The Golden Chalice

✰✦✰ Chapter 13 ✰✦✰

✰✦✰ Chapter 13 ✰✦✰
" How To Kill A Dragon "

AFTER WE'D HAD our breakfast, discussed tactics and handed each pair a Parton each, we all made our ways back upstairs and got ready. With my teeth brushed and my skin freshly bathed, I slipped into my white, flowy dress, I slipped a grey corset over it and tied my hair into a plait to sit along my shoulder.

Luna gasped as she finished doing up her own laced boots. "Scarlett, you look. . .wow!"

I hesitated and glanced down at myself. "Erm—"

Rinne grinned at me, brushing through her dark hair. "Just like a princess."

I smiled at them both, unsure of how to take Rinne's "princess" comment. "Thank you."

Not long after we were already on our way into town.

And since Jacks and I were taking a separate route to the others, we had to travel in what the locals called Dark Carriages. One had to race from inside the inn to the carriage, and then, once inside, immediately close the curtains and sit back while shadow horses rode you to your desired location, if it was close enough so they didn't have to fly.

"What time are we supposed to be back?" I asked Jacks as we plopped down into our seats and the horses neighed.

"We're reconvening in the town square at"—He checked his watch—"eight this evening. Another eleven hours."

"Gives us plenty of time, right?" I bounced my leg.

He cracked his knuckles. "Let's hope."

"But. . ." I swallowed. "At the risk of this sounding totally vain—won't they know who I am?"

Jacks shook his head with a sure frown, one that somehow summoned my trust for a man I'd only known for a couple of weeks. "No. I highly doubt it. Umbra Isle hardly ever gets any news because of their own issues and if they do, it's usually days after it's happened, that is unless family or friends of theirs who live on other isles have already shared that information with them. Reckon that's what happened with Mrs. Phoenix."

"So we have to find it today or—"

"Practically risk your life, yes."

And though that gave me no comfort whatsoever, I sat back and tried to let the cool of the leather seat calm my nerves. Clopduv wasn't far away and I was sure—I had to be—that at least one of us would find whatever clue it was we were looking for. We all had our talents and I knew we'd use them to the full extent if it ever came to it.

Even if we had no idea what the clue actually was.

I gripped my dagger a little tighter at the holster at my waist, stroking it as a way of soothing the storm inside of me. I shifted in my seat. This dagger had once been Sarinne's, and she'd gifted it to me on my fourteenth birthday, the first one we'd spent together. It was the first day she'd truly trusted me. To think my worst fears back then were accidentally falling into a stream of fjarlas. . .

I drew the curtain back ever so slightly and the town square slowly slid into view. A large, darkened town, dotted with fairy lights that hung across the main square. Dozens of people strolled around outside, laughing and smiling and enjoying their life, as if entirely oblivious to the nightmare of an isle that they lived on.

Then again, I reminded myself, this city was the only protected one by the Olympians when they had ruled. Once they'd been wiped out, the people of Umbra Isle no longer had to fear for their souls being vanquished by Shadow Stealers.