The Veil of Darkness
Chapter 211: Pristine’s Surprise

Chapter 211: Pristine’s Surprise

Annalise walked out from the back door of the kitchen and stepped into the backyard. Her destination being the orchard, she headed straight toward it. The weekend had arrived way quicker than she expected as the past couple of days went by rapidly while they all made several plans regarding their investigation of the Portal Hall incident.

Somehow, she kept feeling like they had come to a dead end with their investigation. First, they wasted a lot of time searching for a non-existent spell only to find out that no such thing existed in the first place. Not only that but her familiar had once again disappeared to someplace ever since the magical sphere incident.

Right now, even when they were constantly trying to find some possible way to dig deeper into the mysteries of those incidents, they barely had anywhere, to begin with. The only ideas she could think of were either her confronting her familiar or talking with the King to see if he could provide some information about what he knew.

Ezra, Kenric, Leela, and Marley had left in the early morning to meet someone that the Chief Commander of the dragon shifters’ royal guards believed would be able to give them some much-needed answers.

Damien and Valerius were in the basement as they wanted to strengthen the wards protecting the core and the original portal hidden in the depths of the castle. Though they didn’t mention exactly who this person was, it still gave everyone a slight bit of hope to learn something useful that would provide some sort of help for the investigation.

As for Elijah, the Crown Prince of the Mortal Realm had once again buried himself in the library, a place that he seemed to be really liking because of all the books and amount of knowledge that was hidden in there.

Since everyone in the castle was busy with their own work, Annalise decided to head to the orchard as it was time for her to find out exactly what sort of surprise Pristine had been planning for her all this time.

She entered the orchard and her eyes immediately looked at the mass of tall trees that had finally shed their grim and destructive states and were now in various shades of dark red, crimson, orange, bright brown, and yellow with light shades of green involved in different places.

She wondered if the abandoned and lost feeling would return to the castle once winter would arrive and there would be heavy snowfall almost every other day. Though she liked the season of snow, she still missed the greenery and the warmth that she couldn’t find until the end of the season.

She placed her palm against one of the tree trunks and grazed her fingers across its bark, her eyes taking in the beauty of the trees and the life that was thriving throughout the orchard. It was both weird and pleasant to see such a drastic change in the place that looked totally bleak when she last visited it.

Her legs moved forward as she allowed the magic present in the air to lead her to the destination that was set for her by the fairy. With each passing day, her control over the castle seemed to be getting better and while it amazed her to no end, it also raised several questions in her mind and scared her somehow.

Eventually, after walking for a while, she finally found herself at the very western edge of the orchard, a part that she hadn’t seen yet. Instead of the usual fruit trees, she noticed a very gigantic and old Angel Oak tree that was covering a huge area with its wide trunk and strong branches that were spread all over the place.

The same red and green moss was covering it that was spread all across the castle and she also felt a strong amount of magical energy radiating from the tree.

Unconsciously, she stepped closer and found herself standing right in front of the tree as her eyes searched it to see exactly what was so different about the tree.

"Looks like you have already found it." Pristine’s familiar voice greeted Annalise and made the latter to turn around and face the fairy who was literally floating toward her with a very satisfied smike on her lips.

"What do you mean?" Annalise asked as she exchanged glances between the fairy and the tree, trying to see if the latter had anything to do with the former.

"This is the surprise I wanted to present to you. It took me so long to bring this tree back to its full potential. I’m sure as the new owner of this castle, you will love this secret sanctuary that the original owner of this castle created." Pristine provided some information regarding what she was talking about.

Annalise turned her full attention to the tree and took another proper look at it to make sure that she hadn’t missed anything. "This tree? A secret sanctuary?" She finally found herself asking when she failed to see how the tree could be considered a sanctuary.

A part of her was aware that could be a spell working on the tree just like what she found in one of the rooms on the top floor of the castle, and also the same with the basement. The cursed castle was way more complicated and full of secrets than anyone could ever predict. She wondered just how much more secrets lay hidden from her in the layers of the castle.

Pristine moved to stand next to Annalise before she clicked her fingers and an entrance suddenly appeared in the middle of the trunk, almost making Annalise jump back in surprise.

"Would you like to follow me inside?" Pristine offered as she stretched out her palm in invitation and looked at Annalise with hopeful eyes.

Accepting such an offer was probably the last thing Annalise should have done but she believed in her ability of studying a person and since every fiber of her body believed that Pristine was a friend despite all the secrets she was holding back from her, she was gonna trust the fairy unless proved wrong.

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