Elemental Empires

{Chapter 27}

They were finally out of the dark. Mia looked around her, the dark palace rose out of the gloom in front of her, it's paint peeling at places and some of the gold showing through.

The sun glared at them.Mia wiped the sweat with the back of her palm when she saw her cut knuckles.

"Wait-", Mia whispered as she remembered," Follow me". She rose out of the bushes, careful to see that there were no guards around and quickly ran to the back of the palace. The two followed as Mia reached the back and started moving her hands across the smooth surface of the walls.

"Like the wall much? ', Cathy said as Mia ignored her and continued feeling for the niche concealing the lever.

"Mia? Are you sick again?," Kira asked, exasperated as Cathy sighed dramatically.

"Wait," Mia repeated as she found the rough lever and pulled.

"Look don't waste our ti-" Cathy started but stopped just as the lever moved. There was a noisy grinding and the wall shifted slowly.

Kira raised her brows in admiration." This is neat!".

All of three of them slipped inside.

"Someone lived here", Cathy pointed to the remains of fruits and other edibles littered on the floor.

"Is that blood!?", Kira shouted, pointing to the dried scarlet letters on the wall.

" I wrote those and your pare-", Mia started looking around but to her surprise Cathy's parents were nowhere to be found.

Mia smacked her forehead,"I should have forced them to leave!".

"What. Are you talking about?", Cathy asked blatantly, putting her hands over her hips.

Mia sighed, rubbing a hand over her face " listen, and the one who doesn't believe me, gets a slap".

She launched full-speed into telling the story. She told them everything. Almost everything.

Not quite ready to tell this moron about the princess stuff.

As the story ended, Cathy lowered her head and her cheeks were tinted rose.

"Would you mind explaining, Cath?," Mia said and raised her eyebrows as Kira stared dumbstruck at Mia, still processing everything she just heard.

Cathy hesitated," M-My parents," she stuttered.

Mia raised her eyes in shock as she saw the change in Cathy's tough demeanour upon the mention of her parents.

Mia softened her tone," Why'd you lie to us? About your brother: Venom?," Cathy winced at his name," Are you his accomplice?".

"No, never. I'd rather die than join that devil. Yes he is my brother and he wanted to kill me too so I pretended to be his accomplice but I'll never join him in reality. I also believe the rumours that he killed my parents while I was sent to protec-". Cathy pursed her lips immediately.

"Yes?," Mia coaxed," protect what?".

Cathy remained silent, chewing her lip before speaking." Look, I am your protector. When the King and Queen were sending you to the human world, they needed someone trustworthy to protect you and so they chose the daughter of their closest and most reliable friends. Me".

Mia's eyes opened in surprise," ho-how do you know that I'm a Princess?".

"You are really dumb for a Princess you know? I'm your protector, was there with you from your birth. Of course I know! And that changes nothing, I'll still talk like this with you," Cathy sneered as Mia grimaced.