Woodbridge Recollection : The Hidden Kingdom

Chapter 13: Xenophil.

"The vault has to be locked at all times."

"I can't be a princess. I am meant to be a warrior."

"Zelena. Where are you going this late at night? Why are you crying?"

"Just listen to me for once."

"The sword must be held firmly."

"I love you, Zelena."

"I'll protect the ring."

I opened my eyes and looked around at the room around me. I could still feel the faces in my mind, each one speaking to me as they disappeared into the surrounding shadows. How weird. The real question, who were they and what were they even talking about. I couldn't really recognize them. Except one.

I could recall a pair of bright crystal blue eyes – belonging to an old man with clean cut white hair and a short white beard. He had spoken about a vault. From what I could gather, I imagine he had tattoos and wore formal clothes. Neat trousers, dress shirts with waistcoats. The look of a hot grandpa came to mind.

I sat up in my bed and shivered. The room was cold and it was still dark, however, the ongoing phone alarm reminded me that it was five thirty and it was time to get up.

I picked up my cell phone and switched off the alarm. I opened it up to my screensaver and found three messages. I ignored them and put the phone down on the bedside table.

God, those messages were probably from Pretoria. I didn't exactly know how to take care of it and I figured to lay low from the cell phone communications until I could figure out an excuse or story for those back in Pretoria.

During breakfast, I was seated amongst Vincent, Kelian and Nirvana in the mess all at the academy. While they spoke about a variety of many subjects, I sat and skimmed through the third journal of the collection. I was hoping to find something useful about my life here, other than my love story with Mathew. Perhaps something about Eustace would come up soon, or maybe some information about the apparent new boyfriend that I had after Mathew.

"She might forget her cue if we don't remind her," Kelian said to Nirvana. "She is fifty-one, after all."

I looked up.

"Who?" I asked.

"Our mother," he answered.

I frowned at him.

"Really?"

He nodded.

"She looks like she's in her forties," I said. "How old is Maximus?"

"Fifty-six," Vincent answered and took a bite out of his toast.

I sighed and shook my head.

"They look so much younger than that," I said as I looked down at the pages of the journal.

"Almost everyone in the order does," Kelian said. "The job requires constant exercise and being fit keeps you looking younger, as far as I can tell."

"Touché," I replied and went back to reading.

Someone sat down in the seat across the table from me, but I wasn't really interested in seeing who it was.

Next to me, Vincent cleared his throat.

"Good morning."

"Hey Zac, how's it going?" Kelian said.

I instantly looked up and found myself sitting face to face with Zacarias.

"Quite well," Zacarias said, smiling at Kelian.