Chapter 10: Chapter 10

IRIS

Once I got out of bed and freshened up, I was amazed when I opened the closet. So many beautiful clothes—it was difficult to decide what to wear.

There were fairy fabrics like liquid moonlight. Robes made of silk brocade seemed to shimmer delicately with every movement, as if star particles were caught in the threads.

Alongside them were narrow belts made of elven leather, so finely crafted that they felt like woven air. Even the simple pants or shirts seemed so much more elegant than anything I’d ever worn in my life.

Freshly styled in a pair of skin-tight pants and a corset-like top, I quickly did my hair and went to Ava.

I knocked on her door and heard a “come in” from the other side. When I entered her room, she was getting ready and smiled at me.

“Well, how did you sleep?” she asked me while looking at herself in the mirror.

I didn’t want to talk about my weird dream, so I just said, “Fine.”

“Let’s go find the others. We have to be going soon. Your brother doesn’t even know you’re here. I’m so happy for you,” she said while walking me to Avery’s door.

Just as she was about to knock, his door opened and Avery was standing in front of us.

Ava explained to her brother what the plan was, but he didn’t seem to be listening. His gaze went straight over Ava’s shoulder to me.

With his gaze scanning my body, the purple glow in his eyes reappeared as he glanced into mine. For a while, he just stood there and looked at me, without saying anything.

It was as if he was seeing me for the first time again.

When Ava saw him staring at me, she laughed out loud.

“Avery, you can also tell Iris she looks very pretty today…creep,” I heard Ava say as she started walking.

He snapped out of his gaze and smiled at me. Looking a little embarrassed by her words, his cheeks were not the fleeting blush of embarrassment, but a biting red of shame.

It was cute how he stood there, just looking at me. Rubbing the back of his head with his hand, he glanced over my body again.

“Sorry… I was just… You look beautiful today. I hope you slept well,” he said as we followed Ava.

His presence helped me a lot when I was scared last night. And it still did.

As we walked into a large room packed with people, I felt safe next to Avery. Voices mingled in the air, from sweet, gentle female giggles to deep male voices.

“Well, what do we have here?” I heard a man ask, cocking his head to the side and winking at me.

“Nothing for ~you~, you arrogant wood elf. She’s under Avery’s protection,” Ava replied, adding quotation marks at the word protection, using her fingers.

He looked at Avery and raised his hands up to show he understood.

Avery glanced at him with a raised eyebrow.

“Elian, don’t you have better things to do than to annoy us in the morning?” he asked.

The man whose name was Elian bowed dramatically to us and explained with a laugh, “No, my darling, today I have the task of accompanying you. By order of the king.”

And they both started laughing as they greeted each other with a hug.

For a moment, I wasn’t sure if they liked each other or not. But looking at them now, I realized it was just banter between friends.

We sat down at a table. Avery introduced me to his very good friend Elian while they chatted and worked out the details.

My eyes glided over the artfully arranged plates on the table before me. Juicy fruit was piled up between fragrant loaves of bread baked like little golden works of art.

Small jars filled with jam and so many more things I had never seen before.

A low growl broke the silence…my stomach, which reminded me unmistakably of its emptiness. Instinctively, I lowered my head, but then I felt a warm touch.

Avery’s hand rested lightly on mine and when I looked up, his eyes met mine, reflecting amused understanding.

“Hungry?” he asked, his voice as soft as the light flowing over the table.

I only replied with a quick nod, but that was enough.

His smile deepened and, with a casual gesture, he beckoned a couple of servants who immediately hurried in our direction.

Servants brought us breakfast and while I was eating, I looked around the room.

Everyone in this room had an unnaturally large charisma. The women were beautiful, whether elf, fairy, or witch, they had radiant beauty.

And the men were tall and strong, with distinctive features. I had never seen elves or fairies in my life except on TV.

But those laughing and talking in front of me didn’t look like it. They didn’t have pointy ears or wings, but looked like ordinary humans, only with something bright around them.

Avery interrupted my watching when he asked me if everything was alright.

And when I saw Ava talking to Elian, I leaned in to Avery and quietly asked him, “What do these colors mean around you?”

His smile only grew more beautiful when he saw my interest.

“Those colors you see are our aura, our power and purpose. Ava and I are elves, therefore our aura is purple. Just like your mother was, and your brother Aidan is, and my father too… Jade is a witch and her aura is yellow… Noah, Alvar, and Elian are forest fairies, so they are green… my mother was a forest fairy too…” Avery explained to me.

“She was?” I asked.

“My mother died… Long ago there was a fight and she was killed by Amon. The scar on his face is from that fight… this was her last gift to him before he murdered her,” Avery answered in a sad voice.

“I’m sorry, Avery. I had no right to ask you,” I said, shocked.

“I have no secrets from you, my love. Everything you want to know I will explain to you,” he said.

I grinned when I heard him. He was so nice to me.

“I expected wings and pointy ears and not an aura of different colors,” I said, laughing.

He glanced at me amusedly and nodded.

“Well, ‘my love,’ our true forms come out when we use our powers,” Elian explained to me, imitating Avery and calling me ‘my love.’

Ava and Elian started laughing as they obviously overheard our conversation.

I was about to ask him about my red aura, but then I saw two familiar faces step into the room.

Noah and Jade joined us and greeted us with smiles.

“It’s time to leave,” said Noah to Avery.

We made our way to my brother’s and walked through the village towards the forest.

“Our amicus all live in this forest. This is the spirit forest,” Jade explained to me as we walked into it.

For a moment, each of them lit up in a unique color, a delicate, pulsating shimmer that seemed to vibrate through the air like a call.

It was not a glaring light, but something organic, as if their souls were briefly radiating through their skin. And I realized this was their language, their connection to the spirit animals.

A silent, yet powerful invitation.

The air suddenly seemed to come to life, filled with this wordless dialogue between people and animals. And I felt something inside me respond... a deep, almost forgotten recognition.

Something began to move in our direction, and I was mesmerized as all these animals stood in front of me.

Noah and Elian swung elegantly onto the backs of their mighty bluebirds, huge birds with iridescent plumage that sparkled turquoise and cobalt blue in the light like the surface of a deep mountain lake. Their wings stretched with a gentle but powerful tug, as if they were grasping the air itself.

Jade followed Noah on his amicus, lithe as her own power animal, a two-headed snake with a scaled body and amber-yellow eyes watching in opposite directions.

Ava and Avery, on the other hand, had more royal mounts. Their unicorns were creatures of pure light and muscle, with manes like liquid silver and hooves that hardly seemed to touch the ground.

As they mounted, the animals’ coats lifted beneath their hands in a gentle wave, as if even their breath was magically charged.

“Come... don’t be afraid, Iris, Eyon is my amicus,” Avery said as he gave me his hand and lifted me onto his unicorn.

Yesterday I was Iris, the girl from the bookshop... and today I was riding on a unicorn to see my brother, whom I didn’t even know about.

How quickly my whole life had changed.