Wings

Chapter 31: Ella

    We crossed into the castle after being watched by multiple bright eyes belonging to the village folk. Once again, I marveled at the castle. It was strategically built to ensure that, in case of invasion, the citizens could seek shelter inside the towering walls. Archers could easily attack anything from the top of the walls, and the city was built to ensure that. The forest surrounding the mountain that the castle was built into was cleared in such a way that any attackers would have to run hundreds of meters on clear, open ground in order to get to the city. The only place that I could see an invasion being successful was by the mountain. It was neat how they managed to throw together beauty and strategy so well.

    Anyways, the second we stepped into the castle, every single Silvercloak stopped what he was doing and turned towards us. Some bowed, others grinned, but they all shared a small amount of awe that was directed at me. I felt heat rise to my face and I suddenly found my feet extremely interesting. Ani and Katie sensed what was up and sought to console their queen-- well, they actually nudged me in harassment. Casper rolled his eyes, grinning with amusement. I noticed that his light brown wings were oddly absent.

    "Do you three wish to get cleaned up before meeting with my sister?"

    We looked at him. Personally, I would have loved to, yet the oddness of the entire situation mentally shoved me. Nothing was adding up, and I just seemed to accept every single development as it came. It was actually starting to scare me, it was like I was born into this life, just taking each day in my stride. It made me feel slightly better to see that my friends had apparently the same just-another-day attitude as I.

    "I mean, it'd be nice to take a shower, but this place is so medival that I doubt they even know what plumbing is."

    Casper adopted a look of mock horror as my friends nodded in agreement.

    A couple minutes later I was sitting in what felt like the best bubble bath ever. I cleaned up and went to the wardrobe, picking an outfit and looking in the mirror. I wore a darling mint-green blouse that complimented my newly cleaned jeans and sneakers. The earrings I chose matched my shirt, and my hair fell down my back in a braid. Instinctively, my hand went up to the butterfly necklace and I shuddered. The metal still radiated a faint heat that seemed to pulse to the beat of my heart. The urge to see those wings again overtook me, but I didn't have to take off the necklace. It glowed faintly for a moment, and the space behind me shimmered. I could feel them before they appeared. The Morpho butterfly wings slowly moved as I commanded them to. I don't know how I knew, but somewhere inside me felt that this was a piece of my life that I was missing. I felt more complete with these wings- my wings. I was startled by a soft knocking on my door. I quickly willed my wings to become hidden once more, and glancing in the mirror I saw that they had vanished.

    "Ella, it's time to meet Casper's sister." Katie called. I walked over and slid out of my room. Oh, yeah, Casper gave us each rooms. Such a sweetheart!

    We followed Casper towards a large room. There were three thrones on the far wall, all with different colored raven insignias. The one on the left was shamrock-green, the one in the middle was gold, and the one on the right was cardinal-red. Upon the middle throne sat Anastasia, the pale girl from the previous day. I frowned; it was strange how quickly Casper went from enemy to an ally of sorts. I don't even understand what happened to make that change. The girl looked awfully uninterested as her cold gaze swept over us. Her dark hair was pulled into a stylish side braid. It was also a little shorter than yesterday. A pair of large raven wings protruded from her back. They had frosty blue flecks to match her eyes along with intertwining golden flecks. The effect was mesmerizing. She lounged on her throne, looking quite carefree. Her wings demonstrated an equal expression.