Realm of the Sun

Chapter 2

"Your majesty," Solarie quickly took a deep bow, catching her breath. Why am I in front of the king? Have I been arrested? He wouldn't waste his time on a lowly varien girl like me, right?

There was another man standing beside the king. He whispered something into his ear, and the king nodded, before turning back to Solarie.

"Your name is Solarie Lin, correct? You were at this year's Sun Trial, yet you are not part of any Elite house, not even as a servant. Buying tickets to the trial as a varien is extremely expensive, so how did you obtain one?" The king raised a brow, eyeing her suspiciously.

Solarie looked up. "I work for Orion Erebus, and I am good friends with Jin Lang. I received their blessings and a ticket from Orion." she explained.

The man beside the king nodded again.

"My consultant here, Constable Tang, is a scion of Tyrre, and tampers with the mind. Please try to relax. You have done nothing but tell the truth so far. Do you know why you're here?"

The king must enjoy speaking in questions, Solarie thought. She quickly pushed it out of her head, remembering that Constable Tang probably had some kind of mind reading ability and she would most definitely be thrown into prison if she was caught defaming the king. "No, your majesty."

The king turned again, and the constable nodded. "Then I will explain. Jin Lang is a descendant of Crysallo, yes? But he was not the one to summon the ice. It was you. But by looking through the archives while you were on your way here, we found that there is no way to trace your ancestry to that of the Lang house. We will be..." He paused, then started again. "Conducting tests on you. Try to see what happened, some might say."

Solarie blinked. "I'm not an Elite. How could it have been me?" Now she was the one speaking in questions.

The king gestured for the constable. Suddenly, all she could see was another person's perspective, watching moments before the ice appeared. It replayed over and over again. A girl in the crowd had glistening eyes, glowing a bright yellow. It took her a few moments to recognize the girl as her. As soon as she made the revelation, the memory that didn't exactly belong to her disappeared.

"By my command, you will submit to testing." The king waved for dismissal. Solarie was again dragged off, shoved into a new room, and was told to stay put and await orders.

The room was barren, all except for a white tile pattern that wrapped all around the room and a single bed. One of the walls was made of some sort of glass, but it was the one-sided kind- only the person on the other side could see.

What had happened at the trial? Solarie didn't know. All she could remember was feeling the need to protect Jin from those horrible creatures, and something surging in her veins. There was ice one second, a bag over her head the other.

Wait. Something surging in her veins? Normal blood flow didn't feel like that. It was something else, something new. Something powerful.

She could feel a familiar aura on the other side of the glass. Jin? Orion? She thought to herself. It felt like something... something was on the other side, and if she just reached and could grab a hold of it...

There. Like some kind of magical miracle, suddenly there was liquid metal spinning in a ball above her palm, summoned from nowhere. What was the next part of the plan? Solarie didn't know, but at least she had demonstrated something. She had to blink, for her eyes were getting strained from all the staring.

I did that. Solarie took a deep breath. I did that. Am I really an elite?

For a moment, her brain settled. The next, a white mist poured into the room from the roof, dousing Solarie in its gnarly smell.