Bonded Ever After (The Royal Gold Keepers #3)

Chapter 20

TWENTY

Callum

We hold hands as we stare at the barrier into the Cloud Realm. Horrible images flash through my mind of what we might find there, but I grit my teeth and offer Elora a smile, since I can feel her nervousness. Taking her hand, I bring it to my mouth and kiss it, which makes her smile and shake her head.

Gods, I’d do anything to see her smile.

We hold hands, give each other a nod, and then step through. The pulling and bending feeling only lasts a minute, and then we come into the new world. Immediately, the temperature changes to one that’s not only bearable, but perfect. Like, easily the most perfect temperature I’ve ever felt in my life, and we lived in Paradise Falls.

The world around me is also… beautiful, unexpectedly so. There are clouds that peek out from the foliage all around us, but also lots of trees, plants, and rivers. I even see little animals running around the woods, looking happy and content.

Above us, the sky is a brilliant blue color the likes of which I’ve never seen before. A rainbow is the only thing that interrupts the sea of blue, and the colors, red, green, blue, yellow, and orange, stand out so boldly it’s as if some child drew the rainbow with their crayon.

“Wow,” I say.

“Wow is right,” Elora says beside me. “But a world this perfect has to be secretly dangerous, right?”

“Yeah, definitely. I bet the rivers are filled with poison, and these little critters are all thirsting for blood.” I’m half teasing, and half not. Everything in Neverwood is dangerous, no matter how safe it seems.

We make sure we stay on the tiny path and slowly continue into the Cloud Realm. I can tell Elora is equally as blown away as I am by how lovely everything is. She just keeps staring and staring, as if she’s not sure she can believe her eyes.

After a while of walking, I spot some fruit trees just off the path. They have triangle-shaped yellow fruits that look especially good after the disgusting stuff we ate throughout the Ash Realm. And there are plenty of birds in the trees eating the fruits, so I imagine they’re safe.

“Why don’t I get us some of those?” I suggest, pointing.

“We can both go,” she says.

I give her a look. If I tell her I don’t want her to go because she’s pregnant and the most precious thing in my world, she’ll want to come anyway. “We don’t know anything about this world. You stay here where you can give me help if I need it.”

“Okay,” she says reluctantly.

I creep off the path. Something that looks like a cross between a squirrel and a bunny stops to watch me as I carefully walk to the trees. Putting my hand on my sword, I try to look big and threatening as I stare down at it, but it just looks up at me with big eyes.

I step around a cloud, unsure if it can hold me, and make it to the tree and pluck one of the fruits off. Staring at it, I don’t see any peel or shell, so, glancing at Elora, I bite into it. And, oh, holy hell, it’s good. It reminds me of some cross between a star fruit and a dragon fruit. There aren’t even any seeds in it.

I eat a whole fruit, then pack a bunch in my bag and use my shirt to put even more of the fruits in. Then I carefully make my way back to Elora. A creature that looks like a cross between a puppy and a kitten darts across my path, stares at me in fear, then takes off. I keep going, wondering which of these innocent-looking creatures is going to kill me.

When I reach Elora safely on the path, I release a slow breath. “The fruit is good.”

She smiles, and we sit down to devour the fruit on the path. I watch her every step of the way out of the corner of my eye, hoping the baby likes the new fruit. The Little Bean seems to, which makes my day. There’s nothing worse than seeing Elora desperately in need of nutrition and hurling it back up.

We finish, and I say, “Should we keep going?”

She nods eagerly, and I help her to her feet.

We spend several hours walking along the small path through the Cloud Realm, and I think both of us are wondering what the catch is. Everything looks beautiful and safe, which probably means everything in here is dangerous and will try to devour us at any moment.

“The cloud part seems secure,” Elora says.

I nod as we step on another cloud. It feels soft, like a hard dough, but we don’t sink through it. “Do you think the ground here is just made of clouds? Or do you think we’re in the sky?”

She looks at me with wide eyes. “You think we could be in the sky ?”

I chuckle. “Probably not. None of this would be able to grow if there wasn’t some earth somewhere, right? Plants and trees need ground to grow in.”

Her expression calms a little. “Right.”

We hear the sound of a river and continue forward until we see a river heading in our direction, before its path takes it back into the trees.

“Should we refill our water skins?”

They’re pretty full. We just left the cabin, but it’s never wise to turn down water when we can get it. There are a lot of things we can do without while traveling. Water isn’t one of those things.

“Let’s at least try it and see if it tastes fresh,” she says.

We cautiously head off the path and reach the side of the river. To my shock… it looks to be made of gold. I kneel down and reach inside, when a familiar tugging comes over me. I scoop the bottom of the river and find goldarium twisting and turning in my hand.

“What the hell…?” Elora says, completely shocked.

I look at her. “Goldarium seems to be lining the entire river. How is that possible?”

“Should we… take some?” she asks.

I shrug. “If goldarium lines all the rivers, we probably don’t need to.”

