Artemis' POV

After a few hours of me and Briana sitting and talking to each other, our words trapped between our little bubble of us that we created, she goes back to the room with Chelsea and I find myself stripping of my clothes and letting them fall to the floor. I take my hair down and let it fall in waves around my shoulders until my body is free of all restraints and I don't care to find a night gown before I lay down under my covers, letting the cool silk sheets cover my body sm softly.

As I lay there in the dark, I feel myself not being alone, a part of me getting paranoid over the feeling but after straining my ears all the way to the hallway, and being as still at the air for ten minutes, I finally make myself relax until my eyes start to feel heavy.

And the next thing I know, my eyes are closed and I've fallen asleep.

✨✨✨

I open my eyes and look around, my body feeling light and a little cold. I sniffle and realize that I can't smell anything around me.

Even the scent of my own and the air around me smells like... nothing.

I go to get up, and when I do, I look down and find myself looking at a translucent body. Freaking out, I stumble out of bed and find myself looking down at my sleeping body on my bed, my chest slowly falling and rising. I raise my hand to my face, heart pounding in my chest when I realize that my skin is see through and giving off a soothing blue glow that's making me freak out.

I must be dreaming.

This is fucking crazy.

I must be dead. Or dreaming.

"You're neither. You're spirit walking." I almost scream when I hear a voice beside me until I realize I recognize it and turn to my left to see Ciara, the Master Spirit Faerie standing beside my closet door.

"Master Ciara? What's going on?" I ask her, and my voice sounds like it's being spoken under water, but she seems to hear me.

"Princess, this is the only way that I can speak to you about matter at hand without one of us getting caught. This is urgent. Follow me." She doesn't answer my question without giving me more to ask, but I slowly move around the room, finding that I walk like normal, my body just feels overly light.

When I get to the closet where she is standing, she takes my hand, and before I can protest at the feeling, she pulls me with her, and I watch in awe as she takes me through my door, and I can feel the whisper of the wood flowing through my body.

I gasp as we appear on the other side, but Master Ciara doesn't stop, she continues to pull me until she gets to one of the shelves in my classy and stands in front of me that houses some jewelry and other token things. "Master, what's going on?" I ask her, but her words remain locked within her mouth as she glances at me and reaches out with her hand to pull on one of the snow globes sitting on my shelf and I watch as a level gets pulls beneath it. In shock and a bit of fear, I watch as the bookshelves slide to the right, revealing a dark hallway that turns to the left.

Ciara steps into the drafted corridor, and after a seconds hesitation, I follow her, and as soon as I do, the shelf returns to its place.

Luckily, I find that it's not all the way dark, the moss along the walls slightly iridescent, giving off a light blue and green glow. When I take the few steps to catch up to Ciara, her steps fast and confident, it's only then, in her soft voice that she begins to speak.

"The reason you've been struggling with your Spirit Talent is because someone is blocking you. You have the potential, Artemis, to actually be one of the most powerful Princesses in history, and they're trying to stop that form happening." She says and I try to process the information as I try to keep up with her.

"Who is trying to stop me?" I ask her and she stops walking, and I realize we're standing in front of another section of wall after walking down a few flights of stairs and making an infinite amount of turns.

"I'm still not completely sure about that. But I do know... there are Daemons in this castle. Someone here is controlling them and spreading them to the individuals they think pose the most threat. People are disappearing, people are acting weird over night and there are new guards and people of the staff showing up almost every day. And it's someone in power. I just haven't figured out who." She says and before I can answer, she takes my hand and guided me through the concrete wall, my body convulsing in a violent shiver, this transition much harder than going through a wood door.

When we pass through the other side, I find the two of us in the Staff Wing, the quarters an obvious bedroom that looks slightly familiar, until I realize that this is one of the guards room, specifically Carl's.

A sneaking chilling suspicion passed through me when I realize that he wasn't where he was supposed to be yesterday. How he got replaced...the way I wasn't even supposed to have my boys back, the four of them having been replaced by men I had never seen a day in my life.

But that doesn't add up, because just like everything else being a Guard or a Knight or any job that involved being extremely close to the Royal Family, gets passed down.

I should know each and every one of these guards. And I slowly begin to realize that I've been so caught up with all of the things that I've had to dealt with since I've been home, I never realized that the familiar faces that I've always been used to seeing, aren't around anymore.

I'm three seconds away from having half of a breakdown when I turn my head and I see Carl standing next to his mirror and while his body is still, I breath a sigh of relief in knowing that he's alive. I go to call out to him, but remember my state of spirit walking.

Just when I start to wonder why the hell Ciara brought me down here, I watch as he slowly turns in my direction, chills going down my spine as I watch his eyes that come into view, and only see a pool of blackness.

After scanning the room for a few seconds I watch in horror as his eyes turn back to the sweet hazel Ive always known him to have.

Before I can say anything I watch as those same eyes pass over me before sticking to the spot I'm standing in, and he starts walking towards me, panic and bike rising in my throat, but before anything else can happen, I'm being yanked back into the secret passage away and rushed back through the castle until we're somewhere far away.

My breathing is stuck in my throat and I find myself unable to swallow around the panic that rises in my throat like bile and fear.

Because I never knew what I was expecting when someone told me that soemthing was going on. I didn't know what I was hoping was going on. At worst I thought someone was trying to kill me. But this is bad.

This is so bad I want to curl up on the floor and let everything happen as it may. Because Daemons are the worst of the worst when it comes to evil. But the part that makes everything feel like I'm passing through nothing but straight fear, is that the only way a Daemon can pass you and patch on to you, is of there is already enough evil and resentment inside of you, or if they're able to tempt you to do something so vile and cruel, they're able to take you.

Hands latch on to my shoulders and I almost scream when I turn towards Ciara to see her looking down at me with a steely and determined gaze.

"I can't do anything Princess, every day I can feel the temptation and something trying to get ahold of me and I don't know how much longer I can last against it. When you see me again, don't mention tonight. Don't mention it to anyone. We're counting on you." She tells me, her soft voice determined and hard for the first time in my life.

And before I can agree or ask any questions, she gives me a push and I find myself tumbling through the wall and towards the bed.

✨✨✨

When I open my eyes, it's with a gasp that makes me feel as if I've been holding my breath for the past hour, the feeling draining and scary.

And I lay there, my eyes closed, hoping that what just happened was all a bad dream, but I know it wasn't, because I can still feel the feeling of her hands chilling my shoulders.

~~~~~~~~~~~
Sooo what did you guys think of this? Is this what you were expecting. This book and Selfish addiction both have parts that are inspired by my favorite book series: Throne of Glass.

Thoughts?

Comments?

QOTD: Have you read the Throne of Glass series?