In The World of New Weston: Book 1

Secret meeting

"Cilas are you okay!?" Dallis yelled, Cilas turned to look at him, nodding his head.

"What happened?" Nick asked, seemingly appearing magically behind him, Cilas turned around for a second only to walk away.

"Come on! Tell us what happened! We were right here anyway" Nick said following behind him as he walked along the beach.

"What do you think happened?" Cilas asked, if what he read in the journal was right...then he needed to find out as much information as he could.

"I don't know" Nick said, Cilas sighed and stopped walking, turning around to face him.

"What did it look like?" Cilas asked, Nick thought for a second before responding.

"Well, you suddenly became very stiff, and your eyes looked glazed over and when we called out and asked what happened you didn't respond...oh, and your eyes were a different color" Nick said, counting everything that had happened on his fingers.

"What color were they?" Cilas asked.

"They were like a light blue color" Nick said, Cilas furrowed his brow, last time his eyes had changed color they had been amber, what did light blue mean?

"Well, they were more of a brownish-blue if that makes any sense" Nick continued, Cilas narrowed his eyes and turned around, walking into the woods and towards his house, he had remembered the way back.

"Hey! Aren't you gonna explain!?" Nick yelled.

"No! And tell Dallis not to tell anyone" Cilas yelled back as he wrestled through the vines and thorny bushes until eventually, he made it home, he ran inside, there weren't any cars, so his family wasn't back yet.

He ran upstairs and into his room, slamming the door shut and laying down on his bed after checking the desk drawers to make sure the journal was still there, though he had no plans of reading it.

Cilas stared up at the ceiling of his room, thinking about all that had happened in the last week and how it all somehow connected.

The secret conversations between his grandmother and Esmerelda, the mysterious change in his hair color, the sudden visit of Selina, the blackouts, the flashbacks, all of it connected, he had thought for a brief couple minute that he had figured out why all this was happening, but after what had just happened at the lake, he wasn't so sure.

"Cilas? Are you here?" Esmerelda asked, opening his door, Cilas sat up quickly.

"There you are! sorry, just wanted to let you know we were home." she said before walking downstairs, leaving his door partly open.

Cilas sighed and walked over to the door to close it, he stopped when he heard voices coming from somewhere in his room, Cilas turned around, closing his door and looking around the room.

He quietly walked around his room, checking everywhere, until he turned towards the closet, walking forward and opening the door, the voices stopped when he saw that there was nothing in the closet.

Cilas closed the doors to the closet, looking around his room one more time before opening the door and walking down the stairs to the living room, no one was there.

He heard more voices, this time coming from the dining hall, Cilas peeked in through a crack in the door, it was his family and the other two groups again.

"We said that we would have another meeting, I never thought it would be so soon" Thorn said, raising an eyebrow and looking at Cilas's family.

"We...We figured that it is best to fix the situation sooner rather than later" Esmerelda said, Thorn looked slightly shocked for a moment, though her stone cold expression returned soon after.

"Where is your grandmother? She's supposed to be here, not you" Thorn said, looking around the room.

"She's gone off to negotiate with my distant aunt, I'm here to substitute for her," Esmerelda said, folding her hands in front of her.

"Shall we begin?" Esmerelda said, looking towards Thorn.

"Thorn, would you tell us your plan on how to solve our...issue..." Esmerelda said, Thorn nodded and stood up.

"As you all know, we have a new heir, who's been watching our "issue" closely..." Thorn said, looking around the room before continuing.

"He has already almost mastered the power of Arlone, and has been training for years" Thorn said, Esmerelda narrowed her eyes.

"Where are you going with this?" she asked.

"Well, we could have the heir watch him even more closely, but there's apparently already been some close calls, and that wouldn't solve our solution for very long, our heir thinks that yours already knows what's going on" Thorn said, smiling slightly before her stone-cold expression returned once again.

"Our solution-My solution is much more permanent, and conveniences all of us" Thorn said, both Cilas's family and the other group looked nervous, as if they already knew the solution Thorn was proposing.

"I've been considering this ever since Adonis was imprisoned, we all knew who the next host would be, it is, after all, usually the youngest in the family."

"Get to the point!" someone from the red-haired group said, Thorn glared over in their direction before continuing.

"What I'm saying is...what if our issue simply...stopped existing?" she said, clasping her hands together, as the other two groups stared at her.

"Our issue wouldn't exist if the host suddenly was in some sort of...fatal accident" she said, Cilas's blood ran cold, she was talking about murder.

"Thank you for your...idea, Thorn, though we have a much less...violent, solution" Esmerelda said.

"We suggest that we send him to go with his aunt, the one my grandmother is speaking with at the moment, to train" she said, a few people seemed interested in the idea, Thorn certainly wasn't.

"Wasn't that exactly what we did with Adonis? Do you want to deal with more trials?" Thorn said, frustration dripping in her voice, Esmerelda sighed.

"Then we'll have a vote, all who vote for him going to the mountains?" Esmerelda said, Cilas's family, plus one or two people from the other groups raised their hands.

"All who vote for him being...disposed of?" Esmerelda said, almost the entirety of the other two groups raised their hands, Thorn sneered.

"It seems as though we have our solution."