The darkness of the world just got much thicker the more we slowly marched back to the mansion. Strange, though, as despite feeling no difference at first, the world beyond the hole in the wall seemed much brighter and calmer than here.
It was like having a heavy rock over one's chest while walking through the fields here; quite sad and depressing!
Was my kingdom that bad? I wondered all the way towards the small barn at the edge of the mansion land. I was always busy and complaining about others lying to others, but I always thought my kingdom people were happy and prosperous, like those I saw and met on the streets of the capital.
But I never felt such oppression there! this sadness didn't come from anywhere but the land itself, was I so hated here? Was my reign a tyrant one? Were they lying to me, using my name to do bad deeds?
The mere thought just shocked me!
Who could lie once, might lie twice, would always be a liar!
The barn appeared from far like a small dark place, darker than anything around it. anything with secrets would be darker than others, it seemed. Along the way, little punny never ceased talking, and Oly never stopped teasing her, and me and Emma always laughed on them both.
Until we reached the barn full of secrets!
"So, this is where you hide your secret?" I asked, as we led our rides into the inside, where many bundles of haystack lied everywhere. I shortly stole a glance at the place where my own sword and armor were hidden, and it was great we headed towards the opposite way.
"Sure, despite this place being common and visited a lot by everyone, our entrance couldn't be spotted, even after all this time," Oly, proudly, declared, while leading us towards one side of the barn.
"Does it lie near the wall?" I asked, as we stood opposite to the wooden, ragged wall of the barn. "No, it lies in the wall itself," little punny jumped with much excitement, as if we were sneaking around again off the close watchful gazes of Entely.
"Inside the wall!" I muttered, but the next moment the secret was revealed when little punny and Oly, both at the same time, put their palm of hands over the wall, on a specific area there, before the part between their hands, not exceeding two meters wide, shone brightly in sunlight rays!
A door was formed, simply like this, and it suddenly hit me; it was an enchanted wall! An enchanted wall hidden here in this simple barn without anyone knowing about it!
"Weird," I couldn't help myself to mutter, while the three girls looked at me as little punny cheerfully said:
"It's very weird indeed. The first time we discovered it was when me and Oly got injured by that mad horse, remember this incident?"
I had some vague memories about what she was talking about, and so I just smiled and nodded. All I could recall was that during one of my stays here, these two little devils sneaked behind Miss Entely's back and tried to play with the horse, my war big horse!
It made them severely injured, but the details were all lost from my mind at the moment. "Your horse was really cute and majestic, all we wanted was to ride it, and it seemed very upset about that," Oly explained, "it hit the two of us with its huge body, sending both of us flying here. our blood touched this part of the wall, and miraculously we made a deal with this hidden room," she added, while pointing to Emma, "she also made a deal a year later after paying a suitable price for that."
The eyes of Oly at this moment wasn't the eyes of an innocent girl, indeed it wasn't. she glanced at me like a sly greedy merchant at any large shop back at my capital when I entered their place; a fat sheep looking gaze from a hungry wolf!
"I can make you ride my horse for one time," I shrugged my shoulders, as I wanted to have access to such a rare, extremely rare place!
Enchanted places weren't that common at all! I only read their descriptions at the old books in my library, and in my entire capital, there was only one enchanted place, situated inside the capital, deeply suited in the throne room.
It was the extremely secretive escape corridor for the king, made in ancient times after a hard and expensive deal with the source kingdom. The enchanted places were one of the famous things of the source kingdom, not easily seen, not cheaply obtained!
The presence of such one inside this far place of my kingdom, away from my capital, away from any important city, made me very interested about it.
"One ride isn't enough," little punny hurriedly jumped in the talk, one ride for each of us will do," as innocent and clear hearted as ever, she added her own childish terms, and I didn't wait for the sly older sister to intervene as I hurriedly said:
"Agreed!"
"That's not fair, that's very cheap!" Oly bellowed with discontent, however I totally ignored her, went towards the shining wall, like a wall made of gold rays, took out the sword I had from the tunnel, cut a small wound over my palm, before gluing my hand over the wall.
This wasn't the first time for me to make a pact with an enchanted place, and what I did didn't startle the girls, as they mistook that with Oly's previous explanation, or they didn't even care about these deep worries and thoughts of mine.
The moment I touched the wall, I felt a strange connection with it, like a child coming home; this was the feeling of making a pact with an enchanted place, never getting tired of it at all!
"Is it done? Does it succeed?" a little punny asked with curiosity, as if she was thinking this pact would fail! It would only fail on one occasion, if the true owner of that secret place came to reclaim it! as such, anyone else would be rejected if he wished to, and that was the true beauty about enchanted places; just like my own escape throne corridor, I had the ownership of it being the crown prince, and I simply kicked my father out of it once I got the ownership of it!
"Let's go inside," I said with an excited face and tone, before passing directly through the wall.