"What of the heroes?" asked Orolon in the stunned silence of the other advisors."I"m not worried about them at the moment. Merely keep tabs on them, and if it looks like they are heading towards the castle, let me know. I believe that will do for today, Advisors. Notify me immediately if you get any new information."
They all nodded at her mechanically, and stood to leave. She still had several hours before lunch would be served and judging from the looks of her guards, they were all still tired from the sparring that morning.
"I think you"ll make a great king! I would never have considered some of those things you decided," exclaimed Morden.
"Did you see the looks on their faces when she said to whip the kids who were caught being bad? I mean, it"s not like we were never whipped or anything. How do they keep the kids well behaved if you don"t whip them?" asked Kieran.
"Maybe not all kids are as bad as you were," laughed Frederik.
"Not all kids have to fight to the death, every day, either," growled Aella, shutting them all up.
"We didn"t have to fight to the death every day," said Frederik.
"I did. When the counselors weren"t satisfied enough, I would have to fight one after the other, until they decided I"d killed enough that day."
They all looked at each other uncomfortably, not having anything to say. Aella was agitated. She didn"t like just sitting around doing nothing. There were two hours still, before she would be served lunch, and then the tutors would come to teach her how to be a king. She hadn"t expected to be able to deal with the Advisors so quickly. Maybe they just had no common sense? She thought they had a good understanding of what needed to be done, but their systems had been in place for so long, they couldn"t see around them very well.
"Let"s go explore the castle a bit. I would like to see if there"s a map room, or a room where we can spar a little easier."
Everyone was game, so she led them out of the throne room, and through the castle. Whenever they came to a door that was shut, they would open it. Some of them didn"t want to be opened, but she had enough muscle, between her increased strength as the king, and the many guards she now had, not a single door remained shut.
She found many bedrooms, storage rooms, bathrooms, and meeting rooms. They came across the great door to the library, but no matter what they tried, it remained locked. Aella explained she thought it was magically sealed, from what the advisors had said, and they left it at that. They found the kitchens, which scared the living daylights out of many of the cooks and kitchen staff. Several fainted. She found a royal dining hall, and decided it would be wonderful to start eating her meals there, instead of in her throne room. Edgar took note and bowed in understanding.
Then they found the actual throne room.
The door was huge, and hard to open. It took her and two of the biggest demons in her guard detail to get it to budge. Inside was so full of dust and cobwebs, she expected to find a huge monster spider, but it was empty.
"Why do you think they stopped using this room?" asked Ulrik, looking around.
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There were the remains of fancy ropes, to cordon off areas for crowds to witness the business of the king, and Aella spied the remains of an ancient throne. It was covered in a lot of dust, but she could tell a ma.s.sive fight must have occurred in here at some point. The throne was damaged beyond repair.
"I imagine they closed it off, shortly after the first battle with the heroes. If the king died, and the throne was damaged, it would be easier and cheaper to build a smaller throne each time, rather than a large one, like here."
Everyone nodded. This place was easily three times as big as the throne room she was in now. Aella wondered if they didn"t have fewer people to fill the room now, as well. With the war going on constantly, and the population dropping so much, it made sense that they would scale back on the rooms being used in the palace. It was a huge palace after all.
"Do you want someone to clean this place up and start using it?" asked Seifer.
"I think this would be a wonderful place for us to practice sparring in. We"ll keep using the smaller throne room for now, but I do intend to swap over to this one at some point."
No one looked very happy with having to practice sparring, but Aella didn"t care.
"Plan for when it is difficult, while it is easy," she said, repeating a quote from the earring, while moving over to the throne, to check it out. The way it was leaning to the side seemed odd to her, and she quickly saw there was a hidden tunnel underneath it.
"Who taught you that?" asked Vesh, eyeing her suspiciously. "That sounds like something one of the trainers would say."
"My father taught me a lot, before he was called away for the war, leaving me alone to fend for myself," she said, trying to shift some of the pieces of throne out of the way, to see deeper in the hole under it.
"Your father was in the military!?" exclaimed several of the demons. Aella silently cursed herself. She hadn"t wanted to give that information away. With a sigh she straightened up and nodded.
"Kieran and Frederik, I want you two and Morden to see if you can move the throne off this hole, here?"
She could feel eyes on her from the rest of the demons, as she stepped back out of the way.
"It may take more of you to shift it, but you"re bigger than me."
She watched, ignoring the looks from the others as they tried to move it.
"No luck, Your Majesty," said Frederik, with sweat pouring down his brow. "That thing is wedged in there tight. It"s not about to move any time soon."
"Then you all get to have turns, breaking it. I want that hole uncovered."
"Do you mind how we break it?" asked Torrod, curiously.
"Nope. Just don"t hurt the floor, or each other."
The demons went to town tearing into that throne. They all seemed to have a lot of pent up frustration, that destroying the throne helped to vent. Before the hour was up, there were pieces of it scattered all over the room, and the hole under the throne was completely unveiled.
"I"m going to investigate this. If I ever have a throne built on top of it, I need to know where it goes to. Anyone else want to come with?" she asked, looking around.
"We are sworn to protect you," said Frederik. "So, we shall all follow you."
Aella grinned in delight as she dropped down into the hole and found she could stand with ease. The tunnel had been built for full size demons, so she didn"t have any problems. They made their way along the twisting and turning pa.s.sage, discovering small holes along the way to warrant spying on people, but all of the rooms they peeked into were empty, long abandoned. Aella was starting to realize her palace was far emptier than she had thought.
Pausing after the third set of stairs going down, she waited for everyone to catch up to her. They were having a much more difficult time keeping up, as the pa.s.sage was very confining for them. The next set of stairs was much longer and winding, ending in a large cavern that Aella could tell was situated underneath the castle itself. In the distance she could make out beams of light, and the sound of rushing water told her they must be close to the river.
"At least we can stand up straight here," sighed Kieran as they continued to make their way to the base of the cavern.
There was a path that wound through the cavern, flooded now from waters flowing through the area. Overhead, huge arches held the palace in place, with vines and plant roots trailing over them. She could see the light was coming from the same places the water was flowing in from, and had a feeling they were related to the overflowing sewers. Thankfully, there was no stench here, and the water she could see seemed clean.
"Watch out!" cried Firion, swinging his sword at her right.
Aella responded before his sword could move a foot, jumping to her left and activating her ability to walk on air. She was several feet away before anyone could react further.
"Hey! Watch it! I wasn"t going to hurt the king!" came a slithering voice she recognized.
"Frank? Louie?" she called out in surprise, turning to see the slithering snake vines rising up into the air to get out of Firion"s reach.
"Good to see you again, Your Majesty. What brings you to our home?"