Underground. Some kind of cellar. Dirt. Moss. Stone. That was what the place smelled like.
“I said we wouldtrynot to do anything else without your consent,” Tadhg corrected. He let go of my arm. Apparently, he was no longer concerned with me running. “As you’re seeing, there will be a few times when it can’t be helped.”
The room’s door slid open. Before I could argue with his interpretation of his earlier promise.
And then all arguments fell away when I saw the scene laid out before me.
My mouth dropped open, and I found myself moving forward without need of a tug. Emerging from the underground cellar into…
…a world. An entirely new world that looked like something out of a picture book.
Vibrant. Glowing under the light of a bright sun.
I stood in front of a glimmering lake with three castles lying to its east, north, and west.
At least, I could only assume those were the directions.
Even my wolf sense of—I mean, my bear sense of—orientation had become jumbled in this strange place that looked like a fairy tale but smelled like damp stone and cool earth.
To the maybe west, a jet-black castle stood in sharp contrast to the emerald-green grass.
Its walls were shiny. Almost like onyx, though how could an entire castle be made of smooth, ebony jewel? Either way, it sparkled like some kind of facet-less gemstone under the sun.
Weirdly, its spires and turrets gave it the look of an old-fashioned storybook castle. But deep-red symbols, like theones inked on the Shadow King’s human hands, covered every surface.
I couldn’t tell what the symbols were made of. Not neon. Not mercury. Something else that glowed and pulsed. Like electric blood.
What was that word Naomi had once used to describe a forbidden book she'd read, set in outer space?
Sci-fi.Somehow, the black castle to the maybe west struck me as extremely sci-fi.
The castle to the possible north was a bit easier to make sense of.
It reminded me of the one in Faoiltiarn. If someone had embedded it into the side of a steep mountain and set it high above our heads, with only a single set of stone stairs leading up to it.
Another word I’d read but never seen in real life floated across my mind.
Fortress.
Yes. It looked like a fortress.
Barely any windows. Sharp, jagged edges. Towers that looked less like turrets and more like watchpoints. Built not to impress, but to keep people out.
And yet… somehow I knew it had to belong to the affable, bespectacled bear who came to stand beside me.
The Mountain King was literally the ruler of this intimidating mountain fortress.
The castle to the maybe east looked like it had gone out of its way not to match the others.
From what I could tell, it was only one floor. And castle didn’t feel like the right word for it.
If not for the sheer size, I might have called it a house. Or maybe a mansion. But even grander.
It didn’t have the height of the other two, but it possessed wings and courtyards that sprawled so far, I couldn’t even see where they ended from this angle.
The residence was shorter than the other two. But it took up a lot more space.
And instead of standing open to the lake, it was fronted by a tall hedge of trees. Like it wanted to keep its distance from the lake. And the rest of this strange world.
