Chapter 1
The ball room was full to overflowing, with hundreds of people from all round the world. It was hard to make out the decorations of the smaller state ballroom, but the walls were a pale yellow with golden accents all over the place. Ten chandeliers hung from the ceiling used to illuminate the room in the evenings, floor to ceiling windows covered the large back wall, opposite the entrance door. Curtains of yellow and gold hung open at both ends of the windows and in the middle. The floor was wooden and highly polished.
Darius was stood off centre and a little bit to the back watching everyone arrive. Friends greeted friends and relatives greeted relatives. All forms of paranormal’s were here, shifters, witches, wizards, fairies, elementals. The Palace of the High King was one of the few places where all paranormal’s could come together and mix with each other. There was nothing to say they couldn’t mix outside of the palace but they tended not to. Shifters mixed with other shifters, witches with wizards, fairies with other elementals, and the vamps kept to themselves.
The shifters were easy to spot as they were larger and tended to me more muscular then most people. Wizards always carried a leather bag, filled with half-finished spells that just needed a word or phrase to make them work. They also carried anything else they thought they might need, their wands, crystals, feathers and a spell book. Witches tended to wear long coats or jackets with a special pocket that contained their wands. Unlike Wizards, who like to plan their spells witches tended to make them up on the fly, relaying on their wands and whatever was close at hand.
Other paranormal’s either had a certain smell about them, or as in the case of Dyads a soft look about them.
Darius stood there watching people throw dirty looks his way, going out of their way to ignore him, or even skirt round him as much as they could. He was used to it by now, he had lived with it his entire life. His grandfather had once tried to start a war so that he could become High King and ruler of all paranormal’s. He failed, but even now, over a hundred years later, their coven was shunned. He had tried hard to show people he was nothing like his grandfather, but not many had wanted to know, the sins of the grandfather would be visited onto his son and grandson and unless he could find a way to change public opinion, if he ever had children, he feared they would be shunned as well. Which was why he had been so surprised to receive the summons to attend today's announcement.
Darius remembered back to the day when the summons arrived. He had been sat in his office going over some paperwork when he heard Guyler, his youngest brother, calling out to him as he ran down the corridor.
"Darius, Darius" Guyler called out.
His brother knew never to come running down the hall like that unless there was trouble coming.
Fearing the worst Darius jumped up, grabbed his bag, and had just flung it over his head to settle on his shoulder when his brother burst in. Tobeck, his middle brother, following from the other side of the house. He had heard the call and came to see if he could help.
"What is it? What is wrong?" Darius asked urgently.
Guy looked confused, "Nothing that I know of why?"
"Gee I don't know," Beck said, "maybe because you came running down the hallway like a lunatic calling for Darius."
"Oh," Guy said, suddenly realising what he had done. "Sorry, I just wanted you to see this." The this was a letter he held out to Darius.
"You mean you came running in here, after I specifically told you after the last time, not to do it again, just to hand me a letter." Darius enquired incredulously.
"Well yeah, but it's a special letter." Guy said, still holding it out to his oldest brother.
"For that kind of noise, it’d better be gold plated and filled with the best news ever." Beck said, glaring at his younger brother in frustration.
Darius took the letter from his brother and turned it over, he gave a gasp.
"What is it?" Tobeck asked.
"A letter from the office of the High King." Darius told him.
"Now do you see why I was running it in here?” Guyler said, sure all would be forgiven now.
"No," Beck said, "it would still have been the same letter if you had walked it in like a normal person," he finished this by hitting his brother on the back of the head.
"Hey, knock it off." Guy said to Tobeck rubbing the back of his head.
While the brothers had been arguing Darius had opened the letter.
"What does it say?" Guy asked, noticing his brother was reading it and ignoring Beck.
"It seems we’ve been summoned to the Royal court next week." Darius said, sounding shocked. No Travellian had been to the Royal court since his Grandfathers trial.
"Say what now?" Beck asked, the same time as Guy asked, "why?"
"No idea, it just gives a date and time. I guess we will find out next week." Darius said scanning it again.
“But we’ve done nothing wrong,” Guy said, sounding worried.
“I know,” Darius said, putting his hand on his younger brothers’ shoulder, “Let’s not borrow trouble, and wait until we get to the court next week to find out why we have been summoned.”
A hum of the unknown hung in the air. No one knew why they had all been summoned. Darius looked towards the side wall. A large table with nine chairs sat on a plinth, to raise it up off the floor, it took up one end of the room. The centre chair was a golden throne, on which the High King of the paranormal world sat, flanked on either side by the representatives from the shifter world, called Regents, there were the rulers of each paranormal fraction.
Behind the table large double doors stood, these doors were only opened when the council and High King came into the room.
"Why do you think we have all be called here?" Beck asked, looking around the room at all the people there. He was secretly relieved that there were more people here then just him and his brothers, that meant they weren’t in trouble, he hoped.
"Rumour has it the King is dying." Whispered Guy, who had just walked up to join them. He had decided to wonder round the hall and see if he could hear anything, and if he could find out why they had been summoned. No one had spoken to him, but he had heard a lot of murmurings.
Darius and Beck looked surprised at hearing this, "Really? Who’s his heir? Darius asked.
Before he could reply, the double doors behind the council tables opened and the Major Domo walked in and stood in the middle of the room. He was of average height with long black hair, tied back at the neck and looked quite young. He was dressed all in black and carried a wooden staff with a large clear orb on the top. He banged his staff three times on the floor, then moved out the way. Silence descended, as everyone turned to watch their Regents enter the ballroom and walk to their chairs at the table.