A Siren's Crown (Book Two in the APK Trilogy)

(3) The Dungeon

Nathaniel's P.O.V

"She wants to talk to me?"

The Air Princess nodded her beautiful head in conformation.

"Mother sent me to get you, the Siren wants to see you and Mother thinks that it might help her talk more than she has been doing." Aranel's voice hardened with the words and her eyes turned to slits. "I don't think that it is a clever idea."

"Why not?" I asked curiously, but she simply turned her head to the side and tilted her nose in the air.

"Come."

She turned to leave and I hastily shrugged on a coat gifted to me by the Queen. It was very light and very warm and made from some kind of strange fur that shone like a crystal in the light.

Buttoning up the front, I followed after Aranel, shutting the door quietly behind me.

We walked through the halls and I made sure to keep up as I hadn't gone through the palace this way before and it was easy to get lost when all of the white stone and glass walls were all equally dazzling, yet as alike as two petals from the same flower.

Although the light didn't change, I had the strange feeling that we were hurrying deeper and deeper into the bowels of the palace and my suspicions were confirmed when Aranel pushed open a thick wooden door and announced that we were entering the Palace dungeons, which were situated at the very bottom of the magnificent structure.

The rooms were the darkest that I had seen inside the palace. They were, by Earth standards, normally lit, but I supposed, to the people that lived in this too bright fairy tale world, the dudgeons might as well be pitch black.

Cell's lined the walls, and it became apparent to me just how accessible the precious gem was in this Kingdom, when Aranel informed me that the bars were made from solid diamond and the stone walls were crafted by the Dragons, who, according to the Princess had an 'unusual knack for manipulating the rock.'

The cells were all empty, Zalas had told me himself that crime wasn't really a problem in the Kingdom. Everyone was provided with a job, the Queen saw to that.

When I had asked how she managed to keep a track of everyone, his answer had been that the Kingdom was small, and it was worth the effort to get to know the people and provide a little extra for them, if it reduced the amount of theft and unhappiness within the Kingdom.

This answer had forced a grudging respect out of me for Zalas. I didn't like the boy, but it was obvious that he didn't think himself so above ordinary people that they were undeserving of his help when it was needed. He was fair, I could give him that.

I breathed in deeply and coughed. The air was musty here, and puffs of a shimmery substance that I would have likened to dust rose up around my feet when I walked. But it couldn't be dust, it caught the light and hung for just a second too long in the air.

"Its ground up glass, from the Palace above. Everything is so heavy that the slightest movement of the Palace caused the glass to rub against the stone. It seeps through the cracks in the floors and settles here."

I looked ahead to Aranel and saw that her white hair was already coated in the stuff and it glittered as she walked.

Her explanation didn't seem to require an answer so I kept quite until we rounded another corner and stopped at a door that appeared to be created out of solid diamond.

Entranced, I reached forward and tapped a knuckle on the polished surface, pulling back quickly when a bell like sound emitted from the door.

"It's treated diamond." Aranel said briskly. "It is the hardest substance on earth, nothing can cut through diamond but diamond, which is why everything is made from it down here. The Dragons altered it for us so that it could be used as an alarm as well. Nothing gets through the doors unless you know the key."