The Paladins of Naretia

Chapter 2

The Paladins of Naretia

Book one in the Naretia series.

Copyright ©2016 by TP Keane

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Massachusetts, USA

First Edition

Printed in the United States of America

Cover Design by ebooklaunch.com

Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data Available

Library of Congress Control Number:2016900714

ISBN: 978-0-9971793-0-9

10-ISBN: 0-9971793-0-9

The palace throne room was cloaked in a thick silence. The only sound came from the gentle lapping of flames of golden trays of fire oil, dangling from the marble rafters. There were no banners of green and gold hung from the walls, as there had been in years gone by. There was no audience creating a gentle hum, nor did the armour of the King's Guard clatter to kill the silence in the shadowy hall. It was void of all furniture and grandeur, save a small hill of marble steps that led up to a tall, golden throne adorned with green fabric over its seat.

A girl, with a waterfall of red, curly hair spilling over her shoulders, sat in the large chair. Two intensely blue eyes peered out from under the curtain of red, and burned into the wooden doors at the far end of the room. Her slim frame, too slight to fill the throne, was clad from her neck down in close-fitting red, metal armour. A long golden sword rested by her right leg, glinting in the poor light like a statue that might suddenly come to life and slay all who dared look at it.

She waited, gripping onto the golden scrolls at the end of her armrests more tightly with every passing second. Though the oil lamps burned, they could not completely light the dark hall, and that was the way she preferred it. The shadows clinging to the corners of the empty room appreciated it too and waited for their chance to creep forward. In her mind, she saw them tentatively extend a murky hand out when the light flickered dimly, only to retract it again as the oil fires refused to give up on their quest.

Two years she had watched those shadows try to reach her, to no avail. The memories of the past horrors that befell within the walls stayed hidden inside their murky world. She had once been afraid to re-enter the throne room, but with each passing season her patience grew thinner, and she became more ruthless. The shadows, while they still whispered echoes of her heartache, no longer frightened her. It was the brightness that she feared the most. Seeing, in full light, the place where her nightmares had been born, was too much even for her. But she was the queen, and a queen needed a throne.

In the beginning of her rule, she was perpetually flanked with advisors and guards. But she needed no guards now, nor did she need the passive advice of old men wanting peace. The time for peace had long since passed, and her abhorrence for her subject's distaste for blood grew with time.

A loud clunk, followed by a deep wooden groan, came from the far end of the room. A sliver of unwelcomed light intruded into the darkness, stretching its niveous spear along the centre aisle. It was followed by the small, round figure of some creature edging its way past the door.