House of Darken (Secret Keepers #1)(71)



When I reached the gathered royal-Darkens, Ambra held out a hand for me. “We all go together,” she said. “Overlord’s family first, so we can protect our people from dangers on the other side.”

I blinked a few times before placing my hand into hers. I was feeling a little choked up at their continued acceptance. It wasn’t like parents hated me or anything. On the contrary, I was actually pretty good at dealing with my friends' parents, even when they were difficult. But these were monarchs … surely royal people were much fussier. Snobby.

This theory was based off books and movies of course, because the Darkens were my first real-life royalty meeting. So far they were blowing all of my theories out of the water.

As soon as my hand was in Ambra’s, she reached out and snagged a string of light. The others did the same, and then we were yanked along. I closed my eyes again for that final hurtle-at-the-wall thing, because I was never going to convince my mind that I wasn’t about to die.

When Ambra squeezed my hand, I figured it was safe to reopen my eyes. She released me just as I got my first glimpse of where we were. I blinked a few times before spinning in a circle. How in the … were we floating in the sky?

As far as I could see, surrounding us in all directions, were clouds, fluffy and stereotypical. Except they weren’t white … they were a deep, rich, dark gray. I couldn’t see any sky above or below; it was as if this entire world was gray clouds. Walls, floors, ceiling. Wherever we were, I officially dubbed it “Cloudland.”

I took a tentative step forward, surprised by the firm and slightly buoyant surface. My heels didn’t sink in or anything. Jero chuckled when he caught sight of my face. No doubt I was looking a tad shocked.

“What’s got you all confused, little petal?”

I wrinkled my nose at him. “I thought there were no clouds here? In Overworld.”

“There aren’t,” he replied. “This isn’t Overworld. It’s a land between. A neutral zone we use for meetings. Daelighters couldn’t survive here for long. There’s no food or sustenance, so we only use it for mass gatherings of the four houses. Works well because we don’t tend to cross into each others’ territory. All the wars and fighting and such … we’re suspicious aliens.”

He shuffled me along, keeping us with his family, who were moving away from the golden ball of light. I noticed then something I’d missed earlier. A few hundred feet away were five raised platforms, shiny and metallic; one sat a little in front of the other four. The Darkens were heading toward one of the middle ones in the back four.

“Overlord families stand on the platforms,” Jero told me as we caught up to Marsil.

Marsil reached out and placed a firm hand on my shoulder, giving it a brief squeeze. “Are you doing okay, Emma?” His gentle voice soothed some of the nerves inside. “You’re handling all of these new experiences really well.”

“Was it hard for you on Earth?” I counter-questioned him, knowing there was no way I could lie and say I was calm. It felt like I might only be one more “new experience” from a screaming breakdown.

He nodded, completely unashamed to admit he had struggled. “We know a lot about Earth. We have adopted customs and languages and many other practices from your world, while also sharing some of ours with you, but knowing and experiencing are two vastly different things. Even the smell of Earth was odd. It doesn’t smell like home. It took me longer than I expected to adjust.”

Funnily enough, I hadn’t had the smell problem with this place. Which kept this niggling thought in my head that maybe I’d been here before. Could my parents have come back when I was really young?

Realizing Marsil had bared his soul and I was just standing there lost in thought, I cleared my throat. “I’m eternally grateful that I’ve had you guys to help me out. I’d definitely be less calm navigating on my own.” I was hoping my true depth of my gratitude was clear.

I surprised Marsil – and myself – by leaning forward and giving him a quick hug. Jero was next. He chuckled and hauled me in. As I pulled away, I could feel a burning gaze on me, and I wasn’t at all surprised to see it was the oldest Darken brother. He was standing beside Star, already up on the platform. His gaze lowered to my hands, which were still flat against Jero’s chest.

I lifted one brow, narrowing my eyes on him. What? my expression said.

He opened his mouth, but at the same time Roland said something and Lexen had to turn away to answer his father. All breath rushed out of me.

Jero chuckled again. “As much as I enjoy your hands on me,” he drawled, “making Lexen jealous is a bad idea. You’re playing with fire.”

I snorted out some laughter, dropping my hands off him as quickly as I’d put them on. “I’m not trying to make him jealous. That would be an absurd action.”

“Whatever you say, pretty girl.” He smirked and, turning away, gracefully vaulted up onto the platform.

Again I was last, and since I wasn’t sure if I should be up there, I kind of just hovered near the edge. There were a lot of Daelighters around now. From my low vantage point I could not see the full scope of the numbers, but I saw enough to know this cloud land was filling up. Along with all of the platforms.

The noise was almost overwhelming. The acoustics in this place were perfect for bouncing sound around, making it appear that the thousands of Daelighters were really ten times that number.

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