Alabaster Cities (Kings and Thieves Book #2)

Chapter 13

**Happy break!! For everyone that has it. I'm going straight home after classes today and I'm soo excited. As I mentioned in a post on my board, I was busy writing for another Wattpad thing so I couldn't post Saturday's chapter, but as promised here it is now!!**

Chapter 13

The castle was a maze.

Lyla was used to the familiar, straightforward corridors of the Apreuna palace; the rooms were sectioned off in wings by necessity. Here, Lyla felt as if she'd make a wrong turn and accidentally wind up in a dungeon. And the design was so ornate and colorful; the elaborate swirls on the frosted glass, the vivid tapestries on the walls, the gold filigree mirrors. Even the marble floors were streaked with some sort of rose-colored pearl, like veins inlaid into the marble.

"So, they're serious about interior decorating." Ari idly yanked at one of the silk curtains, as if waiting for gold coins to come tumbling out. "I'll tell you this; if I had that gaudy crown molding on my walls, I'd be going mad too."

Lyla's jaw dropped. "Ari!"

He dropped the curtain to look at her. "What?"

"I don't know..." She squirmed a bit, raising her shoulder up towards her neck. "It seems wrong to make jokes about such things."

"Lyla's right, you know," Aveline chimed in. "I think the crown molding was an admirable risk."

Ari laughed.

"I wonder how much it cost, just to build this palace," said Jamie softly. Lyla was about to respond before Aveline lifted her hand to stop them.

"Shh." She put her other finger to her lips. "Do you hear that?"

Lyla paused, and suddenly she could hear it too - a mingling of voices, emanating from the other direction.

"People!" Aveline visibly brightened. "Let's go see."

They followed the noise through the hall, eventually stumbling upon what must have been the dining hall, which, to Lyla's surprise, was filled with chatting citizens. Most of the guests sitting at the long, chestnut tables didn't even look like nobles; their clothing faded and muted in fabric.

No one even glanced up as they walked in. Lyla's stomach roused to grumble at her as she caught sight of a pot of stew in the middle of one of the tables, next to a loaf of seeded bread.

"Finally," sighed Ari, pulling out one of the chairs at a mostly vacant side. "Food."

Lyla was too hungry to protest, following his suit and ladling some of the savory-smelling stew into the clay bowl in front of her.

"We need to make a plan for the assignment," declared Aveline while she reached for a hunk of bread.

"What are we supposed to do?" Jamie spoke with her mouth full. "They haven't told us anything."

Lyla glanced at the only person sitting near them; an old, haggard-looking woman who hunched over her food away from everyone else and struck Lyla as being too ancient to even be able to hear.

"I say we go into the village tomorrow, see what all the fuss is about," said Ari. "That is, if Dana the Demon doesn't kill us all in our sleep."

Lyla absently worried her bottom lip between her teeth. "I do hope the rest of the citizens aren't as tight-lipped."

Jamie nodded. "I can't imagine why they would be so secretive."

"It's because they don't want you to solve it," the old woman spoke, suddenly, without looking up from her bowl, her voice craggy and grating like rocks. All heads swung to her.