She opens her mouth, but then silver fish begin swimming through the water. Flashes of light flicker against the gold. Elora kneels down, looking thoughtful as she stares at the river. Between the fish, little creatures are playing. They’re no bigger than my thumb, and they have wings. And they’re… riding on the fish?

One turns, looks in my direction, and smiles. She looks entirely like a tiny human being.

“What is that?” I ask.

“No idea, but it seems friendly.”

“Everything seems friendly here,” I say, which troubles me.

The other shoe is bound to drop soon, and I don’t want Elora hurt when it does. Everything about this place seems to be set up to make us feel safe and at ease, which means we shouldn’t be. Right? Or have I gone totally crazy?

The fish disappear, and I try the water. “It tastes fresh, cool, and crisp,” I tell her.

She smiles and kneels down and fills up her own water bottle, while I scoop fresh water into my mouth, trying to make sure I’m fully hydrated. Then she drinks until she seems to be content, and we both head back to the path.

Her hand slides into mine. “I like the Cloud Realm so far.”

“I do too, which makes me not trust it.”

She laughs. “But wouldn’t it be nice if this is really what it’s like?”

I consider that for the first time. If the Cloud Realm is really this nice… If it’s really a place that’s safe, with an abundance of food and water, we absolutely should settle down here. We shouldn’t keep going and hoping we can find a better place.

But I can’t say that to Elora yet. Her heart is set on finding our dads and finding the source of the goldarium. Besides, I still don’t know enough about this realm to trust it.

As we continue, Elora points to a tree near our path. “Is that… more goldarium?”

We come closer and, sure enough, it’s goldarium. Several large pieces are just dripping from the leaves of the tree.

“It’s strange though, I don’t feel the same pulling and tugging as I did with the goldarium in the past,” I say, realizing it at the same time as I say it aloud.

“I think maybe that’s because it’s everywhere here.” She does a spin around her. “I mean, don’t you feel it? This whole realm is calling to us.”

Frowning, I try to feel what she does, but I don’t. I just feel an overwhelming need to keep Elora, and our baby, safe and happy. I’m on alert for anything that might hurt her. I don’t have it in me to feel some deep yearning for something I don’t understand.

“Could this be the place we’ve been looking for?” I suggest, even though I’m not sure.

Elora thinks for a minute. “No, not yet, but we’re close.”

The we’re close calms me a little. We need to stop chasing a dream. Instead, we should be settling down. Building a home. Learning to live off of the land and creating a safe place for a child.

But the not yet means we’re going to keep going.

Up ahead, one of the bunny-squirrel things crosses our path, looking at us with innocent eyes before darting into the bushes once more.

“I guess those things aren’t dangerous to us,” I say, since it could come on the path.

Elora nods. “Not that they look dangerous.”

As the afternoon turns to evening, more and more creatures walk on our path, to the point where I start to wonder if we’re protected from anything on this path any more. Is everything just safe here? Or is the path not protecting us any longer?

“Elora…”

“I know,” she says softly. “The path might not be working.”

We hold hands, but my free hand is on my sword. If anything tries to hurt Elora, it’ll regret it.

Up ahead, a cabin separates itself from the trees. We hurry toward it, grateful to see something familiar in this strange new landscape. This landscape may be more dangerous than any we’ve encountered before, because our paths might not be safe here. But as we get closer to the cabin, we realize something is wrong.

“It looks… different,” Elora says, and there’s nervousness in voice.

“It does. But it’s still a cabin.”

We reach the cabin and just stare at it. It’s made with white wood, something no Gold Keeper cabin has ever been built with before. There are cute little windows with shutters and the door has been painted blue, although the color has faded. Cobwebs are gathered in the corners of the windows and the door, something that doesn’t happen with cabins made out of goldarium.

“What is this?” I ask.

Elora shakes her head. “Let’s go in and check it out.”

My muscles tense. “Maybe I should go in and check it out, and you should stay out here.”

She rolls her eyes, goes to the handle, and pushes it open.

I’m by her side in an instant, my hand on the handle of my sword. We creep into the darkness and see… a tiny house. It’s different from a Gold Keepers’ cabin, with rooms in the back hidden by curtains that are partially open. One of the rooms was clearly a baby’s room with a little bassinet and a rocking chair. The other room has a large bed and nightstands. There’s a four person table by the fire, a little kitchen, and… it all seems to have been made by hand.

“What is this?” she asks.

I shake my head. “Our dads didn’t make this.”

They couldn’t have. It would have taken months to build something like this. More than that, I don’t know that they would have the skills to make a cabin by hand.

“Which means that there are other people in this realm.”

She turns to me with wide eyes. “Do you think they’re like the elves, or Xarex?”

Her stomach flips. “I don’t know, but we should be very careful.”

We need to be even more cautious in the Cloud Realm, because we’re not alone here. And as dangerous as animals are, we’ve already learned how much more dangerous people can be.