Shadows of the Woods

Chapter 2

The Feloix Felaii Council Chambers looked exactly how I remembered it. The chamber was still just as cavernous, it's ceiling disappearing in a cloud of floating lights, the gossamer chairs were still arranged in a circle to look down at the dais, and the light still illuminated the room in a soft white glow, but yet everything was different without all the seats filled. Only about twenty people were assembled, and they all sat close to the dais with their heads close together, their murmurs sounding like the rippling of a stream. To my slight disappointment, I saw that I didn't recognize any of them. When Apollo and I entered the chamber, they looked up in unison.

"Apollo Ambrosia." A silvery haired witch stood up to greet us as we climbed down the steps. I would have thought she was an elf if it weren't for the clawed talons that were her hands. Her smile was warm as she looked at us, but I thought her pale blue eyes looked tense. "I trust your journey here was comfortable?"

"Very." Apollo smiled back.

I glanced at him from the corner of my eye. We'd had to use some strange substance called sage salt to travel since no elves lived close by; it was a weird experience. To use it, someone had to throw it on the ground at your feet, so Myrnah offered to do it. Jannosh obviously didn't want to leave her, so it was just Apollo and I leaving again. I felt sad, looking at them just before the smoke rose up from the sand to engulf us; we were leaving them again, and unlike last time, I knew I wouldn't be seeing them for a while.

It was clear the witch was the tribune of the session. She sat down daintily in the chair the last tribune I'd seen, Apollo's sister Astera, had sat in last time. She was still smiling at Apollo and me.

"Please, take  a seat." Her icy eyes met mine. "I don't believe I've had the pleasure of meeting you, miss...?"

"Lilah Winters." I said softly as Apollo gently tugged me into a seat.

"Miss Winters." She tried my name out. The rest of the people present stared at me. "It's so lovely to meet you; I've heard many things. My name is Greta Blyme, and I'm the tribune here today."

"Hello." I said, but she had already turned back to Apollo.

"You know the proceedings." Greta nodded at him. "You may take the stage, Apollo."

He nodded graciously back to her before getting up and climbing onto the dais. I felt horribly alone in the chair without him. In front of me, a beady-eyed goblin glanced at me in unabashed curiousity. I wanted to sigh. They stared when I was a human because humans were non-existent in the city; now they stare at me because I used to be a human. I just can't win, can I?

"My name is Apollo Ambrosia." Apollo was saying, his words politely directed to an elf who was furiously writing things down on a piece of parchment. She must be the chamber scribe. "And I'm here today to report a strange occurrence that happened close to my home last night."

"What is the nature of this occurrence?" Greta asked, leaning back languidly in her chair. I wondered what her usual role in the chamber was; Apollo had told me last time we were here that tribunes were always different, but she seemed extremely comfortable in the tribune seat.

"A new sickness." Apollo said sombrely. He looked out of place in the crystal room with his favourite pair of jeans and a black tee shirt.

"I see." Greta glanced at the scribe. The girl was still furiously scribbling. "Tell us everything that happened."

Apollo nodded once before proceeding to tell them, starting from the moment Jannosh walked into the kitchen. I reached up nervously to play with a strand of my bright red hair as he told his story; Apollo had sent ahead a message to the Feloix Felaii Council Chambers telling them that he'd had an urgent report to relay, but it didn't look like people were taking him seriously at all. Last time I was here, the room was packed and the tension could have been cut with a knife. Now though, with so little people, the atmosphere in the room was completely different; the chamber members actually looked disinterested. Bored was probably the blunt way of saying it.