That left the hut feeling dark and scary and silent.
Jenkins walked to a nearby bookshelf and dug out a scroll which was in the very back. He passed it to Aaron. “Here is a list of the last League. Some of those people are still around and might want to help. I know I do. You must gather your own loyal friends as well. And if King Ward has returned, you’ll have a year of training at the most.”
Aaron opened up the scroll and studied the list. “Is Joshua still around? I know Dragon was. What about Emily Ward?”
The old man nodded. “All of them. But do not gather them now. Wait until you are positive about King Ward. And …” He turned to my sisters and I, “princesses, King Ward is magical as you are. He has a power too.”
My sisters and I exchanged looks. This would complicate things. “May I ask what it is?” I piped up.
“Not me,” Jenkins replied, staring into space. “No, only one knows. One… Prince Joshua. But it is so horrid and evil and powerful, so powerful.”
I swallowed hard. What chance did we even have? I turned to my sisters who were just as frightened as I. “This won’t be so easy. Where would we even find proof of his return?”
“Retrace the past,” Jenkins answered. “That’s the only way.”
What the old wise man said made no sense. How where we even supposed to retrace what had already happened?
“Good thing I brought the bounded book, huh?” Aqua asked as giddy and self-praising as ever.
Galena nodded and gazed out the window across from the couch which we were seated. It was already black, twilight.
Jenkins noticed her looking and quickly got up. “Let me show you into your rooms.” He snapped his finger and a door appeared where a wall should’ve been. “Right there.”
We were gaping at that. Magic! Real magic. How amazing.
Aaron opened the wooden door which led to a hallway with a room on each side. My sister and I plopped our bags in the biggest of the two rooms. The room even had four small straw mattresses on wooden frames.
Aaron took the smaller room which also supplied a neat but quaint bed.
Soon we were all ready for bed. My sisters and I were sitting in a circle on our beds in the room. “So,” Galena began. “What do you three think?”
Safire stood up. “A lot bad things are coming our way.”
“Can’t we just avoid it?” Aqua asked, leaning against the wall.
“Nope,” I sighed. “If King Ward is rising, does it matter to him if four girls don’t get involved?”
“Plus, we’ll need to get involved. We’re the Princesses. We can’t just let our people suffer,” Galena reasoned. Then she let out a groan. “This is so much more complicated.”
Aqua still did not seem convinced. “We could get killed!”
“We shouldn’t be afraid of dying to save our kingdom,” I reminded her.
My sisters looked down at their feet. I knew what they were thinking. They were scared of dying. Then again, so was I.
Galena looked at us, feeling the authority to be the leader. “First things first. Can we trust Aaron Delgado?”
“Yes,” Aqua and Safire said in unison.
They turned to me. “Well, I suppose.”
Galena nodded, even smiling a bit. “So here’s the plan, we follow King Ward’s steps to prove he is rising again. Then, we gather the League and train. And lastly, we have the final war and hopefully win.”
We nodded along, agreeing. Then we smiled, the hardest thing to do in this situation. “For Donstania.”
