Darkness of Magic (Soul of Magic Book 2)

NINETEEN

Lorraine suddenly jerked out of sleep as she heard the alarm bells ringing. Looking around, she realised that she was still at her table. Apparently, she had dozed off during her perusal of the f*******n scrolls for anything on Helione's triskelion. That task had become some sort of late night routine to the princess.

The bells went up another notch and Lorraine's attention went back to what had shaken her out of sleep in the first place. Quickly, she ran to the window, her confusion deepening when she didn't see anything outside to warrant an alarm. In truth, that was actually the very first time she had ever heard the great kingdom's alarm bells ringing, which may mean that whatever was going on was probably more than the guards can handle.

Suddenly, her doors opened and she jumped in fright as she turned to see someone walk in; but it was only the captain of the guards.

"What's going on, Captain?" she asked, trying very hard not to let her fear and worry get to her.

"We had a bit of a situation in the palace, your Highness," he replied. "Fortunately, it has passed but Lord Aegan still requests your presence as a matter of urgency."

"Where?"

"The vault."

Lorraine had never been down to the Palace's vault since she was born. But the wait was worth as the princess couldn’t help but open her mouth in marvel as she stepped through the giant iron gates that barred the royal vault of the grand palace castle of Cyrian; although the gates appeared to have been recently kicked in.

Based on what Lorraine had read in books, she had envisioned that vaults should be old dusty underground compartments where valuable ancient objects are strewn all over the place in a disorderly manner. But the palace’s vault was not even one of those things.

It was actually more of a giant underground room than a treasure cave; and the objects in it, which were too numerous to count, were arranged in an orderly manner. The order, however, was something the princess couldn’t fathom even as she tried in her quick glance about.

"I heard we're in a bit of a situation," she said as she turned to see Aegan walking towards her. "What's it?"

"The vault was broken into," he replied and earning a gasp from Lorraine as the kicked-in gates and the guards' tenseness finally made sense to her. Truth be told, the princess had never heard of an attack on the kingdom's vault before; with the perpetrators also getting away by the looks of it.

"But nothing was stolen, was it?" she asked when she finally got herself back under control, looking around to assess it for herself.

"The Creator be thanked, no. The robbers didn't take anything," he replied. "Although I think I may know what it is they were looking for."

"And what might that be?"

"Helione's triskelion," he replied, pointing her to the only box in the vault that was destroyed. "Your Highness, do you mind telling me how it is that some days after you asked me specifically about that particular artifact, someone tried to steal it?"

Lorraine couldn't answer the old lord’s question as she was too stunned to do so. But it wasn't just the question that surprised her. Truth is, the princess didn't even know that the triskelion was still in existence, let alone in Cyrian as the scrolls she'd been checking attested to the fact that it was lost some years ago. Also, Aegan, someone whom she really trusted, happened to know that it was in the very vault beneath their feet and failed to share that piece of information with her.

"Wait, are you saying that Helione's triskelion has been in the Capital all this while?" she suddenly asked in a sputter, choosing to go for her own question instead of answering the initial one. "How?"

"During the early years of the great conflict, your father Nicolas went up against a group of wizards who were amassing an army to fight back against him and destroyed them all," he explained to her. "Among the things he recovered from them was the triskelion, although its true nature wasn't known at that time. After we learnt who its owner was, Nicolas had it sealed off in the vault and the record of its existence blotted out."

"And you said that nothing was taken," she said as she turned to look at the empty and destroyed box again. "But the triskelion is not in its box. How can that not quality as taken?"

This time, Aegan took her away from the guards who were still surveying the vault before replying. "I got a little bit worried when you questioned me about the triskelion the other day. And knowing that you won't stop looking into it even after I asked you not to, I secretly moved it to another location," he said before crossing his arms and giving her a deep serious stare. "So tell me Lorraine, how did you get to know about the triskelion in the first place?"

"I told you, I was just curious about it," she replied, giving the old lord her own deep serious stare to hide her lie behind. "And before you ask, I didn't tell anyone either."

The princess didn't wait for Aegan to give a response to her words before she walked away from him. But even as she went away, she knew that the look which the old lord was shooting her behind her back was one which didn’t believe her idle curiosity story anymore.

However, he made no attempt to call her back to press, instead watching her leave with a sigh before turning his attention to the guards to see what they had uncovered during the course of their survey.

Lorraine, on the other hand, wasn't feeling so well; and not just because she had just told a bold-faced lie to a man whom she deeply loved and respected like her own father. It went without saying that the secret of the hidden triskelion was no longer a secret as someone had already tried to have it stolen, which wouldn't have happened if they didn't know that it was within the walls of the great kingdom in the first place.

But yet another thing was that the princess was starting to doubt Aegan's assessment that the triskelion's popularity came from its owner's reputation. People didn't have secret late night meetings in the secret siege tunnel beneath the palace’s maze, invent a secret method of communication, and even risk their lives to break into a heavily defended vault; all just to recover a popular heirloom. Helione's triskelion was definitely more than just an artifact, and it may very well happen that someone somewhere knew exactly what it did.