Chapter 434

434 One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

“I’ve been practising. I-I will be fine,” the girl drew in a sharp breath before shakily regarding her appearance.

“Umm Martha, I have been meaning to ask you what you’re doing with a human girl and changing her appearance no... less...” the lady’s voice trailed off when she witnessed the shimmering silver of the girl’s eyes start to swirl, “What in the moon’s radiance...”

For a moment, the woman thought she would get sucked into the girl’s eyes and get lost in the silver swirling abyss, but that’s not what happened.

Instead, the silver irises lit up more and began to sparkle with specks of amber-like sparks rising from the glorious embers of a campfire. The flecks of amber started to grow more and more, overpowering and eventually drowning out the beautiful grey.

Before she knew it, she was staring at a swirling amber iris right before it settled and took on the natural glow of the average werewolf’s eye. Her transformation was complete. The last part of the Seeker’s appearance and identity was gone completely erased.

Queen Martha turned to the woman and placed a hand on her shoulder, squeezing her shoulder tightly, “It’s important that her identity remains hidden.”

The woman was shaken by the girl’s sudden transformation but even more so by the queen’s serious tone. It was a tone she hadn’t used even after marrying into the royal family.

The harsh reality of this situation was laid bare. It didn’t take much for her to understand that this girl was involved in something truly dangerous, “The life of a royal cannot be an easy one but promise me it won’t come back to haunt your home.”

“I don’t intend to let it. I made a promise to protect this place when I left and have no intentions of breaking that promise,” the queen responded. The woman nodded, closing her eyes and taking in a deep breath.

.....

“Very well.”

“Is everyone ready?” it was then that the king arrived walking into the salon through the door that had led the girls deeper into the facility. The scents that came off him exposed his whereabouts as well. He had been in one of the deeply scented rooms on the other side. Whichever room he’d been in remained unknown.

Honour wondered when it was that the king had arrived. They’d waited for Madeline’s makeover to get done for two hours and still hadn’t sensed a sign of the king’s arrival. Then again, it wasn’t unheard of for the royals to hide their oppressive auras when they travelled.

This allowed them to move wherever they pleased unnoticed. And with the right clothes and training, they could even be mistaken for mundane humans. ‘Impressive,’ Honour mused.

“How did it go, my dear?” Queen Martha embraced her husband.

“She’s as enthusiastic as ever, my love,” the king replied with a chuckle rubbing a spot on his cheek that was slightly redder than the rest of his face.

'

The queen kissed his cheek, “Well, that’s what you get for taking four whole years to visit her again.”

‘Four years... The king only comes here during the Royal Games. Even for a king, that’s sloppy,’ Honour held in her laughter.

King Davin’s nervous chuckle ended when his eyes landed on the girl in the seat. From where everyone was standing, this girl seemed to be the centre of attention... and yet, looking at her face made him frown, “Have we met?”

.........

After heavy discussion, Lina and her escorts came to a conclusion. They would be carrying meat in one of the bags they were carrying regardless of how messy it was. Preferably, they could add in a couple of wild fruits if they found any at all.

The sight of the mountain only told them there was next to no life capable of living on its barren slopes. The Trials were slowly turning into a battle against the wild.

With less progress being made and more focus on trying to survive, they were quickly starting to lose speed. It wasn’t enough that their detour to the stream had slowed them down, they also found that the mountain pass had completely collapsed in on itself.

They’d already run for the better half of the day and at this point, it was beginning to feel hopeless. The mountain pass was the fastest way to the Great Arena that they could find. Any other route would add a couple of days or more to their already long and arduous journey.

After making it to the blocked mountain pass, the princess felt the need to run around the mountain completely, but her friends were not in any shape to continue the journey. Wyatt could barely run and Crysta was reaching her limit soon. The sun was starting its long journey to the western horizon.

The girl paced about the blocked entrance of the mountain pass while her friends tried to rest up. Wyatt shifted back into his human form and held up one of the robes that he found in the bag he was carrying. Spreading it out like a towel, the man was completely blind to Crysta’s form.

The delta chuckled at his attempt at being helpful and shifted back into her human form, quickly wrapping herself with the turquoise robe. The two of them collapsed on the roots of the thick trees that marked the end of the forest’s advance towards the mountain.

“How long is she going to do that?” Wyatt asked between shaky breaths, gesturing to the pacing slender white wolf.

“As long as it takes her to calm down. We haven’t seen a sign of his Highness and to be honest, we’ve already been held back a couple of times. Things are not looking great for us. We finally got water enough to take us across the mountain and were making progress and now it’s all for nothing,” Crysta sighed.

“We cannot rush a race through the wilderness. It’s a miracle we’ve made it this far without running into any wild animals.”

“It’s also a miracle that the only wild animal we have met is a jaguar which shouldn’t have been there in the first place,” Crysta scoffed.

I was wondering. What if the wild animals are simply getting out of Lina’s way? After what we saw with the jaguar earlier, it’s a possibility,” the alpha ignored Crysta’s tone.

“If that were the case, then deers ought to be throwing themselves at Lina’s feet, begging for her to rip their throats out. Just saying...”

To this, the alpha chuckled. Nevertheless, he continued speaking, “I’ve been thinking. The rocks blocking the mountain pass don’t have any moss growing on them. They are not even a little bit moist from dew. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say the mountain pass recently collapsed. There is a slim chance that the prince didn’t make it through here either,” Wyatt rested his chin in his palm, his eyes glazed over in thought.

The sight of seeing Wyatt genuinely trying to help them was still raising red flags within the delta’s mind. While Crysta had been mean to the princess in the past, Wyatt had been even worse.

The man sighed, pulling a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from his pockets.

Crysta took a look at the boulders barring their way through the mountain pass. It was like the man had said, the rocks there looked freshly cut and far too dry. To compare them, the delta looked at the surrounding slopes and compared the colour of the stone.

He was right...

“You’re right about the Mountain pass even though that makes this all the more suspicious. This gorge has stood for very many years without ever showing a sign of collapsing.”

“No... it showed signs of weakness a long time ago. That’s why the highway to the Great Arena was never built into the mountains. They were too unpredictable. But that wasn’t the same for people travelling on foot or merchants travelling in small caravans.

“Don’t you find it suspicious for it to collapse during the Trials?” Crysta turned to him, only to move back when a puff of smoke rushed forward. “Hey, watch where you aim that soot.”

The alpha chuckled, “I find it very suspicious. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if this gorge collapsed right before the prince went through it. We can still catch up to him. Odds are that he didn’t make it through here.”

“I guess that makes sense. It would really help boost her morale. Now all we have to do...” Crysta threw a worried glance at the pacing royal, “...is try telling that to the girl who has made this whole journey without breaking a sweat... and is getting really restless.”

Lina had been listening to bits of their conversation at the beginning while she paced, but the more logical it got, the more bored the princess grew. In the end, her restlessness won the battle and she resumed her habit with the aim of cooling her nerves.

“I don’t think her energy is that bottomless,” Wyatt chuckled to himself. Crysta, however, was less inclined to agree with him. After two days of constant travel, the royal was yet to show signs of exhaustion.