Chapter 8- Shadow’s Secrets

The next day she woke up, and they all just stayed around the castle, then the next day Lunar got up then got dressed in black pants, a long tight black long-sleeved shirt, a soft, loose, baggy black sweater, then she braided her hair, put on the headpiece, then left her room.

Crescent and Star went with her like the day before because Noch had already left.  When she left her room Novado and Inferro were outside her room, and the second the door was open Crescent and Star shot out to explore the castle some more.

“Hey you two be careful ok.” Called Lunar as they both looked back and nodded then the disappeared around the corner.  

“Princess, why are you wearing that?” asked Inferro. 

“Because Noch isn’t here, so he won’t tell me to put on some stupid dress,” said Lunar as if it were an obvious thing. 

“That’s true, but you should still wear a dress, it’s proper clothes for a princess.” Came a voice, as everyone looked to where it came from they all saw Jason. 

“Jason,” said Lunar as Novado and Inferro gave a bow. 

“Hello Princess,” said Jason, then he added “I was wondering if I could talk to you alone?” 

“Sure,” said Lunar as they went down the hall. 

Then when they were far enough away that Novado and Inferro couldn’t here Jason asked “Are you ok?” 

“Huh?” asked Lunar confused. 

“Well, the Prince seems different, and you’ve been acting differently ever since you got here,” said Jason. 

“I’m fine,” said Lunar.  Jason looked at her suspiciously then he said

“Well the Prince left me in charge of the kingdom, and before I started making my rounds I just wanted to make sure you were ok, so I’ll be going.”

“Ok,” said Lunar with a sickenly sweet smile as she clenched her fists tightly at the mention of Noch. 

Then Jason left and Novado and Inferro walked over to her.  Suddenly some blood started to spread out onto the clean white Band-Aids. “Hey Inferro, can you go get some more Band-Aids?” asked Novado as he looked at Lunar’s hand.

Inferro looked at her hand and said “Yeah, I’ll be right back.” Then he ran off. 

“Sheesh, you really shouldn’t do that,” said Novado as Lunar started to walk away. 

“Yeah, whatever,” said Lunar annoyed then she said more angry at Noch than anyone else “I just get so pissed off when anyone mentions Noch.  I mean, I can’t believe that there was once a time when I really like him.” 

“What!?  You used to like him?” asked Novado shocked as they walked up lots of stairs. 

“Yeah, but that was before I found out that he was my brother, now I really don’t care.  But you know, since I got over him so quickly I guess I really didn’t like him as a boy, but more as someone who was like a brother,” said Lunar as they came into this huge room. 

The room had soft couches and armchairs, and in one was there was a fireplace, and over the fireplace there was a portrait.  It showed the king standing up and in front of him the queen was sitting on a chair and in each of her arms there was a baby.  The king had silver hair, blue eyes, and he had on really rich looking clothes, he also looked extremely young, only about twenty or so.  The queen also looked about twenty, and she had long black hair with green streaks, blue eyes tinted with green, and she had on a dress that looked like Lunar’s black one, the queen also had on the necklace that Lunar had now.  All around the room there were pictures of the Royals that came before. 

As Lunar walked over to the portrait she looked up at it.  “That’s the King and Queen, and in her arms are you and the Prince,” said Novado as he went over to her and looked up at the picture. 

Then Lunar started to look around the room and noticed that all of the women and girls always had black hair and blue eyes.  “Hey Novado, why do all of the girls have black hair and blue eyes?” asked Lunar. 

“Well, it was said that the very first Queen of the Dragon Kingdom was a dragon that had a curse on her, and well, she had black hair and blue eyes.  Basically all of the Queens and Princesses before have her blood in them, if a queen only has a son he won’t have the same as her, the blood won’t be brought out in him.  The reason for this was that it was said that the first queen was betrayed by a man, it was said that he was the one who put the curse on her, so her blood will only show in the women of the royal family, never the men, that’s why only a girl from the royal family may touch the Shadow, after all it was said that the first queen was the one to make the Shadow,” said Novado.

 Suddenly the windows started to grow dark, Lunar and Novado looked out the window and noticed that the eclipse was starting.  “I completely forgot that today was the eclipse,” said Novado.

“Hey, Novado, what’s that?” asked Lunar as she pointed at the fireplace which started to glow with all of the colors of the rainbow. 

“That must be the door, after all we’re in the Portrait Tower, this is the highest tower in the entire kingdom, the reason for that was because since the pictures represent the person, they were put in the highest tower so that they could easily rise to the heavens,” said Novado as they both went over to the fireplace. 

They could faintly make out a small black book about the size of Lunar’s hand, and about two inches thick, with silver pages, that were trimmed with gold, and silver chain around that, that had a silver dragon pendant hanging on it. 

“Well, go ahead, take it,” said Novado as Lunar looked at the small book, she didn’t move then Novado nudged her shoulder and said “It’s yours, it belongs to the eldest female of the royal family, that’s you, so take it.” 

Lunar hesitantly took the book.  It felt so light, and warm as if it were alive, but it also had the icy cold chill of death.  “It feels like it’s alive, but it also feels like it dead,” said Lunar confused. 

“Well, it has been with each queen for her entire life, all the way up till her death, so it had the warmth of life, and well the icy chill of death,” said Novado as the eclipse started to end. 

As it ended Novado and Lunar heard Inferro calling up the stairs “Princess, Novado, why are you two up here, I thought that you two would stay where you were.”

Lunar for some reason quickly hid the book in her sweater as Inferro came in the room with the bandages. 

“Oh, uh…” said Lunar as Novado looked at her curiously as to why she did that. 

