Welcome to my second book of the series, Knights of the Silver Rose! It's a Mystery Mania! ;D XD (Yes. I tend to laugh at my own play of words ;P )
I'll be continuing to 'quote' AlliyahtheAuthor's Author's Notes on before certain chapters which I find memorable.
The chapter that's starting us off with this book is actually the first of the three in 'the Horribly Haunted House of Horrors' chapters on AlliyahtheAuthor's version. I just wanted to change the title as I'm combining chapter parts from her version, and 3 parts would just be too long.
Anyways, AlliyahtheAuthor's Author's Note for this chapter was when she started acting like a ghost. XD But it's kind of long, so if you really want to read it, go to her version of the story. I'm assuming most of you just want to get reading this long chapter so I didn't copy and paste it on here. Off you go!
Christina's P.O.V.
I didn't need Jane's fantastic red velvet rose shaped pancakes to wake me up today. Though they are delicious! If you haven't tried one, you haven't lived. Nope. I got up all by myself, thank you very much! I was actually the earliest one up in the castle, which was definitely a first since Destiny would often beat me to it, roaming aimlessly around the castle grounds somewhere.
I marched to each and every one of the Knights of the Silver Rose's individual rooms, and shouted through their doors, "GET UP!"
As you can guess, they weren't exactly grateful for that, but the sun had risen! We had to get a move on! As it turns out, Destiny had heard my screeching in advance, and walked out of her cleaned room just before I could yell the same thing to her.
"I'm so excited!" I burst, needing to express myself out loud.
She smiled. "Me too. Let's get to the armory and get everyone suited up."
I nodded, gathering the very tired royals, ambassador, and commoners into a group. We all headed to the Armory, most of my fellow Knights of the Silver Rose were whining from my early wake up call.
"Did you have to wake us up so early?" Cleo complained, rubbing her eyes. "I need my beauty sleep you know."
"Yes." I answered directly. "Unless you want to be stuck at that creepy castle all night. Any more questions?"
Everyone went completely silent.
"Good! Let's get you all suited!"
We weren't alone when we make it to the Armory. After we entered some familiar knights followed us in soon after. It appears that Savannah's little friends discovered our whereabouts. Since Destiny, Olivia, and I were already in our armor, Olivia's being magically tailored, we covered our faces with our visors so our identities wouldn't be blown.
"Suited?" asked Jordan. "Savannah? What's going on?"
"Uh… It's for a play?" pretended Cassandra.
"Relax guys," Savvy assured them. "We're just having a little fun. Shouldn't you be working on those fighting reflexes? They could use some improvement from that last battle... I'll meet up with you guys at dinner time."
Max shrugged. "Okay… We'll be practicing in the Outer Yard with some local knights. I hear they're pretty good. If you're in danger or anything, just give us a holler."
"And you owe us some goodies sister!" Camille pointed accusingly at Mia before turning around and leaving us alone.
Once they all left us alone, we all sighed in relief.
Mia gave Savvy a thumb's up. "Good save there. That was a close one."
Mike shook his head. "I knew it was a bad idea to lie to them like that… Now they'll be constantly checking on us because we're acting all suspicious!"
"Will they be able to stand against full grown knights?" fretted Genna. "I mean, they are only about Andy's age from the looks of it."
Andy crossed his arms. "Hey!"
"Pff. Relax," Mia assured them. "From the way they fight, they can handle themselves."
"They fight? Last battle?" I inquired. "Savvy, are you one of them? Does the same go for Mike and Mia?"
Mike and Mia both had the same reaction. "Uh..."
Savvy sighed. "Chrissy, I-"
She stopped herself just in the knick of time, as the armorer came in. His bald head was square-like with kind brown eyes, a big nose, and a black beard. He was pretty hefty, aside from his expanding belly tied back by a brown apron. He wore short sleeves that could use some hemming, baggy black pants, and strong worker boots. He was marked with quite a few bumps, bruises, and burns all over him from his labor, but they didn't seem to prevent him from doing his job merrily.
"So, this armor is for a play?" he gathered. "You're kind of outdoing yourselves, but since they are for display purposes, I'll make them appear extravagant and as light as possible."
"Will they still be strong?" worried Mike, not wanting the armor to defeat it's purpose if we were gonna face any real dangers.
The armorer laughed good-naturedly. "Well, you young'uns must want your play to be as realistic as possible. I'd love to watch, but I can't afford such luxuries. Besides, I've got a lot of work on my hands after this immediate large order. You can all stay and watch. I work pretty fast once I get going. I have a few apprentices as well."
