04 Silence Read Online Free

least, the older girl smiled. “It’s still me. This is just… I guess you could think of it as the real me. Or at least the real me now that I’ve come into my powers.”
    The fanged-elf man beside them, Aunt Sophie’s father, inclined his head gracefu lly . “And you look lovely, my daughter. But now, we must hurry to the King. He will want to see his daughter, and we should not delay.”
    “My father is really the King?” Briony asked.
    “You aren’t joking?”
    “Your father, is the King of all the woodland elves,” Aunt Sophie’s father said.
    “Sorry,” Briony said. “Do you have a name? I can’t just keep thinking of you as Aunt Sophie’s dad.”
    “I am Leytham. My brother is Waltham.” The fanged elf gestured to a path leading from the meadow they stood in. “We must go to him now.”
    They walked, making their way through woodland that was like that of home, and yet somehow not like it. It was too bright, too vibrant, the path lined on both sides with flowers that should not have been able to thrive in the shadows of the trees, yet which did anyway.
    Leytham walked at the front of their group, leading the way. Archer, in his form of a tall , golden-skinned boy with almost white hair, brought up the rear. Briony kept close to Aunt Sophie between them.
    There were things that she needed to know, and that she hoped her great-aunt would tell her before they arrived.
    “Why is all this happening now?” Briony asked.
    “Why am I changing? It is just time.”
    “No, I mean… well, why didn’t anyone tell me about this before? Why am I here now, when my…” she wasn’t ready to call him that yet, “when the King could have sent for me at any time?”
    Ahead of them, Leytham sighed. He kept walking as he spoke. “My brother is not we ll. As a people, the Hugtandalfer live for a very long time by human standards, but we are not immortal. We age, even if we do not show it. We die. Our king is one of the oldest of us now, and I fear he will not live much longer. He needs an heir.”
    Briony got that straight away. “I’m supposed to be that heir? I’m supposed to step into the throne, just like that? Isn’t there someone else?”
    Leytham shrugged, turning back to them.
    “There is Prince Vigor.”
    “There then,” Briony said. “You have a prince. And from the name, he sounds like he should be perfect. You don’t need… hold on, does this mean I have another brother now?”
    “Not precisely,” Leytham said, “and that is part of the problem. Vigor is not truly of my brother’s blood, even if he i s a full -blooded Hugtandalfer. Waltham adopted him when he had need of an heir.”
    “You said ‘part of the problem’,” Briony observed. “What’s the other part?”
    Leytham looked uncomfortable for a moment.
    “That would be the part where the Prince is handsome, but cold, and selfish. Even our king is not sure Vigor will be suited for the throne.”
    “Father,” Aunt Sophie said, “you aren’t about to take my niece into danger, are you?”
    “I am merely bringing her home. Word of how King Waltham’s daughter is a natural-born leader in the human world has gotten through to Palisor. You are here because King Waltham is dying, and he wants to see you, which is why Archer was sent to find you, but that may not be all …”
    Archer moved forward from the back of the group, interrupting what the male Hugtandalfer was about to say. “We must go now. There isn’t much time. We have wasted enough time getting Briony here, fighting that vampire at the gate.”
    That was enough to make Aunt Sophie purse her lips. “Pietre. I should have finished him when I had the chance. I should have known he would not give up trying to get here just because I left. He tried to use Briony, then?”
    Archer nodded. “He’s still out there trying to figure his way in. I don’t think he ’ll stop, even now.”
    “Could he get in, though?” Briony asked.
    Aunt Sophie sh rugged.