head loosened, Cecilia stood up, patting off the dust from her arm.
"He is the one you promised?" She scoffed. "I thought my opponent is from the Ling family."
"I am," Ralph bristled. "I'm Ralph Ling."
"Then I sincerely feel sorry for the Lings. If only they see how they had fallen," she laughed.
"Stop," Paulie commanded. "Don't fight each other. Ralph, this is Cecilia Queen. A Target."
Queen, Ralph realized. Jerron mentioned them. They're one of the families the Government- No, the Scars wanted dead.
But he also mentioned Ling. My family. So... Who am I?
No. I still don't care about the answer to that question. I'm more interested in the Queen family. Who are they? If Eve's family, the Alamekes is already that powerful, then what is this one?
"Do you have a Stone?" Ralph asked.
"No," Cecilia rolls her eyes. "I don't need one. Stones for the weak."
Sticking her tongue out at the glare she earnt from Paulie, her body slowly dissolved away into the shadow, fading away.
Ralph blinked in confusion.
"She does have a Stone, doesn't she?" He asks Paulie, but he shook his head.
"That is the gift of the Queen family. Cecilia dislikes the Stone power for reasons unknown. But anyway, we should get going. And I'll need to get you cloth more suitable for Garavia."
It was only until now Ralph realized how cold he is. His coat and sweater worn in the Northern sea are simply freezing him inside out. Quickly catching up with Paulie, he follows him out of the tunnel into the snow. A ring of mountains looming towards the endless, cloudless sky circles them. The wind whipped past their faces, bringing in small shards of ice crystals from time to time.
"When you're in the mountains, you have to be extremely careful," Paulie explained. He held out his hand, conjuring a shard of ice crystal. Aiming it towards one of the mountains, it zooms out of his hands towards the eye-blinding white snow caps.
After a pause of silence, a deep, booming noise erupted and the flank of the mountain became a chute of white. A wall of snow blasted out from the mountain and raced down towards the dark, frozen valley.
"Any slight disruptions would cause an avalanche," Paulie pointed out. "So you better watch out. Nothing would save you from those."
They continue to make their way back towards a large, white palace that stood in the pristine snow. There is a special beauty about the architecture that grabbed Ralph's attention. The layering within its structure, the textured marble that covers the wall, and the two metal ribbon that surrounds the palace all point toward one name in his mind.
"The Marble House," Ralph muttered. "One of the architectures designed by the Founder of the Great Four."
"So you know him," Paulie said with a glint of surprise. "That's true. The Founder built it for my father years ago, it was given to me as my seven years old birthday present."
"Damn," Ralph raised his brows as they walks up the decorative staircases.
"There are 88 steps in one staircase," Paulie says, waving his hands at the stair beneath them. "There are 3 staircases at the entrance, here we have 264 steps. In this palace, there are 88 corridors, 88 windows, and 88 rooms. But most of them are not in use, so the one trick to not get lost is to always walk and use the ones colored black. We've only got 36 of those, so it would be harder to get lost."
"That's... Specific," Ralph commented after they entered the palace. At once, he could see the clear distribution between black and white. He and Paulie walk into a black corridor, leading them on until they reach a door.
"This could be your room on your stay. Everything you need is in here. I want you to spend one day waiting for your body to recover first, then you can meet Cecilia out at the entrance tomorrow morning at five." Paulie instructed. "The room isn't very good, but I think you can put up with it."
When he opens the door, Ralph is reconsidering the actual definition of 'isn't very good'.
Closest to him was a blue silk mosaic sofa, dappled with velvet and turquoise green cushions trimmed with golden linen. A lamp was dimly lit on the corner of the room, but the light from the grand window directly in front of him was brighter. All around the room were bookshelves, higher than any he'd ever seen, with ladders of different lengths and sizes scattered at the bottom. Books arranged in alphabetical order lined themselves after one another across the shelves, a small furnace built of white marble was framed into the side of the wall, making the right side of his body warmer than the left. Outside the grand window that was also as tall as any shelves and half-covered with long, expensive-looking red velvet curtains, were ranges of tall, black rocky, mountains covered with stretching patches of snow. In the middle of the surrounding mountains, there was a forest of pines surrounding a lake, its grey ripples washed over one another, beating softly onto the pebbly shore.
Ralph could tell that the window is looking out to a different view than the entrance. The palace had somehow created an illusion of him walking in the same direction he had been when he was standing at the entrance, while in reality, he's most likely on the opposite side now.
"I hope you enjoy your stay," Paulie bids him a good afternoon, then closed the door.
YOU ARE READING
Alasla: The New Age
Fantasi"What killed him isn't me. It's the world." Ralph had never asked for much. Not even his own identity. But when his best and only friend got murdered by the man he calls father, he was forced to set off on an expedition to unravel the truth of this...
