Six

My head bumped against the carriage interior as Corrie shook me like a mad witch. "Kira! Wake up."

"Go away," I groaned.

"We're passing by the Kingdom of Lakes. You have to see it, Kiki."

My tutor had told me so many stories of the vibrant beauty of the nymph kingdom and the rainbow quality of the water. The carriage creaked as I leant over Corrie and poked my head out the window.

"Oh, my glass slippers," I gasped. In the distance stood a palatial building, white as a cloud in the morning light and rising from blue waters. Rainbow waterfalls poured from its turrets. The rush of flowing rivers echoed across the fields.

"I've always wanted to see this place." Corrie sighed.

I found myself nodding, still craning to see past the roadside foliage. I gave up when the cramping in my neck became unbearable.

"If that's the nymph kingdom over there, we should be crossing from vampire into werewolf territory anytime now," I mused.

"Yeah, see the bones on the trees?" Corrie pointed out the opposite window and her voice lowered to a murmur as if not to disturb the final resting place of the ancient vampire and werewolf warriors.

Large spikes, as big as my arm, jutted from the tree trunks. Macabre garlands of bones decorated the spikes. The border between the vampire and werewolf kingdoms was once plagued by violence. Before Little Red Riding Hood ushered in an era of peace, thousands of werewolves and vampires slaughtered each other here. Their bones hung from the trees as a reminder and a warning. I shivered.

"I can't believe how dark and cold some of the kingdoms are."

The smaller six kingdoms were the Glass, faerie, elven, vampire, werewolf and nymph kingdoms. The seventh, the shifter kingdom, was huge and shared a border with all the other kingdoms. It had no discernible government or leadership because of the variety of shifter species and packs.

Humans and witches made their homes throughout all seven kingdoms.

The Academy of Awakenings was situated on a hill in the werewolf kingdom, surrounded by human farming villages.

I was cursing the hard carriage seats when we finally passed through one of those villages and up the hill to the academy gates.

"We're here." I squeezed Corrie's hand, my heart punching the inside of my chest.