The Immortal Secrets

Chapter 14

Kara woke up at about 5 a.m. and began to get dressed. She pulled on a grey tunic, black leggings, and black leather boots. She quickly french braided her hair to get it out of her face. Her green eyes were dull and sleepy, and she had dark circles under her eyes. Not knowing what she was doing, Kara walked outside of her room and started to walk the halls. She reached a set of large doors, and opened them. A library. The wooden carved bookshelves were filled all the way to the ceiling, and there was a roaring fire in the corner. Books were covering the shelves, and some in piles on the floor. There were large red chairs and red lamps for reading. Kara went over to a small table to get a glass of water, and then walke over to the book directory and began to look. She  quickly found the section for ancient rituals and climbed the old wooden ladder to the very top of the ceiling. Quickly grabbing one of the books, she slowly climbed back down the ladder and began to read.

The whole book was filled with ancient party rituals and old practices of past civilizations. Kara quickly walked up to pick another one, and another one. It was now 7 a.m and Kara hadnt found anything. She had tried almost all of the books on the top shelf, and still had about 7 more shelfs to go. She was so tired, that she lost her footing halfway down the ladder and fell on her back."Ughh" she moaned as she rolled over onto her stomach and pushed herself up on her knees. "Wait.." she thought to herself."How could I have been so stupid?" she thought to herself. If there was a book about the ritual, Jace or Erik was certainly have it.

Kara positioned herself right outside of Jace's room, as she watched Erik pound on Jace's door. "Hurry up you lazy son of a bitch" he yelled. Jace yanked the door opened, looking tired and hungover. He ran  his hand through his messy black air as he and Erik began to talk. They talked about Foster and Jasper, but the conversation shifted to Kara. "This could end really badly." Erik said, sad looking. "I know" Jace said back. "We're just lucky that last night it wasn't.....". Kara could no longer hear them as the turned the corner of the hallway. After about five minutes, she scampered up to the gold double doors and swung them open. The room was all gold. The bed, the sheets, the floor, the dresser, the window panes. Everything. The ceiling was covered in designs of gold and white, and it cascaded upward into a set of wide windows. Kara began searching the room. She looked everywhere, only finding Jace's clothes and random books on magic and fire moving. Kara stomped her foot, frusterated. "If it's not here, then Eriks room?" she thought to herself as she put everything back in its place. She quietly shut the door and began to walk down to her room ready to sleep. She was halfway there when Erik came up behind her. "Where the hell have you been Kara?" looking concerned. "Around" she answered quietly, rubbing her eyes. "Well come one. Jace wants you to sit in on another meeting" he said grabbing her arm. Kara shook his arm off and continued down the hallway. Erik stood behind her and processed what had happend. His brows furrowed and he followed her down the hallway.

When she entered the room, Kara sat down in her chair and leaned her face against her hand, shutting her eyes. Erik went over to Jace and began to whisper something to him, probably about her. Kara shut her eyes and tried to tune whatever Norrin was saying out. About 2 1/2 hours later, Kara awoke to Erik pushing her arm. "Kara, did you fall asleep?" he asked smirking. Kara just sat up and said "Is it over?". "Um. yes" Jace said giving her a weird look. "Great" Kara said standing up to leave the room. 

Erik and Jace exchanged a weird look as Kara got up and left. As soon as the door shut Erik turned to Jace and said "See what I mean? She's acting werid.". "Relax she's just tired" Jace said sorting papers. "No, theres definitly something wrong" Erik said, turning to look at the door. " Maybe you should talk to her". "Why me?" Jace asked. "Well you two are you know....close" Erik said smirking. Jace gave Erik a look and said "If your so concerned go talk to her. She was just tired, trust me". 'Fine" Erik said, brushing his hair out of his eyes.

Kara barely reached her room before she collapsed on her bed. She grabbed one of the pillows and held it close to her stomach. "Finally.." she thought to herself as she drifted to sleep.

When Kara opened her eyes she heard yelling. Her arm burned with a pain she had never felt before. She tried to move but got to dizzy, and lay back down. She head someone run up to her and opened her eyes. Her vision was blurry, so she couldn't make out the persons face. They scooped her up and tore out of the hallway, racing towards an open window. "What.." Kara thought dreerily. Her mind felt foggy and her vision was cloudy. Something hard hit the person carrying her, causing them both to fly out the window. 

Kara felt herself hit the surface of water. "This must be the pond on the south side" she thought to herseld. "But my rooms near the west..". Kara struggled to the surface, her muscles giving out. Whoever had fell with her grabbed her and hauled her out of the water. Falling into the water had cleared Kara's mind and vision up some. She could make out Jace running towards her screaming, "If he's not the one..." she thought to herself, struggling to stand "Then who is?". Standing up and turning around, Kara saw who her captor was. Conrad. His left arm was bloody and burnt and he was completely soaked. He turned to grab Kara but she stumbled away, falling into the grass. Before giving her one last look, he whisked himseld into the air, disappearing from sight. 

Jace ran towards Kara, shaking her in his arms. "Look at me. LOOK AT ME. Are you ok? Did you break anything" he yelled at Kara. Erik and Jasper had now reached them, and Kara could see that they were both now extremely frazzled. Her vision and head had cleared up completely, and she looked down at herelf to see that her left leg was cut and bleeding at the calf, and she was completely soaked. She looked at her left arm, to see that it was badly burned. "Sorry" Jace said weakly. "I was aiming for Conrad, but I guess I was mad and didn't really look..." he fninished off. "Jace" Erik said, pulling him towards him, look what we found near the spot he had laid her". Erik held out a cobalt blue dagger, with  light blue gems encrusting the handle. Kara could hear Jace suck in his breath. "He was going to use this" he said, his voice shaking. "What is that?" Jace said grabing it and examining it closely. "It's just like Conrad" he added."Tacky and harmful" he said before giving it back to Erik. Jasper went over to Kara and helped her up. She fell back down, her head spinning around. "Looks like he drugged her" Jasper said standing over Kara. "That explains why she was so tired at the meeting..." Erik said his voice trailing off. Jace leaned over pickd Kara up "Not so fast" she said her hands on her head. "She needs to sleep." he said. "I'm taking her to the infirmary. Her leg and arm are hurt." with that he turned around and began to walk back into the castle. Erik and Jasper exchanged a look, and both began to snicker. "Ashe is gonna get a kick out of this" Jasper said with a smile as he began to follow them back to the castle.