He signaled for eight boys, around their teenage years, to come and help him out. They didn't seem too excited to make armor mostly for girls, but they had no choice under their master's watchful eye.
As he measured the others, I seated myself on a bare workable, going back to what I was thinking about my cousin earlier. I didn't know Savvy had secrets… She better tell me what she's up to… After all, I'm her cousin!
My focus was interrupted by banging on metal, as the two tallest of the boys alternatively hammered and heated the iron plates. One of the boys kept the forge's fire strong pumping some billows, while two more handed tools and pieces of iron and possibly some other metal scraps to combine with the iron. Once the pieces were shaped, the sixth apprentice would pass them to the expert armorer who used an unbelievable process to change color of the rims of the armor plates. He'd dip the edges into a roaring fire, then removing their edges right when their trims attained a requested color letting them cool in a bucket of water with a hiss. The color it once glowed in the heat retained on the metal after it cooled. He could also made a powdered gold stick into a shimmering layer to desired plates, which was a method he called Golding. It was like an art. He was assisted by another boy whom he probably kept closest to him to keep him out of trouble, handing the armorer and tools he required. The final apprentice assembled all the different plates together to form the finished results, with the others joining in once they finished their jobs. I must admit, I was rather impressed how the armorer kept all his boys organized and preoccupied with set tasks, making the workload go by rather quickly.
Cleo had shimmering gold armor with bronze accents, since she insisted on standing out. Cassandra's armor was completely gold, also being a royal and wishing to outshine Cleo. Those two, as well as Olivia, were the only ones that didn't have silver based armor. Both Cassandra and Genna had holes in their armor to accommodate their wings. Genna's armor had a lilac colored trim that complimented her blue-silver wings perfectly. The armorer didn't suspect that her wings appeared and disappeared as her transformation occurred right before we arrived to the Armory. Her brother, Andy, had armor with dark blue outlines.
Fiona's silver armor had a blue trim as well, only, it was more of a light frost blue, borderline white. I assumed she wanted that color to represent the cold climate of her home world, Grizzleheim. I bet Evelyn's border color had some kind of relationship to her home world Mooshu. It was darkest shade of green. The same dark green as her favorite kimono she usually wore from Mooshu.
She took it to the next level asking if they could paint some dragon designs on it. After refusing as it was time consuming, Evelyn grabbed the metallic green, red, black, and gold paint to speed paint on the details herself on her suit of armor, which turned out beautifully. Cleo decided to paint some copper colored hieroglyphics I couldn't understand on her armor as well once Evelyn started applying her design. As much as I wanted to paint something on my armor, I didn't want to ruin it, as I'm not exactly the best at art. Though Destiny's a natural! I was surprised she didn't join Evelyn and Cleo.
Meanwhile, Mia's and Mike's silver suits of armor had matching yellow trims. Being twins, they wanted to look identical. Not only to confuse their enemies during battle, pretending that the opponent was seeing double, but also to show their continual closeness even in our circle of knights after completing their first knightly task together. My cousin Savvy, with armor having a maroon trim was the final set to be made. All the apprentices were exhausted to the wim by that time.
All of our armor was of the same structure as a common knight's, only, we had a few flourishes, and looked pretty flashy. The new girls' armor structure were also slightly thinner as to fit the fragile arms and legs and curved to stick close around their waists, which was the only feature we could use to differentiate between Mia and Mike. Otherwise, the chest plates and everything else on the girls' armor stayed traditionally flat as not to stand out too much against the normal knights. After what had transpired between Destiny and I, everyone else insisted to have silver rose engravings on the exact same spot of their armor as ours. We decided to make the silver rose our knight group's logo. In the meantime, Olivia was the proud demonstration for the armorer to reference. In the end, we all looked fabulous, as usual.
I paid him handsomely with a pouch of gold coins as a token of thanks before leaving. He seemed a bit flabbergasted at such a large amount of real gold coins, so we left before he could ask who I really was.
Even though that master armorer had six pairs of hands with him, I didn't anticipate for the armor fitting to take all day! So we turned in for the night, resolving to wake up early for our journey the next day.
Cassandra's P.O.V.
Christina woke us up bright and early the next day and yelled us awake just like the day before.
So much for sleeping in…
I sighed, grudgingly getting out of bed. We met up in our secret room, then departed after a head count. As we were marching outside the castle, about to head into the Weirwood, we were stopped by another knight on a horse.