Then Novado quickly said when he realized that she didn’t want him to know, “The Princess was restless as always, and she wanted to look around.” 

“Oh, I see,” said Inferro not knowing that anything was up. 

“Hey Inferro, can you do me a favor?” asked Lunar. 

“Yes, anything,” said Inferro. 

“Well, there are actually two things, one could you take this chain off me?” asked Lunar as she held up her hand with the gold chain on it, then she added, “And do you think you could go and find that dragon and cat that darted out of my room and make sure that they aren’t getting into any trouble?”

“I can do the second one, but the chains… I’ll take them off on one condition,” said Inferro then he added as he grabbed the chain, “If you tell me what your name is.” 

Lunar looked at him confused then Lunar said, “My name is Lunar.” 

“Thank you,” said Inferro with a soft smile as he held the chain tightly, then it crumbled into dust. 

When that happened, Novado looked at Inferro suspiciously then Inferro left, and as he did he glanced back at Novado and gave him an evil smile, then he left. 

“Hey, I- that is, I don’t know that it was the best idea to send him after Crescent and Star,” said Novado. 

“Why’s that?” asked Lunar as she looked at him with a devious smile. 

“Well, I- that is, I think that he might be up to something, especially since he asked your name.  You remember with Chris and Kris, how they can’t call you by your name, well, for him he was forbid it… because, depending on how he says someone’s name he can cast a spell on them,” said Novado as Lunar went over to a chair and sat down. 

“First off about Crescent and Star, he’ll never find them, and even if he does he’ll never be able to keep up with them,” said Lunar with the same devious smile on her face, then she added “And about Inferro not being able to be trusted I know, that’s why I hid the book.”

“But how?” asked Novado. 

“Well, once I knew that Noch was under the Councils control I was able to see the spell, that is once I knew what I was looking for, and ever since I knew about that spell I’ve been looking at everyone, and I noticed that Inferro had the same kind of spell cast on him, however his is actually stronger than Noch’s, as if there are two on him,” said Lunar, then when she saw the surprised look on Novado’s face she said, “Don’t be so surprised, remember I was raised as a warrior, not a princess, I was taught things that a princess wouldn’t know.” 

“Yeah, and you don’t know half the things that a princess does,” said Novado then he quickly shut up then Lunar glared at him.

“S-sorry, it was just out of habit,” said Novado as he went over to her, then said, “I should probably change the bandages.” 

Lunar looked at him suspiciously then she held her hands out so that he could put the bandages on them. 

“Hey, Novado, I was wondering what are those trees around the place for?” asked Lunar as Novado was working on the hand that used to have the gold chain on it. 

“I’m not sure, I know for a fact that they’re not just there because they’re there, but I’m not sure what their exact purpose is,” said Novado as he finished, then he stopped and looked at her wrist, then he started with her other hand. 

“Oh, I see,” said Lunar as she looked out the window at one of the trees.

She noticed that there were ten windows and out of each of them she could see the top of one of the ten trees.  She noticed that each one of them had something different on the top.  She also noticed that leading from each of the windows was a ray, and they all met in the center of the room, as if there was a huge ten pointed star on the floor. 

When Novado was finished with her hands Lunar got up and went over to the center of the room, and knelt down to look in the center of the huge star, there she saw a light outline of a large square, as if there was a door in the floor. 

“Hey Novado what’s this?” asked Lunar as she pointed to it. 

“What?” asked Novado as he looked to where Lunar was pointing. 

“There in the floor, it looks like there’s a door,” said Lunar as Novado saw it. 

“You’re right, I’m not sure,” said Novado, then he took out one of Lunar’s sword and started to pry at it, but nothing happened. 

Novado gave Lunar back her sword and said, “Maybe there’s a way to open it, like a switch or something.”

They looked around, but couldn’t find anything.  Lunar then went back over to the door, then she walked over onto it and noticed that there was something lightly carved into it, so she read it aloud, “When danger appears and those who live here are in danger, the door will open.” 

“What’s that?” asked Novado as he went over to her. 

“It sounds like it’s an escape door,” said Lunar. 

“I guess so, anyway shouldn’t you find a way to release the Prince from the Council’s spell, then we can worry about that,” said Novado as Lunar looked at him a tidbit annoyed.

Then she said, “Yeah, I definitely don’t want him to stay like this.” 

So Lunar sat down and began to flip through the pages and soon found one that mentioned something about the Council’s controlling spell, it read To remove a spell of control from a person, you need to go into the room of the Council and find the Orb of the Council.  If you say “You are no longer needed” to it, then their spells will be broken and they will disappear.  The Council was created to help the kingdom if it was ever in trouble, I, Seriva the tenth Queen created it, and the way that one would activate it would be to say “Council, we need you.” Then they would appear.

When Lunar read that she told Novado, so they went to the Council room, but found that it was locked. 

“This is just great we finally find out how to get Noch back to normal and the thing we need is inside a room we can’t get into,” said Lunar annoyed. 

“Yeah, but at least we know how to release him from the spell,” said Novado. 

“That’s true,” said Lunar as she just seemed to remember something, then she asked “By the way, what about this chain?”

Novado looked at her then he held the chain in his hands then pulled it apart and it crumbled into dust. 

“Thanks,” said Lunar as she looked at her wrist, then she looked at Novado.

“H-hey…” Said Lunar very hesitantly.  “Since they won’t be back for six more days, c-can I take a look around the kingdom?” 

Novado was surprised that she asked him then he said, “Yeah, but before we start looking around the kingdom I have a place I want to show you.  But you’ll have to change into something else.  I have some things back in my room that you can use.”