Uh oh… This doesn't look good.
"Who are you?" asked an echoed voice coming from inside the helmet.
Since Mike was the only boy besides Andy, Mia elbowed him.
"Ow! I mean, uh, out for… knightly duties?" he excused.
The knight was clearly very suspicious. We were all going to be busted, weren't we? After we'd come this far already, would this be the end of the Knights of the Silver Rose just because Mike couldn't even act manly and knightly?
Destiny's P.O.V.
Oh no. This could mean the end of us…
I was about to panic, until my mind reading turned on again!
I could hear everyone in our group worrying:
...We are soooo dead…
...We're gonna be discovered for sure…
...So much for the Knights of the Silver Rose…
I couldn't let that happen. I had to stay strong when others were feeling weak. I just had to! It was my duty.
I lowered my voice. "We have secret orders from His Majesty himself to ward off a beast in the Weirwood who is pestering some villagers."
This knight means serious business, examined the knight blocking the way in his head. He shouldn't have told us those secret orders, but I did try to pry them out…
His thoughts sounded familiar… but I couldn't pin point from who exactly. All us Knights of the Silver Rose waited in anticipation.
"Alright. But be back by sundown for the meeting. We knights have plans to discuss, don't forget," he reminded us, kicking the horse for it to move away.
We all saluted obediently. "Yes sir!"
...Phew. That was a close one…
...We were lucky enough to get the slip…
...I wonder what this 'meeting' will be about...
That moment, my mind reading stopped. Thank goodness! It was hard to keep track whose thoughts are who's with so many people! But that last thought stuck with me… What would this 'meeting' be about?
Christina's P.O.V.
Once we were a good distance away from the castle and the suspecting knight, we all let out a huge sigh of reassurance.
I immediately went to hug her. "Destiny, you saved us back there!"
"Well, it was nothing really," she replied in relief, uncomfortably wiggling herself out of my armored grip.
"Don't be ridiculous! You were amazing!" credited Genna.
Mia shoved Mike. "And you seriously need to take acting lessons Mike!"
"It wasn't his fault. He was under a lot of pressure," comforted Destiny.
"But you actually did something about it!" insisted Cleo. "Even, I, next heir to Krokotopia, was speechless!"
I noticed Destiny blushing from all the compliments from under her visor. It was then that I realized how rarely she actually got that much attention… I swore I would give her more credit from now on. Yet, she didn't seem to want it. Something else seemed to be on her mind…
"You okay Destiny?" I asked.
"Huh? Oh. Yeah. I'm fine. Still just a bit stunned from the events," she stuttered nervously.
"Okay…" I ended the discussion at that.
She probably was. It's not like she'd lie to me… Right?
Thankfully, the sun was still high as we walked through the forest of the Weirwood, so it wasn't nearly as creepy as it could have been. Conveniently, Genna's long sword Lapis and her wings disappeared out of sight, making it less awkward to maneuver herself around the low branches of the trees. Olivia guided the way with her new-found magical item: the map.
"Wow…" Fiona admired, observing the map as the flashing arrow pointed at our destination. "That thing is cool! Can it lead us to an ice cream stand sometime?"
Olivia looked a little taken by surprise. "Um, can you lead us to an ice cream stand?"
The map blurred, then cleared with a new destination to the nearest village.
"Sweet!" cried Andrew. "I can't wait until I find my magic item..."
"That's it!" declared Savannah. "Maybe the map can guide us to the next magical item!"
"That's a great idea!" I agreed. "Can you ask it for us?"
Olivia asked the map, and it blurred once again.
She let out a gasp. "That's the same place where I found the map!"
Our pace quickened, everyone trying to get a look at the map.
"Does this castle, by any chance, have a name?" queried Destiny. "Maybe I know it…"
Olivia looked ahead. "I don't know… but we'll soon find out."
In front of us was a huge castle. It wasn't quite as big as the one I lived in, but it was still pretty gigantic! It had five large shattered windows. There each was a different color: black, white, red, blue, and finally, green. They appeared to have been stained with images of knights, but they were so broken now I could hardly make it out.
Cassandra gazed up, astonished. "Whoa…"
Olivia gulped. "Be careful. There's probably some more secret passageways and traps, so don't touch anything."
"Oh no..." mumbled Mia. "I can just feel it."
Mike shuddered. "There might as well be a ghost out here shouting 'Welcome to the Horribly Haunted House of Horrors!'"